Space Engineers - Connecting Multiple Pistons, Advanced Tutorial

When it comes to building almost anything using pistons you will soon come to the realization that a single piston is not always the best option and in most situations it tends to be unstable and can cause damage to surrounding blocks. Connecting Multiple Pistons makes a much more stable platform.
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Space Engineer is like a mixture between Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program. The game is in pre-alpha and will be released on steam at some point in the future.
The main purpose of the game seems to be building a space fleet and fight/ally with the other factions. You build your ships piece by piece and the only know limit for the size of your ship is what you computer can handle.

[@Muzzled]

This should be a standard feature, along with the small/large rotor "glitch." The engine can CLEARLY support it, so there's no reason to have anything impeding this construction.

[@ILKOSTFU]

still the same issue...

[@MasthaX]

I think it's not a standard feature because you can really easily create a clang mess with this if you're not careful. What I find useful beside this method is using a plate welding mod where you can connect these surfaces together if you bring them close. Also very useful for repairing broken ships, it's basically a 0-width merge block if you think about it. steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=510790477

[@Lysenis]

You have NO IDEA how much I have been looking for this. . .

[@bladeforce_tv]

good thing you published this video guys, has been a great help to stabilize the lift of my WIP cybran command class carrier (supreme commander 1) with only one piston it always damaged the ship but using this method to add 4 more made it very stable ;)

[@SatyrOdium]

Thanks! Really, I trying since days to create a stable and usable retractable pod for large ship (like in Battlestar Galactica), it seems that your tutorial will help a lot to do this.

[@Sayoko-Von-Silve]

Oh... I feel so stupid. I *_never_* knew or thought or heard of this. LastStandGamers I want to thank you SO MUCH for showing this! I have _many times_ wanted to do this very exact thing, and I had no idea how to do it. It helps _tremendously_ to know how to attach multiple pistons to a single platform! This is a breath of fresh air towards all my designs I can make. I wish it was _easier_ to do this, but I'll take having an option _at all_ to do it in the first place! Thank you again! Yes! (*flies off to go build more things in space*) -_I'll Be Watching._

[@RaiderNic99]

I definitely know where I'm coming for all tutorials once I start playing this game in the, hopefully, near future.

[@wantblackwolf]

I just leave the merge blocks on mine no chance of a fuss latter. Tip: just make one piston the main one by raising it build the platform on that one piston then lower it down onto the other pistons the merge blocks will do the rest. You don't need a merge block on the main one. I do this with my drilling rig for planets but I start with the drills first and build up from there. Link the pistons on top. The main piston gets a conveyor on it so I can feed the ore to a cargo container. Then I build down and around it once done cut the landing gear on the drill and they are free. I leave 4 drills out for two spotlights, reactor, and ore detector. Drop a chair on it to control the drills separate from the rest as well lower into the hole to see the ore. It's been very stable for me.

[@schneider1492]

if you copy it from one of the corner (merge) blocks, you can move the crosshair over the merge block you want to attach it to and it will snap in place. you can even rotate/flip as if you were placing a block

[@DavidsKanal]

THANK YOU! I've been trying to figure this out for days.

[@k1ll3rM]

FINALLY! I've wanted this for ages!

[@ArcturusArcher]

Thank you so much. I was struggling against clang so much! X3

[@HazardWolfCorp]

FINALLY i have been trying to figure this out for a week now, THANK YOU!!!

[@Tonisaka]

Didn't do it on large blocks, but it still works, thanks a bunch, very nice to see it works, made it on a planet, a nice trick to get it working for me on a planet is to make one opposite merge block, and attach that to the ground using the landing gear and a piston to go up and down (then un-attach the merge block) and then create the rest and reattach all merging blocks.

[@FrostyyShooter]

i tried this but then with an 20x20 platform with 6 pistons stacking each other. it exploded. idk why

[@lanmasterd]

Been trying to work that out for 24 hours or more .. that way u did made it look way way simple.. thanks

[@tatehenson3611]

Omg thank you for this idk how many builds got erased due to failed linked pistons so not enough strength to accomplish job

[@demolishunDOTcom]

Short and sweet! Thanks

[@Far-Right_Celt]

come here for the tutorial, spent half my time admiring the planet in the background lol thanks though LSG 👍 Plus Wow.. your "Armsy" ship looks Amazing, cant wait to use all im learning in creative as a test (currently playing through on solo survival) and then hopefully.. to a server where i can hide from Clang! lol

[@abordoli]

So glad I found this video as I need it for a huge elevator that I'm building. Great job!

[@CommanderManMan]

thanks did this with pistons and merge blocks but not like you. getting a shake so gonna try your way. so good. very helpful

[@degan51]

I was just struggling with this the other day. Thanks!

[@spaghetti7782]

i hope they will add piston cooperation at one point, so you could just build it and it would work, right?

[@arthersaur4577]

Thanks Arron, this helps me alot with my larger ship builds :)

[@ravynknight7146]

GENIUS! i never thought of trying to use merge blocks.. does this work with rotors as well to make stable swinging hanger doors by having a rotor on each side of the pivot point? Especially now that you can set the offset of the rotors themselves..

[@SmokyBanjo]

That is so useful to know. I needed this for a mining ship I'm working on.

[@FreemanFreak87]

This is awesome. Thank you so much for the help!

[@Mrstealth93]

LastStandGamers Oh man. Thanks for the help, Arron. Now i know how to cluster pistons together and make a more secure piston device, like a hangar blast door or a extendable ramp. Its because i was building a ship that suddenly went absolutely crazy because of some bent blocks and the piston bein extended. Now i just need to build it with two pistons instead of one when i can get back into the server.

[@TopDrek]

You act as if he helped you individually. You act as if this video was made because of you.

[@Mrstealth93]

Fleet Admiral IKrunch Dude. I just appreciate that there is being uploaded videos with useful tips. And i wrote the comment to let him know.

[@TopDrek]

***** You typed it as if you knew him personally, he isn't going to respond or like it you know.

[@TopDrek]

Matthew Cox If you can't figure out that 4 pistons will be more stable than one, then you need shouldn't be playing this game.

[@Mrstealth93]

Fleet Admiral IKrunch Yeah. Because its so easy for everyone to play and understand the many techniques that you can use in Space Engineers.

[@TheScawer]

Thank you for this! Amazing!

[@GROOV3ST3R]

Hey Arron, do you have any idea how to make a good and stable swing ramp with multiple rotors? I tried a few times but it's very difficult to get everything right and keep the system from tearing itself apart due to offset. I would love to see that done right :)

[@wchensel]

I love informational videos like this. +1

[@Ischmac]

You sir, are my hero. I've been looking for a solution for that problem for quite some time XD

[@mirofski1280]

thank you for this video on the behalf of the draconian alliance. you have made our elevators much safer

[@mattmanmv13]

Thank you this still works!

[@JoTheVeteran]

Nice tutorial, I was wondering if that was even possible, thanks man!

[@josephcalhoun5811]

7 years ago and still helping us, can you show us a vidototurial for suspension tires as elevators?

[@EyeDentify]

Great tips :) i cant belive its so simple :) great explaining :)

[@peely1239]

Wow this is the first time I've on youtube and my best youtuber has made a video in a couple of minutes

[@sirnomnoms126]

thanks I didn't know about this, could have been very helpful to know in the past :P

[@zakattack1945]

Thank you so much, I have blown up to many hangers trying to find a way to do that.

[@Karlisiyo1188]

Well I did the same thing using rotors some time ago :D, for my piston-rotor hangar door, the only problem with that was sparks when the hangar door was sliding back in along the seeking of hangar

[@Frabtious]

Wow this is brilliant.

[@Ladrius4000]

Shit! If this still works, you are an absolute life saver man.

[@ChaosShadoWolfe]

Have you tried this with a rotor? And not just an advanced Rotor, but the regular rotors as well. It's a great way of securing an oversized, out-of-balance hatch, loading bay or whatever to a ship or station. I've been tinkering around with that idea and it is only possible with merge blocks. It's generally easy and if you want me to show you, I'll happily do so.

[@megaman2132]

i havnt tried it yet but is they a way you could stack this design to span a big distance ( i want to make a very long elevator)

[@greenscorpeon3]

arron are you going to publish the abandoned lunar facility?

[@aarontena]

I think yes

[@ballooniecat]

Would this work for a docking arm? I've tried putting a docking arm on a piston, and it snaps like a toothpick the moment the connection is made and the slightest gyro motion from one ship or the other happens. If you made the arm with 2 or even four pistons, would it stand up to the torque do you think?

[@armonshamley1140]

I don't know if this defeats my question but let's say I had a long ship kind of like a pencil and it splits in half is there a way I can line up the other half to the other half and make it one big solid pencil again without any connectors

[@zakidabbas7878]

more multiplayer with sage and tazo plz

[@sanderasdf9555]

Using merge blocks to connect several pistons were one of the first things I tried out when the pistons first arrived.

[@sanderasdf9555]

What I did was to rise one of the pistons, build most of the platform on top of it, attach merge blocks to it and the remaining pistons, and then simply lower the first piston.

[@tylerpoppy8095]

You sir are a genius!

[@YourMissingEyeBrow]

+LastStandGamers Hi Arron. I'm trying to set up the nacelles for voyager, using conveyor hinges. Could you show me how to set up a line of hinges?

[@RobotGoPewPew]

What if you connect them all up and only reverse 1-3 of the 4 pistons? Does something break or does nothing happen?

[@justahappyfellow]

Arron, just wondering. The patch you wore in one of your airsoft videos a while ago that you later asked if we knew what it was, was it a drax airlines (Drax enterprise corporation, moonraker) patch? Just interested to know what it really was, must have missed the video with the correct answer. Cheers.

[@robertcartwright2236]

What if you were to have 2 pistons at a right angle, 1 extended the other not, connected to a platform by rotors? When you reversed the pistons they would move the platform into a right angle from its starting position.

[@sentinelwinters6584]

I dont know if its the fact that im using stacked pistons, but when i connect them to the platform they rip the piston head... im connecting it with a ship with inertia dampners off

[@armonshamley1140]

Let's just say I pulled up to the other broken half and I just bounces away is there a way I can make that whole entire shift connect and solid again I don't know how to explain this

[@Not_Hans]

No longer seems to work some thing in one of the recent updates made it so merge blocks wont connect to pistons regardless of how you set it up... The best work around i have found is Putting rotors on the ends of the pistons followed by the merge block... Out side of that i haven't been able to get this trick to work at all.

[@FlipLogic]

If you don't feel like maneuvering a platform of merge blocks around in tight spaces, you can simply extend 1 piston, build your merge block structure on it, then add a merge block to the other pistons and extend them one at a time till they connect. Again, this method is probably most useful when you are trying to build a multi-piston structure in an area that wouldn't be easy to maneuver large structures in (narrow elevator shafts, inside space ships, etc)

[@creater20225]

ok now how would i do this with a 5 by 5 downwords drill? (aka 25 drills in a squrare on a giant large grid rover)

[@MegaRussian12]

I am creating a ship with a land vehicle hangar bay that has an elevator for a rover. And I added 4 pistons to the platform, one on each side. But only one piston is actually pulling/pushing the grid while the rest of the 3 aren't even connected to it.

[@iinRez]

Thank you Arron I have a single piston ship ramp that continually explodes on me, now I know why Ive been stranded in the black for days.

[@paillettecnc]

Oh gods, thank you! I need the same for the rotors, please?

[@xezzee]

What happens, if you do the same thing with the turning motors?? - will they turn different ways killing them self or???

[@BelgianDneprGuy2003]

now in the current version i try to put a welder on a piston but i won't let me place it.i is like the head of the piston needs to be deleted but thn my piston won't go.i think this is a bug

[@MeliokFR]

Does it still work ? My pistons won't group together well. I've only the option to turn them on or off, but can't set the maximal range & so on ... EDIT : Working with control interface (K) but not when setting groups actions (G)

[@EvolvedSungod]

Every time I try this 1 connects and tries to flip the top piece 90° or 180° The merge blocks don't have any visual markers to say what the alignment is, but they definitely do seem to have a specific direction they prefer. If not for shield blocks my base would have been ripped apart.

[@wafftrotter648]

Try making sure all pistons are orientated the same and attach them one by one, by extending them into the floating platform. It can be done, but takes a fair bit of faffing about.

[@Onebadterran]

If you connect multiple pistons together like that and then only activate one, what happens?

[@GBNGames]

hey, im playing in survival and i want to move the blocks, but i can´t. they just stand there with no support and i can´t move them, even if i ram them with my ship. how do i fix it?

[@jamessabins887]

i cant get it to work. like itll be 2 connect and the other 2 break off or dont connect correctly

[@Kingwut117]

Awesome! But, can you do something like this for rotors? I have a rotor ramp that is very unstable because I can only fit a single rotor on the SIDE, not very good. Is it possible to put one on the other side as well?

[@xedemisomnia6585]

Dunno, sounds like something you should try yourself

[@003Jetfire]

xedemi somnia Yes you can, though keep in mind you will need to set the offsets. Also keep in mind that because of the inaccuracies of setting rotor min & max angle, and speed, you will probably want one rotor as the drive rotor and the other as a free rotor.

[@benjaminbreeg6214]

It is possible. Word of warning though, when I did it for foldable solar panel arms on my ship it caused the entire ship to rotate when moving for no apparent reason.

[@003Jetfire]

Benjamin Breeg Just to clarify, when you say moving, do you mean deploying the sail, or flying the ship around? Also, how many sails did you have?

[@benjaminbreeg6214]

003Jetfire I had 4 arms about the same length as the ship symmetrically placed on each side. The whole ship would constantly rotate when moving and turning was almost impossible because it would spin out of control.

[@MrHooters123]

When are you guys continuing the joint survival

[@Splinter4077]

I did this exact method a couple months ago, and it didn't actually work. The platform wobbled even harder and eventually exploded. Maybe it was a bug, but whatever it was, glad to see I can finally have multiple piston creations.

[@haggisandchips1]

what if you extend the pistons to different lengths?

[@kyriansalvar247]

So I haven't tried this before, but I can't help but wonder whats wrong with building the piston first then a platform on top? In the video, he shows himself placing the pistons under the platform and then trying to use the button. If you put the pistons in a group, wouldn't it achieve the same results as all this merge block mess?

[@Knsgf]

Only 1 piston will be actually attached in this case; the others will just push. And when pistons start to retract the platform will still bounce.

[@dankbeluga9636]

Make another video on connecting rotors too

[@imcalledbs_2507]

Do you know how i can control thrusters on a piston just like normal thrusters on a ship (with w,a,s,d)

[@somedudeok1451]

You could set them to override and then turn them on/off with a button panel or a cockpit

[@yarinice1]

That's brilliant.

[@irjanolsen4684]

Awsome!

[@Convectrix]

nice. watched pretty much all your vids and know nearly as much as you do now and never have played the game. i own it but my computer is a pile of crap 'P lol

[@LuanNguyen-ml6qw]

Thank you so much

[@chaosDEJhead]

Oh man thanks for the info. This is gonna make asteroid life a lot easier.

[@fbiiz187]

really useful

[@LethalOwl]

Thank you, sir.

[@HelixFlame33]

I hope the devs will implement this in their clean-up phase, same with rotors.

[@user-tx2xs9ss3b]

AWESOME!!!!!!!

[@impofan6915]

thanks for the video, now i can build more stable mining rigs...i hope

[@hornyducks4090]

yay! i sent this idea to you awile ago

[@Joycexxu]

Thank you! ^^

[@MODattack]

That cool!!!

[@explosivemink6467]

how do you create a block group

[@glynandrew]

i got this all set up... but the lift doesn't go... i hit reverse and it seems like its bound up somewhere.

[@glynandrew]

never mind... i figured it out.. really neat trick... helped me with a wicked design. Stay tuned.

[@televisionandcheese]

Does it work with rotors?

[@Aunubus69]

this doesn't work for me everytime i merg they piston heads break off

[@jobvdboom5000]

if i try this everything explodes

[@EvolvedSungod]

Same here. This doesn't seem to work now.

[@HobgoblinUK]

Thank you. Now must dash I have some lifts to improve :D

[@calebwerner8237]

i wish i had found this sooner *thinks about all the scrapped projects*

[@LSCrazyCabCo]

can you make pistons rip things appart?

[@wolfyman458]

Can u pls do a blast door tutorial??

[@kelceyburton1245]

I tried that and every time I go to use the pistons they blow up can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong

[@brokengaming9289]

Ok somebody help me out here. I don't think this works anymore, or at least I'm not having luck. I'm trying to create an extending platform on a large ship. I built the 4 pistons on the ship, created the frame in free space away from the ship. Merged it to a carrier ship, merged it into the big ship, and then the pistons don't work. If I put a button on my platform it says that it is a different ship than the ship I just merged it to. So basically even though they are one in the same, somehow the game recognizes my platform as a different entity, and doesn't allow the pistons to move it.

[@DruidicRifleman]

Can this be done with rotors?