Space Engineers

[r4pt0r]

I was gifted space engineers a few weeks ago and have recently been trying it out. Creative mode is fun, but survival seems to be a pain. Do you actually have to make hundreds of trips to the refinery with a handful of ore to get started?

Lets talk Space Engineers in this thread.

[curson]

Got it in the recent Steam sale, but haven't given it a fair try just yet.

The first feeling I got was similar: creative/sandbox mode being the way to go, over the overly-grinding (at least in single player) survival mode. I will need to dive into it a bit longer before passing any judgement though.

[pincushionman]

I tried it on their free weekend a few months ago. Wasn't real inspired; there wasn't much to do, just dig and build. Exploration's kinda limited (all just big rocks, really), and combat was pretty futile in the early game. But it's still fairly early in development, and I'll reserve judgement on whether it's worth my money until it becomes more mature.

[Tery215]

Creative mode is good, but if you want to use Survival, maybe you could start with 10x10x10x.

You would have to make a hundredth of the trips you had to make beforehand.

[r4pt0r]

I did the x10 options on the crashed red ship scenario. Got the old bird patched up for now, even added a big drill to the front

[AbortButton]

It's pretty fun when you have enough resources to actually do anything. If you don't have that, it becomes somewhat tedious.

[r4pt0r]

died by accidentally turning on my intertal dampeners while working in front of my ship en route to an asteroid. it splattered me and I dont seem to respawn on my ship either.

[Deadpangod3]

i built a giant ship in survival bigger then the red ship , after losing it twice (first time it decided to teleport far away and float off after i was testing its maneuverability, second put it into a fast spin when it was just a floor and acidentaly got out of the command seat, it also floated off) i mined out an entire gold vein just to get gold to make enough thruster components because each large thruster takes like 900 thruster components, it was on a friends world and he played it every sunday, but now he gave me the world file and im working on adding some radial boosters to make it acellerate faster

[megatiger78]

died by accidentally turning on my intertal dampeners while working in front of my ship en route to an asteroid. it splattered me and I dont seem to respawn on my ship either.

you need a medbay

[Deadpangod3]

ive discovered that large ship miners are alot better then small ship ones, i converted a yellow respawn ship into a miner on the asteroid base world, and when i mine with it i get tons of ore from not alot of mining, i might need to build like 20 more refineries to keep up.

however, i did this also on the respawn ship world and after building a platform and stuff i was mining and the ship suddenly got grabbed by phantom forces causing it to rotate in the short tunnel it had made so far, pieces kept blowing up untill it was a mess of a skeleton of its former glory, i managed to make a new small miner though.

[[email protected]]

Space engineers is cool, but it can be really, really, really....really....really tedious monotony in survival mode, even with 10x turned on. A lot more fun if you have people to play multiplayer and build stuff collaboratively with. A friend and I found a way to seriously speed things up. He built a two ended (small) ship, one end with about a few dozen drills, and the other with about a dozen welders. I built a giant collection ship with grav generators and conveyors that I could park under the asteroid he was mining and just do a mass collection for ore.

From there its just a matter of one person slapping down blocks as fast as possible while the welding Skiff finishes all the work. We could grind away enormous sections of asteroids in a few minutes.

[pxi]

I kind of like the monotony. I've no doubt it's a lot more fun in multiplayer, but there is something to be said for slowly upgrading your mining ship into a massive behemoth capable of eating whole asteroids. My latest ship has been built with the 3x options, it's taken something like 20 hours so far, and is basically just a skeleton with a great big scoop at the end.

Infinite space and procedural asteroids was the most epic christmas present they could have given the community. Despite my comments in another thread (which I do stand by), I've had a blast with the game. It's one of those marmite type games though. I could easily see why some would not enjoy it.

[mordin86]

Well I got it long time ago, build some cool stuff in sandbox and uninstalled it. The focus on multiplayer and survival that aren't my things made the game kind of meh for me . But if you into survival/building game than you will like it. Still sandbox is pretty fun.

[Starwhip]

I really, really, really, really want to try out this game.

[Kinglet]

I really, really, really, really want to try out this game.

Meh, it looks much better than it is. It's tedious and hard to engineer, even in creative.

[Starwhip]

I've seen a few playthrough videos, it looks good to me. I like tedious things. Like redstone calculators.

[Kinglet]

I've seen a few playthrough videos, it looks good to me. I like tedious things. Like redstone calculators.

No, it's not that type of tedious. It's the type of tedious when the HUD is badly made, placing blocks does not work or game breaking bugs ruin your creations.

[Starwhip]

No, it's not that type of tedious. It's the type of tedious when the HUD is badly made, placing blocks does not work or game breaking bugs ruin your creations.

You mean like *cough*KSP*cough*?

I've had my share of bugs and assorted mishaps that ruin my creations there, too.

You will not stop me from spending my money!

[rtxoff]

They spent a lot of effort in the last few weeks to eliminate many of the bugs the game had.

[Slam_Jones]

I'm planning on buying it when it goes on sale again. Partially because KSP keeps crashing on me :\

[Loligoat]

I got the game on sale a few weeks ago and I've been having a lot of fun with it. Yes, it is tedious at first in survival, but once you get past that and get to building your own ships it can be really enjoyable. I have my own little platform set up and a few little construction ships. I recently started working on a large miner. (Tip: When building a ship, don't touch the landing leg in the control panel, it will disable it and your ship will float away. I had this happen to my still under construction miner and I didn't have the supplies to add thrusters, so all I could do was salvage what I could while it floated away )

[Starwhip]

Started playing the other day. Why is it that the random-spawning ships don't try to kill you when you're just on your jetpack?

Anyway, I managed to nab some miner-something ship and convert it into a full-blown mobile refinery. Ate the entire starting base with it.

[ghpstage]

I've played it a lot, though haven't booted it up since a little before programmable blocks came in. Time to start a new game I think.

Tedium being brought up sounds like a challenge. Wonder how much of the early game grinding can be engineered away!

Edited January 19, 2015 by ghpstage

[pxi]

Why is it that the random-spawning ships don't try to kill you when you're just on your jetpack?

Every single one I've gone after since they made the ship turrets hostile a few months back has killed me. Did you create a faction? Not belonging to a faction just might make a difference. Other than that I think you just got lucky.

[Captain Sierra]

I've played it a lot, though haven't booted it up since a little before programmable blocks came in. Time to start a new game I think.

Tedium being brought up sounds like a challenge. Wonder how much of the early game grinding can be engineered away!

Highly dependent. I usually salvage what I can off my starting ship/platform and rush-build one of my trusty Armadillo drilling ships (was built before connectors worked and batteries where a thing and I still use it). That nixxes the tedium of hand-drilling. Next up is one of my Hacksaw grinders to help if I salvage anything. The ship is easily retrofitted with weapons to go capture stuff. That thing is then easily converted into a welder and I'm set on the initial. From there I usually get to work on a mobile factory ship, a mining support frigate if you will, and then heavy drilling operations, but once you get the small welder/grinder and a small driller up, you're set.

Pro tip: the only difference between a welder and a grinder on a small ship is a large tube and a motor. They're extremely interchangeable.