Space Engineers | Mechyard Survival: Episode 07 - Making [Robot] Friends

[@AegirBuildsAndBeats]

I love the sounds you added to the patrol mechs. Also love how this is a survival series and you're still just diving deep into crazy mech building. Thank you for continually showing how viable it is to make mechs completely vanilla.

[@dread_mechanic]

Cheers, I just wish there were more sound FX to play with...and yeah I've gotten a bit lost in the mech building around my base, but I'm working on something for the next episode that's specifically about looking for pirate bases 😉

[@EngineeredCoffee]

That dock/recharge mechanism is awesome! I don't want to copy for my turret drones, but you are making it very hard not to 😁 I also love your rusty lived-in aesthetic. Well done!

[@dread_mechanic]

Cheers dude, I usually go with clean colours as I build a lot of anime stuff. But I wanted to make this one feel more "used" and lived in. And feel free to steal as many ideas as you like. Half the reason I've been making these videos and doing all the live streaming is to show others what they can do with this game 👍

[@shadenphoenix]

30:55 oh! you already took the merge block off! lol

[@dread_mechanic]

The merge blocks are just there for building. Every time you connect/disconnect two merge blocks it messes with the grid names, so I avoid using it as a regular connection method.

[@EngineeredCoffee]

@20:00 I hope we get 25cm hinges in SE2 and see you miniaturize this guy down to close to actual dog/wolf size!

[@dread_mechanic]

Dear god so do I! 🤣🤣 The first thing I thought when I saw the new block system was "What about hinges & rotors? Do we get tiny mechanical parts?!? I NEED TO KNOW!!" Also I really hope we get tiny computer blocks too, other wise it'll be very tricky doing tiny vanilla mechs or even scripted mechs.

[@EngineeredCoffee]

@dread_mechanic Right! That has been my biggest complaint of these teasers, no moving parts, even the hangars don't have doors on them. I think they are going for nostalgia of SE1 alpha but I too NEED TO KNOW!

[@travispluid3603]

@dread_mechanic You might have to just jam a bunch of tiny Action Relays into a mech instead of the computer blocks, and make a "Cloud-Operated Mech Management Systems" (COMMS) to run all the programming bits off the actual mech. That'd honestly be kind of cool to see though... To see just how much of the actual processing and automation you can offload.

[@shadenphoenix]

29:45 (on where to keep the robo-dog and where to patrol) since you have to other 2 mechs behind the complex and they patrol those central buildings, having a dog (or 2?) on the opposite side, near the rover/ bay, they can patrol (even without roads, like dogs like to do anyways) around the power towers and such, mirroring the road path but in the dirt (until there are more roads?). as for 'how to have him dock and undock', i was thinking it would be cool to have a little 'doghouse' that had a port on both sides, but with the way you did the other mechs that turn and such, that would be cooler! but having the igloo looking doghouse design with everything pretty much exactly the same as the other mechs, except the bottom port would be where they lock in instead of on the back. you dont want to have to get in the way of the turret (though you could have the connector on it directly like you have on your walking Mobile Base solar drones), so having a small connector down right next to the merge block means you can have them walk onto a platform that spins (like the other mechs), they get aligned, merge attaches them to power on platform and spins them around to exit, and small connector helps charge and refill ammo. then when they are done, the clamps and merge/ connector release, and they walk out. almost exactly like bipedal mechs do, but cooler looking. ;P

[@tklxyzng9930]

Absolutely awesome addition to the base! As someone who has never attempted mech/AI controlled related builds, I am absolutely in awe. I always assumed scripts were needed for controlling walkers but I guess not. Not surprised by the number of timers, ECs and AI blocks used but it makes sense. Looking forward to a mech tutorial one day. Would be great if it was an in-depth one even if it takes multiple episodes. Looking forward to the next one!

[@dread_mechanic]

Thank you! Scripts are the quickest and easiest way but a lot of what I do with these mechs is sort of reverse engineered from the scripts I used to use. There's enough variety in the control & logic blocks these days to do a lot more complex stuff than was previously possible. And I do have a few tutorials on this page 👍The first two cover Legs & Walk Cycles and Arms Weapons and I'm still working on the next one which will cover AI Controls.

[@PoliticalJohn]

Brilliant work. Long tedious and thought through, great work.

[@dread_mechanic]

Cheers, that’s why I do all the build montages. If the episodes where all real-time they’d just be a 6 hour stream 😂

[@shadenphoenix]

35:35 WOOHOO!! soooo freakin cool. hey did he kick that road railing just before you cut the episode? lol we need to see some blooper reals for when things go awry and hilarious during the making of these episodes. ;P

[@dread_mechanic]

Unfortunately, he just completely stopped as his home made collision detection kicked in and he couldn't follow me through the fence. I'm playing with a few ideas to expand that system so they can navigate around obsticles. I should probably start keeping some of the bloopers, I usually just edit all the non-essential stuff out as each episode usually ends up being about 4-6 hours of game play (programming takes aaaages and it's boring too watch) and I try to focus on the interesting stuff.

[@Spetsialista]

Nice! you are a Space Ingeniours

[@dread_mechanic]

Thank You sir!

[@shadenphoenix]

You're still alive!? Welcome back! I thought something happened to you a year ago when everything suddenly stopped! @dread_mechanic if you haven't seen all his awesome mechs, he does crazy cool stuff like you, and does funny stuff also that cracked me up! 😃😍

[@Dagonius.]

Yeah, good job with the drone sounds. It would be nice to have an easy way to load sounds up to SE. I don't like having to fiddle with game files. It's not the 80s anymore. KEEN could easily add a Sound Generator Block or something. Oh and we need games on the Entertainment Centers, too. 😊

[@dread_mechanic]

Thank you! I've got a sound mod making program that I use when I'm building specific custom builds, but I would prefer if there was just more variety of sounds in game. There's about 50+ music tracks and a grand total of...11 sound fx 😢 and they even removed old sounds and replaced them with new ones in one of the recent updates so we could have had more. I'm honestly surprised that lots of the actual game sfx don't appear in the sound block menu like the "Energy Low" warning. *hint hint Keen*

[@DeathlokTheDemolisher]

Your videos just keep getting better and better!

[@dread_mechanic]

Thank you! I'm working on something a bit more ridiculous for the next episode 😉

[@DeathlokTheDemolisher]

@dread_mechanic ❤

[@wulfthemountaindragon5432]

Your skill at mech building scares me, good sir.

[@dread_mechanic]

Thank you!

[@novagamer2175]

Manz your mechs make me hella jealous as always xD Atm im working on a MAD-5D or the funny Maurader from battletech, the only issue im havin is balance, the thing doesn't want to stay upright when its legs are movin xd

[@dread_mechanic]

Like with my mini-walkers, try adding a gyro with override on a rotor with share inertia tensor switched on & really high torque settings. Or if its a larger small grid mech use a 3x3 rotor and slap several override gyros on it. It helps create stability across all the sub-grids of your mech, although it will impact it's turning speed so you might need to fight the right balance between number of override gyros & gyro power.

[@DeathlokTheDemolisher]

Amazing work!

[@shadenphoenix]

16:00 so, it just hit me again (and i remembered to ask this time), if everything is running off the lights, and youre in a damage-allowed environment (even in creative, but especially survival), what happens when they get shot.. even minimally where the armor isnt really damaged, but the lights get damaged? do they suddenly not have the ability to control that appendage? no guns if the arm light gets damaged? no leg if that light gets damaged? 🤔 if so, though a really cool looking part, how would you fix that super weak "Achilles heel"?

[@dread_mechanic]

If the lights get damaged then it will break their controls, that's just the risk of doing this in survival. I could make them super combat efficient by just scripting every thing and wrapping the prog blocks in heavy armour, but that wouldn't be as much fun. Also I only use lights for the binary switches because they small, light weight and also double as a visual indicator that stuff is happening. Technically you could use any block that has On & Off states that an Event Controller can read.

[@chadp6307]

I found this channel today. Started watching this Survival Series and I was compelled to Subscribe at Ep 2 because that's when I also found your GitS Tachikoma video (love that anime). Since you asked for input about sounds to play when the collision detection sensor detects something while the walkers are on patrol, how about something like a mechanical voice saying "Obstacle Detected" or even "Excuse me please" ? When the sensor stops it on the docking turntable, it would be a hoot if the Mech said something like "Hi Honey, I'm Home" or "Feed Me, Seymore". When it's time to return due to low power, as the walker comes around the final corner (not in front of the docking bay), could it be configured that at that waypoint it activates a sound block on the docking bay that plays something like "Caution, Mech is approaching" ? Fenrir could be set up with a couple different barking sounds too. One (aggressive barking) for enemy detected, and a softer barking (or a loud panting like he's tired) to give you a heads-up for low power (he needs to go home). Keep up the amazing Mech work, and hopefully you'll make other references to things I recognize as the series progresses.

[@dread_mechanic]

Thank you so much! Most of your suggestions are ideas actually I've been toying with, although it I do end up using a Little Shop of Horrors sound it is absolutely going on a grinder mech 🤣 I think I need to go looking for some sound mods, they just need to be compatible with both PC & Console as I want to keep this series cross-platform. And trust me there will be some references when I eventually get round to heading to space to hunting for resources 👍

[@randallvolk8437]

Your new friend kind of reminds me of Ravage from ‘Transformers 2, ROTF’.

[@eshfwog]

why dont you turn off rotor lock for the rotor under the override gyro? that way it would be able to turn freely with yaw, but the other axes will still be restricted by it. I think you could even give the rotor a tiny bit of breaking torque if you wanted it to still be a little restricted Also, under the dog house, you could have used a hinge instead of an advanced rotor. They line up perfectly with large grid. that would only take up the space of 1 large grid block to do the job you used 4 to do, and with less subgrids (edit: I see you rotate the platform with the hinge and used the piston to give clearance as the platform rotates, but ill leave this tip here anyway in case it helps anyone)

[@dread_mechanic]

Good questions…the reason the gyro rotor is currently locked is because if it could free spin it would turn the entire mass of the mech left and right every time it moved. That’s the kind of thing I would want if I were setting up vanilla keyboard/pad controls, but on an AI mech with this setup it wouldn’t be very useful. I only need it to keep the mech upright at the moment. And you just answered your own question with that edit. But also I prefer to use Rotors over Hinges where I can because Rotors are generally much less clangy and I can use the displacement setting to my advantage 👍

[@shadenphoenix]

woohoo! lets gooooo! :D

[@jaeaeaeae]

this is a sick series, watching with great interest! what is the song around 14:30?

[@dread_mechanic]

Thank you! That track is called New Order and it comes with the Deluxe Edition of SE 👍