WHY UNDERGROUND BASES SUCK !!!! - Space Engineers

[@AliceDoesThings404]

Biggest upside to underground bases: - Perfect for those who can build interior, but not exterior

[@LastStandGamers]

That's a really good point didn't think of that one.

[@joeallen9104]

What about those who can build exterior, but not interior?

[@the-letter_s]

@@joeallen9104 would be perfect for building Potemkin villages then, i guess

[@AliceDoesThings404]

@@joeallen9104 If you can build an exterior, but not interior, then why are you building in a cave?

[@joeallen9104]

@@AliceDoesThings404 I'm not.

[@tassiedevil3]

The main downside to underground bases, is the voxel damage, we kinda need natural caves, this way, you can start a base inside the tunnel and hide in there. Plus, it'll make things more lively, (this already sort of done in asteroids)

[@geronimo5537]

MES Cave Systems

[@aurenian8247]

I think if you have no rules or conventions then the only secure base is in deep space where nobody can find it. Anything on a planet is at risk as soon as you mine or dig because the voxel distortion can be seen from orbit. The main advantage of underground bases is they are really cool. And the second biggest one is they are the cheapest way to make some blast cover without grinding a ton of resources. Especially in the age of railguns and artillery. If voxel warhead damage is off you could make a pretty secure base by treating the outer cave walls as enemy territory. Make a huge cavern with a floating island in the middle with the base on with turrets all the way round. Or alternatively have a cavern with a floating floor at the halfway mark with your base buildings on it and turrets facing up and down.

[@rickbardock6581]

You need to have two things on your server to enable people to have defensible Planet bases. The first thing being a Thruster inhibitor where the radius is outside of Maximum weapon range of your longest range weapon to prevent ships from bombarding from above. Allow the owner of the base access to turn this feature on or off, as if it were a module and make it consume a bunch of power. And of course no other enemy player can turn one on in the vicinity and of course make the effect invisible from a distance, but have a warning message to approaching ships. This would promote ground combat for starters. And the other mod, make it so the player who's base it is has a module to turn off their enemies drill in a radius around their base and of course just like the Thruster inhibitor, enemies around cannot enable the same without destroying the one that's there first. As far as the data goes for server voxel changes, there's nothing to do except for having multiple servers for different areas.

[@WardenWolf]

There are some upsides if done right: tunnels can be turned into deathtraps. So, you've got your entrance tunnel. Then you have to turn 90 degrees. At the rear of the entrance tunnel, you have a literal wall of weapons so anything entering into that shaft will be instantly obliterated. At the 90 degree tunnel, you have the same. So you now force an attacker to slow down to make a turn, and this puts them right in the line of fire. As long as you are conservative in how you do this, you can make it fairly quick and easy to get in and out of while being highly defensible.

[@Xahnel]

I have a defensive idea. I call it the treasure fleet. Your storage is a series of hangar bays with a hundred automated drones that consist of little more than a rocket powered box. When you come under attack, you launch the lootboxes, which scatter as quickly as possible across the system. Once the attack is over, you recall the lootboxes. I think it's a fun idea because there is no way to track and capture that many ships, but the attackers will get a few, meaning that they get rewarded for their attack, but you cannot get completely cleaned out.

[@RovalisGTO]

Underground bases are great for a solo, small group, or just early game. The problem is when they get to absurd sizes like the ones you showed in the video. Those are some incredible works of art and look really cool to actually play with, but they're awful for all the reasons you said and then some. Groups of those sizes or small groups that have tons of assets are much better off moving to a space station. The only other use I could see for an underground base is to only have a small section of the base underground, like a small safe room or escape hangar or something.

[@Grimbly44]

im a big fan of the aesthetic of a bunker base, specially the exposed stone. for sappers, I wonder. different tiers of rock having different density, requiring better equipment to drill through, hand drill / small grid drill / large grid drill, though also potential for different types of drills in terms of tiers / drill tips. if sappers were forced to commit an expensive drill, with expensive support systems, it would in part balance deeper bunkers. would be a fundamental change to game balance, and well beyond the scope of SE, perhaps something for SE2 that being said, some sort of seismic sensor to detect drilling would introduce some fun counterplay, preparing defenses where they are aiming to penetrate the bunker, would just be a single hole as opposed to the more partisen, drill new tunnels all throughout and generate Salt for defenders. tldr, sappers will sap because its easier than penetrating walls and defenses, so what about the uno reverse, bedrock is difficult to penetrate

[@hayuseen6683]

People talking about problems with diggers coming in to sap through terrain into a base, but I see that as a feature... make defense tunnels that contain warheads and sensors. If they dig close enough they get a nasty surprise. If they were already digging in, a bigger hole aint really worse from the explosion. Way harder to sprinkle minefields aboveground since... flying and the need to place infrastructure to both hide and manage the mines. Randomly looking for a treasure room just needs traps and a few mimic chests to make it more pain than gain.

[@TheSpectralFX]

I feel like on a smaller scale, being a solo player building small, underground is a great way to play. but for BIG groups... having a mobile force that act as a "fleetl" and relocate often is, in my belief, more secure and fun.

[@highground2320]

The easier solution is to have an open base concept underground. Have large open areas that are defended a central point. Base design should be more along the lines of Rust, with interior buffers protected by turrets. I've found a minimalist underground base with a central for lack of a better term Keep, works best. That and having several smaller base hidden around the map as backups.

[@jacksonbarkerthebluehairedfox]

As a PVE player, I find underground bases to be most viable on planets with extreme weather like Pertam. Electrical storms can decimate an early starting base with how often lighting strikes during said storms. Otherwise I opt to build on the surface, building small colonies and cities rather than a traditional military base all-in-one build.

[@ninpo-2103]

If defenders plant mines with sensors in ground, mining won't be safe way around. The deeper enemy dig hole, the deeper they risk to get burried as soon as defenders notice them with sensors and trigger mine field. EDIT: I'm advising using sensors as border guard who use sensors in woods to track trespassers.

[@robertrenato]

Arron slowly starts piling the underground-related puns...Cheeky:)

[@Kidna]

These are the mods that’s strangely no one has made yet: 1. nerf the all drills by making them costly. (Like a poke should cost %5+ /s) + no carving mode. 2. Grinding a powered enemy block other than a door should cause damage + energy drain.

[@frank_9128]

If you’re gonna build and underground base, just hollow out a sphere deep underground and build inside that sphere with 2/3 of the diameter still opened up. You get the benefits of an above ground base and the benefits of an underground base.

[@albertwinget2596]

While I agree that it certainly does present a tactical weakness, I will also point out that pvp or no I still will do some things just for the rule of cool. But again thats just me 😊

[@termlesscipher8045]

I think underground bases are situational. Theyre really good if you know what youre doing but if youre on a planet with no wind its a challenge to keep it powered

[@MrGrownman455]

Underground bases just like most structures in SE are very practical if the builder knows what they're doing when they build it. You can make a argument against bases in SE in general and say mobile bases are the only worth while bases to have in SE. As for any impact on servers well that just comes a long with being a server admin. Maybe with Vrage 3 Keen will be able to design a new SE that makes underground bases more server friendly.

[@carbonateofsodium]

Me who has a secret base inside a secret base inside an underground base inside a moon base: Aight, imma demolish the whole thing

[@hybrid_grizzly]

If you hold the size of the base as a constant this is true, but if you instead keep the resources required to build the base constant, the underground base is going to be much larger and more sprawling, as well as much more 3-dimensional.

[@ShnoopsDogg]

Underground bases suck because SE voxel mechanics sucks currently... The solutions I suggest: 1: fix the orbit holes distorsion 2: allow some form of terraforming or hard blocks like concrete, that counts as voxel and not blocks adding PCU 3: change the way voxel works regarding explosion. I think it should be moved instead of disappearing like in a minecraft explosion

[@mavricfrans-cv9ft]

Underground bases has one pretty good upside it's good as a secret base and a good place to store you're ships you could make you're under ground base as a little ship yard for a tactically surprise attack for the enemy by building the ship Underground then when the time has come opening up a big hole leading the ship out to bring devastation to the enemy

[@DragonGold121.]

Sky bases are where its at! Floating Castle in the sky... If they try to shut down power it would just plummet and kill the raiders inside

[@jitbitless]

there's really no need to reinvent the wheel. Use your experience in building real underground shelters. First of all, secrecy. If the base is discovered, the first line of defense has already been broken through, they know about you, and they will prepare to storm your base. Second, separate everything by as large distances as possible, make a lot of narrow corridors stuffed with traps, a lot of stairs, transitions to different levels, even useless ones, create a dungeon for the enemy, confuse him, make him feel uncomfortable. Third, hidden emergency exits and entrances. I don't see any point in keeping large ships underground either. A ship in a hangar on the ground is a defenseless and useless thing. You can make a separate base for such purposes. This way you can approach the enemy from the rear and take him by surprise, even if the sky at the base is blocked. However, this base will consume a lot of time, resources and people for defense. And all this in order to realize that there is no impenetrable fortress if they decide to take it at any cost. But at least you can make your enemies suffer.

[@lordguardian8088]

I disagree with the idea that underground bases shouldn't be used. Underground bases if built properly and used efficiently can be a wild card in a war or faction. We all agree the number one advantage they bring is stealth and protection from the environment. If you build a lot of obvious buildings above ground or a large hanger, your stealth is gone. If someone digs a tunnel in the side of a mountain or in a rocky outcropping and does not build any blocks at the mouth of the tunnel, it naturally blends in with the surroundings and can fool the general engineer. Additionally, if you know ships travel a certain route from a particular faction you can build a concealed missile silo and launch them covertly to destroy supply lines; make sure the silo tunnel isn't too big otherwise you will draw attention to yourself. Most of the tips you provide should be considered when building a base; hangers are bottlenecks and you have to defend yourself on all sides, not just at the doors. I've found the ground tends to be more durable to bombardments which adds an additional benefit. In reality, any fixed base will have its weaknesses; once it's discovered players will figure out a way to attack it and exploit them. My rule of thumb is to create small outposts or decentralized, fixed locations across the world or universe; if you stay in one place you will be discovered and destroyed eventually. Beyond that, great video as always and hope y'all have a great day!

[@leandersearle5094]

Stealth? I've found so much as the little trough dug by a crashing rover to look like a bomb crater, to say nothing of the relativistic weapon strike of a "hidden" base.

[@jasko346]

I just wanted a tour of underground base bro… chill 😂

[@JathTech]

You can dig under regular bases too

[@dpraderio1]

Ok so if underground bases are the worst, what are the other options? I mainly wanted to join space engineers because i wanted to build a base that will be hidden and that i could build ships, equipment or items of importance and trade with factions I hopefully would have made friends with. I would really like to know what you consider the best kind of bases.

[@charlesperson7261]

War is chaos

[@acarrillo8277]

So if you treat rock like open air and make all you walls heavy armor you should be fine then?

[@kinngrimm]

Isnt't staying hidden a myth? When you fly to a moon an astroid or on a planet above the ground in a few kilometers hight, any voxel that had been changed by a player can be seen from afar. Not sure if this is somehow graphics card dependend or not, but never ever was on a compatativ mp server a base safe from detection for long as groups scout their own area and beyond to find any enemy. If you want a safe base you fly and jump away for a few hundred km's and dock behind an astro that you have not touched and preferably also you would not have touched any of the astros close by. The next day when you log in you do move on. Mobility = stealth That leads sadly then often to people chicken out of fights, not seeking confrontation and therefor it can become stale fast. All ofcause also dependend on server rules and setup which often drasticly change that vanila paradigm.

[@LucasRahbek]

you should just dig out a large cave and build a normal surface base in it

[@Whisper0ak]

Video should be titled "I'm a bad SE admin. And three years later I still don't know what i'm doing." If you need rules.. you clearly have failed to set up the server properly with the restrictions you desire.

[@caesar_cider2777]

counterpoint: underground base cool :)

[@truesnakegod]

You're forgetting one impenetrable defense. Playing alone because you have no friends that play space engineers. No one will attack your underground base then.

[@AlphaKnight-hg2jq]

No friends gang win again!

[@dylanmonstrum1538]

Together alone

[@carbonateofsodium]

Forever alone

[@murasaki848]

That way I'm always the best player on my server.

[@Reediscoolig]

I offered to buy my friend a copy and he said “don’t waste your money” DUDE THIS GAME IS A BLAST

[@fast_cheetah5834]

On PVP servers yes, its bad. On PVE servers with loads of enemy AI that constantly attack you, i like to have my main storage stored in the mountains

[@LastStandGamers]

I agree for PVE its one of the safest ways of living and surviving unless there are bugs on.

[@TomTomXIV]

​@@LastStandGamerswell if your base is a built above ground they can still dig under you couldn't they?

[@leandersearle5094]

@@TomTomXIV Due to the way voxels work, they'd be better served shooting out your foundations than digging them out.

[@WalkerEMC]

Well it’s good until the enemy discovers your underground base. It’s hidden and protected against orbital strikes or spy planes/ships

[@lil_tox69]

U can see them from space cus game bad

[@IngeniousNinja]

Edited voxels are spottable from five miles away + if you run weaponcore it has a 9km detection range that does not care about voxels lol

[@tevarinvagabond1192]

Hopefully Space Engineers 2 fixes that, it's really game-breaking

[@Codename_Horizon]

AI ships in a pve server:

[@VenomPulse]

yea its not protected from orbital strikes, its very easy to make a orbital Cannon that can pierce through 50m of Voxels with a single shot, can fire 10-15 rounds a minute

[@joevile240]

If the terrain can be dug, i shall be a dwarf.

[@IAA2152]

Agreed.

[@Fire-superme]

“I am a Dwarf and I am digging a hole” -Simone

[@voltronimusprime3833]

​​@@Fire-superme"Diggy Diggy Hole!"

[@MrGrownman455]

Agreed!! 🧝‍♂️

[@snownukitro-A]

rock and stone!

[@Raso719]

I think bedrock needs to be more durable so drilling through rock is at least as difficult as drilling through blast doors.

[@andrewhoughton8606]

I always build base under ground but build it likes it is above ground so full mutli layers heavy armour

[@Raso719]

@@andrewhoughton8606 I do too. I think what would make sense is if the time invested in digging would offset the cost of heavy armor. I thinl the solution is to make deep bedrock devoid of useful ore and material, slow to dig, impervious to damage from small blocks and have mining it deal periodic damage to drills. Make it a massive time sink to save on resources but make it worthwhile.

[@-JustHuman-]

Well they could make a block that makes voxels not take damage in a area round it. If you make it use power to do it, that would mean no base would be able to last forever as they would run out. And the bigger the base the more you would need, and you couldn't do mining while they were on wither.

[@darkdruidsvale]

@@Raso719 this sounds like it would be a great addition, the question is how deep would deep bedrock be for these effects to kick in?

[@darkdruidsvale]

@@-JustHuman- possible, would be a tad annoying though, i feel like im kinda in both parks, it should be possible to drill around the base, but not easily, IE as @Raso719 mentioned, youd have to bring a dedicated vehicle to achieve anything and the resources to maintain it along with protecting it personally this sounds fun, having the enemy bring a vehicle in to dig into another part of your base (im thinking them bringing it into your base not somewhere above ground) and the defenders going out and trying to destroy it well the attackers defend, it would give a good set of alterations to the flow of a fight like that, + the attackers would need to calculate when to send in a breacher vehicle

[@Cool-123]

I mean there was a server I was on that didn't have warheads damage voxels, and also while it allowed digging into underground bases it required you use a ship. It was pretty fun as the defender and we (me and 10-20 other friends, we took shifts) held out for a 12 hour long siege against a force of about 30 people, all with dreadnaughts parked above (which through some creative tactics, we were able to take down some and later retrofit to our own purposes which was epic). We won the fight and it was the most fun I ever had in Space Engineers. Very specific conditions but it was so crazy with grinder drones, explosives, tight hallways, blast doors, etc. We had a secondary small base hidden outside we used to harrass them from behind, I mean it was legit the most fun I ever had.

[@LastStandGamers]

A well moderated server with good community members makes anything possible sounds like you had a blast. What sort of mining machine did you find most effective at breaching there base.

[@archangel8172]

To be fair pvp servers should have engagement rules in terms of time. As long as the enemy attacks during the time you available to play it is great. Not a fan of sneaky raids where they steal everything you have while you offline.

[@Sworddeath727]

@@archangel8172 Maybe some sort of modded safe zone could be used that the server has an off period for all of them across the server kind of like a regulatory battle timeframe, but for people who can't get on to defend their base they should have a leeway system that checks if a minimum number of faction members are online at that moment for a fair defense and if they aren't then their safe zone stays up. But I'm just spit balling an idea I rarely play in pvp servers because I never have enough friends to not be bullied out of anywhere I set up or I'm harassed before I can even get anything off the ground. Maybe add some RP text to popup saying, SOLAR FLARE HAS DISABLED SAFETY NETS REBOOT IN ** HOURS1

[@archangel8172]

@@Sworddeath727 i was leaning more towards a moderated server. Where you are just forbidden from attacking another faction unless it was agreed upon by both parties. Basically make the pvp an opportunity to have fun and get rich of someone. You register with the admins and then they organize the pvp between you and the faction you attacking. They would give you a window to act in accordance to what the parties agreed upon and afterwards it once again becomes a no pvp. In addition, defending from a raid would give you an opportunity to register for you to be the raiding party next time around. This way in order to attack someone you first would have to have suffered an attack from someone else. Just to keep it fair.

[@archangel8172]

@@Sworddeath727 Or it can be done like in Eve online where each faction has it's active hours. Any structure belonging to that faction can only be attacked during the corp active hours.

[@Fire-superme]

They simply look way better = I have won the fight on under ground bases being better

[@Fire-superme]

(This has nothing to do with Space engineers but..) Do you guys like Pineapple on pizza? Personally I LOVE Hawaiian pizza with my whole heart, Might be because I am in Australia (Our national pizza) but I am curious on this debate on why others don’t like it

[@LastStandGamers]

Ham and Pineapple is good but a meat feast would be my go to.@@Fire-superme

[@Fire-superme]

@@LastStandGamersI have never herd of that pizza before and I just looked it up and it look amazing… It’s 3:54am and now I crave pizza… (Where I am there is no delivery option) :(

[@thefalloutphoenix]

I feel disgusted by the replies on this comment 🤢 you have committed a war crime in the eyes of Italians

[@SomeD00D01]

​@@thefalloutphoenixItalians are just prideful their food isnt even the best

[@darkner2390]

When you build any base in SE, it must be able to remain hidden at all costs. Once it's found, it's already pretty much screwed, as other players won't stop coming after you, no matter what. They can set up respawn points and just keep coming back after they die, continueing the assault until they win.That's why underground bases and deep space bases are the most popular types.

[@8vantor8]

exactly why i build a large ship with everything on it, if it is found it can be moved

[@JamesTDG]

Mobile home class bases are also really good too, right?

[@darkner2390]

@@JamesTDG Yea. Great for moving quickly if you get found.

[@mikssityar3363]

@@JamesTDG thats the main ethos of space engineers pvp combat, jump ready space stations. The popularity of underground bases boomed only when they introduced planets, before that it was space station / capital ship warfare. SE's game engine was not just made for multiple large earth excavations projects

[@VoxAstra-qk4jz]

Thats why you build a station out in the void.

[@EGOKitten7770]

There is also the problem that underground bases can easily be spotted from several Kilometers away. The removal of voxel changes the way the surface appears at a distance. Usually in the form of a massive hole.

[@ShnoopsDogg]

They must fix this for real! The community should pressure this change on the devs

[@prdurnion83]

The trick is to make the base so annoyingly impenetrable, that assailants give up before they're even halfway through. I recommend making all the tunnels impossibly narrow and heavily armored to deter breaches. Place several thousand tons of armored blocks as the base; make it thick enough to deter sappers. I recommend at least 20 blocks deep. The key is to make the prospect of taking your base cost more than your base; essentially, diminishing returns in SE warfare.

[@gamerproductions5469]

two words Willis ducks make them go though a maze of them

[@Razumen]

@@gamerproductions5469 That means nothing, Google doesn't even give an answer.

[@sethgilcrist8088]

​@@Razumen that means you haven't played SE in months. There a block that was added two updates ago

[@DrBurtThunder]

They mean Willis Ducts*, it's Keen's reference to Bruce Willis always crawling through air ducts in Die Hard movies@@Razumen

[@Sweld549]

A traditional system of tunnels just strikes me as a bad design choice in general. The more horizontal/vertical an underground base is, the more opportunities for a would-be sapper to entirely bypass defenses via tunneling/the more space you have to make sure is reinforced. I imagine the ideal layout would be something more onion like, with a series of heavily defended outer layers surrounding the critical stuff in the center. That way no matter their direction of approach, they'll have to go through the same amount of defenses to reach anything vital. They might could still tunnel to bypass the initial blast door, but they'll have to attack every layer past that conventionally.

[@corajallen9471]

Wouldn't it be better to just have all mobile bases? Make carriers or transport vessels and defend them with a fleet

[@Pierce1996h]

This is what I do as a single player but my mothership I always have to be extremly careful with because of clang. Running into an asteroid once and losing a quarter of your ship once is enough. It depends on server rules but underground bases also just take so much longer tk build since you have to worry about digging and defenses around the shell of your base so people can't just dig in

[@andybraid4263]

This is the mortal engines iteration the problem is the weight of cargos and what happens to the base and the server when the mobile cargo pops. On LSG we have static storage in these iterations to get over this issue!

[@mayshiratoshi6390]

I also think big moving carrier like a thing in desert of Kharak is far more better. No matter land only or space allowance in the server. I always have 1 very big ship that can do all base thing (even constructing destroyer and carry it with you). Just moving it around make people hard to verify where exactly you are. Especially in space LeL. The only problem is it a "little bit laggy :D"

[@Darqshadow]

​@mayshiratoshi6390 yea and some us can't support the lag so having a static base is useful. But at the end of the day there's pros and cons to all base types

[@tael3081]

Mobile star-bases are the best, as you have an infinite void to hide in, and barring mods/exploits/other shenanigans they are effectively impossible for hostiles to locate with but a single random jump in to the that infinite sky. That said, I think this is a surface-base vs underground-base vid, and land-carriers are one of those "coolness inversely proportionate to practicality" kinda things...

[@FlamingNinja]

If the server is set up to prevent sappers (drilling around defences and into the base), then small underground bases can be viable.

[@LastStandGamers]

Even if its set up that way prepare for the frustration when you can't get out to fight....

[@WhatIsThatThingDoing]

One possible effort would be excavating a greatly larger space than needed, and having the true secure chamber suspended in the middle with defences positioned externally on the base as well as at points of the interior facing inwards to enable them to hit would be sappers. Though this also has issues. Accessibility to defending persons, as well as the massive time requirements for setting it up come to mind immediately.

[@TheBojaboja]

Any good server admin would prohibit and punish sappers. It’s low effort raiding.

[@aone9050]

@@TheBojaboja wow, roleplay dweebs have kind of taken over, if you're allowed to say that kind of stuff with no pushback.

[@Xahnel]

@@aone9050 If that was true, it would be the exact opposite, because tunneling under defenses to penetrate a vault is a time honored tradition of robberies.

[@a1919akelbo]

The best underground base is one disguised as a raided/destroyed ground level one

[@hayuseen6683]

ghost town silo was my thought too

[@Sentinel_Seven]

two positives to underground bases you didn't include are they're cheaper, you have to dig the materials while making the base either way but with bunkers it's just easier, but also turrets have less to focus on because the enemies are narrowed into a corridor.

[@truesnakegod]

One thing I've considered (but never done because I only play solo) is making tunnels/hangars that are just below the surface then have warheads set to open them up during an attack as a one time sneaky exit for fighters.

[@RBsRealm]

A claim function needs adding that either blocks players without permission from mining voxels or drastically slows them down (almost to a crawl)

[@Caffin8tor]

To be fair, underground bases are very effective for PvE if you have several MES mods enabled. Voxels are much tougher for NPC enemies to get through than any blocks.

[@AngelboyVR]

above ground they can FLY to your rooms, under ground they have to DIG to your rooms, its just another layer of armor, albeit not as strong, BUT it keeps the enemy in the dark, they dont know where your rooms are, where as above ground its easy to make our your room layout. also, all the negatives also apply to the enemy, its as equally inconvenient for them too. ... also, i hate having my back open, at least i know from which direction im being attacked, id rather get them in a choke point instead the risk of being attacked from all sides

[@AngelboyVR]

@@callmeskal820 that would of course cross the line of cheating in my book

[@LastStandGamers]

At least if you build on the surface you can get turrets all around to deter them.

[@hybrid_grizzly]

@@callmeskal820 An above-ground base doesn't have that trade-off because it has no stealth to trade away, so it's not that you have to choose between stealth and defense underground, it's that you get to choose

[@C0deH0wler]

@@callmeskal820 Camouflage, turret doors, building your base under mountainous terrain so turrets can pop-out from the side of hills??

[@crystalclearchaos5387]

@@LastStandGamerswhat if they dig under your above ground base and cut their way in those turrets are useless at that point

[@spacepiratecaptainrush1237]

a thought occurs about the performance, I wonder if it is possible to make a planetary voxel map that has natural caves, like that one asteroid with all the hollows already a part of it. even put critical resources within said caves so players have reasons to build in them. they'd still need to dig stuff out for building but I wonder if that would be less of a hit performance wise. I don't know, I don't do code, just pretty ships.

[@JohnnyShagbot]

I don't code either, or even build pretty ships, but as far as I know planets in SE are, technically and mechanically speaking, just very very large asteroids. It should be possible, but I couldn't say for sure.

[@hayuseen6683]

Natural caverns and other buildable terrain (cliffs, gullies) would be great. It would have some impact but less than if you dug out the same cave from voxels - it's the difference between the "map" every player already has for planets and the complexity of the geometry being rendered in graphics and physics. Natural caves wouldn't increase the map loading much, unless there are lots of small caverns. I have no idea how the game handles the voxel physics.

[@EpsilonO17]

Underground is bad but inside of an asteroid ? If the asteroid is big enough and hollow : hangar for your ships, protected from meteor showers and well hidden amongst the sea of other asteroids

[@andybraid4263]

Love it.. also great to see so many old underground bases I worked on appear in this video! I like the challange of underground bases. The vault server was allot of fun for me! Shame the game is not optimised for them.

[@RavenCatcher]

Weapon Core is pretty much standard on most servers now, so remaining hidden is not possible.

[@Paul-cu9lu]

Having an area control field, similar to the noc station shield gen that prevents drilling of terrain would help alleviate the cheese tactics. I remember some years ago, several of the random asteroids being hollow or with large voids scattered about it's mass. Those make good bases as well since they are naturally dug out, and therefore not affecting server performance the same as a dug out base would. I wonder if the dev team can continue to refine the engine to take things like this into account.

[@mistermann4163]

A rule I always go with is have a escape tunnel with a escape vehicle that can house all your valuable to act as a separate grid to immediately disconnect in the event to a total loss of a base.

[@fakshen1973]

There are mods where you can install blocks that ban the use of drills within a certain radius. Unlike safezones, they don't require zone chips or crazy amounts of power. Not being able to dig through someone's base helps cut down on base sprawl and rat's nests of attack tunnels.

[@RichyN25]

simple fix for the drill issue on servers, a drill-disabling field generator, as long as the base has power, enemy players can't use drills withing 500m from the base or something

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

Underground bases are cool and good, so long as built right. Assume every point can be breached, plan accordingly. Really difficult to plan for that as people can just tear through the rock and plant a warhead. I suppose you could try a minefield or what not, but it is just a rabbit hole of trying to prepare for every possible attack... that's why I like these bases best when they are meant to be stealthy such as a 3x3 opening or are just on a PVE server where players dont attack it.

[@TheModelOmega]

I hope with Space Engineers 2 you can claim the group around your base, keeping people from digging around it. Or better yet, give us something we can build that claims the ground, much like a safe zone. Add that for asteroids, and I’d be ecstatic! However, you’d still want missiles to be able to destroy the ground, or people would just use dirt and stone as armor for all bases. 😅 Hmm… The more I think about it, scratch that last part. Making the ground indestructible would force us players to raid bases outside of our ships, and would add a lot of fun FPS raiding gameplay to the game. I could go either way.

[@Neclony]

I don't think one is better than the other. It's situation based. A underground base can have walls so there is no difference to on top bases. You can dig in both, same goes to multiple entrances. The technical side of things is a failure of the developer. When you create voxel based planets it should not be performance heavy...

[@Razumen]

Sounds like digging should be a LOT harder than it is currently, that would solve most of the problems with ppl exploiting them.

[@badideagenerator2315]

Or at least a device that reinforces terrain across a given area.

[@StarUnionPrime]

Need something like the base shield that invisible and makes drilling way harder

[@marsupialmartian496]

Voxel deforestation is a big issue for servers, there's no doubt. The other issues like salt from voxel digging, underground warheads, and directly accessing a loot room are present for any voxel based static grid. Not just underground bases. With above ground bases you have to worry about orbital bombardment as well, which certainly makes me salty. The underground bases I've been a part of are a mix of underground production, storage, and power. With grinding, and mass vehicle storage kept outside in a protected area.

[@janedoe4586]

Yeah SE needs a "1km home block" wich disables not owners to destroy Voxels by Drilling

[@goodkrypollo1706]

Agreed. Building an underground base is basically useless. Can just drill to the weakest point then grind. Horrible system.

[@IsfetSolaris]

As someone who uses PMWs (player made weapons) as my main focus in the game, I have to say that the thought that underground bases offer orbital bombardment protection is outright ridiculous. Most underground bases can be defeated by a well designed bunker busting munition. Hell, I've destroyed bases that are hundreds of blocks below ground by just dropping a really heavy thing on it. Blast doors are ideal, as they don't deform. A 3x3x10 kinetic penetrator, with a sensor detonated warhead above it, will completely gut any shallow underground base if dropped with any semblance of accuracy. If that doesn't work, just print another. And another. And another. Underground bases can't protect against orbital bombardment, because the only way to stop a bombardment is to go destroy the ship. And underground bases are the worst at that because they only have a few places to launch ships, which an attacking player can easily obstruct or destroy. It's a joke. TL:DR: anyone who thinks an underground base will stop orbital bombardment has never taken part in orbital bombardment. They're probably thinking of a ship sitting 2KM up, firing weapons and dropping bombs in visual range. That's not the case. We sit outside of the planet's gravity well, using laser antennae to align ourselves perfectly, and use gravity generators to drop hundreds or thousands of blocks on the target.

[@Stardriver-gi2un]

When Keen confirmed planets the Forums were filled with players proclaiming that they were going to build "Secret Hidden Underground Impenetrable Fortresses" and be INVINCIBLE. I built my first base in a giant asteroid back when there were no planets. The further along I got, the more I realized that building a base was a bad idea, in general, in Space Engineers, except perhaps as a building exercise. Building a huge, sprawling underground base with all the trimmings can be rewarding, and you don't have to worry about how they look. Underground bases are automatically cool. In THIS game, they are also sitting ducks with a big "I Am Here" flag over them. For a lot of reasons, most of which were outlined in this video, you just shouldn't. In my opinion. a Mothership in space offers more offensive and defensive options, including bugging out while you can. Build a base for the experience. Go nuts. But on a server where you will most certainly be attacked don't waste your time, resources and effort on a giant stationary target. If your enemy wants to destroy your base, make 'em work for it. Make it mobile.

[@WiseOakDakota]

I think just basic rules to be agreed upon before hand could solve the use of hand drills and building bombs underneath enemy bases. Personally I would just make a scouts-honor rule that only vehicles can do tunneling, and you can’t plant bombs. Plus I’ve been kicking around the idea of using warheads and sensors as an underground minefield

[@idonoex5502]

Well couldn't one just simply do the same to a normal base? Start digging far away until they're just underneath and fill everything with warheads...

[@deltaantitank3314]

I like this bases. its more difficult and the war never ends😈. To destroy our enemies we need an complet army 😎🔥

[@michaelwineberger6910]

Well, in my opinion, and from what I’ve seen, I’ve been overly bombarded with war heads 16 times on separate occasions when it comes to bases. Even some shielded ones. I can definitely say that it is not perfect. In fact, far from it, but for underground bases, I would say it gives you weather protection. Which is good for acidic rain. Also, for interior defense, they could have Turrets placed inside of their bases. Including Gatling’ which would definitely do some extreme damage. Personally, what I intend on doing with my next mountain base is also having doors that are mediately protected with guns. He did bring up a good point though about the insights not being guarded by enough turrets so for that, I’d probably put a lot of interior Turrets. This is because they are small and do moderate damage to small light armored grids. Also, with my next one I was planning on making it airtight so that would probably make it harder to penetrate because it would have windows at least at some areas and other areas it would just have armor walls. I was also thinking of making the area pass the interior hanger, which uses extremely large player made large grade doors. Sort of elevator for moving down vehicles, and perhaps even fighters to a area that can act as a bunker. To avoid anything like a modded, super laser, but at the bare minimum guard against. The war heads, which I deal way too much with.

[@arkturhellsing1484]

I think there is no way to stop the digging and grinding so its probably best to have the base just hanging in a bubble cavern or something. Basically your base is a ship underground with weapons all over it as protection.

[@thedarkone5049]

Well the underground part is just to house the soft mushy guts of the base, and i build a planetary defense platform above it, that's how i do it.

[@toddtburgscifitech]

Sooo.. what about asteroid bases where most of the hollow cave was already created by the server? better than underground bases? I love tunnelroids myself.

[@zharpain]

The first two rooms for an underground base should be a hanger/car park with all parking spots connected item/resource grid. The refineries and what not should all be much deeper and having more than 3 ways to get from a to b isn't a bad idea either. The store rooms should be even deeper and the "Trophy" room(s) should be even further. There should be multiple levels with 2-3 respawn points on each level. There should be an armory on each level or an access port to retrieve weapons from deeper in the base. There should be at least 3 int turrets at any turns and 4 plus a gat turret at 3+ junctions. All natural surfaces in the base should be covered with at least 2 block thick heavy armor preferably increasing in thickness the deeper you go and the surface should also have a platform buried that is at least 2 blocks below surface and 3 blocks thick and stretch at least 50-100 blocks from the closest point of contact of the entrance. A backup entrance/Exit should be given thought and carefully excavated in a manner that makes it difficult to perceive in atypical fashion. If building in a ravine try seeing if you can build an exit or secondary entrance on the other side of the mountain/plateau with said entrance being in a enshrouded spot. If not trying to actively hide build a standard defense base on top of the main entrance. Use the surrounding topography to develop lines of sight while minimizing exposer for auto defense turrets. Try to build compact if possible anti siege weaponry to take out assault ships and or capital ships and be prepared for kamikaze style attacks. A ship that isn't good at taking hits but doesn't cost much to replace can still do damage if given the chance. Try to have a backup base with long-range engagement ships so you can sweep from behind. If you can have some remote controlled kinetic missiles to take out small grid ships that are hovering outside base if kinetics are still viable. Its been awhile since I played. Sadly as pointed out if you are far enough away its possible to see an underground base. Also weapon core doesn't take in account of voxels when targeting. I guess the server could implement a way to make it so that player static structures aren't visible past a certain distance but I am not positive this is possible. Also would still let ships and rovers be seen through the ground although they are smaller so that might mitigate that. This is if the server has high pcu for each clan/team and a good enough pc to run it on. Hopefully most of the graphical issues gets fixed in later updates. Looking back at this comment I realized some of it is rather... impractical due to pcu and possible playtime limits but it still might be feasible so if this helps someone then glad for it.

[@ghostgaming831]

I love underground bases. You have a very good point about underground bases aswel gave me some new ideas to construct something new🎉 🙏

[@LastStandGamers]

Are these ideas a top secret ?

[@ghostgaming831]

@@LastStandGamers nope i think if you create like a warning system that would start a drone or maby few and release them from out side the base and trap them inside you would have the advantage from both sides and you could save most of your base atleast even if you can just get them to retreat back to space i would say that's a win

[@brauchtihrnicht8602]

At first you need the players to beginn with. And today there it already ends...

[@popinmo]

there are ways to make underground bases better but i wont reveal how

[@AlphaKnight-hg2jq]

Alot of the problems you mention can be fixed by having a large air gap around the underground structure and just filling it with turrets

[@DexLuther]

One of the problems is that Space Engineers is kinda old. There are bugs that have existed for years, and they can't and/or won't fix them. I think some of the issues were even ported over into Medieval Engineers. At the end of the day Space Engineers and its engine are simply outdated, and the "Issues" with underground bases prove that. There are much more optimized ways to track the things Space Engineers need to track. Just look at No Man's Sky. I changed the terrain a lot when I built my base years ago and then stopped playing. I went back recently, and my base is still there terrain edits and all. "Simpler base designs" you might say. We're talking about terrain edits though. How is it that No Man's Sky not only keeps track of my terrain edits but also keeps trans of the edits thousands of other people have made across thousands of planets and their bases that I can easily teleport to at any time, but Space Engineers struggles with performance issues keeping track of terrain edits on a server with a dozen or so people on it? Space Engineers is outdated. They should stop making DLC to keep people playing it, and start creating Space Engineers 2 with an updated more modern engine.

[@moviemaker2011z]

underground bases are only viable in PvE situations when it comes to games like space engineers. there are many games that i play that allow for terrain digging and in those games i absolutely make underground bases as a default go to such as minecraft, castleminerz, 7 days to die, and astroneer being four examples of having a solid way to use underground bases when playing PvE. in games like satisfactory i build along the terrain and incorporate it into my design because its fun or if playing Ark Survival Evolved (Ascended) i tend to build along cliff faces as they provide a safe environment from hostile dinos and sometimes other players who dont pay attention to their surroundings. but for the argument of "are underground bases good?" its all a matter of perspective and even application honestly and i think its an easy thing to agree to that in PvE centered games and servers underground bases are in fact a legit way to defend yourself and your assets from the A.I and cut resource cost. however in PvP in centered games and servers they have a tendency to fail because in space engineers underground bases are very easy to spot due to how the voxels work from a distance. its without a doubt a terrible way to hide and keep yourself safe of the LOD gives away your location well before they need to really start looking for you.

[@danielbeck2739]

I think smaller underground bases are more useful than larger ones. Or a network of smaller ones that can be locked and be able to provide multiple avenues of escape and/or fallback points. Large ones tend to be detected more quickly as enemies will at some point start to home in on activity via recon or some other method. They get eyes on it and observe for a period of time they will start to put together an idea of how big the base might be by the forces that move in and out, or the security that is around the entrance and start to figure out how to best deal with it. Even if there were some methods to camouflage them as some have posted larger bases will undoubtedly be sniffed out faster than smaller ones. And while smaller ones knocked out quickly, they are cheaper by comparison and can be setup much more quickly and honestly are easier to hide. And depending on the nature of the base they can be setup slightly closer to enemy bases if done right. Giving a fortified location to assault from or multiple fortified locations to assault an enemy. And if there is a network of tunnels to some of these bases can be used to ferry supplies, vehicles, and personnel between them. With smaller isolated bases being setup to draw attention or as temp holding stations for other a small taskforces and/or convoys that moves when it's dark or even during the day as rapidly as possible so that even should they be detected the loss suffered is mitigated by the fact that while one group might have been sniffed out another group(s) can move quickly unnoticed to those other holdout bunkers or the network and disappear from view. These networked bases will cost about as much resources as larger ones if not more in some ways, but the trade is that should one be detected enemies now have to contend with a network of rat mazes rather than one large one. And burning the network will take more time and manpower than the enemy might be able to throw at it at once. Drawing the fight out and exhausting attackers more since it's unclear if there is one central base or if this a disjointed network of cells. Main issues is time and location, where the first of this network is setup? How long it will take to build it up? How many are connected to the network? Their locations? Where are the isolated bunkers and holdouts going to be in proximity to these networked bases? Where is the enemy concentrations in relation to them? These have to be asked and have to be analyzed.

[@mechs_with_hands]

Small underground bases are fantastic for harassing larger factions, just one multipurpose room for manufacture, and a tiny hanger in a shaded ravine. Solo players can harass others endlessly by just making disposable small craft and repeatedly hit at larger groups without much risk of being found.

[@ghriszlybare2547]

It seems to be like underground bases do have a use, but they shouldnt be your long term base. I think making a functional underground base to get started is a great idea! Get on your feet and start building up some power while you remain stealthy and once you can defend yourself in an open engagement you start on your permanent location above ground or in space

[@Darqshadow]

I think it comes down to what youre wanting to do. If youre in an area that isnt easily accesible and you wish to stay hidden due to the valley a few kilometers away is a hot mess of warfare, a Subterranean base works well. Also helps you get established before breaking out into the surface with your hangers and hardened defences, thpugh i would argue having a few layers of tunnels around your base that has turrets is a wise idea to prevent mining vehicles and lonely suited men with a drill from finding you.

[@WanuboiOfficiel]

I dont understand that even in games like Space Engineers people do PvP. God damn, even if a studio a legendary game to gives players to rally and create beautiful things, bad side of human come again by his nonstop need of violence and destruction. I played games like Call of Duty or any PvP games when i was a kid but growing fast i realized that the world was suffisantly violent and divided to also put this nonesens into games. Coop is the true magic that make us greater, better, and with what we can create the most awesome things. + PvP, even if players dont want to admit it, it is a game of humiliation, when you kill someone or destroy a things its not like "Wow, so cool, look at the explosion, look at the physics" no, most of the time is "take that mf" or what is the best way to humiliate him, knife for FPS most of the time. PvE is cool, cause again, you can deploy your knowledge and cooperate with other humans to conquer AI, which is completly diffrent than human Vs Human. The world is divided more and more and so many people can only think to reproduce that in games, but the most outrageous thing is that it is happenning in game like Space Engineers. I think PvP is still not the most popular mode in Space Engineers that have for the most of it a pretty mature community but damn, PvP is everywhere these days. PvP is always about toxicity, there is no PvP games without toxicity and all that comes together, humiliation, verbal agression, that i can resume by what i see as violence in games, killing AI in DOOM Eternal is less violent than PvP, always. Abviously there is moments in coop servers, where u are with your friends, you are all getting bored, so someone bring the idea to do a little battle with ships but the spirit is really not the same than actual PvP servers with random people, drama for no reasons, in a virtual games and where people want to prove they are the best, again in a virtual games, but have no great objectives IRL. At least people trying to create awesome projects togethers in games like this one or Minecraft or whatever, show the best part of being human and people are cheering for them when they get to see their project in videos cause then, instead of just pew pew, them, were turning their basic game experience to a piece of virtual art that can inspire people. So yeah, PvP sucks

[@ronanlyons5525]

Great video, I think that drilling in by hand with the drilling tool is not cool but drilling in with a drilling ship would be cool. I didn't think about the lag a bunker would cause maybe it would only be viable on a dedicated rp server rather then a competative pvp server.

[@callum4424]

Unground bases can be drilled through - above ground bases can be ground through. Warheads work both ways. On LSG we worked around have major lag problems with voxels by limiting the area your aloud to have the underground base, and I believe with the growing advancement of nukes, underground bases have become some of the only ways to safely protect your cargos and production. Even if the 100x100 cube becomes a 20x20 that gives the community the ability to better protect are production and cargos from being blown up (which causes more problems sometimes for the server than voxels do) and prevents accidental wipes.

[@Ribbons0121R121]

counterarguments to your points 1.simply build walls and not use raw voxels for interior walls. now they have to go through the blast door anyway with less energy wasted on voxels and in a possibly harder to breach position 2.claustrophobic encounters, or cqc, is incredibly volatile because of how quick it becomes, ontop of chokepoints. the point of burying a base is to slow an enemy down. ontop of that, it leaves intel hard to come by since you cant just eagle eye a bases layout from above. 3.the counter to placed mineheads is to just put more armor layers. or make your base "exterior" look like rock so its easy to miss until your drill goes clang, leaving it hard to figure out its layout from a moles perspective. possibly even bury "goodies" for them to find like turrets and mines. a motion detector can see through terrain and walls alike. 4.lockdown procedures should be standard on things of signifigant size. even more effective underground if you reinforce the place as they cant just walk around and try another wall, rather they have to find it and dig blindly for it. 5.there should be no "getting ready" state for underground, as you can easilly conceal fully ready defenses with a hidden corner or so on without fear. without distant sight of it by recon, they have no way of knowing its there. if it kills quick enough, it can even repeatedly get players if they die before sending a message about it 6.last but not least, you my have to go through tunnels but so do they. as well as removing support if its far enough down. and if you can dig around, so can they. plus a tunnel they dig is even smaller, perfect fish in a barrel for something.if they leave the hole open, put a trap down real quick for the next team coming behind them. in short the home advantage by knowing where theyll go and knowing the shortcuts to get to them first. bonus points if you have hidden tunnels for doing this.

[@thedragontinkerer4591]

"Stealth" Unfortunately LSG Stealth isn't a real thing when it comes to them. A pvp trick i picked up awhile ago to identify bases on planets/asteroids was Terrain Deformation. You can see where players have dug and in the case of Keen Official servers within 3 km of a static grid voxels will not regenerate. That terrain deformation can be seen from orbit. Beyond that the main positive i can see from voxel bases is protection from AI targetting. I've had AI slam their dumb robotic faces into the asteroid or ground trying to get to my vital components hidden beneath the surface

[@Uzeil21]

The only thing worse for all the same reasons are all the other forms of base.

[@rickykneebone2623]

This is pretty racist against mole men

[@Stylie99]

Pros & Cons of course, but makes for a good fun experience trying to defend or attack an underground base. You assume people will just make tunnels, but maybe make a base underground which is simply a box inside a box inside a box etc... That would prevent players from drill through rock. Also you assume server lag, but on a nexus server with multiple servers its not normally a problem as most bases are small. Also I think you assume thats your only base. People could have multiple bases and simply have an underground base as a fun activity for people to attack using small grid or on foot, rather than huge ships. Most players online wont have all the equipment to attack underground bases. No matter what you build, players will always attack if they find you, so why not have some fun with it and give other players something to find rather than an empty universe.

[@kauske]

Who doesn't line the walls with blocks? Like, even real bunkers aren't just a man-made cave, you dig out a tunnel, then line it with reinforced material. Now they have to cut through walls and rock. Also, if you use a placeable voxels mod, like concrete, it's easy to repair damage done to the rocky armour for dirt cheap, making attackers waste warheads or time breaking rubbish rock to get at even the armour.

[@YEAHKINDA]

I mean on one hand, you're right. On the other, in modded situations, you can use things like the concrete mod to build multiple-layer-thick walls to end up curbing the attackers breaching through walls thing. They're tough enough in that configuration that you'd probably lose less resources storming through the base than trying to breach tunnels. As for the attackers not having a lot of options, you could just enjoy the push instead, but that doesn't really fix the issue. For the defenders, though, underground bases are nearly perfect if you can just fix the wall breaching problem.

[@johnnykizzar3203]

Underground bases are not bad. I think people should stop crying and realize that realistically, if people could drill around it (which is definitely possible), then they would. However, if you have enough heavy armor blocks and blast doors, they can blow up whatever they want. They could just as easily use a grinder to cut through your blocks instead of blowing them up. Plenty of easy ways to break into a base