[Space Engineers] Space Pirate Simulator - Episode 1: Welcome to Helghan

Welcome to Helghan, a dusty rock with a hostile environment, copious amounts of ore, and home to multiple factions looking to wreck my day. Unlucky for them, I want to wreck their day just as much.
Space Pirate Simulator is going to be a combat-centric series all about finding and taking the resources of AI factions, and doing so using the new AI added by the Automatons update where possible.
In this episode of Space Pirate Simulator, I do basic emergency prep, build a rover, and search for a more secure location to turn into our permanent home. Helghan might be hostile, but its plentiful resources mean we'll be able to set up an industry in the near future, and we'll need that if we want to be space pirates.
Mod list for the series:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Check out my link tree for a link to my Ko-Fi page if you'd like to directly support me with a donation:
linktr.ee/buffalou
If you want to chat, join the Discord:
/ discord
Music:
"Space"
"Hoist"
"Bathed in Fine Dust"
by Andy G. Cohen
Released under a Creative Commons Attribution International License
From freemusicarchive.org/music/An...
"Siesta"
"Fair"
"Damned"
"Scars"
by Jahzzar
Released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
From freemusicarchive.org/music/Ja...
#spaceengineers #survivalgame #gameplay

[@jenelloliver00n]

“Hey, you. your finally awake. You were trying to cross the border into Helgan, right? Walked right into that imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.” -Rolaf of Riverwood, fourth era, 201

[@opguygaming4266]

Actually it's you're 🤓👆

[@jenelloliver00n]

@@opguygaming4266 I have made a blunder

[@opguygaming4266]

@@jenelloliver00n perhaps even a lapse of judgement

[@ricochetgaming7858]

traveler it appears you've misspelt Helgen

[@jenelloliver00n]

@@ricochetgaming7858 it has come to my attention that I have made two blunders

[@lsswappedcessna]

Helghan. Now with 100% less wyverns and 2516% more lightning.

[@stinbray1120]

Ah yes a true nerd that knows skyrim had no dragons

[@CaptainPilipinas]

yes. helghan. (Aside from those Rebel higs' (Scolar's) decision of Space nationalizing it) a resource/fuel/etc core among UCN (mostly) Space. ....until the post-helghan corp era Rebel colonists finally openly weaponizes that helghan native unobtanium-like energy, hrm.

[@dakaodo]

Great to find a MES combat-oriented PVE series! From playing and watching a lot of MES mod usage, I've noticed that once you get the hang of the spawn/path distances, many of the MES factions become non-issues b/c they are only passively hostile -- attacking only if you approach the 2.5 km warning mark and the shorter (2 km?) engagement range. If you are interested later, the text files for MES configs in your save game folder have 4 files with 6-ish variables you can change to adjust how actively NPCs will find you. Reavers, aggravated Assert, and a couple MES factions are more proactive about seeking you out. But for Assert, I didn't attack any of their bases for a long time, and they never took offensive action against me. I realize this is b/c SE is a sandbox builder game first and space combat second, and a lot of the community (modders, etc) want to give players the choice of whether to engage or not. In general, that's great for the entire player base. For me particularly, and possibly for you with the objectives of your playthrough, this feels like we're the baddies -- the player is the pirate making unprovoked attacks on irritable but non-aggressive NPCs (well, excluding the Reavers :D ). Details on the edits: 1) Wave spawners for planet and space. These are documented in the github MES user guide. You can either use chat commands to activate and change number/frequency of waves, or you can directly edit the config files. Never seen a content creator use this in a series. Occasionally see it mentioned in MES threads, but rarely. Increasing the numbers of NPCs can melt your computer, but it's glorious. I've had over half a dozen Reavers spawn in on me (at a range of 2 km), and it was a scramble to evade and fight them while they shot up then kamikazed my base. Brutal. Then repeat 15 minutes later. I tried the space wave spawner in an empty area far from planets, with wave size and frequency turned up, and had something like two dozen medium to huge large grid ships hammering me. It was possibly 200k-plus PCU of NPC ships, and my frames went down to slideshow levels (slowly resolved in-game by turning off the wave spawner to halt further spawns, destroying the biggest ships one by one, and setting trash removal pretty aggressively to delete the exploded ship chunks). Again, brutal. But so much fun. :D I lost many ships in the course of these fights (extremely combat-oriented min-max, mostly with very high gun-to-PCU ratios, like 1 gun per 300 PCU of ship). 2) Edit min/max distances for planetary and space cargo ships. This is one I haven't seen ANYONE talk about, and I had to logically think it through. NPCs only begin to aggro if they are closer than 2.5 km (either they move past you, or you move near them). But the defaults for their flight paths are generated with a minimum of 3 km away from the player, and max 8 km. Default is meant to give the player enough time to spot them when spawning in, and decide whether to change direction to avoid them, or engage them. It means that if the player is stationary when the NPC spawns, then the NPC will pretty much never approach close enough to aggro on the player, on the NPC's own initiative. But if you are looking for a fight, or a challenge where fights can be forced upon you NOT on terms of your choosing, then edit the min/max distances. I just started doing this, so no clear conclusions yet, but I'm using a minimum of 1 km and max of 4 km. That puts about 50% of the NPC pathing at 2.5 km OR NEARER to me, the player. And if I'm flying fast, I could easily sail into 2.5km range on a few more NPCs. This should make them initiate aggressive action more often. 1) I feel like less of a baddie b/c now it's self-defense, right? :D and 2) if the spawn is something I can't handle, then I HAVE to hustle to evade it. You can also edit a single variable, set to TRUE to randomize NPC weapons. The other related settings are pretty effective on their defaults. This does the same thing as Meridius/Lucas' old mod on the workshop that randomizes MES NPC weapons. I've had vanilla NPCs that were built pre-Warfare 2 suddenly become super deadly -- some of the Incon or Parallax NPCs used to only have all gatling guns and rockets. With random weapons, this one small grid fighter showed up with something like 8 guns, a mix of railguns, assault cannons, autocannons, and gatlings. :D :D :D Feel free to ignore this, or reply if you want to discuss it more (b/c I'm REALLY hoping this gives me the level of active enemy action I'm looking for). Either way, I'm looking forward to your series developing!

[@buffatwo]

Once I have a bit of infrastructure to easily print ships, I was planning on ramping up the difficulty a bit. I've been watching Splitsie's Assertive Acquisitions series, and given how much trouble they were having with the drone bases I think I'll need the preparation.

[@dakaodo]

@@buffatwo Yes, definitely preparation is good. :) Trying to dogfight the NPCs in small grid fighters with only a few guns is a losing proposition, I think. I'm willing to be proven wrong, since my Aerodynamics settings are strongly incentivizing me to use more fast small grid ships! I just finished a light fighter with 9 gatlings and 2 large H2 thrusters, also in an alternate 9 autocannon variant. Hopefully I get some time to joust with some NPCs in the next 1-2 weeks to test this ship to destruction. I'm playing close to vanilla (just Aerodynamic Physics and some other little stuff, no major combat changes), and I've had success with a particular formula ever since Warfare 2 came out. I'm 100% sure there are many other approaches that will work, so mine is far from the only one or the best one. But the time- and resource-constrained format of YT series dependent on the availability of a recent father (Splitsie) is not conducive to it. This is just what I've experienced success with: Build a large grid. Use heavy armor all over the front half. Stack it thick with thrust, gyros, and guns. I've gotten as many as 1 gun per 200 PCU, though that's just a gun brick with a few gratuitous contours for superfiring turret layout. Something more flexible and not completely hideous can still achieve about 1 gun per 300 PCU. And it's fast. ALmost as nimble as a large small grid fighter, too. Make it big. Splitsie's limiting the size of their ships b/c of time pressure for each cycle of building/fighting/recycling over 1-2 episodes. They can only build so much and so big in a few hours of recording per episode or MP session together. MES threat score and the NPC mods cap out their threat level, simply b/c the mods don't include that many powerful ships capable of flight in a gravity well. If you send in a 10k PCU large grid ship sporting only 20 artillery guns (either 20 fixed or 10 turrets), and it'll savage any NPC base. 30-40 guns is also easily within the realm of possibility. Trade out and/or add on some lighter guns (assault cannon turrets and gatling turrets, all vanilla) to deal with the drones. Some of my mid-sized combat ships in the 8k to 12k PCU range carry more guns than their entire moon base roof + defense towers. And you saw how effective the base was at swatting drones that chased them home. Or divide your resource pool into two ships -- a remote controlled smaller escort stacked mostly with anti-small grid guns for aiir cover, and a dedicated bombardment ship for the base (cheaper for the heavy ship this way). It won't even need heavy armor, if it shells the base from 2000m. (at least until NPC factions get updated with AI blocks to lock on at full weapon range) This is all predicated on vaguely fighting fairly in terms of resources, and matching the NPCs for PCU. None of those ships are particularly PCU-efficient so it's pretty easy to squeeze 20-30% more combat efficiency out of whatever you build, versus the NPCs (which in Assertive Acquisitions, Splitsie has mentioned they deliberately incorporated some design flaws to give players a chance to skillfully or luckily cripple/destroy an NPC if they can exploit/target those flaws). If you really want to cheese the fight with a munchkin design, just completely drown the NPCs with a 20k or 40k PCU ship. Few MES NPC mods have gravity-capable ships that big, so you'll just obliterate them in 1-2 salvos. A few mods do spawn NPCs that big or bigger, in space however. :D Though I had to manually turn on the wave spawner to get them coming hard and fast enough to actually destroy me repeatedly. Anyway, I know I have some strident opinions on this. I really do want to see someone else tackle high-stakes fights in their own way. Erock10r has a series with a lot of combat and salvage, and had a different approach from mine. So I'll be excited to see whatever you come up with!

[@MrBlackdragon1230]

Now take all that with the NPC's add more npc factions than just Reavers(I was using somewhere between 6 and 8 of them) also some are more aggressive than Reavers. I also use WC and quite a few weapon mods with it along with the NPC weapon randomizer. I made true "Survival Impossible". Ships could kill you from 10k away and you wouldent know it till your already dead. It became a live underground only thing and only popping my head out quickly to get stuff.

[@Arcanidge]

You should continue with this for sure. A new series is always welcome

[@DVS-rb9wn]

its nice to find a new series in space engineers, there's not much content creators for the game with new series.

[@CaptainPilipinas]

No cities skylines-Majority out there gives a flip about trying out Any of the Vektan planet (for an example) city state-like attempt makings in any of their own simulations for example, *yes. Unfortunately, Hrm.*

[@thatrainbowgamer6454]

Great job with the video! Love the idea and looking forward to seeing the series unfold! As a name for the rover, you could call it SB (Stickbug) since it kind of has that linear design that you might associate with one!

[@RangerLab]

Admittedly I've never played Space Engineers but it's always interested me so I'm excited to watch you play through!

[@addisonpage1]

It’s a steep learning curve but tutorials and a few try’s at new survival worlds and you could get it in no time! You should definitely try it out

[@captaindarksign3589]

@@addisonpage1 definitely 1000+ hours on steam awesome game once you’re in

[@addisonpage1]

@@captaindarksign3589 for real!

[@Keled]

Nice job :D. Im thinking to play in this one also :D

[@humanhuman3921]

legitimately great intro

[@kitsueb]

Sounds interesting, great production value on that intro too. You've got a decent voice and the audio levels are good, you've got a new sub! BTW the lightning mechanics are "challenging" to the point of broken. The strikes are not random, you and your grids will be hit on a timer during a storm. There's a guide out there on the mechanics, and I think you could live with it if you know all the rules.

[@buffatwo]

Yea, I figured they weren't random. I learned the trick of using a decoy block from MadMavn's no suit survival series. Without the guide, I'm guessing that it's based on distance from the player and that certain blocks attract lightning more than others. IIRC antennas also act as lightning rods.

[@kitsueb]

Your rover is quite the mountain goat. For some reason I thought the goats that pull Thor's chariot had six legs, and their names aren't great, but how about Tanngrisnir? Or just Grisnir? Will be extra thematic when Thor smites you...

[@deanobrien1204]

This looks like it should be fun! Looking forward to more.

[@fieryshark1407]

Just found your Channel. This series I will be watching

[@-Benito_Swagolini-]

Pls keep this series going. It looks so good! 👍

[@markuhlman3767]

Ive been playing SE for years. Just found your channel and series. Love what youre doing here. Cant wait to watch the other videos and get caught up. Keep up the good work.

[@rabidpistol9722]

Hey just found you and insta subscribed! I’m sooooo pumped for this series!

[@lordsherifftakari4127]

yeah! Lightning in SE is hyper Broken. Lightning does like to hit tall things and tall metal things even more. but GPS guided, Heat Seeking, Ion Bolts from Thor & Zeus is not fun!

[@buffatwo]

Extra challenge :P just need to figure out how to use it to my advantage to get it to strike enemies instead.

[@RandomGamerConversations]

cool video! getting inspiration for my own series now lol. Piece of advice to make building easier for you: if you mmb (middle mouse button) on blocks inside the G menu itll add them to your build planner, if you then mmb on cargo ports that have access to the right components, it'll yoink out everything you need for you! if its a big block it'll max you inv capacity, but will know how much you still need, so you can go back again and grab the rest. Just thought that would be useful info for you to know since I didn't see you using it during your building ^w^

[@Marko295]

Very interesting concept. Looking forward to more!

[@wonderingwolf206]

I like this scenario like your videos

[@TheMNWolf]

Totally expecting you to run into James Raynor down there.

[@heriek113]

yay another SE series to binge watch :D

[@martinw51]

Best thing tho is the chill straight gameplay in my opinion, with some clear goals and rough plans.

[@jonathanbair523]

You should look at getting the MA Spotlight pack.... I love the 3 lights in 1 block, you can almost see them from like 3k away... I put them on top all my things from base landing pads to rovers/ships...

[@martinw51]

I just discovered you! This sounds amazing. You just found yourself a new subscriber! Have a nice day! Love the way you did show this, with the little speed ups and all the nice cinematic shots. Love it!

[@darkehartplays]

I'm not sure Helgan's storm weather is coded to reduce solar panel outputs. It doesn't dynamically detect actual light levels, only the angle to the sun and stuff in the way. As for the cargo, if there was anything inside, it would have fallen out, so you were correct. Good start so far. =^.^=

[@adivrsity]

Wow! This is extremely similar to my own series, you are definately better at the cinematics :D I spent way too long getting my gigantic base up and running (smh) Any ideas other then Assertive to get more difficult/attacked by npcs? Ive gone dozens of hours without being attacked, though maybe I should just turn on an antenna and make each faction at war...hmm

[@buffatwo]

My understanding is that for most MES mods is that you need to provoke the factions for them to come after you. The only exception to this, I think, is the Reavers who will go after broadcasting antennas they detect.

[@adivrsity]

@@buffatwo I guess I know what my next episode will be doing 🤣

[@Wilderweincd]

i respect your taste in music allot

[@tournedoproductions5132]

I’m so hyped to watch this series

[@culyc]

my first wreck was covered in wind turbines and solar panels and much larger..... i hope you find one of those

[@BPR_Jon]

Ooooooo that intro is niceee

[@MaitlandJones]

Late comment, but I'd name the rover, RoverMcRoverface.

[@lionical_plays]

i absolutely love this! right on dude!

[@HPFrog1998]

Helghan (Helgen)???? Will I ever escape Todd Howard´s creation?

[@Mors_deus]

This was cool AF

[@magpie1466]

Space Engineers?! This is a most welcomed development

[@HeilTec]

Name for the rover: Explorer. Often name my grids after what they do.

[@ascspeedywalker4778]

The big ships fly to 100 suns pushing the speed of light. 2 months out 2 months back but 20 years on your homeworlds track pushing the speed of light

[@marsregulator-1748]

nice that you build an actual rover instead of using the sideways wheels 0% friction glitch some people tend to use

[@quinsutton7097]

I wish there was a game like this but combined with the realistic physics aspects of something like Kerbal Space Program and unlimited speed (well diminishing returns the closer you get to c).

[@riderofthenightfury]

I see your using Splitsie's assertive combat system!

[@Vlamyncksken]

You saw because he literally showed it

[@TheMNWolf]

I don't think I saw them in the mod list. I would recommend AI enabled and crew enabled. Give you something to do with those character weapons.

[@CASA-dy4vs]

How do you think a dragon would fare to low orbital Bombardments and assault cannons

[@Quantum_Tator]

pretty entertaining. One of these day's i am going to find a person who wants a stream partner, for dual survival

[@not-alot-of-options]

Could you not have the spectator player hidden away somewhere else and use the F8 spectator camera with it? That way, you wouldn't have the floating engineer to worry about. I think also if you wanted to stay doing it this way because you like interacting with it lol, then on the spectator press "O" to turn off broadcasting, so it doesn't show up on your HUD.

[@MindfulGP]

Why does the Into music remind me of Red vs Blue???🤔🤣

[@Adm1n0f0ne]

Always down for more space engineers but also... why are you using P?

[@robertthomas-ball9416]

I know this is late, but did you adjust the timer for the wreck spawns? I've played the same amount of time with the mod and it spawns much more than yours did.

[@buffatwo]

No I didn’t mess with any of the spawn settings. Iirc MES uses the same timer for all encounters, so I probably have more ships flying by than wrecks spawning. Also if you travel around more, more stuff spawns.

[@raptor991]

i like digging under ore veins and drilling up if I have enemy ais

[@TheMNWolf]

I might know why the ore scanning is updating so slowly for you. By any chance, are you playing this in online mode? A recent update severely limited the rate at which LCD sprites update in online mode.

[@buffatwo]

I’m running it as a LAN server for the spectator camera, so that would make sense. Any idea if that’s a setting I can tweak?

[@mishavuimo5753]

I guess i am the only one who got that as a reference to Helghan and Helghasts from killzone

[@110890nick]

What is the name of the screens you see the ores in ?. That's a cool ores detector

[@buffatwo]

They are mods on the steam workshop. I forget what the one on planets is called at this exact moment, but the one in space for asteroids is called “Radio Spectrometry”. If you find that one, you should be able to find the one used on planets because they are made by the same developer iirc.

[@Alice_Sweicrowe]

Fus Ro Dah!!!

[@ianschlager9505]

What is the song at the beginning of the video called?

[@buffatwo]

Space by Andy G. Cohen. All songs are creative commons and in the description.

[@illegalfoodz8402]

Is this the new killzone?

[@chrissegee]

Wow you must really hate yourself with some of these mods you have put in. I look forward to see how you navigate this hellscape you have made for yourself

[@stinbray1120]

I used to be an adventurer like you until i took an arrow to the knee

[@shadowforge]

Glad to see I'm not the only one that has to play this game at 10 fps....

[@YipperX5]

anyone else want to watch roosterteeth's RvB series after listening to this intro or is it just me?

[@buffatwo]

By design :^) once I found that song I knew I had to use it, as I'm a big Halo/RvB fan. That said, before I revive the series I'm actually getting a new intro song commissioned. The intro song in this video doesn't have a nice short clip I can use for intros, so they end up being really long. I'll still probably work "Space" into the soundtrack for the next series though.

[@JArbiter3784]

I started playing survival myself recently, you've got a pretty loose definition of "starting equipment" ngl, but cool mod lineup.

[@jonasstrange9788]

20:30 hurt :(

[@buffatwo]

Yea, voice recordings just get some weird spikes in sound for some reason. Heck, I've had them pop up at all different times of the video editing process. Sometimes they are in the raw audio, sometimes they are the result of cutting up a clip, and sometimes they aren't there until the final render. I've caught them in other peoples videos too, even big name youtubers.

[@jonasstrange9788]

@@buffatwo no worries man just wanted to let u know :D. Lovely content

[@Eclectic_MusicProductions]

You could sit your cameraman in a chair and use it's spectator cam.

[@kararnos]

helghan isn't that the planet from kill-zone?

[@amberthesalamander]

I wanna Learn the intro song on guitar

[@ChunkyHandCream]

Space pirate simulator Somali pirate simulator

[@Nooob3775]

When is the next episode?

[@buffatwo]

Wednesday!

[@Nooob3775]

Ok

[@Bluewave10146]

MM not you add mod real water