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[SUGGESTION] Early Ship Building Tool

MachetePanda shared this feedback ago

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After building in Survival... its a pain in the bottom. Especially If you work full time and have little time to play. I was thinking that it would be nice to have a ship building platform you can build with drones that come out and build your blueprint that you made in Creative(or someone elses). You build the Done Assembler Control, hook up resources. Have it build drones first, then send them out to build using the resources. See image.

This might be too powerful for what ever challenges you want in the game so there are several ways to nerf this:

Limit number of Drones(max drones that can work at one)
Limit size of ship they can build
Have energy costs high
Have drones need to return to 'home' to recharge.
Have drones have a material limit and need to return to 'home' to resupply.
Probably others

I am aware you are trying to allow players to build their own automated ship building bases. But in survival, we need something easier and even if its smaller to start. I hope you consider. Thanks.

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Best Answer

Rabiator ●

"Only thing that we are missing to have good ship printers is a projector block, which is promised to be added at some point."

The keyword it "good", which is IMHO the most urgent problem to fix compared to SE1. The problem lies in the projector block in SE1.

It can only project grids of the same grid type (large/small). That part should implicitly be fixed with the unified grid.
Ships can only print ship grids, stations can only print station grids. That part really needs to be fixed. A typical use would be a base that produces vehicles - no go with the current SE1 "solution".
Projectors do not project subgrids. Meaning you can print the main grid but have to build the subgrids manually. Multi-projector solutions are supposed to exist but I have yet to figure those out.

I recently tried to build a ship printer in SE1 for a small grid rover, and for problem 1 and 2 I had to build a "ship" consisting mainly of a connector and a projector, docked to the base. The docking consisted in building the "projector ship" on the connector and then connecting it. A completely unnecessary hassle.

Replies (1)

Tomas9970 ●

What you are describing can already be achieved with a ship printer (look them up in SE1) and at the scale that you show, it's not even that complicated. Only thing that we are missing to have good ship printers is a projector block, which is promised to be added at some point.

Ship printers are also better than a ready-made one-click solution because they encourage engineering and actual problem solving in the game. You have to design and build the machine according to the requirements that you have in order to make your life easier instead of just using a block.

Also I don't think high energy requirement is a valid way of balancing something outside of very early game since it's very easy to get a stable, permanent energy source.

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Rabiator ●

"Only thing that we are missing to have good ship printers is a projector block, which is promised to be added at some point."

The keyword it "good", which is IMHO the most urgent problem to fix compared to SE1. The problem lies in the projector block in SE1.

It can only project grids of the same grid type (large/small). That part should implicitly be fixed with the unified grid.
Ships can only print ship grids, stations can only print station grids. That part really needs to be fixed. A typical use would be a base that produces vehicles - no go with the current SE1 "solution".
Projectors do not project subgrids. Meaning you can print the main grid but have to build the subgrids manually. Multi-projector solutions are supposed to exist but I have yet to figure those out.

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MachetePanda ●

But that is the problem. The workshop and building a whole printer isnt early game. My goal is to provide something early game and solo. At the moment you can pull any workshop item into survival, but I saw a dev mention that will be going away on launch. So even if you have time, you might not have the access.

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Rabiator ●

Taking away the opportunity to pull workshops item into survival?

Sounds stupid and annoying to me. Actually I have that problem right now on a third party SE1 server. Could be my mistake or the server settings, but not being able to print my old designs from my workshop sucks.

The printer as such could be simple enough. A projector on one end, a welder on a piston at the other end, the piston connected to your material storage. That should be sufficient for small ships or rovers. I have repeatedly built vehicles below a length of 20 small grid blocks, which is the maximum movement range range of the LG piston.

That is not very early game, but makes sense once you secured your bare bones survival and collected enough materials for your next ship. To me, early game is a small airtight cabin with power supply, a basic assembler and a survival kit. After that, perhaps a mining rover and after that the printer.

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MachetePanda ●

I think it makes sense that they would remove it from Story Mode Survival. There is a block-access progression system in it. Why have that if we can short circuit it by just jumping to creative, blue printing the block the we need, then loading it into story mode.

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Rabiator ●

There could be a warning/error message that certain blocks have not been unlocked yet. Which is similar to the situation in SE1 if you want to copy/paste a grid with blocks from a DLC you have not purchased.

Personally, I intend to play without progression the way it is designed now. If necessary, using a mod. Then such a restriction would make no sense at all.

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MachetePanda ●

Once I understand how al the system work, I'll probably play non-progression story-modes. But I havent played SE1 so I'm new to this fanchise; and the story mode to teach me is awesome. I hate the 30 minute robotic walk-thrus. The story really makes this fun.

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