Introduction

I have been watching gameplay videos on youtube for a while now. I have always been inspired by them and wanted to start a series of my own.

I hadn’t played space engineers for a few months and had been wanting to go back to it. That made it an ideal candidate to try this on. One thing I always struggled with Space Engineers is that it doesn’t have a goal to work towards. To this end, I have tried to come up with a backstory that’ll give something to work towards

It was substantially more difficult than it looks to talk and play a game and the first couple of episodes are incredibly stumbly. I share them for posterity, continuity and hopefully to also show how much improvement there is later on, hopefully.

Backstory

A lone space engineer wakes up in his small ship, far away from a home he once knew. There are only a handful of people still awake, with a few thousand people across a few factions in cryo-sleep. A capital ship is being built to house these cryo chambers. Several engineers have been sent out into the galaxies to build a base.

Their mission is to colonise planets, ideally multiple planets, for each of the three factions. With a few hundred to a thousand people in each faction. Once all the habitats have been built, the engineer is to send a radio signal and await the arrival of the cargo.

With the heavy burden of this mission on their shoulders, this space engineer wakes up, caught in the gravitational pull of a blue planet.

Episodes

Below are the episodes already uploaded to youtube.

#01 – Hunting for Uranium

 

 

 

 

In the first episode, we start in a respawn ship within the gravitational pull of Earth. We then move off into space and go hunting for uranium before we run out of power. The most excitement came when I realised that I was running out of oxygen and I hadn’t taken a canister with me. Will I die from suffocation? Find out 😉

This is a very noob video, my very first. Also, due to a recording mistake, there are no game sounds on this video 😦

#02 – Starting a Base

We identify a location to start our base out on and start building it in earnest. Partway through, I realise that the scaffolding that I had painstaking built out was way too large, so I tear it down and try to build a small base. I also spend some time mining out a bunch of iron.

This is also a very noob video, though I think there are fewer boring parts (hopefully). The game audio issue is also fixed part way through.

#03 – Furnishing

 

 

 

 

 

This episode revolves around finishing construction of some of the items inside the base. There was some confusion about how to build a cargo container without dismantling the one on the ship.

This is hopefully starting to get a little better.

#04 – More Furnishings

 

Realise that I am running out of oxygen (again) and we don’t have an Oxygen Generator or Ice. Fix that first, then build a turret for some protection.

I felt this episode was a lot better.

#05 – The Bug

This episode starts with building a rudimentary mining ship which I screw up. I had been away from this game for a while 😉 I then fix a bunch of the stuff, do some mining, then fix a bunch of other things.

This episode also felt pretty ok to me.

#06 – The Shredder

In this episode, I build a grinding ship. I then use this ship to grind down the original respawn ship completely. I also reconstruct the roof of the base to be a little tidier. The rest of the episode is spent scouting for resources.

It feels like I need to commentate more. While editing, I realise that there are a few unexpressed thoughts and the sheer amount of time when I am not saying anything still surprises me. A lot more work still to do 🙂

#07 – The Digger

 

 

We build another version of the miner, so that we don’t have to deal with the container snafu ‘bug’ 😉 This episode runs a little longer, but we end up with a much better version of the miner which I call the digger. This is a callback to a game that was released in 1983 which I loved growing up 🙂 You can try it online.

I feel that the videos are definitely improving and look forward to hearing what you think 🙂

#08 – Tim is in Charge

 

 

 

Tidy the base up a bit, plugging the reactor into the conveyor system. I then set up Talendan’s inventory management (TIM) to automate the refinery, assembler and the inventories. Set up some LCD panels to see the status of these as well.

#09 – Base Expansion

Fix a couple of things on the base and start on expanding it.

#10 – The Mole

 

Build a tiny mining ship using the Vertex Thrust 2 Script. This doesn’t go exactly according to plan.

#11 – The Refinery Room

Get the framework for the refinery room more or less complete

#12 – The Beaver

Most of this episode was spent trying to build a small and compact enough welding ship.

#13 – The Refinery Room Pt 2

We weld up the refinery room and link it up to the rest of the cargo network.

#14 – Misbehavin’ Tim

Start on boring out the refinery room and run into some trouble with Tim too.

#15 – Assembler Jigsaw

Start putting down assemblers.

#16 – Assembler Room

Finish construction of the assembler room.

#17 – Base with a View

Prettify the base and tidy things up.

#18 – The Storage Room

Drilling out the storage room

#19 – Storage Room Complete

Completed the welding and setup of the storage room.

#20 – Control Room

Tidying up the Control room and preparing the base for pressurisation.

#21 – Fully Automated Mining

Using Rdav’s AI Autominer Script to put together a fully autonomous mining ship.

#22 – Ant Mk II Better Automated Miner

While falling asleep, I had some ideas on how to improve the Ant. I get on with constructing the Ant Mk II.

#23 – Testing the Ant Mk II

Wait, why does the ship try and drill through the asteroid sideways?

#24 – Ant Mk II Chassis

 

We build the Chassis around most of the Ant, send it off mining and start working on airlocks.

#25 – Rotary Airlock

 

Put in Airlocks and start on getting the base airtight.

#26 – Airtight Refinery Room

 

We manage to get the refinery room airtight? What was the problem – something I had done right at the start of setting the room up.

#27 – Fully Pressurised

 

Fix the autominers so they work across reloads. Get the base fully pressurised and move on to the next project.

#28 – Holey Cave

 

What I wanted was to have the new section to be mostly just rock, or in this case, iron deposits. Do I manage to get it airtight?

#29 – Unholey Cave

 

Working on making the way to the hanger airtight.

#30 – Fixing Sim Speed

 

Space Engineers had been dragging for a few episodes. Fix that.

#31 – Way to the Hangar

 

We make progress building our way towards the hangar.

#32 – Building a Tunnel

 

Building the tunnel that’ll take us to the Hangar.

#33 – Finishing the Tunnels

 

We finish off the tunnel to the Hangar

#34 – Under the Stairs

 

We start furnishing under the stairs 😉

#35 – Starting the Hangar

 

We make our way to the hangar and start on it in earnest.

#36 – Hangar Foundations pt 1

 

We start putting in the struts that will hold the hangar together

#37 – Hangar Foundations pt 2

 

We continue our work in putting in the struts around the hangar

#38 – Small Steel Tubes

 

While putting in the tubing around the hangar, we run out of small steel tubes.

#39 – Automining Without Lag

 

Try and get the autominers working without lag.

#40 – Faster Mining

 

Try and speed up automatic mining by attaching several more drills.

#41 – Hangar Foundations pt 3

 

Putting down another set of foundations for the hangar

#42 – Hangar Foundations pt 4

 

Piping up the hangar

#43 – The Printer

 

Build a welding ship and get started on the capital ship.

#44 – Everything is Broken 😦

 

One by one fail by fail. At least, that’s how it felt.

#45 – Fixing Things

 

Try and fix everything that broke in the last episode.

#46 – Making Space

 

Making more space inside the large grid ship to put things.

#47 – Interior Design

 

So… What should go inside this brand spanking new ship?

#48 – No More Gold!

 

We run out of gold while building the jump drive.

#49 – Detaching the Ship

 

We grind off the supporting beams. Will the ship crash and burn?

#50 – The Big Five O

 

The fiftieth episode of this series. My first ever YouTube series and it has got to 50 episodes. Hurrah!

#51 – Interior Redesign

 

I start off with the intention of finishing off the hanger, but end up grinding the whole hangar down.

#52 – Rebuilding the Hangar

 

We get back on to the hangar and get most of it down

#53 – The Right Wing

 

No, it’s not a political episode, it’s about building the wing on the right hand side of the ship.

#54 – Out of Cobalt

 

Working on the right wing and I run out of metal grids, which as it turned out was because we were out of Cobalt.

Future Plans

The main next plan is to flesh out the base a bit and get a solid starting point. After that, we’ll go to the moon. We’ll build a moon base with a habitat of some form.

If I am not bored after that, I might try heading to Mars or the Alien planet since I’ve not been to either of those locations.

Unlikely but would be awesome

In an offline map, kaljack and I were working on building a massive capital ship with hundreds (or thousands) of cryo chambers. The idea being that this ship would contain the remaining people from a now dead civilisation. They are looking for a place to land and call home.

The habitats and the environments we are building are for these people. If we ever finish that capital ship, we’ll get it jump into our world and land on one or more of these locations.

Finally

I welcome comments, ideas and thoughts, ideally in the form of compliments 😉 but I also welcome constructive criticisms, ideas, questions and requests.

If you like Space Engineers, you might also like games like Space Engineers (by game cupid)