Space Engineers Infinite-Drill Ship Tutorial

Design process for the infinitely extruding piston, done in survival with a large player inventory multiplier.
0:32 - Layout and framing of main components
7:17 - Timer block programming
14:10 - Speed adjustments
17:14 - Timing fine-tuning
Steam workshop blueprints and instructions: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Thanks for watching, please leave comments

[@tassie7325]

Absolutely fascinating. I have to save the clip and watch it over several times in slow motion just so my brain can take it all in. Cheers.

[@bphft]

Thanks for this! I just had the idea of making an infinate mining rig knowing it was possible to build but didn't know how. I read the comments and would like to see a video of the one with sensors working. I'll look for it in your other vids. This is awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[@RikusLategan]

Finally, someone who understands I dont want to watch hours of video to understand a complex concept. Thank you. This taught me about timers, and seems an ideal way to study programmable blocks as well because the procedure cycles much like a program loop would. Does anyone know how to modify the design to use a programmable block? I realise that timers are more backwards compatible, but it would really be helpful to me please. I built the base model from scratch in online survival and will now attempt to add a conveyor system to the workshop item. PS: I am still a little fuzzy on how the inf piston knows to change its velocity back to fast when the cycle restarts.

[@jasonfall1550]

Spent the weekend working on something similar, but this is a nice simple setup I should be able to modify to my needs. Great video.

[@kristofd6654]

Very good tutorial. I finally understood the concept. I agree with the comments below that it goes a bit fast and you need to pause it a lot. Maybe when all is working go over each timer block again slowly and list each step of them. Thanks for this video !

[@HigherDimensionalMind]

Thanks for the time you took to make this. It is really helpful!

[@dustinandrews89019]

This was fantastic! Thank you.

[@alexanderafonin1688]

amazing job, exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

[@Magicstuff-Sonichu]

Thank you so much for the time and effort on this entire project. The only advice I have for you is don't sound so scared. You make bad ass shit, it's ok to be proud of it.

[@republish368]

VERY VERY nice :) It seems that you mastered the game A LOT. I must be sincere, I haven't catch the point regarding timers but I'll study further the deal. Keep doing a great job ;)

[@ComandoAdler]

Very good tutorial, although I don't speak english but still easy to understand you and the process. Thank you to share your knowledge with us. Tomorow I'll try to this to learn.

[@Educationey]

Good, stuff. All this needs now is a bigger drillhead and a drop ship that can place it on top of new ore veins

[@jackschitt7783]

This is absolutely awesome, probably the best creation I've ever seen in this game. It's missing a conveyor system though. As it's setup the drill goes in to a block so once the drill is full... I've updated it in my game by adding conveyor tubes to the blocks that hold the drill so they are projected and made too so materials that are mined go to the station to get processed. This is a phenominal creation! But that part is missing from it.

[@reesewilson]

Nice. I did the same, and have conveyor extension blueprints in the workshop, I just haven't gotten around to adding another video. Mind sharing pics, video, or blueprints for your design?

[@bphft]

@@reesewilson I don't mind sharing. I didn't want to without your permission and because my ability to be online and play games is very limited. Someone else is much more likely to be able to do it before I am.

[@Cyberjunk1e]

yea but, how do you get all the material to the base? is that not the point, or just to drill a vertical hole?

[@HLIWrigley]

When something is built with the blueprints does it load your programming? So you could drive up with a vehicle that deploys this whole system, then drive off and place another while it works.

[@Cahoonap]

this is great, but how do you set it up to collect the resources?

[@vtk.pyr0]

Weld and grind in the same place a conveyor tube maybe?

[@ethanthompson4198]

I know this comment was from a year ago but I thought about this while watching the video and an idea I had was swapping the armour blocks in the repeating welding part with conveyor blocks and adding a connector to the side that auto grinds like the merge blocks and spits the stone out into a collector

[@stealogaming9846]

i use the conveyor merge but once i start the machine the bottom grinders also enable so whats up with that + the conveyor bloks on the side arent being welded

[@justinkibbe2501]

I'll try this out. I think you could add a conveyor system to the blueprint so that you can transfer materials back to a refinery. Thank you for the detailed upload!

[@reesewilson]

You can indeed. It's expensive as far as materials go, and you have to weld up a connector and then connect it via a piston to your refinery (or something similar), but it works. I have a link to the conveyor extension blueprints in the main workshop link, but haven't recorded any videos of it yet. If you get it working, share a picture, video, or blueprints?

[@gangsters1978cranford]

@@reesewilson I started to play with my friend, then i saw this great video. But i'm still struggeling to get the stones out of the drill. could you help me out please?

[@warpig2255]

Nice one i like :))

[@FritzHugo3]

Nice smal. Not many recources cost. Nice.

[@paintthetwndead]

This is cool as fuck, my shit brain will never be capable of it but I watched the whole thing just flabbergasted that people can do shit like this.

[@bastianh.1063]

Made a lot clearer to me. In fact i dont get what the second Projector is for...And in addition i dont get how you use the conveyor version...

[@anroboticus643]

I love it, just hate that there isn't a conveyor system, so I am going to attempt that on my own. BTW, turning on shared inertial tensioners does wonders for the stability and makes it go a lot further underground

[@reesewilson]

I did get a conveyor working, I just never got around to making a video. Mind sharing your design once you get it working? Thanks for the tip about inertia tensors

[@SlapDatCow]

@@reesewilson Could you instead making it out of blocks make it out of either Junctions or Conveyors? Then just after the merge block you have a connector attached poking out in an open direction and a connector which is connected to your base, as the extender piston pushes the blocks through and merges, a separate timer block then activates the connector ore is dragged through, another timer block to disconnect connectors and then the printing process starts again. What you think?

[@reesewilson]

@@SlapDatCow sounds like it has potential. Share a picture or blueprint or video of this?

[@vinsta5432]

That was very helpful thanks. But you could have been slower when setting up the timer blocks. Good work!

[@reesewilson]

Thanks for the feedback. The timing varies quite a bit based on each server's multipliers, so I wasn't sure how to cover that part. Would you like to have seen the values I used for this server, or more of the process for determining which values to use, or what?

[@tassie7325]

Do as I intend to do and re-watch at half speed.

[@ChanelName]

Wait, how the armour blocks was just merged? is it possible today? and is it vanilla? I don't see connectors like these in the game

[@reesewilson]

Yes vanilla. You don't have merge blocks?

[@ChanelName]

Reese Wilson thanks! Obviously I was wrong) I didn’t find it because of synonym with cargo connector.

[@ChanelName]

Reese Wilson I didn’t try it, and can’t understand how light armour blocks were “welded” together. May be I just need to try)

[@Demon44970]

This is great but where’s the tutorial

[@anim8edpatrtiots803]

I know this is old but if you could make a tutorial on how to build it with conveyors that would be cool

[@anonymoususer3561]

Simply replace the steel blocks in the blueprint with conveyors

[@michaelsullivan7544]

Man I have this built but the timer parts were way to fast, I Don't think my timers are connected right... I tryed triggering next block but things get glitchy and i think some how they all trigger each other at once. I also tried having the next step turn off the one before it but no luck. You might want to make a full working version where you have all dimensions figured out because you jump around a lot and hits hard to learn what your trying to show.

[@reesewilson]

Yeah, there are too many variables to get the timing locked down, it's different for everyone, which is why I didn't spend much time on it. I have also switched to a mostly sensor-based system to remove most of the variables

[@manthings4916]

*ASMR lmfao I'm just kidding. Good stuff man!

[@woodzyfox4735]

SOOOO How do u get the stone out of the drill?

[@GuardianSoulkeeper]

That's the neat part: You don't.

[@aljon5947]

Can you increase audio volume its quite quiet.

[@balintdancsecs2523]

This concept works well. I built it, I love it. There is a problem. I drilled it to a depth of about 1.6 km. As I get deeper and deeper there are more and more anomalies around the drill. FPS / UPS drops regularly. As if the gravity was much higher. This game is becoming more and more unplayable. Anyone have any ideas?

[@reesewilson]

Same thing happened to me, tried to drill through the moon. Never got to 2km, the physics engine just can't handle that many calculations

[@balintdancsecs2523]

@@reesewilson Thanks! Regrettable. Yet a good little project is such this drill. Nice work!

[@Demon44970]

You just started zooming through the process with no real instructions

[@175firefighter]

I hear you explain what you're doing, but not how/why you're doing it. I'm watching you and I'm completely confused about what you're doing. You said "You can probably see what's going on here", and I'm sitting here like Nope! Sure don't

[@mirkoblum3034]

Nice idea but not for real mining and a bit fast

[@kristofd6654]

I rebuild a version of this using a program block that uses easy automation script. You don’t need timer blocks. I also changed it to actually have conveyors and drain all drilled ore. This required some tricks however. Too bad there is now a bug that projectors lose their projection when merging blocks are used. I hope they fix it soon.

[@reesewilson]

Very cool. Do you have a video or script or workshop link to share? I rebuilt this with sensors so it is much less finicky about timing and server settings. Still doesn't use scripts though, for compatibility with servers without scripts enabled

[@LathyrusRoots]

glad you said something; I was wondering if it was a new bug, or never a feature. I only tried something with merge blocks and projectors in the last couple days.

[@OnceShy_TwiceBitten]

@@reesewilson i see a lot of servers without scripts so I prefer this. please upload some more cool stuff without scripts.

[@dustinandrews89019]

This bug is fixed in 1.91

[@aljon5947]

nvm i can hear it

[@matthewclark177]

Thank you for this video, but pls speak up a bit more its irritating