Space engineer

[lostone1993]

note: at 6KW per panel, you'd need 94 or so to run a refinery. (560Kw vs 6kw per panel) so building a proper-powered solar refinery is madness. well maybe if you just get too many solar panels from raiding ships you can do it, but building it (and that requires platinium - a pain in the ass) is going to take forever

crap, station it is. I will just make it a side project :P
lucky for me I seem to keep getting ships with solars and no defence :P

[jakerman999]

...I seem to keep seeing cool gameplay mechanisms that then get trashed with this game :)

And we all know what resulted last time that happened ;)

[devak]

note: at 6KW per panel, you'd need 94 or so to run a refinery. (560Kw vs 6kw per panel) so building a proper-powered solar refinery is madness. well maybe if you just get too many solar panels from raiding ships you can do it, but building it (and that requires platinium - a pain in the ass) is going to take forever

crap, station it is. I will just make it a side project :P
lucky for me I seem to keep getting ships with solars and no defence :P

note that, as emergency power a handful of solars will do. As i mentioned it's buggy, but the refineries kept sort-of working while getting a fraction of the power they needed. But basically, for any form of emergency a handful of solars for emergency power will work.

[FlowerChild]

Out of curiosity, how does the above affect recharghing your suit?

That would be the primary reason I'd see myself wanting emergency power. In fact, I'm wondering if having an isolated station off to the side consisting solely of panels and either a med bay or a cockpit might be a good idea.

I guess something like that would also make batteries an interesting feature.

[Gunnerman21]

Solar panels have no problem charging your suit. When i capture a cargo ship with solar panels, i dock it to my station and remove all the inventory including uranium. But because of the solars, the ship is still powered, so i go inside to turn it off and its at about 50% power usuage, then goes down to about 10. Suit charging is definitely something solars can do.

[DaveYanakov]

I didn't realize I wanted battery powered small ships this badly until you mentioned them FC. I've found that strapping a panel to a beacon sitting directly on landing gear is a good way to keep myself from getting lost on the cheap

[FlowerChild]

I didn't realize I wanted battery powered small ships this badly until you mentioned them FC. I've found that strapping a panel to a beacon sitting directly on landing gear is a good way to keep myself from getting lost on the cheap

Yeah, was just a random thought, but I think batteries would be a great way to make solar panels more useful.

I blame all my time working on BTSM for that one :)

[DaveYanakov]

I just feel like having a reason to build a larger ship to ferry your small craft efficiently between sites and provide a recharging station would add a lot to the sense of progression

[FlowerChild]

I just feel like having a reason to build a larger ship to ferry your small craft efficiently between sites and provide a recharging station would add a lot to the sense of progression

Hmmm...true that. Might be cool if small reactors didn't even exist and small ships were entirely dependent on large for recharging.

That would necessitate not having all the same tools on both small and large vessels to have meaning though ;)

[devak]

I just feel like having a reason to build a larger ship to ferry your small craft efficiently between sites and provide a recharging station would add a lot to the sense of progression

Hmmm...true that. Might be cool if small reactors didn't even exist and small ships were entirely dependent on large for recharging.

That would necessitate not having all the same tools on both small and large vessels to have meaning though ;)

I do feel that solars can have some interesting gameplay, but right now it's almost non-existent. A battery would go a LONG way towards better solar gameplay, though i feel that with the extreme power of Small Reactors and the ease of finding and refining uranium and the copious amounts of uranium on cargo ships, it's just never going to be interesting.

A big reactor on a small ship (iirc that's possible, right?) as the only solution would be one improvement. That way, there's a significant increase in cost for atomic power. Mind you, the big reactor would have an equivalent output to a small reactor.

That way, actual recharging (the new connector block helps a lot here) would be a feasible thing. WIth connectors, putting solars on and off your mining ship would go a long way towards making solar an acceptable means of power.

[DaveYanakov]

This update added large ship drills...

Welp, that was fun while it lasted

[Gunnerman21]

The large ship drill has actually be in the game since around December. The devs added the model and such but never activated it in game. Recently i saw a mod that activated it, but now that it's in the game we can all just go crazy.

Edit: spectator mode strongly looks creative only, which is good since flying around bound to physics is a hassle when making giant space stations and such. Plus lots of fixing things is great as well.

[FlowerChild]

This update added large ship drills...

Welp, that was fun while it lasted

Lol...yup. The art on them doesn't look like placeholder either, so there goes all my theories on vehicle class progression and them potentially just temporarily giving people this stuff to shut them up while they work on the big picture right out the window.

In retrospect I'm thinking that I may have just been seeing progression where there was a coincidental set of in-dev features available. Either that, or they really caved entirely to public pressure and trashed their own plans.

I pretty much lost interest in playing with the inclusion of small ship grinders and welders too. I tried starting up a new world when those were released and the "progression" was just so scattered that I had no real interest in doing anything at all. So yeah, them putting in the big drills certainly doesn't compel me to play.

[jorgebonafe]

I feel a certain sense ov déjà vu... Soon there will be a "Better than engineering" out there.

[Gunnerman21]

The dream is finally real!

Spoiler

Show

But seriously, small ship drills were just fine.

[FlowerChild]

I feel a certain sense ov déjà vu... Soon there will be a "Better than engineering" out there.

Hehe...gods no. Please...please no...

I really wish "professional modder" were actually a thing, but barring that, I really need to stop doing this shit :)

[jorgebonafe]

"Next up, on My Strange Addiction..."

[devak]

I feel a certain sense ov déjà vu... Soon there will be a "Better than engineering" out there.

Hehe...gods no. Please...please no...

I really wish "professional modder" were actually a thing, but barring that, I really need to stop doing this shit :)

"OCD sounds so negative. i prefer to call myself...improve-ist. OK i need to improve on that too..."

[FlowerChild]

Interesting, batteries have been added:



Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there are any corresponding limitations on generators not being available for certain classes of ships though, which I think would've really made this shine.

Still not enough to bring me back to the game, but it's certainly interesting.

[Gunnerman21]

the batteries give slightly more use for solar panel vessels. letting them charge while stationary. I guess this would be good for long distance transport when you don't want to waste uranium in the journey. But other than that, normal use of solar panel ships is not a good idea.

It seems like this game is turning into another minecraft :(

[FlowerChild]

It seems like this game is turning into another minecraft :(

Not necessarily. I still hold out some hope that they're going to assemble all these potentially interesting pieces into a compelling shape and are just throwing them in as-is at present to minimize the whining.

But yeah, I certainly haven't felt like playing since they added all the parts like grinders, drills, and welders to all the ship types. It pretty much nuked any of the sense of progression I was feeling in the game and caused me to lose interest.

[DaveYanakov]

I do really like the uses they have given for antennas and the need to build comm relay stations

[FlowerChild]

I do really like the uses they have given for antennas and the need to build comm relay stations

Wait...what uses? :)

I was under the impression that this was just an initial implementation of the comms system with not much actual utility other than detecting enemy ships (which I assume includes the cargo ones floating through the system as piracy targets).

[DaveYanakov]

It also appears to affect the visibility of chat in a way I haven't seen since Chrome Hounds. You can get around it with voice chat for friendlies but I can see sneaking a comm station inside an enemy network in order to be able to see their chat. I also tend to see requiring players to build a radar network in order to find targets as a good thing that brings back a little bit of progression to the game.

[FlowerChild]

Ah yes, I have fond memories of that in ChromeHounds as well. It's a very cool idea, but the problem with such systems is that of course they are easily bypassed, and that's inevitably what players do.

From the video I didn't get the impression the chat stuff was implemented though, even if it seems like a natural fit. I haven't played SMP, although it occurs to me a BTW forums server might be a pretty cool thing (would be cool to have a 7 Days one as well).

I suspect that one of the things the comms system is intended for is to be able to remotely control other ships, but I didn't see any evidence of that yet either.