Space Engineers

How do welders work? The ships I mean. Do you need a framework in place already, or could you set up a projector and then let the builder go to work?

You need to lay down the frame of the block OR have it projected (validly, so linked to an existing block) by a projector.

edited 3rd Aug '15 6:46:22 PM by CobraPrime

Due note that welders are not intelligent when it comes to projectors. Unless you are very careful they will miss bits or build up other parts in such a way that you can't get to the inside parts.

Also welding ships got a huge nerf with the recent cargo weight update; either get a mod to decrease weight/increase thruster powah or consider something else.

I'll stick with not using welder ships. I will keep with my miners though.

Really? Welder ships are the bomb. You must really enjoy tedious work and never build large ships or stations otherwise o_O God, having to back and forth to go get parts drives me insane. And the fact you can just make on block at a time.

Even with the cargo nerf (Worse Update ever), Welder Ships are pretty much necessary if you're building anything of any decent size.

EDIT: I pity anyone who set their maps to 10x inventory sizes. Oh god, it must be impossible to move. I foresee a patch making inventory mass a toggle in the scenario menu.

edited 4th Aug '15 12:07:26 AM by Ghilz

I'm not having movement problems with 10x inventory size. I made a Survival map and built a mining vessel out of the parts of a shuttle I tore apart. It was pretty badass, and the thing does work. I've mined most of the uranium out of the nearby asteroid already.

You can make most small ships by hand fairly well but big ships need big parts. When I made my 50 drill-bit miner it took somewhere in the realm of 100,000 steel plates and tens of thousands of the other parts.

Now that I've got a fair sized hanger and some resources it's time to work on my next project: A cruiser. I'm taking some inspiration from the goa'uld alkesh I snagged earlier for the hull design. Something smaller front facing with a big rack of guns and a whole lotta armor. Assemblers in the back to make replacement parts and maybe I'll stick a small repair drone in there too so I don't have to drag all the gear by hand. If getting to the cockpit (and through a ton of turrets) looks too difficult I could see about disabling their engines then jumping it back to base.

How does one hijack a cargo ship anyway? I've tried in Creative mode and always gotten Access Denied whenever trying to access the control panels.

Break and re-make them.

Good to know, thank you.

Watch out for interior turrets! Bigger ships will perforate you a few thousand times the second you finish grinding up a door. Either bring a bigger ship with a medbay and an assembler or disable their engines and drag em home.

Some ships are also booby trapped. Warheads attached to a reverse thruster hidden somewhere in the walls is generally how it goes. this link has some info on 'em. I personally havent ran into one yet; private sails and a mining vessel are my only vanilla captures and I just saved before hitting the brakes.

I went through the wiki and read about the various ships. I have a more encoded naming scheme installed. It uses a number to tell how many guns are on board, and a letter to identify weight. Plus I have several NPC mods installed to add yet more ships to the mix. This is going to be fun.

My partner and I started going after a private sail that was coded a 1B shuttle. 1 gun, slightly smaller than our own shuttles. We wound up bailing because my miner was too bulky and he couldn't lock on to grind that sail into dust.

Pistons are your friend for boarding actions in small ships. Stick a landing gear on it and you can extend it to catch on then "reel" your ship in. They rock something fierce but I don't think enemy ships are moving fast enough to dislodge you.

Sails are nice because (at least vanilla ones) don't seem to hooked up to a bigger ammo reserve. You can just dance circles around them from range and move in when they run outta ammo. Also they don't seem to have missile launchers. Fucking missile turrets will vaporize your ship in seconds if you don't manage to do the same to their turret first.

Not a lot of progress today on the cruiser. I didn't get as much time to play so I focused on scrapping more of that al'kesh. Even with gravity parts have an irritating habit of trying to float away.

Also went on a mining run and stumbled upon a giant vein of ice. I went from having 16k ice to 500k so I don't think air's going to be an issue for the foreseeable future. Once the cruiser's done I think I'll start work on some proper indoors section of my base.

I don't have a base on my public server right now. That's the next step. I've just been working on a miner and pulling in new recruits.

With miners, I prefer surface coverage over maneuverability. I've heard some people on there complain about my blocky designs for miners. They claim something sleeker works better. I just don't get it. Can something sleek actually maneuver inside small asteroids? I would think there wouldn't be enough clearance to get the angles right inside a tunnel.

I'm a fan of blocky design myself. Turn on the heads, flip the forward thrusters to max and go make myself a coffee. Either I'll have a haul full of goodies or a broken ship. The joys of save scumming.

Fun fact about mining: If you ever find yourself halfway into a massive rock and hit nuthin' but stone you can jump out without your ship being broken in two. Probably. It's worked fine the three or so times I've tried it.

Long as you build your ship massive enough to avoid the drills wiggling you, you're alright to just run the miner on autopilot for a while. If it wiggles wrong, you could shear off mining drills or dent/damage your armor. I avoid that problem by building the mining face with a lip. You extend it past the rest of the ship by a couple blocks, and it'll widen the tunnel enough that the rest of your ship isn't likely to touch wall.

Anyone else like ramming ships? I built this sweet cruiser with an armored cockpit on the front, took her out for a spin, and realized I forgot to add reverse thrusters. Cue me slamming her face first into a solar sail and the two getting stuck together and hurtling off into space. I loved it and am wanting to incorporate that into my battle tactics.

If you built a ramming ship, why did you put your cockpit in the front? Put it in the back and drive via cameras.

Also ramming ships are some of the most popular ships in multiplayer. People build grinder ships to ram, so you gain materials by ramming, though those have lost popularity since the inventory patch.

edited 8th Aug '15 2:50:34 PM by Ghilz

I did not build a ramming ship on purpose. I built a Cruiser and forgot to add in some reverse thrusters, so I just slammed into something hoping it might slow me down. It did not.

Okay, this time I built a ramming ship on purpose and I like how well it works. It has a thick box of heavy armor on the front for a ram, and looks like a cross between the Prometheus and an Alkesh from Stargate SG-1.

Never let me play... I'd start quoting Worf as I prepare to use your ship to attack larger enemies.

Pfft, before battle I'd give the speech he gave about your lives not being worth it, but I'd still stand for you. Considering it's only a game, it's true and not an insult. Not like the lives we give up in-game mean anything.

But, yeah, the WMC will always take willing hard workers who want to have a fun time mining, building stuff, and fiddling around in Creative to get a feel for the team effort. Just PM me for the Steam handle to befriend to get in.

When I get a better computer I'll so make my own thing of Silence Industries.

Double Posting to cast Thread Revival.

Several updates have happened, notably Hydrogen Thrusters have been added for in Atmosphere use, and it seems the Planets will have Alien Life.

More things to shoot. Yay!