Space Engineers

GasBandit

Staff member
Didn't get to play my dark level tonight because I, on a whim, logged into the server I play multiplayer on just to check on stuff.

I knew it was a bad night when all the medbays except one were not showing up on my spawn list.

Fortunately, I did have that one medbay floating in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a solar panel, or this would have been a much, much, MUCH worse night.

So I spawn in, and start jetpacking toward DPF HQ's coordinates, fearing the worst - that I'd get there and find nothing but empty space. On the way I inquired of the leader of the APC (Anti-Pirate Coalition) if they'd raided a base today, and they said no.

I get there, and to my mixed relief and consternation, the main base structure is still present, but many of the ships are gone. My mobile factory is missing, along with two large drilling rigs (both 49 drills each), the Rubix, and my monsterous grinder ship - which still had all the parts from that capital ship I ground the other day in its hold. The only ships remaining are the small ones - Bob the builder, a couple fighters, and a small sized 5x5 drilling ship.

I check the base's medbay, and sure enough, it's ground down just enough to make it nonfunctional. I manufacture some medical supplies quickly and weld it back up to operational.

I go and get Bob the Builder, intent on repairing the turrets on the base which show obvious signs of disabled-by-grinding, when I see a red name come floating out of the gloom. He doesn't know I'm here, so I whip Bob around, lock the grinders in the "on" position and shred him to ribbons within a moment of him seeing me.

At first he plays innocent and offended ("Why you do dat! I /waved!") and I let him in on the fact that I see his faction leader's name on the parts of our base that they hacked to take control of (funnily enough, they only hacked one cargo bay, which was filled with 1 million kg of gravel. It must have disgusted them to such an extent that they didn't bother hacking any other cargo bays, where all the good stuff was stored. Got lucky there). He drops the pretense.

I don't waste time. Using Bob, I weld several large thrusters and a dozen gyros to the space base (which is 5000 tons, incidentally), fix up the turrets, add a couple more in the blind spots for good measure, start the base to manufacturing more missiles and gatling ammo, then mergeblock together all the remaining small-ships and start moving stuff. I fire off steam messages to Dust and Crow - don't ever get a response from Dust, Crow's got company over he says, and can't log in. So I'm on my own, as is usual these days.

I manage to move the amalgamated small ships 17km deeper into the oort cloud in a sorta-diagonal direction, then suicide, respawn at the space base, and sloooooowly move it out to the same place. I also get a tip from someone else who spotted my huge grinder floating in space - turns out the server crashed while the guys who stole it flew it back to their base, but its dampeners were on so it slowed to a stop with no pilot and sat there waiting. I manage to get to and recover Big Bob - lucky break, all the materials from grinding the G Dub are still in its cargo bay. I take it back to space base and merge it with the base so it can be moved together.

This shit took 4 hours, all told. The biggest loss is the Rubix, which was loaded with ammo but shut down to reduce lag (kicking myself over that one) - it being seized by a new, upstart faction represents a major shift in the server's balance of power. It's one of the most powerful warships on the server, and my faction is now very much diminished without it.
 
You really should just say to your factions guys "Hey... if you aren't going to be around, I know some people willing to hop in and pick up the slack.". This shit has got to stop.

On lighter news... I did some probe tests tonight.

Probe 1.jpg


First I used Gas'es idea of an engine-less probe. This doesn't work for a couple of reasons.

- It's hard to aim this thing because dragging the probe makes the ship want to handle weird. I tried several different positions but it's always the same.
- Without an engine to keep it in place, the probe just bounces off of whatever you hit.

So I changed things up and tried again.

Probe 2.jpg


This one worked a bit better. Set it for the lowest power setting on override and sent it on it's way. This one had a different problem: it can't correct itself once it hits, making it bounce off and keep flying.

Probe 3.jpg


This one works perfectly though. The extra engines keep the ship from bouncing around once it's hit and the gyroscope keeps it from twisting when it hits. It might be possible all this needs is a gyroscope though, so I did a few more tests.

Probe 4.jpg


This one does exactly what I designed it to do: On impact, one of the front legs breaks off to absorb the impact. Then the ship skids along for a second before the gyroscope kicks in and forces it to find an angle where it's just moving forward, keeping it in position until the energy runs out, which point it'll stay in position anyway. Now I used a generator for this but there is no reason you couldn't slap on a battery, charge it up, and then move the battery into position with a merge block or something before you built the probe around it.

Cheap, easy to build, and easy to use.
 
Did a few more tests on Probes. I think I've come upon two rules for this kind of thing.

- The greater the mass of the probe, the more light armor chunks you need to absorb the impact. Or to put it simply, heavier means longer.
- The faster it is going, the wider the chunks need to go to cushion the impact and catch onto the rocks. Or to put it simply, faster means wider.

So I made this thing as basic as I could, while still making it able to hold everything it needs. Here's the ugly version.

Probe 5.jpg


Probe 6.jpg


It has a battery instead of a generator, a beacon to find it, a gyro to keep it from freaking out on impact, a merge block for charging, and legs long and wide enough to absorb impact at 100+ m/s. It looks like a crash test vehicle afterwards but it works.

Now I can't wait for the devs to implement proximity sensors or speed controls to make all of this pointless.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Update 01.043 - Remote terminal access, button panel, HUD voices, extended modding support

Now it's possible to remotely access the control panel screen and inventory when the ship/station is in your antenna range. Antenna relay is taken into account. Press open control panel screen to see it (combo box at the top), or press SHIFT+K. New ‘Button Panel’ allows you to assign actions to the panel (like with astronaut toolbar) and then execute these actions by simply pressing the corresponding button on the model in game.
We also added more glass parameters and modding support for custom projectiles, debris models, asteroid materials and armor edges. Last but not least HUD voices are here to warn you of meteor showers, low energy/health, etc.



Features
- Remote terminal access
- Button panel for ships/stations
- HUD voice alerts (low energy/health warnings)
- Extended modding support: custom projectiles, debris models, asteroid materials, armor edges
- Improved glass rendering and modding (more parameters, smoothness, custom texture, color...)
Guide for transparent materials: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=300427203

Fixes- fixed autosave on dedicated servers (few days ago in 042 hotfix)
- fixed custom transparent material crashing the game
- fixed impossibility to remove and delete mods in some cases
- fixed blast door corner inverted collisions
- fixed pistons disconnecting when ship/station is split in two
- fixed turrets ignoring decoy blocks
- fixed cockpit hot-bar names not displaying correctly
- fixed small ship blast doors preventing placing of other blocks nearby
- fixed texture of curved conveyor tube
- fixed sharing with factions
- fixed surface difficult to walk on
- fixed dedicated server not creating a world if one is specified in the config
- fixed missile launcher self-explosions
- fixed floating objects slowdown
- fixed wrong saved game timestamp
- fixed a crash while creating a control panel
- fixed uranium ingot not traveling through conveyor system
- fixed crash after placing custom block
- fixed crash after deleting gravity generator
- fixed small thrusters damage area
- fixed spelling mistake when server connection was not available
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I'm reading about bugs in the latest patch now. Worst is one that causes everything to slow down greatly. Second worst is apparently refineries are returning the wrong kind of ingots for ingredients (Uranium refining into iron ingots, for example)
 
This new remote access with antennas will be great for torpedos. Now you can just open the torpedo doors and fire them without someone having to be in the room with them. Also a great way to control base defenses like Gatling mines and such.
 
I'm reading about bugs in the latest patch now. Worst is one that causes everything to slow down greatly. Second worst is apparently refineries are returning the wrong kind of ingots for ingredients (Uranium refining into iron ingots, for example)
Is this multiplayer, single, or both?

--Patrick
 
Tried the new features with torpedoes. It works, but it would work SO MUCH BETTER if you could stick commands from other ships onto your tool bar. I'm still stuck going through menus, which means this really isn't the kind of thing the guy piloting the ship should have to do.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Update 043.013
- fixed crash on Windows XP
- fixed crash in inventory
- fixed crash caused by missing texture or model
- fixed crash in join screen
- fixed refinery and assembler issues
- fixed cockpit ownership not updated
- fixed missing HUD voices
- fixed possible autosave issue on dedicated server
- fixed MP sync of production blocks and inventory
- fixed MP sync of floating point objects

Update 043.015
- fixed possible autosave issue on dedicated server

Wait, what?

- fixed MP sync of floating point objects

- fixed MP sync of floating point objects

This can't POSSIBLY mean what I can only hope it means?
Nah. Probably just means the "shaking" effect you get the further you get from the center of the map.[DOUBLEPOST=1408140793,1408140514][/DOUBLEPOST]Reading forums, seems now there's a bug where if you pick up any item floating in space, it crashes the server.
 
Gas has another tutorial video up. I'll go ahead and post it so he doesn't have to...



Highlights? It's how to build an advanced drill ship.

At the end there, @GasBandit asks us if we'd want any other topics covered. Personally, I think he's covered most of the basics, but there are a few advanced things some of you guys might like, such as...

- Rotors and Pistons (I'd do this one myself if I had capture equipment, as it's one of the things I'm good at. Do I need a capture card to take stuff off my PC or just a program?)
- Gravity, Artificial Mass, and how to build a Gravity Drive

Anyone else have any requests?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Nah, all I use is Fraps and Windows Movie Maker. I'm not too good with Pistons and Rotors, as they aren't usable in multiplayer at the moment so I never really fooled with em much.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Alright... I've got the video recorded. I just need to get it encoded for Youtube with Movie Maker and uploaded.
Use the Save movie -> for high definition display (1080) preset. It'll make it into an MP4 that youtube can accept as an upload that is a reasonable size so you won't be uploading for days.
 
Use the Save movie -> for high definition display (1080) preset. It'll make it into an MP4 that youtube can accept as an upload that is a reasonable size so you won't be uploading for days.
I actually just clicked the Youtube setting. It says it'll do 1080p and the video DID look like that when I saved it. Right now I'm just waiting to see if I actually GET 1080p before I see if I need to re-upload.
 
Alright, here's my short tutorial on rotors an pistons. Sorry about the terribly mic and having to clear out my throat every 5 god damn seconds. I'm allergic to EVERYTHING and it makes my throat clog up when I talk.

I believe I've proven why Gas works radio and I do not.



I'll probably do a short video using pistons for doors eventually, but this should cover most of the basic stuff.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I did a comparison of the two formats, and the "youtube" preset has WAY more artifacting during high speed motion. Blechk. IMO not a good trade for taking up only 20% less space/upload bandwidth.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
You definitely need to start pre-baking components before you record.
Heh, I didn't realize I was that low. But I probably will if there's a next time. Although I don't think I'll be doing any more until they fix the "refineries deleting your ore" bug.
 
Heh, I didn't realize I was that low. But I probably will if there's a next time. Although I don't think I'll be doing any more until they fix the "refineries deleting your ore" bug.
You could just switch to creative mode. It'd definitely cut down on the recording and upload time because you'd be making shorter videos.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
You could just switch to creative mode. It'd definitely cut down on the recording and upload time because you'd be making shorter videos.
I don't consider creative mode to be the authentic space engineers experience. I didn't much care for creative mode in minecraft, and in SE I really only use it for seeing how designs work before I build in survival mode.

Nobody needs a tutorial for creative mode, really.
 
Heh, creative mode is the only reason I'm even considering Space Engineers. I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I just wanna build cool shit :p
 
Meh... I like both. I just didn't want to spend an hour on tape building something because I'm running back and forth all the time. I'd rather jut pre-fab it in creative to show off the concepts.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Heh, creative mode is the only reason I'm even considering Space Engineers. I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I just wanna build cool shit :p
Different strokes for different folks, but to me, at that point it ceases being a game and starts being a drawing notepad. There's no struggle, no risk, no triumph, no reward. Losses mean nothing because you can copy-paste your ship right back, and gains mean nothing because everything is infinite. Not really even any reason to have asteroids in a creative map, if you ask me. Comes a time when you've just built a 5km long superdestroyer and realize that it will never actually have any potential other than a ship in a bottle because it's in creative mode, and probably single player at that.

Speaking of which, that's why the continued broken-ness of multiplayer is so aggravating. Every time I see someone post something in creative mode single player, my reaction is... so what? You didn't struggle to build that. You didn't gather the resources, you didn't risk piracy and invasion to hide it while you worked on it, you didn't have to manage fuel supplies or support infrastructure, you just "wished" it into existence.. and its potential will forever go unfulfilled because there's nobody else to use it on, and no reason to do so even if there was. But because multiplayer is still so laggy and broken, people still huddle in their little single player creative aspergalaxies, posting huge and intricate ships to reddit that utterly fail to impress because there's no difficulty to it other than imagination.

It stops being space engineers, and starts being space art designers. Because Engineering is for solving problems.. and there are no problems in a single player creative mode world.
 
Different strokes for different folks, but to me, at that point it ceases being a game and starts being a drawing notepad. There's no struggle, no risk, no triumph, no reward. Losses mean nothing because you can copy-paste your ship right back, and gains mean nothing because everything is infinite. Not really even any reason to have asteroids in a creative map, if you ask me. Comes a time when you've just built a 5km long superdestroyer and realize that it will never actually have any potential other than a ship in a bottle because it's in creative mode, and probably single player at that.

Speaking of which, that's why the continued broken-ness of multiplayer is so aggravating. Every time I see someone post something in creative mode single player, my reaction is... so what? You didn't struggle to build that. You didn't gather the resources, you didn't risk piracy and invasion to hide it while you worked on it, you didn't have to manage fuel supplies or support infrastructure, you just "wished" it into existence.. and its potential will forever go unfulfilled because there's nobody else to use it on, and no reason to do so even if there was. But because multiplayer is still so laggy and broken, people still huddle in their little single player creative aspergalaxies, posting huge and intricate ships to reddit that utterly fail to impress because there's no difficulty to it other than imagination.

It stops being space engineers, and starts being space art designers. Because Engineering is for solving problems.. and there are no problems in a single player creative mode world.
If they ever get the lag fixed, we TOTALLY need to set up a Zero Light server. That looked so amazing and I can't wait to try it out with other people.
 
... utterly fail to impress because there's no difficulty to it other than imagination.
I feel like this sentence highlights the difference in our outlooks. We just have completely different reasons for playing. For me, the creative aspect is the most important one. Gathering resources is generally what I would put up with in order to be able to build. It's busy work. What does struggling to build have anything to do with the quality of what is built? They are two separate things, and I generally care more about the latter than the former. And it's perplexing to me that you call the realization of one's vision as having no triumph, no reward... well, as you say, different strokes.

Although keep in mind, I still have yet to play Space Engineers, so this opinion is informed from my experience playing Minecraft. Perhaps I would feel differently in this game.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I feel like this sentence highlights the difference in our outlooks. We just have completely different reasons for playing. For me, the creative aspect is the most important one. Gathering resources is generally what I would put up with in order to be able to build. It's busy work. What does struggling to build have anything to do with the quality of what is built? They are two separate things, and I generally care more about the latter than the former. And it's perplexing to me that you call the realization of one's vision as having no triumph, no reward... well, as you say, different strokes.

Although keep in mind, I still have yet to play Space Engineers, so this opinion is informed from my experience playing Minecraft. Perhaps I would feel differently in this game.
Even Minecraft's creative mode is much more challenging than space engineers' from an artistic angle. Minecraft doesn't give you angled/cornered blocks, or perfect RGB/Saturation/brightness color controls for each block, or the ability to build multiple blocks simultaneously in a line or plane with no practical limit. The movement controls are much better (a full 3 axes of rotation and 6 directions of movement/thrust), too, I think, and there's no range limitation on block placement in SE creative.

It's a much more user friendly creative mode than minecraft's. Though, I guess if you start incorporating lots of pistons and rotors to do fancy things, it becomes much more impressive. For example, I doubt the Space Police did their thing in survival, even though it shouldn't be very challenging to do so.

But it's also different because, even in Minecraft survival, the true endgame was artistic expression. And the things you build are that much more impressive for having been done in survival (there were guys commenting on my monument's youtube video that said "that looks like a 20 minute build," clearly they were thinking in creative mode terms).

You might feel differently than I, but I can tell you from having built a capital ship in creative mode, even getting to use it vs another player's creation in multiplayer creative... just felt kind of hollow compared to the struggle and scrabble of multiplayer survival.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Speaking of things people post on Reddit, get a load (pun intended) of this would-be comedian who has "made" a washer and dryer. In space.




 
I believe I've proven why Gas works radio and I do not.
I'm sure if you want one of us to clean up the audio for you, we can do that.
Or you could just add in a cough button.[DOUBLEPOST=1408400112,1408400051][/DOUBLEPOST]
Heh, creative mode is the only reason I'm even considering Space Engineers. I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I just wanna build cool shit :p
Creative is for experiments. Survival is for fun.

--Patrick
 
That's what I use it for, anyway. I want to know something is going to work before I invest major resources in it.
Basically this for me too. Rotors have a startling ability to just NOT WORK or to eat everything you've built in a fit of spite. There was a few weeks were Pistons would basically turn your builds into careening missiles of destruction just by putting them on on your ship. And I don't even want to get into the alignment issues I get when using some blocks. Creative is just the only way to do things sometimes.
 
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