Space Engineers

GasBandit

Staff member
So... missile spam? The Borg are kind of a let down now.
Maybe it'll change with the hypothetical introduction of energy weapons. After all, the borg weren't using gatling cannons.

But yeah. And it doesn't even have to be spam. More like... missile sniping. Fly to ~900m range, and carefully aim and take out each turret with a missle. Then move in to hack the controls, or my favorite trick - maybe just weld on your own merge block real quick and haul the thing away to be subverted or disassembled at leisure in the safety of deep space/your own base. Provided of course that you grind down the medbay first, so that foes can't just keep spawning on your new prize.

Also, be aware that, in multiplayer, firing missiles while moving forward at all causes your ship to lag into the missiles, making them explode and destroy your own ship.
 

Dave

Staff member
Sorry, Gas, but them posts are staying. It was a HUGE pain in the ass to move them. You can't move posts to an existing thread. So they will be weird and out of place.
 

Dave

Staff member
Ah, I didn't realize. I was under the impression it was simple.
Last time I isolated them all, put them into their own thread, then merged the two Space Engineers threads. If I did that this time they would be out of context and make no sense.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Last night, the Infernvm III engaged in piracy action. While assaulting the base of a relatively new guy who foolishly built inside an asteroid, a nearby member of another faction came to investigate the red targeting reticles that light up for everyone on the server whenever turrets lock on to a target (a bug that NEEDS addressing IMO). He came in a tiny, fast ship with only a small rocket launcher for armament, and bombarded Infernvm from beyond turret range while it was parked over the base while preparing to commence looting. Fortunately it was a small rocket launcher, and inaccurately fired, but I did suffer a couple hits.

None of my armor was actually destroyed, but my docking umbilical mast was blown off and the ventral armor is also the floor deck of the interior, and apparently some of the damage "transmits" through armor to things attached to it, and so two cargo bays and my medbay suffered sufficient damage as to render them inoperable. I only discovered this, naturally, after I wheeled on the interloper and would-be rescuer and chased him off, then drew away into deep space to assess the damage. The most troubling was the damaged medbay - without it, if I died with the Infernvm in deep space or moving, I'd lose the ship for sure because I wouldn't be able to respawn at it, and unfortuantely I didn't have the medical equipment required to repair the bay. So I was forced to return to base for repairs.

And then I slammed on the brakes, just barely managing to stop out of turret range when I saw the base turrets suddenly snap to lock on to my ship. Seems that components damaged to below the blue line on their health bar count as not being owned by anybody (since welding above blue line with computer parts determines ownership), and if I closed to within 800 meters I'd definitely be vaporized. Even worse, I was probably now lighting up as a red targeting reticle for all the server to see.

Quickly I EVA'd out of my ship and jetted the kilometer to the base, and shut down the defenses. I grabbed the parts I needed to make repairs, jetted back to the ship, and got everything back in my ownership, then went and turned the base defenses back on.

With that crisis averted, I turned my attention to the problem that started all this mess - my heavy armor staying intact but not protecting my delicate internals from suffering explosive damage from rockets. I broke out Bob the Builder from storage and ground off all the turrets and angle/corner armor from the outside of my ship, and started laying the frames for a second layer of armor all around. This will really hurt my maneuverability and acceleration, but I need this ship to be relatively rocketproof while sitting still. I only got about a third done welding the plates to completion before having to go to bed.

Oh, and this is our answer to the Anti-Pirate Coalition's stupid 4-turret-per-side cube.

 
My solution to the rocket damages through armor is to do all interior layers of the ship in light armor, unless it's for something that will explode for big damage like a reactor. This makes it easier to do repairs, easier to tell if you've had leakage, and it's much lighter so it doesn't affect your mass as much.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
My solution to the rocket damages through armor is to do all interior layers of the ship in light armor, unless it's for something that will explode for big damage like a reactor. This makes it easier to do repairs, easier to tell if you've had leakage, and it's much lighter so it doesn't affect your mass as much.
On my next ship, I intend to do the interior surfaces with "Interior walls" which are even lighter than light armor, and actually have lights in them to illuminate their surroundings. Then I intend to encase that in a layer of light armor, and then encase the light armor in heavy armor. Though I need to do some more testing to see if I'd be better off just doing 2 layers of heavy, despite the huge increase to ship mass that would entail.
 
On my next ship, I intend to do the interior surfaces with "Interior walls" which are even lighter than light armor, and actually have lights in them to illuminate their surroundings. Then I intend to encase that in a layer of light armor, and then encase the light armor in heavy armor. Though I need to do some more testing to see if I'd be better off just doing 2 layers of heavy, despite the huge increase to ship mass that would entail.
Defense wise you would, but then you need to worry about more and bigger engines, which might mean more generators, which might mean sizing up the entire ship.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Defense wise you would, but then you need to worry about more and bigger engines, which might mean more generators, which might mean sizing up the entire ship.
It's a trade-off. Maneuverability is the main defense against missiles, and also I need to be able to escape a bad situation or maintain a chase against a wildly maneuvering target. So really the question is whether the shell of my ship goes Outside-HeavyArmor-LightArmor-InteriorWall-Inside, or Outside-Heavy-Heavy-Interior-Inside. Tonight I think I'll whip up some armor sandwiches in creative single player, fire a missile at each one, and inspect the damage to the other side.

And really, at this point an increase in size is pretty much a given.

I'm also toying with the idea of a gravity drive for emergencies, for example if I need to escape in a hurry or my main thrusters get disabled. It'll be tricky because it'll have to be placed right on the long axis of the ship or it'll cause maneuvering problems.
 
It's a trade-off. Maneuverability is the main defense against missiles, and also I need to be able to escape a bad situation or maintain a chase against a wildly maneuvering target. So really the question is whether the shell of my ship goes Outside-HeavyArmor-LightArmor-InteriorWall-Inside, or Outside-Heavy-Heavy-Interior-Inside. Tonight I think I'll whip up some armor sandwiches in creative single player, fire a missile at each one, and inspect the damage to the other side.

I'm also toying with the idea of a gravity drive for emergencies, for example if I need to escape in a hurry or my main thrusters get disabled. It'll be tricky because it'll have to be placed right on the long axis of the ship or it'll cause maneuvering problems.
How exactly does Gravity drive work?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
How exactly does Gravity drive work?
You put an artificial mass block on your ship's center of mass (or on the axis of it, or several symmetrically around that axis), and install an extremely short range gravity generator behind the artificial mass where "down" for the generator is toward the bow of your ship. You leave the generator on (if it's set to 1 meter range it doesn't take much power at all), and when you want to engage the gravity drive, you turn on the artificial mass. The acceleration is much better than even large-large conventional thrusters, though it can't get you faster than 104m/s either, and it is harder to control because you have to turn it on or off in a control panel rather than with a key press (man I wish you could pick any system to assign to a hotkey slot). The more Artificial Masses you install, the faster the acceleration. A fellow pirate in my faction claims he once built a gravity-driven drill rig that crashed the server it was on. So there's some risk there.

If you are off the axis even a little bit, it will cause the ship to turn under acceleration. If you're off by a lot, it'll spin so bad it should be shouting DEMACIAAAAAA.
 
I wanna build a minature railgun. but the energydrain should be tremendous.
I'm not sure this is possible. ICBMs and cruise missiles are doable with gravity drive though.

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Today on Space Engineers! An abject lesson in always securing your ships before building them!

2014-07-16_00001.jpg


Am I supposed to start it as a station and then convert it to a ship to prevent this sort of thing on large scale builds? The slightest bump with the welder did this.
Regardless, I had to hunt down my mistake and put it out of it's misery.

2014-07-16_00002.jpg
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yep, exactly. When building a large ship, start it as a station, not a ship. Then when it is finished, go into its control panel and on the INFO tab hit "convert to ship."

The George dub uses grav drive on its large warhead missiles. They go-

Gravity generator, mergeblock - mergeblock - small reactor - artificial mass - warhead

Large scale warheads have triple the damage radius of large scale rockets.

Of course, as I said in an earlier post, the server admin got wind of our designs, the bastard, and said he incorporated grav shields as a countermeasure - basically his own grav generators with "down" pointed away from the ship, to turn or repel grav-drive warheads.

We're thinking about just mounting warheads on merge blocks and putting them on large-but-small utility skiffs, and just using inertia to drop them like torpedoes.[DOUBLEPOST=1405545857,1405545795][/DOUBLEPOST]
I wanna build a minature railgun. but the energydrain should be tremendous.
Nah, the energy drain won't be too bad because gravity generators don't really suck much power. But remember, no matter how many you use, max speed is still 104 m/s.[DOUBLEPOST=1405545925][/DOUBLEPOST]I can't play SE at work, but that doesn't stop me from designing ships! I got an excel template for graph paper...

http://gasbanditry.com/GraphPaper.xlt

... and have been dreaming...

http://gasbanditry.com/shipblueprint.xlsx
 
We're thinking about just mounting warheads on merge blocks and putting them on large-but-small utility skiffs, and just using inertia to drop them like torpedoes
This is kind of why I wish landing gear was more useful in multiplayer. If lag wasn't an issue, I'd just build the torpedo, attach it to my landing gear, and drop it when needed.

Is it possible to counter his gravity with a stronger gravity force?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
This is kind of why I wish landing gear was more useful in multiplayer. If lag wasn't an issue, I'd just build the torpedo, attach it to my landing gear, and drop it when needed.

Is it possible to counter his gravity with a stronger gravity force?
Yes and no. If you get it perfectly perpendicular, you can cancel out a gravity generator with another, then have a second gravity generator push further (gravity effects are cumulative)

The problem is if you're not perfectly lined up, it won't cancel perfectly, and your warhead will curve off course.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Refining Platinum is the worst thing ever. It takes so freaking long.
Cobalt is my personal nemesis.

But having 15 refineries eases the pain somewhat.[DOUBLEPOST=1405611893,1405611652][/DOUBLEPOST]I can't play space engineers at work.

But I can plan my evening, thanks to Excel.

gbcapital.PNG
 
I got my capitalship to around 3 million kg. It is so freaking heavy. added an refinery and assembler at the back and a small hangarspace for a cargo/repairtug.

at the front is a hangarbay for 2 light fighters. at the time of this writing I have around 16 gatling turrets and 6 missle turrets on my ship. more to follow.

Gonna watch some vids on how to build a hangar door.
 
Damnit, I really need to get going on this game, but I'm spending all of my time playing Railroad Tycoon II Platinum. I'm just gonna have to get a second computer and play both.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Damnit, I really need to get going on this game, but I'm spending all of my time playing Railroad Tycoon II Platinum. I'm just gonna have to get a second computer and play both.
Don't worry, the game is still adding features. As awesome as it is now, your experience can only improve the longer you wait to play.



In other news, once again, Thursday is Patch Day!

Summary
Battery block and new power cell component have been added into the game. Communication relay makes now possible for signal to travel through multiple friendly Antennas; enemy signals that reach one antenna are relayed to all friendly players within your antenna network.You can merge ships while pasting in creative mode and we also added client-side saving and permanent death as a world options.

Note: We are still working on new player communication system, it should be added in the future updates



Features
- battery block for small and large grids
- solar panels are now little cheaper and much more efficient
- communications relay (signal can travel through multiple antennas; you can receive a signal from any distance, broadcasting can be limited by player or by power of the antenna)
- small ship antenna has now max. range of 5000 m
- copy-paste into existing ships
- new world setting: enable/disable client-side saving
- new world setting: permanent death can be turned off (client still owns his stuff after respawning in the rescue ship)
- pressing 'K' can be now used for looting character
- added antenna to prefab ships

Fixes
- improved network performance when removing larger amount of blocks at once
- fixed crash when creating faction
- fixed crash when leaving faction
- fixed mission join request icon
- fixed turret attacking its own ship
- fixed issues with respawn
- fixed turrets fire at ships in junk yard (Oh thank god... hope this means my turrets won't fire at friendly things I'm grinding -GB)
- fixed inventory listing as same for all containers
- fixed 1x1 wheel falls off after loading a save
- fixed antenna/beacons too power hungry
- fixed passenger seat alignment
- fixed death loops when spawning in tight places (Another good one, hope it works as advertised - GB)
- fixed no 3rd person view for rescue ship
- fixed player tag not showing properly when joining dedicated server
- fixed ownership not remembered by dedicated server after logout
- fixed memory leaks when app was minimized (This one hits me a lot, hope it's entirely fixed - GB)
- fixed spectator mode when loading workshop world
- fixed spotlight symmetry
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Spent the last couple days grinding down the Infernvm 3 and rebuilding a new design, with alleviating some of Inf 3's shortcomings in mind (specifically the single layer of heavy armor). At 10 tonight, I finished the DPF Bizarre Adventure (DPF is our pirate faction, the Dusty Crow Pirate Federation, so it'd kinda be like "USS").

Here's a shot of the Bizarre Adventure leaving our deep space base.



So I patrol the asteroids as usual, picking off and looting small bases and even a derelict spacecraft I found drifting with several armloads of gold and uranium still in its unpowered refinery... when I spot a telltale red reticle in the distance and head for it.

After about a 15 minute flight, I come into visual range of a base positioned above a previously unknown and not-on-the-beaten-path asteroid. PRIME real estate! When I get close to there, I notice I'm being locked onto, and my turrets are returning the favor. I stop dead (turrets start to acquire locks around 200m before they come into firing range), and go EVA out for a closer look. Just as I'm getting close enough to pick out details on the enemy base, I get a face full of rockets and gatling rounds. Oof.

I respawn in the medbay on my ship, and get as close as I dare without being in turret firing range. I arm my rocket launcher, and start poking holes. On about my 7th or 8th rocket, I get lucky and knock out his reactor, and his turrets go dark. I still can't close because MY turrets will open fire still, and I would like to take the base intact if I can (or at least as intact as it still is after a half dozen rocket impacts). To my surprise, the OWNER of the base comes whipping out around from behind the base in a drillship, bearing down on me. I declare that this is now DPF territory, and he'd better clear off if he wants to keep anything at all. He doesn't listen and tries for me in his drill ship. I'm not particularly worried about him ramming me, I'm in much thicker armor than I was previously. But he doesn't even get the chance... as soon as he's closer than 800 meters, my turrets light him up and tear him to shreds. He leaves the server, probably never to return, I'd bet.

Then comes the tedious business of jetpacking over to the base, grinding down each individual system, then welding it back up again from blue line (this is how you "hack" ownership of something that belongs to somebody else). 15 turrets, a half dozen cargo bays, a medbay, a refinery, an assembler, a beacon and a newly-rebuilt small reactor later, I've managed to capture myself a base! I pull the Bizarre Adventure alongside it, finally.



Most of the damage is on the other side, hidden from the camera, of course.

And as I said, it floats above its own personal asteroid that nobody else probably knows about, if one scrub was able to get this far without interference.



It's kind of funny, the "base" is really only a couple blocks in each direction bigger than my ship, really.

I can only imagine that reticle lit up from him accidentally doing something that got his turrets to target one of his own ships or something.

At any rate, I've got it completely under my faction's control now, and reported to them the events. I suicided and respawned at our space base to retrieve my small 3x3 drill ship, and moved it to the captured asteroid base as well, to facilitate getting started there. The plan is to get the base secure enough for now, which really it probably is, so long as the Bizarre Adventure is parked alongside it, and drill that asteroid empty, sending the valuable minerals inside back to the space base. I'm not sure if we'll process them into ingots here, or move the raw ore (processing the ore takes time and we'll have to build more refineries here at the base, but refined ingots take up much less space than raw ore, so each shipment would actually bring more useful material at once back to the space base).

Then we use those materials to finish the George Dub.. and then it'll be time to build my capital ship... But first I need to refit the Adventure with more thrusters, turns out it handles like a barn on roller skates.
 
Then we use those materials to finish the George Dub.. and then it'll be time to build my capital ship... But first I need to refit the Adventure with more thrusters, turns out it handles like a barn on roller skates.
My general rule when it comes to lots of heavy armor is to do a BIG thruster on each side or an equivalent of smaller. Speed is the biggest factor in any fight, because it allows you to engage and disengage at will.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
My general rule when it comes to lots of heavy armor is to do a BIG thruster on each side or an equivalent of smaller. Speed is the biggest factor in any fight, because it allows you to engage and disengage at will.
The Bizarre Adventure does have a large large thruster in all directions except aft, and aft it has TWO large-large thrusters. Acceleration is still approximately 1 to 2 m/s^2. I'll never catch anybody who wants to flee like that. It weighs just over 2 million kg. I'm thinking two more aft thrusters. I'll have to redo some armor. And I think I'll need maybe 6-9 more small reactors, if I can find room to wedge them in.
 
To be fair, most of my design work is in small ships.

Have you considered doing hollow sections of armor connected by supporting struts? This would force most of the blast to hit NOTHING if it penetrates, preventing bleed through on penetrating hits. It could also make the ship have less mass.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
To be fair, most of my design work is in small ships.

Have you considered doing hollow sections of armor connected by supporting struts? This would force most of the blast to hit NOTHING if it penetrates, preventing bleed through on penetrating hits. It could also make the ship have less mass.
I thought about it, but I wanted at least a minimal ability to take repeated hits in the same section. Plus, I need SOMETHING to mount the internals to, so you're always, at a minimum, looking at 2 layers whether you choose to put empty space between them or not, and I'm only using 2 layers (outer heavy, inner light). Really, the main irritant is that player commands can only use 66% of a thruster's max power (that's why you stop so much faster than you start moving). If I could unclamp the throttle on my two rear thrusters, I'd be fine. The single large thruster I have on the front to stop me seems to manage 5 m/s^2 deceleration, even though the math doesn't work out on that.

Regardless, I think I'll be able to add 2 more rear thrusters without compromising my design too badly. It's just getting in there with a grinder and welder and doing it. Oh, and the 1600 thruster components, too, naturally. Having just used 28,800 thruster components on the supercube up there, we've been a bit strapped for gold and platinum. But that should be fixed quickly now that we have our own private asteroid again.
 
It might be worth fortifying THIS asteroid again, if you are as far out as you think. Even after hollowed out, it might be remote enough to serve as a fueling/rearming station, now that we have batteries. Just stick some solar panels on there, put battery ships inside, then fly them out and connect them when you need more juice.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
It might be worth fortifying THIS asteroid again, if you are as far out as you think. Even after hollowed out, it might be remote enough to serve as a fueling/rearming station, now that we have batteries. Just stick some solar panels on there, put battery ships inside, then fly them out and connect them when you need more juice.
I'm thinking turret mines simply as a denial mechanism. An asteroid-wide conveyor/power network is a liability, we learned last time.
 
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