EASY SHIPS get you to SPACE! - Space Engineers Tutorial

[@hegemonycricket9549]

One suggestion I would offer, is to completely power off all hydrogen thrusters that you won't need to get to space. Idling the thrusters use fuel. So, if all you need is to get to space, completely power off all other directional thrusters. Im just getting started with a new game after stepping away for a few years. Unless this has changed, its a wise step.

[@kevinmurray2551]

I dont think I've ever noticed idle thrusters using fuel with dampeners off...

[@aracron]

One of my designs used merge blocks where I had my upward atmo thrusters where I could detach them once they stop lifting in order to reduce weight to conserve hydrogen. I would have a parachute on it in order to try to reuse it.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Multi stage liftoff is always a cool idea. I'm currently making a rocket for delivering satellites into space which will be a few stages.

[@RichyN25]

A huge tip I learned with H2 Thrusters, don't run them at full burn, assign some buttons to increase/decrease thrust % on your hotbar, you'll burn far less H2 and can easily make it to space. You can also use Atmo Thrusters to get to the edge of the atmosphere before switching on H2 Thrust

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Both good tips. Using thrust override can be nice, I prefer pulsing my thrusters, but many do it your way. Atmos thrusters are great to add, even if it's just vertical ones, they'll save you tons of fuel.

[@thebloxxer22]

One tip with Hybrid Hydrogen-Atmospheric ships: Use an Event controller, something added after this video was made, set to Altitude Equal to or Greater than 4000m to switch between Hydrogen and Atmospheric thrusters automatically.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

That's a cool idea, I haven't ever thought of that.

[@Tiltrotortech]

If you build a basic large grid atmospheric ship, you can fly it as high as possible, hover, convert it to a station and use it as a refueling point for getting to space in a small grid ship.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Interesting, I thought you couldn't convert to station in p-gravity unless you were attached to the ground (either due to clipping through it or with a landing gear or something).

[@DoremiFasolatido1979]

@@ShiftyshadowTV They might be playing with "unsupported stations" toggled. By default, stations in gravity MUST be attached to the ground. Otherwise, stations will "float". I know some really hate the change from old school SE...so they just play with the option to have floating stations.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

@@DoremiFasolatido1979 Ah, didn't even know that was still an option.

[@DoremiFasolatido1979]

@@ShiftyshadowTV Indeed it is. Though it might only be available through the Experimental Mode. I'm not sure.

[@gioneopeo]

Can confirm in vanilla space Engineers with everything turned off including experimental mode, you can convert a station using large grid as long as the grid is not moving at all so velocity has to be 0.00m/s in order to convert large grid to station. 🎉

[@notsa118]

this is probably the most helpful video i have seen as a newer player to space engineers. Thank you

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Glad you're finding it useful! Hopefully it helps you get into the game. :)

[@FlancakeTv]

Love that last ship. Gave me a good laugh.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Same. The first time I hopped on one and took off was great. I was fully expecting it to tip over or fail spectacularly, but instead it was a completely smooth trip to space.

[@hegemonycricket9549]

​@@ShiftyshadowTVSpace-evator

[@jenniferstewarts4851]

Ok so i've been playing around with these "tiny" small block ships. They do work and i did find one option/trick for battery charging, and thats "carrying' the supplies to make a hydrogen engine, build the engine run it to charge up, then remove the engine. now that said... cargo containers... very optional item... a medium cargo will carry 3,375 L and weighs 150.8 kg . the small block connector, instead, weighs more at 693.2 kg but gives you a point to charge batteries, refuel hydrogen, and has a carry cap of 1,152 L, so combined with the 1000 from a cockpit, you still have an ok carry amount there. I actually went with a slightly biger design for mine, 1 h202 generator, 2 h2 tanks, survival kit, small cockpit, 4 batteries, 2 gyro's, 2 flood lights, 2 lifting thrusters, 2 acceleration, 1 breaking, 1 left 1 right 1 top. little extra h2 storage, still a small package. i then add on and remove a connector under the cockpit as needed if i need to charge, fuel or what not.

[@cmdrsygramyrgrayson272]

The "space elevator" 😂 killed me, too much fun with "ruthless effeciency." Would be good with a suit only start, after a planetary land. Could be a fun relay race to all planets to see how fast could make it to all of them with an earthlike origin, and progression

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Yeah, when I thought about it and realized you only need three blocks I laughed too. It's very easy to get caught up in the complexities of this game and completely overlook the simplest solutions. If you're racing to all the planets it's always going to be fastest to head to space (or start in space) for all your mining. Then build up to a jump drive before setting out. At least in vanilla survival. It takes hours to fly between two planets without one, and at most 6 hours to reach jump drive tech if you're speed running it in vanilla survival (progression on). Would be fun to do a race to every body, but I'd put them closer, up the speed limit, and limit everyone to small grid only. :)

[@AngryDuck79]

21:45 I have a different philosophy regarding ship design. First off, I always want max thrust in the forward direction and minimal thrust in all the others. Usually that means a large thruster on the back and then small thrusters for manoeuvring. The reason for this is that I want my most powerful thruster in my flight axis. To take into consideration the artificial horizon, which you quite accurately point out is very useful when lifting to space, I place a remote control facing down, so that when my cockpit is facing up, the remote control is facing horizontal. That way, I can use the remote control to control all my lifting commands (like thrust overrides) while keeping the artificial horizon in view.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

That is also a perfectly good way to do things. More complicated, but with experience many things become viable, and its nice to branch out. Eventually everyone finds their own way.

[@pcer9973]

I'm a PS5 player, and needless to say, brand new. THANK YOU for the great video, man...

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Glad I could help, good luck with your builds!

[@Dagonius.]

What a brilliant video Shifty! Thank you!

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Glad you liked it, hope it helps. :D

[@Schnitzer17]

Great video!

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Thanks, glad you liked it! Hope it helps.

[@ericseidel4940]

I never used any parachute on my builds . From the beginning (7000h ago) I made a spreadsheet with all thrusters (vanilla and modded ones). With some formulas and conditions for known planets (gravity, atmosphere or not) I can precisely know how much weight I can lift with the planned thrusters setup. Calculator gives me the absolute max weight the ship can barely lift at zero altitude, and I found shaving 30% of this weight is a good rule of thumb to be able to decelerate when going down at full speed. (be careful on server with more than 200m/s). Also on big blocs grids I use to have 2 cockpits : One horizontal to move in space, One at 90° to land the ship vertically. Then I need big thrusters rear (and front to brake) only, saving a lot of mass. When going to land on a planet, I fly horizontally in space, point at my target on the planet, push full speed with no dampeners and then I have plenty of time to leave my horizontal cockpit, move to the vertical one, and turn the ship upward. Conveniently each cab can have the dedicated menu to be used in its role.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Yeah, with proper planning you don't need parachutes. I like to have them anyway. A lot of my ships I share with less experienced players so it keeps them safe. Also, on servers with hostile NPCs and violent weather they can be useful. The dual cockpit is a good idea, I've only had one ship I did something similar to that on. It involved a merge block, rotor, and piston though.

[@GhostOfSnuffles]

Before the survival update O2/H2 generators used to process ice much faster. You could get full power from up to 8 small hydrogen thrusters from a single O2/H2 generator (for small grid). They were 17x faster at processing ice back then. Keen "balanced" the nerfing by making them twice as efficient but their still painfully slow. I almost never used hydrogen tanks back then since a medium cargo could hold more ice then a large tank could hold it's equivalent in hydrogen, i liked that fact it gave the player options.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

I wasn't sure, but I felt like they used to be better in the past. Either way, they're still viable without tanks in minimal ships, and with the addition of the small hydrogen tank they're quite good. Every time I'm refueling a large tank it hurts though.

[@kmr_tl4509]

24:20 A (better, imo) way to maintain max speed without tapping space bar is to add a thrust override control to your vertical thrusters. Fine tune it so that you're one step above the threshold where you would otherwise lose velocity. When p-grav starts decreasing, reduce the output of your thrusters. Keep doing this until you reach space and don't need your thrusters to push you up anymore. This way you're maximizing the time you spend at max velocity while sacrificing the least amount of fuel. Because the thrust override isn't perfect, some of the force is wasted in trying to accelerate above max velocity, but staying at max velocity and minimizing the time you spend in gravity is much more important. You actually did use this in your space elevator method (that's awesome btw) but you needed to bring that concept over to your other ships.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

I've tried using the thruster override for my ships before and I do think it has the potential to be more efficient (especially with scripts), but I've found it to be just as tedious as pulsing thrust and use very similar amounts of fuel. I should have talked more about it in the tutorial though, because it is a solid option, and I'm glad you pointed it out. I think I was just too focused on driving home the idea that you shouldn't be over-thrusting, as that is the #1 way to waste fuel, and this method completely skipped my mind until I had to use it at the end of the video.

[@GhostOfSnuffles]

While thrust override is more fuel efficient it's a fraction of a percentage more then using the spacebar method, and you spend just as much time messing with override settings as tapping the spacebar. The only real advantage to using the thrust override settings is that by keeping the lateral thrusters on it prevents potential drifting.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

​@@GhostOfSnuffles True. In my experience they're pretty much the same even with the drifting. Gotta keep yourself level with the horizon in either method (one to reduce drifting, the other to reduce fuel use that is keeping you from drifting).

[@TomSilver_42]

6:41 and more thrusters in up direction .. as you do have a gyro, then you can have more thrusters in up (most useful direction to leave planet) direction, but! you can sacrifice down thruster, or even right-left-side/forward/backward thrusters .. and you'll get mor umpf up, however sure you'll need to know how to fly a thing which has just one directional thrust. Something for something.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Yeah, that's how the drop pod can make it to space. It can lift itself because it's only using one thruster. Can be tricky to fly but not bad once you get used to it. Good tradeoff.

[@WiseOwl_1408]

Set thrusters in your toolbar to raise of lower thrust. You can fine tune the flow so you arent wasting H

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

A lot of people do it that way, and it is definitely a good method. However, I've found pulsing my thrusters on and off is similarly efficient for time and fuel, and personally I prefer it. (It's also easier to teach to people, and can be applied without any setup.)

[@racerx1777]

Favorite’ed thanks

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Hope it helps, thanks for the watch :)

[@leonielson7138]

Something else to consider is a two-stage ship: an orbiter with hydrogen and an explorer with ion.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

You need platinum to build ion thrusters, and that only spawns on asteroids in SE. Would still be cool to do once you have some though.

[@Terminarch]

You don't need to double up thrusters on every axis just because you have the fuel flow to support it. If you're shuttling to space and back you're going to only be using forward thrust for the vast majority of the trip. Anyway, my actual question. Would it be possible to get a video on payloads? Lets say I'm in survival on the planet and want to build a space station. Would the optimal route be to ferry up materials in storage? Or pre-build detachable structures (like SSTOs in KSP)? Or bring processing and mine out some asteroids?

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

It really depends on how advanced your planetary setup is. The short answer is it's usually fastest to build near your mining, refining, and assembling. It's also easiest to mine and build in space. Not to mention some ores only spawn on asteroids. So in the long run setting up in space will be the most time efficient. To get set up in space initially I recommend packing components and then building in space. Finding every ore can be time consuming, but once you do you never need to look again. Ore patches respawn if they have no player or grid near them.

[@akaSanka89]

I'd rather have a hydro tank and connector than a h2/02 generator. Hydrogen doesn't add weight to the ship, ice does.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Ideally I'd have both. A hydrogen tank for storing up lots of fuel, and O2/H2 for producing more when I need it. Then I wouldn't bother carrying ice. If I'm only taking one I prefer the O2/H2, for its greater utility, but that's just a personal preference.

[@kahwigulum]

for fuel efficiency, holding space bar is the worst thing you could do, even with dampeners off. this is because there is a max velocity, so once you hit max velo, any additional presses (or holds) of spacebar is using fuel to accelerate except that the game is preventing acceleration. using fuel to go no faster than 100m/s means overall wasted fuel efficiency. also, you might think you can just stop pressing space bar and try to manually accelerate and decelerate, hovering around some predetermined speed. this is bad for fuel efficiency too, because you are spending fuel to re-accelerate. the best thing you can do is spend only enough fuel that is required to break the gravitational pull and not a single milliliter more than necessary. since gravitation decreases as we move away, we want to constantly maintain a velocity to break the pull of gravity and no faster. as gravity goes down, so does our fuel cost. fuel efficiency therefore goes up. to do that, make a group for your up thrusters only, then add two shortcuts to your bar, up thrust increase override and up thrust decrease override to take off you increase override slightly until you start moving. you will gain altitude. once you hit max velo, decrease one click. decrease until you begin to slow down then increase by one. you will increase velo slightly. repeat until you are free of gravity. you should only have to decrease override one more time to disable it once you are in space. with a ship that weighs 1,000,000 kgs, i can take a single large tank of fuel from earth to space with only 2% of fuel used. holding down space bar uses up 17%. with a small grid ship of about 50,000 kgs, i can get there and barely use 1%. it often doesnt even drop from 100 to 99, and this is without a backup store of ice.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

I've tried using thruster override, as you are describing, and found it's basically the same fuel and time efficiency as pulsing spacebar properly (I never recommend holding spacebar the entire time.) Using thruster override is fine, but it's a matter of preference, not efficiency in my experience.

[@Medusa20.h]

but ships that use hydrogen use so much ice, I can never have enough ice to make it all the way to an asteroid

[@Pcr12]

Grab two spare tanks of both hydrogen and oxygen for backup, though you pry won't need them, and yu can fly yourself to space in your jet pack. I was able to do some basic mining on an asteroid that way. Just keep an eye on your power level

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Yeah, that works if you just want to get a little mining done. I've always found that I might as well throw together a basic ship though. Nice to get a respawn up there, and if you're mining it will save you trips up and down (which can be time consuming with vanilla speed).

[@DoremiFasolatido1979]

@@ShiftyshadowTV Here's a thought... Can you carry the components for a Survival Kit and Small Battery to space like that? If so, you can carry them rather than build a whole ship, fly up to space, set down on an asteroid, and play straight survival from there. Be rough, but doable if it works.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

@@DoremiFasolatido1979 Interesting idea, probably depends on your carry capacity settings. Might be doable.

[@jenniferstewarts4851]

Its funny, while i build small ships, i don't go super minimalist. id use a larger h2 tank, 1 large and 10 small thrusters. and a cockpit. a connector and convayer block. and then 4 batteries and 2 gyros. Yes its over built per say, but i wouldn't bother with a 02/h2o generator, unless i'm putting solar panels on... wouldn't bother with a survival kit right away or such. reason being if i'm building a "small ship" like that, it has a purpose, and its often just to get to a space station or such. Where i'll often be selling goods and buying a bigger ship. I'll often be able to trade magnesium to get enough credits to buy a B-980 Hauler. and thats where i'll have "fun." rip off the atmospheric thrusters, plug in a large refinery, a large assembler both hidden under the "wing shields". add a few more thrusters, a piston and drill in the nose. and have a mobile mining and production facilitiy to find a nice big roid to build a base in.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

That's cool, I've never really used the NPC ships to get started like that.

[@jenniferstewarts4851]

@@ShiftyshadowTV The smallest "large block" starters ship, in normal economy seems to run between 6 and 10 million. thats about 450ish refined magnesium. especially if you can find the missions, aquisition of 100-140 mg for 2-3 million. if you can hop between 2-3 stations in a small ship, refueling hydrogen at each station, you can usually get that amount. i then usually "arm" the ship with 5-6 "anti-personal guns. they are often enough to deal with small block drones. 2 aft 2 front, 1 top and maybe 1 bottom. 4 trusters pointing aft, 4 down, 3 left 3 right, 2 front, 2 top. gives me the manouverability i generally need, acceleration and breaking. its not "combat" but... with its stock survival, stock large cargo, stock large h2 tank... its good enough base, then when you strip off the atmospheric stuff... drill ice off moons, and use the large refinery to processes uranium, well all of a sudden it becomes very self sufficiant. i'll then up armor it abit, not a lot, since i don't take it up against big ships... mostly to keep it looking nice, and provide a little "protection" on the exposed fuel tank... and the thing generally does me for a long time.... The next ship up is "useful" 3 large cargo + 1 large tank, but no jump drive... for 19 million it has a large medical bay in more space inside... but its not "maneuverable" enough, to poke around asteroids mining. i might just rig it up as a large scale ice miner and thats it. past that the its saveing up for the 120 million jump ship... OR building your own... (which lead me to an 8x hydrogen tank, 8x large cargo container, 6x refinery, 4x assembler, 4 aft large engines + 8 large ion, 4 vertical large h2 engines + 4 large ion, 4 breaking large ion + 2 large breaking h2... monstrosity that lagged my computer beyond belief... lol thing was so large it would "just" fit inside a stations security bubble... BUT it couldn't dock because it had to be at a strange angle and often pushed up tight to the station because of its length. had like 3 med bays in it and 2 survival pods, that were scattered around for recharge and such while i was building it. Not a pvp ship at all, but a mobile factory that can dock up to small freighters inside... or other large ships outside... provide refueling.. repairs, and such. ) and to laggy to do much with LOL.

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Interesting. I think I dive into building my own stuff so fast I've never considered doing a playthrough by modifying the NPC ships. It sounds kind of fun though. That last ship you describe sounds like it was probably a beast to put together. I've only built one ship around that size in survival and it took me about 100 hours to weld up... from a projector. It was rather complicated and I ended up having to do a lot of it by hand.

[@jenniferstewarts4851]

@@ShiftyshadowTV yeah, "small" welding ships, ion based, with 2-3 cargo bays + 2 connectors, battery powered with 1-2 small backup reactors are my bread and butter for stuff like that LOL.

[@jenniferstewarts4851]

@@ShiftyshadowTV ok my "current playthrough" with everything at normal, the "green" small freighter was only about 5 million. the blue was 4.7 million, a single mission of 100 refined magnesium was 2.7 million. i don't like the blue ship myself for modifying, but to each their own there. really they are both generally the same, the only difference being the internal layout. You only need a basic refinery to do magnesium. so you can plug one of those on an escape pod... stations that buy it often pay 30kish per unit... and you can carry 300+ units on you..... so selling just 20 will net you 600k. Moons often have 3 stations so you can jet between them sell off your load, and buy the small freighter right away.

[@PeterBoddy]

Do you have a mod installed that changes what the survival kits look like?

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Nope, that's the default small grid Survival Kit.

[@mightymicroworlds4566]

My first ship is going to be huge 😅😅

[@Martingray7875]

I've been playing this game since it first came out in alpha

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Not sure when I started playing, but it feels like a decade ago. Long before planets, that's for sure.

[@kevinpittman2517]

or u can start near snow or ice lake and not have to worry abt conserving ice

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Yup, that's also an option.

[@Martingray7875]

When I do a system start, I start with establishing a respectable base, make a rover, then I make my rocket/ship, then I break down my entire base and put it into my cargo containers and take it all with me

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

Nice. I'm lazy usually when I start so I just use the Space Starter Pod. It gives you way more starting resources (because it's large grid) and puts you in space where every resource is available. Fastest way to get fully teched up and start visiting people on a server. I do planetary starts when I'm playing with people from the beginning though.

[@Martingray7875]

@@ShiftyshadowTV To me, the space pod start is way too easy. I make it as hard as possible for myself otherwise it just feels way too easy like minecraft. I do enable jetpack but I start on the earth and I play with only 1 life....no respawns that way I'm really careful about what I do and how I build hence why I always include escape pods or ejection systems on all my ships (except land based)

[@Martingray7875]

Unless you have jetpack turned off, 2 hydrogen bottles and your jetpack will get you to space

[@ShiftyshadowTV]

True, but you can't respawn or start a base up there that way (unless you have a large inventory size, or make multiple trips).