Space Engineers – Space Engineers: Automatons – Steam News
Hello, Engineers! The time to “build your friends” is now! Explore a future full of automated and animated allies and enemies. For this Major update we have provided you with the tools you need to define a new era in automation. These new blocks empower your creativity like never before.
A little late on this one but I’ve been busy getting familiar with everything in the update+DLC. It’s mostly been work on the Admiral Hipper, but I’ve been testing some things along the way and for the most part, it’s pretty good. Anyway, let’s get right to it.
Automatons
Now we can build our friends! That sounds a bit weird, actually.
New Features Include:
Event Controller & AI Blocks are here! (Grid AI Guide)
Locked Landing Gear no longer takes control of the grids they are attached to
Added Sun Tracking option to Custom Turret Controller
Small grid “Ejector” block has been changed to Small Connector (including Connector functionality)
Intel Arc GPUs Supported, minimal version of driver .4146
Turrets will now automatically engage a locked target if it is within the turret’s max range and Line of Sight (and the turret is not already engaging another target)
The “Forget Target” and “Copy Target” actions have been removed
New action: Focus Locked Target (replacing Copy target)
When triggering this action, turrets will prioritize the target that is currently fully target locked by the player
Added Grey Lead Indicator + “Out of weapon range” text indicator when you are out of range for the selected weapon
Increased Target Locking distance by 500m, totaling 2500m
Turrets: cycle subsystem in toolbar now shows the name of currently selected subsystem
UI Improvements:
New overlay when manually controlling Turrets
We also got a good number of new blocks. Here are my favorites overall:
Event Controller
The Event Controller practically stole the show on this one. It’s useful on its own, but combining it with scripts (PC users), timer blocks, and sensors, I can’t even imagine what the average space engineer will be able to pull off soon, provided they’ve got the patience and the drive to make it.
In a nutshell, the Event Controller is a conditional ‘if then’ statement in a large box. Now it’s not perfect. My testing showed me a few things I’d like it to be able to monitor for that it simply doesn’t at the moment, but this is one of those foundational mechanics that Keen can add to over time, so hopefully community feedback will get some other things added.
Full Block Air Vent
Every time we get a block like this, that’s one more old mod we no longer have to rely on in our builds. That’s a good thing, and always will be. Once it’s vanilla, it’s forever. Perfect.
Emotion Controller (DLC)
This one I haven’t had time to do any serious testing with yet, but the concept is awesome, with plenty of room for expansion, both by Keen themselves, and modders.
Piping (DLC)
These are just fun. They can really make a ship look like a ship, whether they’re on the inside or the outside. It just gives everything that complex, interconnected look. Also add in redundant and incomprehensible to non-engineers. I love them.
The Admiral Hipper Update
So here’s the progress so far.
I’ve been trimming things down where possible, upgrading whatever I can, streamlining and simplifying any programs I can, and even getting rid of some I don’t need anymore. Easy Automation and Autopillock remain core programs for the ship, along with supporting scripts, but as an example, Aeyos’ lighting script was removed because I found a quick and easy way to get the mode change result I wanted using Easy Automation. I’ll be doing that with any script or ship parts I can.
Hopefully, if I just hunker down and focus on this, I should have the updated Hipper finished and ready for the workshop in a week, two if work is hitting me harder than usual.
M.A.S.S. Builder – WIP 0.10.0: New Type of Enemies – Steam News
Hello! We’ve got a really exciting but short update this week again. Weeks ago we were asked if we’re getting any more enemies that aren’t Quarks and the answer at that time was yes… so here we are showing it now.
This flier looks like a M.A.S.S. unit’s upper half transformed, took off, and left the legs behind. That’s a creative (if transparent) way to design an enemy type. It actually kind of looks like a player made shooter with a bunch of accessories. Pretty cool.
Another Saturday means another WIP update from us. It’s a short one again, but we hope this showcase something more to come to the game.
These remind me of the turrets from that one platform mission, but you can actually target and disable them. Works for me as long as I can run and gun and don’t have to rely solely on melee attacks.
Before we get into today’s topic, we’d like to state this disclaimer first. Last time we discussed balances, we talked about the game’s difficulty and rewards.
Spawning more weak enemies means a lot more ammo drops during missions–provided nothing else about them changes. That’s fine by me, since one of the hardest things about playing on very hard difficulty is constantly running out of ammo during boss fights and having to ‘take a break’ while I farm mooks for more. It’s understandably pace shattering …
That said, this will probably get annoying on missions where mooks keep spawning until a key target is down or an objective is fulfilled. Sometimes I like to kill off all the mooks and fight just the strong leftovers, but if the mooks keep showing up constantly that won’t be a thing anymore.
As for certain enemies engaging with players in more than just a chase, stop, attack, pattern, you could have enemies that just plain refuse to commit to the fight until certain conditions are met. EG: The player’s health is really low, they’re using a long range or melee weapons (binary selection to match enemy’s strengths), or that enemy (or their type of enemy) is the only one left on the field. Those are all the spitballs I’ve got for that right now, though.
My previous computer, an ASUS gaming rig that I had for about 7 years, finally died on me. While I was able to save all my project data, most of my games data was lost. Space Engineers was the hardest hit by a landslide due to the hilarious amount of blueprints I had saved over the years.
The only blueprints that I still have are the ones uploaded to the workshop on Steam. That makes the Admiral Hipper, and the Cosmo Messers E and F the only survivors. All other builds are lost.
But remember, what doesn’t kill you …
The Admiral Hipper’s already received a ton of upgrades and optimizations, and there are plenty more on the way before I upload the new version to the workshop.
Changes include:
Tower assembly placed on a rotor for planned targeting system
Additional Pulse Laser defense mounts
Torpedo launchers moved to the bow and increased from four to six (bow was altered to accommodate)
Recessed Missile Turrets installed beside the flight deck for extreme range engagements
Emergency thrusters added to Hipper’s Nacelles
Gravity drives increased and redistributed throughout the ship for better performance (bow was altered to accommodate)
Gyroscopes increased and redistributed for better performance
Tailfins are no longer subgrids; they are now shorter, thicker, and made of heavy armor for standardization purposes
Prow areas converted into AI core Room and Emergency Helm
Storage Area replaced with Science Lab; four cargo containers replaced the original two further forward in the ship
Carousel Hangar improved; various tweaks and small addons
Hangar Airlock enlarged for expected personnel traffic
Flight deck received various aesthetic tweaks to accompany hangar and hangar airlock changes
Brig replaced with Pilot Ready Room
Briefing Room stands improved
Brig rebuilt near pilot ready room
Small Cryo Room added across from the Brig
Crew Quarters area extended with six additional beds
More doors added for better atmosphere retention
Various aesthetic and script tweaks across the entire ship and more to come
It didn’t seem like a lot had changed before I actually started writing it all out. Can’t help but feel I’m forgetting some things I’ve already finished, too. Oh well. This is enough of an update on its own, I think.
I still plan to build all the ships I’ve mentioned or listed in the progress bars at some point, it’s just going to take most if not the entire rest of the year thanks to the data loss.
Things are kind of shaky in real life, too, but I’d rather keep the details to myself for now. Suffice to say, I really don’t want to be on my feet for too long.
