Space Engineers Tutorial: Conveyors and Welding Ships (Part 7 of a survival tutorial series)

[@z6n387]

Dude! I had no idea you could place block well being inside the cockpit in first person! The amount of time I've spent getting In and out a weldership to place more blocks then get back in and weld it.....This is a life changer in survival mode and time save, Thanks for the info!

[@Splitsie]

You're very welcome :) Glad you got some useful info out of it!

[@adamring5325]

lol are u serius i newer used my welder ship cous its so hard to get out and place blocks then get in to the ship. so now after 2years i found this info.

[@YEAHKINDA]

You read these things out like a well-made infomercial and I'm 100% happy with that.

[@Splitsie]

Thanks, I think :P

[@YEAHKINDA]

@@Splitsie It's a kind of good that can't be manufactured

[@Jimbothegamer]

you have made space engineers alot more fun for me, god i dont know how you dont have more subs

[@Splitsie]

Thanks Jimbo! I was pretty excited the other day when one of my videos showed up on the first page with searches for Space Engineers :D

[@z6n387]

Jimbo People don't see talent when it's right Infront of their eyes!

[@bertkooijmans4769]

@@Splitsie cant even find other tutorials now haha Quick question tho. Is there a way to automatically load parts into the ship in vannilla se was thinking maybe with sorter? Im working on heavy armored base to make it me proof haha. I might have a habit of bumping into things haha

[@Gravitationification]

He's great, the playerbase just isn't that big.

[@gearslayer-vn3gz]

@@bertkooijmans4769 mayby a script but I don't know much about scripts but they are magic.

[@macgabhann1108]

just to let you know since one of the recent updates you no longer need a vent in atmosphere. the cockpits are now only sealed once you leave an oxygen environment.

[@Splitsie]

Ah, good to know, I'd missed that bit. Thanks :)

[@BigusGeekus]

Brand new player here. I was wondering why I saw so many mentions of this when I've never seen any such problem with a cockpit. Now I know.

[@johnblaze8092]

Good stuff man, just got the game and your videos are a HUGE help so I just wanted to drop in and say thanks, hope to see more if you find the time in these crazy days.

[@KCatch22]

You created a welders group and added a control to toggle them on and off from the g-menu. Then you mentioned the dangers of exiting while the welders are toggled on. I would instead suggest grabbing the welders control from the tools and weapons tab of the g-menu, which once selected, will only enable the welders while the left mouse button it pressed. This would help prevent accidental suicides by welders.

[@Splitsie]

A very good point! It's probably useful to have both set up on your hotbar, so you're safe most of the time but if you're building a large area and don't want to hold down the mouse the whole time you've got that option too, even if it is a little risky ;) (for some reason the double click that works with character tools to keep them active doesn't seem to work for me with ship tools)

[@Prestiged_peck]

It does work if you go into a menu while holding the button, then when you get out of the menu you click to stop it

[@ZeroPointAlpha]

You can also add a sensor that automatically shuts them off when it detects a player within range.

[@danielsteger8456]

so posh way of writing a comment by misspelling 'is' as 'it'

[@ytrtea1089]

I have been watching for 2 years. I can't believe just watching Splitsie has made me spend over 20$ on just this game. Love you, bro.

[@Splitsie]

Glad you've been having fun all this time - can't believe I'm still finding new ways to mess up in SE after all this time :D

[@Aviator77007]

I have just find you and I must say that you are the most understantable tutorial maker. Thank you so much

[@Splitsie]

Thank you very much, that's very kind :)

[@Aviator77007]

At last, with this video, I got the idea of the welder or grinder ships. My first designs' conveyor systems was not working

[@Splitsie]

I remember how long it took me to build my first welding ship that was properly functional, there was a lot of frustration along the way there due to not knowing about the conveyors :P

[@adammurray4408]

I learned the conveyors thing on my own at like 800 hours lol. Wish I had seen this video earlier, I thought it was a bug

[@Splitsie]

I still remember my frustration when I built my first mining ship and the silly thing wouldn't work, took me so long to work out that I'd connected with small tubes. I the continued to make the same mistake on my first grinding ship... I felt really silly that time :P

[@007thezohan]

You think that's frustrating? I only learned that you could "right click mine" after 3 years of playing...imagine the necessary ship design i went through to mine. X-D

[@ryno4ever433]

@@Splitsie seems like something the game should tell you in a tooltip or something

[@leemathias4912]

After learning and doing all kinds of cool stuff with rotors now, with that great video, I find myself rewatching all of your vids now, lol. Some stuff can be complicated but your explanations are some of the best! Now that I understand the game more so much of this makes more sense.

[@Psawhn]

I end up making my utility ships double-ended. I like putting my connectors on the bottom, so by the time I've finished making a welding ship I realize that I'm 75% of the way to making a grinding ship, too. I figure that both a grinder and welder ship need most of the same parts anyway -- large conveyor network, storage, thrusters -- so why not combine them into one ship and save reduplicating common parts? One end has the welders, and the other end has grinders. Switching modes is as easy as jumping out of one cockpit and hopping back in the other! It ends up being larger and a bit more awkward than a smaller, dedicated welding ship, but as long as I'm careful with how I maneuver and the order in which I build a large structure, I'm fine. If I really needed to weld in a tight space I can always make a tiny remote-controlled welding drone, or even just accept doing some work by hand.

[@Splitsie]

If size isn't an issue that's actually a pretty neat solution :) I tend towards the lazy so for the really tight spaces it seems less effort to either do it by hand like you said, or grind down some armor so the ship can access the area

[@antediluvianatheist5262]

@@Splitsie I just make mine a little thicker, and stack the welders on top of the grinders.

[@fr_00alph]

I managed to make my utility ship exange arms when i need to. I have the conveyor hinge mod and i stick on my welders/gringers a merge block. Then i made a little station to merge the arms and then disconnect them with the disconnect option of the hinges (like a rotor) I can then proceed to lock on another set of tools to fit my needs. Pretty neet ! I need the hinge mode so i can disconnect it while being able to convey stuff without having the sinking effect on my ship caused by the sub grid an advanced rotor would make (your dampners dont take in account that weight and your ship sinks on atmospheres) the merge blocks make sure that my disconnected arms are on a powered grid so they dont despawn with the trash removal tool enable in the settings (alt F10)

[@trashcan8804]

3 years later, I’m watching again and still wanting to play. You make things sound easy, so I hope they are. Count that as +1 Subscriber

[@seanhoffman2755]

I have 700 hours in SE and never knew you could place blocks in a ship. That is awesome to no hahaa wow. That would make building larger ships alot easier! Thanks for the info!

[@Splitsie]

It certainly can, though I always seem to end up crashing when I do it :P

[@qualifiedidiots2165]

In space, I've got a basic ship. It's a small scale cockpit on a large conveyor junction with two connectors at the front and on the bottom. The bottom is for docking and resupplying. The front one is for attachments. Instead of 3 ships, I have three attachments that connect to the front of my basic ship for drilling, welding or grinding.

[@Ziptie5]

I'm new to space engineers and your vids are so helpful many years on. thanks mate

[@therookie710]

What platform you on?

[@Genzzry]

One tip to remember with "floating" (rear) docking ports (connectors) is that if your base runs out of power... the locks on the connectors will disengage and drop your ship (if its batteries are busy recharging). I've lost a few drilling rigs early during a game because my base was on solar power and the batteries got sucked dry by my first welding/drilling rig(s).... which results in your ships being dropped from a high height onto the hard floor and blowing up :/

[@fyermind]

Adding a landing gear to the base beside the connector to lock on to the batteries could solve this problem for you

[@coiledbug2394]

Why not use wind turbines?

[@Genzzry]

@@coiledbug2394 That comment was written about a year ago... before turbines existed. You can still have the same problem regardless of which power generation method you use though. The easiest way to fix this is to use landing gears to lock the ship to your base, so that even if the power goes out... your ships don't drop off connectors.

[@Genzzry]

The video was a tutorial for people that were new to Space Engineers and even back when it was released had some glaring issues like the dropping of ships from connectors. In my own bases / motherships though, I use landing gears to lock down my ships so that even if I run out of power - they can't move. I also use Remote Control blocks with autopilot to go "home" & auto-dock on planets. A timer block then sets my ships batteries to recharge when its connector & landing gears are locked. This is mainly because I'm lazy, don't wanna fly back... and the autopilot can dock way faster/safer than I can. Inventory Management scripts (like Taledens) are also useful things to restock welding ships, rebalance dual grinder/welder ships, etc.

[@coiledbug2394]

Daryl Knight oh heheh oh sorry I didn’t know space engineers even existed until just recently like in may or June ish I don’t know much XD

[@Cassin1306]

Oh, so now we can build from cockpit without having it connected to the large conveyor system ? That's very great news !

[@Splitsie]

Huh, I didn't even think about that when I was making this... I should probably have another look at this and see which inventory the plates were coming from, I'm going to guess they came from my personal inventory so if I'd run out then you'd need the large conveyor. Thanks for pointing that out :)

[@Autofire-nw5ty]

These tutorials have been a lifesaver 👍

[@qualifiedidiots2165]

I remember when I thought I could make a welding ship with small conveyor ports. Hahahahaha. (Crying) Hahahahahah. Chunks of ice larger than my ship can fit through those things. Not powercells through. Nope! (Sadder Crying) Hahahahahahaha! *Ship rams into a wall* (Dead Crying) Hahahahahahahaha!

[@coiledbug2394]

Qualified Idiots yeah me too....

[@QsPracticalNonsense]

This was my exact reaction... lol. I didnt know about the f5 trick and thought my saves were pretty far apart so I just remade it again :,)

[@qualifiedidiots2165]

@@QsPracticalNonsense Ah, the ol F5 trick. Me: Time for a quicksave! (F5) Game: Want to relo- Me: Yes... wait wha... Game: Reloads from 5 hours ago. Me: FUUUUUUUUUUUU

[@airsoftnoobxd4582]

I replaced the atmospheric thrusters with ion one for space and some other upgrades and it works great thank you for the help/tutorial👍

[@Splitsie]

Nice, it would probably work even better in space :)

[@airsoftnoobxd4582]

:)

[@Prestiged_peck]

When you said size can be an issue, like for tight spaces, I immediately though of a welding drone I made, they don't really work as well in atmo because they need to be able to lift themselves off the ground, but in space where you can get away with 1ion per direction, you can get a very tiny welder that you can actually still pilot from onboard the craft, or if you add an antenna, you can remotely pilot it too, you don't even need a remote initially but it makes things easier. All you need os a medium/large cargo container, six small ions, a gyro, power from say a reactor, the grinder/welder, and an industrial cockpit, you can also add a connector pretty easy if you go with large cargo because of the third large port on the side. You may also want a camera, an o2 gen or tank, a remote, and an antenna, the remote/antenna combo would remove the need for o2 and the cockpit, but I prefer to pilot from on board

[@Splitsie]

I completely agree that direct piloting has big advantages for welding/grinding ships - especially in tight spaces. When I'm in space I'm like you, build something with the bare minimum of thrusters in each direction since you don't need to move quickly (in fact moving quickly can be a downside) or fight pesky gravitational forces...

[@Prestiged_peck]

I usually do double thrusters but half of them are almost always off and I use them only when my container is full

[@henryplumb5200]

To anyone whose looking in the comments for those extra tidbits: 1 - When splitsie says medium cargo container, HE MEANS IT! I've been building large storage container versions which, while able to carry excessive amounts of ore and parts, makes my crafts flying bricks. Small clip of a wing and boom, 90% gone from mass calculations. If you want to use large, be careful and mindful of the amount of thrust versus possible mass. I find 7 thrusters each direction minimum with 2 batteries minimum is sufficient to haul 1-2 large containers worth of goodies depending on the goods' weights. 2 - Closer to the welder/grinder means faster operation. You can have a single space-worth before getting gaps in welding or grinding. So factor this into how you're welding/grinding. Dont want to risk your lovely ground-off Assert Thruster because the way you ground around it snapped it off the ship and down a 12 foot cliff... I wish I had footage of this xD 3 - I started building Welder/Grinder ships 400 hours in... WHY DIDN'T I DO IT SOONER? SO MANY HOURS, PLACING BLOCKS AND WELDING BY HAND...

[@mwbgaming28]

in multiplayer, welders can make a great area denial system or auto repair system (especially the KC-kodiak strut welder which has a 20 block weld cone infront of it)

[@Splitsie]

If a mod like that is active on the server you could certainly block a large area from the enemy, or friends who aren't paying attention ;)

[@mwbgaming28]

i use a few of them on my base as an auto repair system for when the base shields go down during an attack so i dont need to constantly replace blocks after every battle (annoying as hell) the base hangar bay has a bunch of them to automatically repair my ships, but it also serves as an area denial weapon since the hangar is the only way into the base (assuming the attacker doesnt have a teleporter on their ship)

[@squillafrixum7891]

*_THE SUN IS A DEADLY LAZER_*

[@Splitsie]

That's why you don't go outside your welding ship ;)

[@clintjoseph7126]

Only in the Cambrian?

[@GameMaker3_5]

*NOT ANYMORE THERE'S A BLANKET!!!*

[@pik4chu]

Splitsie mentions this in his newer videos but a note for newer players since he mentioned it here and that is to not get in the habbit of using 'P' as it can cause issues with multiple connected ships to a grid but instead add the connector or landing gear to your hotbar and toggle the lock/unlock that way. (or handbrake for wheel-based ones)

[@ShinzoSin]

Very good starting design and even better turtorial. Man your content is solid. You have earned a sub! ^^'

[@Splitsie]

Thanks so much :)

[@daniellohe12]

Still best tutorial series available on youtube so far. Btw, what's your opinion on Medieval Engineers? Dead game or a light of future?

[@Splitsie]

Wow, that's some high praise! Thanks :) I think ME is getting close to being a real game and the devs seem to be aiming in that direction which gives me hope. One positive thing for ME is that it **should** be easier for them to create meaningful NPC content in a world that doesn't have any flying vehicles so some good PvE will hopefully be present in the future. Right now though, it's very much a sandbox still unless you know a lot of other players.

[@daniellohe12]

Splitsie But what you think about adding water to both games?

[@Splitsie]

It'll never happen. I don't think it's such a bad thing as there aren't any really good ways of dealing with water in voxel based games yet. Empyrion has weird bits where you're under a lake but the water just hangs suspended above you, Minecraft has it's weirdo water physics, 7 days to die has made some good attempts, but the water physics tanks performance. I'd actually prefer Keen to work on making the current blocks all functional in the *same* update, not breaking one thing while trying to fix another :P

[@Splitsie]

I should clarify, when I say it'll never happen that comes straight from one of the more prominent devs Rexxar. He's even set his discord bot to play a message saying something like that whenever the word water is written in chat :P

[@macgabhann1108]

agreed water is extremely difficult in a voxel based world and as of right now there is no way for the game engine to handle it however with that said it appears that Rising world is working on a solution, now as I say that know that I am not saying that they have fixed it just that they have found a way to kind of voxelize the water but is in no means anywhere near good enough, also Im guessing Keen is getting sick of the number of players asking for something that is as of right now impossible to do and have it not look like crap, empyrean does not seem to either know about or care that the water does not voxelize alowing a player to dig a tunnel next to a lake to bottom of the lake and then walk under the water while still being able to breath oxygen with the helmet OFF , sure the water looks nice until you start digging around it or taking advantage of a game glitch that basically breaks the mini game of having to use suit oxygen while under water.

[@zourin8804]

My construction ship is a simple drone that's just big enough to squeeze through a 1x1x1 hole to get to interior spaces of a larger build. You get used to moving via camera, but the only drawback is the inability to quickly check for any missing parts on a block that just won't finish. These require manual inspection, unfortuntely.

[@foodconnoisseur8397]

Hey Splisie do you have a video that shows how to use a welder with a projector and to build from a blueprint pls...so as you set you projector battery and small block up to project ship blueprint then maybe attach a welder on top so it does the welding for you?

[@Immashift]

I do like putting my connectors on small ships right above the cockpit facing forward. Makes it really easy to dock first person, no cameras, inverted controls, etc.

[@Splitsie]

Makes sense :)

[@Zack-dk3pt]

im glad i saw this before getting to far on my grinding ship that i started with small blocks

[@Splitsie]

That's some handy timing, many a frustrated person from building welding and grinding ships with small conveyors - myself included :P

[@robbertslijkhuis5491]

I used to get fried by my welders to all the time. Then I added a sensor and set its range around them to auto shut off when a player is detected. I've got it setup that the welders will stay off when the player leaves and to turn them back on requires player input.

[@Splitsie]

That safety sensor is definitely a must have if you're frequently leaving corpses under your welding ship :P

[@commiccannon592]

Splitsie so for capac

[@Car_Mo]

On a grid with a inventory script , i found it useful to disable inventory management for the cargo box on the welder or all the material would be pulled out of the ship before i took off.

[@szeredaiakos]

My welders are on the side of the cockpit starting from the cockpit face and one block lower. It provides excellent visibility while allowing me to jam them into tight places. Though, since my welder wall is finished i build increasingly more purpose built machines like a rail layer, or a power plant upgrade for a base or a ship, even pavement segments.

[@Splitsie]

I'm with you on the purpose built stuff, tends to be the way I end up going with welders as well, just too hard to make something that's really useful as an all purpose design

[@outrageous-alex]

Made one before, I made it thin like a tear drop shape except 2 extended welders at front lower section, that way I could get between most gaps in things (kinda like millennium falcon) since I had the same thrust each way it was really helpful.

[@Splitsie]

There certainly is a big advantage to universal thrust with something like a welding ship - so easy to be distracted and end up upside down :P

[@outrageous-alex]

@@Splitsie I do that wayyy too often.

[@scooterjes]

I have in the past made a 2 ended ship with 2 cockpits welders on 1 end and grinders on the other just get in whatever end you need to use handy if your salvaging 1 ship to make another grind till your full then hop in the other cockpit and weld using the same stuff.

[@Splitsie]

That's certainly another good option for a multiuse vehicle and as you say, handy for being able to immediately reuse materials :)

[@johndejong2638]

I love welding by hand. makes the builds more personal. In the case of repairs in PvP, automation would be best but PvE you don't need it as much

[@Splitsie]

Very true, I really only use ship welders for large areas like hangars. That might be because I have a tendency to crash a lot so building with a ship sometimes actually takes longer! :P

[@builder396]

Nice design. personally I found it best to make the conveyor system in total a U shape (rather than your Y shape) from the top, basically having a single large cargo container in the rear center with its large conveyor ports on the sides, and extending from there one curved conveyor tube facing forward, then 2 medium containers (substituting conveyors) and then the welders. As for the cockpit, the better idea in my opinion is to use the fighter cockpit as it has a large conveyor port in the rear (and the welders being placed further forward gives the needed space) thus you can use it for even more component storage. Its a tad wider than what you have (and potentially less forthcoming for in-atmosphere use due to thruster placement) but the distance between the welders is ideal to have a choice between welding "lanes" of either 3 or 4 blocks. By the way, I did notice that I forgot about the connector. The welder I described wasnt actually built by me (but it was everything I would have built), and as far as memory serves the connector was on the top, and as far as memory serves it had a large conveyor connection to the large container, so I really have no idea where the cockpit was connected (given the large container has 3 large and 3 small conveyor ports).

[@Splitsie]

That setup sounds like it would work reasonably well, I'm a fan of making my welding ships as small as possible so that I can hopefully fit into small-ish gaps but it does tend to limit the carrying capacity a fair bit.

[@builder396]

Well, I tend to use welding ships mostly for outer hull assembly, especially when making it out of heavy armor, since it both gives you a large volume of blocks to weld, as well as heavy armor taking up a shitton of inventory space. Any internals, from bulkheads to reactors, are usually manageable by hand.

[@Splitsie]

That's definitely a time you want something with a whole lot of cargo space! Welding up heavy armor is such a major pain, especially since they introduced the metal grid requirement.

[@fyermind]

For grinder ships, I have found large grid preferable to small grid due to the massively increased storage capacity and lack of required precision. A single large cargo container, with four front mounted grinders, spaced apart by three small cargo containers, then held aloft by pairs of small atmospheric thrusters is phenominal on europa. This design may require tweaking on full scale planets. I often find myself pirating large vessels and needing to grind them down. This design has become a staple of my survival games.

[@Splitsie]

You're right, large grid has a big advantage when it comes to grinders, not only because of the reasons you mentioned but also because small grid is really, really, slow. This was more a tutorial on how to make a very early game welder/grinder and have a reason to go into the differences between the conveyor sizes since I'd had a lot of questions about it at the time and felt this was a more interesting way to explain things :)

[@tassie7325]

I guess if you rotate those two outer conveyor junctions so that the small ports are to the front, you could use the exact same design for a small mining ship. I look forward to the day when the developers allow Merge blocks to convey materials through them, as they did with the advanced rotors. That would make life so much easier.

[@Splitsie]

Yeah that would be a very good addition, exchangeable tools for small ships! The downside of using such large conveyors for a mining ship would be that you could use that space for storage instead of large conveyors, but then you'd need more thrust and more batteries... bugger.

[@tassie7325]

I have set up small blocks with just the individual tools on the front and a merge block on the rear so that each can be picked up with a small ship. But transferring the minerals/items renders this option obsolete at the moment. Setting up conveyors and connectors would solve the problem but defeat the objective of creating a small ship with interchangeable tools. But that does give me another idea . . .

[@Splitsie]

You've piqued my interest... One idea I've had but never tested is to make a thruster and powered ship that can connect to a combined cargo and tool section, it would resolve some of the connector problems, the tool bits would be bigger though :(

[@tassie7325]

I think I may have solved the problem. I used the same start as you, with the three Conveyor Junctions at the front with a Welder mounted on each of the two outer ones. I then mounted a Merge block on the back of the centre Conveyor Junction, but on the front of it, where you mounted the Cockpit, I mounted a Medium Cargo Container (MCC) and then placed a Connector on the front of that. I rearranged my Tug (small multi purpose ship) to make it a bit more compact and the system works well, with two exceptions: I have no problem docking the tool block to a connector to re-stock the cargo, but I had hoped to have a line of connectors so I could leave the tool blocks connected at the docking station. However, when the merge block is disconnected, the connector on the tool block disconnects and the tool block plummets to the floor. I tried giving the tool block its own power but the connector still failed once the merge blocks were separated. If anyone has an answer to this problem it would be greatly appreciated. The second problem I experienced was that once the MCC was fully laden I couldn’t get my ship to roll. It turns well enough, so its not the gyros. It also lifts and moves sideways OK. But if I try to roll, it barely moves, however the roll does improve if I have forward or rearward momentum. Also, it pitches OK until it gets to about 45 degrees, and then it stops. Lots of head scratching going on this end. The only thing I can think of is to add more downward thrusters.

[@tassie7325]

By the way, in contemplating my roll problem, I noticed that you don't have any down thrusters on your ships in this episode. I know in theory they shouldn't be required in a 1G atmosphere, but your ships hover and I don't see the inertia dampers being turned off. So how do you achieve the downwards movement? (I hope the answer is not so obvious that I end up looking like a right dork)

[@torvahnys]

I got fancy with my welder/grinder and mounted them on advanced rotors and set them up to point forward or down.

[@Splitsie]

That's a good idea, with operation in gravity sometimes you may find that your inertial dampeners won't fight grav properly because of the rotor but if you're in space it won't ever be a real issue :)

[@torvahnys]

@@Splitsie I do use it in atmospheric, the one problem I had building it was that thrusters mounted past the rotors wouldn't register the proper direction. I originally tried to put the side thrusters on the large conveyor junctions attached to the rotors and iirc the game thought they were down instead of left and right.

[@Quentonis]

I figured I would ask here as you are absolutely the best tutorial "guider"? On youtube for this game, for life of me I cannot find any videos on doing mining ships for going to space and coming back to the planet, as using your spaceship design going up mining several K worth of resources by hand is a length process. Could you potentially make a tutorial on a mining ship for going to space and coming back planetside?

[@Splitsie]

Absolutely, I think it could be a good opportunity to make use of the parachutes for a cheap return flight as well. It could be handy to have a small ship that can reach space to bring back some platinum for planetary construction. Not sure how soon I'll be able to do it, but I'll start building something this week :)

[@Quentonis]

You continue to prove yourself the best at these tutorials, thank you so much you have helped me immensely with this game I am loving so very much I worry my own lack of building ability/creativity will be my downfall but once more thank you so very much I look forward to more vids in the future!

[@Splitsie]

Wow, thanks for the very kind words :) The awesome thing about space engineers is that you can be creative in so many different ways, if you're not great at aesthetics, you might be great at things that function in an interesting way or you might make a cool script etc. Just gotta find which part of the game you have the most fun toying with :)

[@Quentonis]

Oh absolutely I also love that it is simplified where it needs to be, I don't need to worry about connecting up wires or so on "does it have 2 blocks connecting it? Youre good" I definitely will end up making a "dreaded brick" at some point, Just gotta right now get much better at making ships since I can take your simple starters and work from there, the problem becomes eventually you need more and more resources and therefore bigger and better ships to get those resources, my issue becomes figuring out how to make those bigger and better ships, as I am still using your basic atmo miner and trying to mine out a deep bit of resources on a planet with it, while faster than by hand can eventually be so time consuming you start to go crazy! Lol

[@Splitsie]

Yep, the grind can definitely drive you insane :P An option might be to build a ship that can ferry resources to and from the planet, then build a large space-based mining ship (I always find it easier to add more drills to those than atmospheric ones) and ferry your ores/ingots back and forth...

[@bandolin1216]

These are my issues concerning welding ships. Yes they build considerable faster however, the building process is somewhat uncontrolled. If you are building from a blueprint, and your welding tips inadvertently pass over blocks you don't want to weld right away you end up burying unbuilt blocks you need to grind away surround blocks to get to. Another issue is I've never managed to dock to my station and load up on the items from my G menu queue. There's something about the 'Conveyor Junction' that prevents me from pulling the items from the station containers into the ship. That means I have to transfer it manually. Am I doing something wrong?

[@danielstaus5921]

i have the same issues. i've actually never made a welding ship because I mostly build from blueprints

[@Arbiter1223]

My biggest concern when using a build ship is the possibility for the thrusters to do damage to whatever I'm building, namely the backwards thrusters considering I'm right up against the build when welding. I would also like to point out, though, that this is more prevalent to me because my build ship is on a large grid, making the danger zone of thrusters much bigger. (I know using large grids gives it a huge shape, but I mainly use it to build from projectors and go layer by layer, reducing the need to have to squeeze into tight spaces. That. plus the GREATLY increased cargo space to reduce resupply trips, outweighs the cost of a larger ship for me at least. Also, it's an ion-powered ship so I don't have to deal with that pesky gravity :) ) Regardless, my advice for when you're building ships, *especially* welder ships or any other ships that will be in extremely close proximity to other ships or grids, is to make sure you leave enough room with the thrusters for you to get close enough to whatever you're building without it being in the danger zone of your thrusters. Do note that this is only really a concern for worlds that have thruster damage turned on.

[@Splitsie]

It's certainly worth being cautious of regardless of where you use it, becomes weirdly easy to burn a hole in your floor or wall if you're not :P

[@007thezohan]

A good idea is to run a script to display the stored construction components in your welder, or even use the T.I.M. script to automatically restock components when you reconnect to your station (if that's possible).

[@Splitsie]

I agree, some sort of inventory display can definitely be handy to reduce the number of key presses by not having to go through the menus

[@rebaav]

Great videos, thanks for doing them. A potential difference between welder and grinder ships is that a grinder ship needs all of the grinders conveyed so as to capture the components but a welder ship could have many welders but only needs one connected to place the components. Any thoughts about using the Large conveyor and welder systems when building Large grids like bases and similarly sized grids? It makes sense to me to use a conveyor net to move many component blocks like refineries or large reactors thus potentially bypassing the need for a ship all together in those cases, simply queue up the components in the assembler then turn on the welder placed as what would be the lastas what conveyor tube then remove and replace with the last conveyor tube.

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :) You're absolutely right about the difference there, I've always built my welding ships so both welders can place components (never bothered building a larger one). One of the upsides of this is there are times where the right welder can reach something the left can't - and vice-versa. But you could have two welding ships, one with a couple of welders but no cargo, one with just one welder and plenty of cargo, they'd both be smaller so you could fit them in corridors and smaller places but should still be quicker than hand welding. If you've already got a functional base but you're expanding or reorganising, using the large grid welders like that would certainly work but I'm not sure how much time you'd really save, particularly if you've got a welding ship... off the top of my head I can't recall how many components are required for large grid welders. I might give it a try in the future as it certainly sounds like a nifty little concept :)

[@TSPxEclipse]

Watching this and thinking of ways to automate the build process for these types of craft. Perhaps, have a "printer" (for lack of better words) create a ship frame, then another "printer" (or same printer, different projector) create the core pieces for the ship(s), then once again to a finalization "print" that can specialize a cookie-cutter craft for a specific role (welding, grinding, both, fighting, etc.)

[@Splitsie]

That would certainly be doable, I'm hopeless at designing stuff to fit the same frame for long enough to make use of it, but I've seen many designs on the workshop that would function well with that sort of setup

[@Signal_Flare]

You can rotate the middle medium cargo container a certain way so that the smaller ports can connect with the cockpit

[@Splitsie]

Nope, then you can't connect the welders, you need the large ports arranged for them as first priority, connecting the cockpit would require too much extra room for it to be worth the effort :(

[@mdcynyay]

- Hey nice engines, where is your fuel tank? - They're on the back - But the are only connectors and a medium cargo container there - Look to the side - Those are batteries - I know - But... those are jet engin... I LOVE THE FUTURE

[@Splitsie]

Gotta love them electric jet engines :)

[@macgabhann1108]

are you going to be doing a video on automated drones wheeled for GPS navigation as well as player following , as well as atmo flying gps ones that will actually get to there gps and not 5 M away from it and auto dock with a station for recharging/refueling loading and unloading themselves.

[@Splitsie]

I'd say there's very little chance I'd be doing that, largely because all attempts at such a thing that I've read about (attempted by people much better at scripting than me) have been either briefly successful or not successful at all :( If you find someone who's done it in the latest version send me the link as I'd love to use it :)

[@macgabhann1108]

ah so im not the only one having problems with drones then , must be an issue Keen needs to work on ? at least I know it wasn't just me being stupid but at least for now i am able to get the atmo ones to fly relatively close to the gps so guess thats a start im certainly going to keep playing around with it though as I have a idea for a scenario that would need them that i am eventually wanting to try and make once Keen alows scenario mode again. in the mean time though I can still work on the map for it.

[@Prestiged_peck]

Part of it is that you can turn on precision more and give it a shit ton of braking thrusters

[@johnm9263]

For the steel plates vs ammo, the steel plate is very wide and thin, so there's less volume, but in all directions but one, it is physically larger, and ammo can be broken down, or think of how ammo casings get ejected, while the bullet tip flies. The belts can be unwound and are much more flexible, and the box could then theoretically be taken apart or fold, and then reform at the other end. Without structurally weakening steel plates, they cannot be cut and welded together again, same with some other components, like the bottle, which would cause micro pits or cracks and thus possibility of bursting increases 100 fold

[@Splitsie]

Yep, that works to give it a backstory explanation :)

[@Letham316]

Seeing this video, it makes me glad they now have an icon that shows if it won't fit through a small conveyor ... and a lot more items actually fit now, including pretty much all components. 👍 In fact, what even has this restriction anymore, aside from gas bottles and energy recharge consumables? "This can kill you ... and I will demonstrate this shortly." 👀💦

[@Letham316]

PS, the experience of welding by hand: Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt. And grinding by hand: Inventory full, inventory full, inventory full. I'm so glad I had a builder ship up and running when I decided to dismantle my combat flier. Also really glad I started using a mining ship, in the time it used to take to manually mine and pick up the pieces to fill my personal inventory, the mining ship would be completely full (15kL cargo container, storage space inside drills, connector, etc).

[@Rygertyger]

Why do you not need thrusters for up direction? Is it cause gravity does the work and the down thrusters work to offset? Is it better then not having up thrust at all?

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, because gravity is doing that work, extra thrusters tend to be both unnecessary weight and increase the chance of a pilot like me smacking very hard into the ground :P I tend to build with none at all, but for anything that you hope to use autopilot on you'll need at least 1 for the autopilot to function

[@Rygertyger]

@@Splitsie awesome thx for reply

[@stanpollard]

great video splitsie

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@finlander9181]

Thanks again you help hips been a newbie too space engineers.

[@Splitsie]

You're very welcome :)

[@samuelfowler5921]

My version is similar but longer, I used 3 conveyor junctions so o can access the container from the cockpit, and slapped the batteries on the welder to keep it compact, but has drawbacks thought, more weight, higher chance of crashing exceeding maximum degree, but gets the job done nice, fast, and better..... If remember to put the batteries on discharge instead of recharge, semi-auto and me are not good friends......

[@Splitsie]

I tend to keep all my batteries with all boxes unchecked, though I would recommend having a look at Isy's Ship Refueler script, it's awesome for those of us who regularly forget to control our batteries properly. Works on any ship that has at least 2 batteries :)

[@radoslawmazurekwaw]

One thing is annoying about welder craft: can't check if and what is missing to build block. I have to get outside and check it manually (and sometimes die because forgot to turn this off).

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain that :( The new build planner has some features that can minimise the troubles but I haven't messed around with it enough yet to come up with the best way to take advantage of it

[@radoslawmazurekwaw]

@@Splitsie I don't know how it works at all (build planner).

[@Krakon01]

I cant wait for the next episode

[@Splitsie]

You won't be waiting too long ;)

[@roundnround952]

Using the fighter cockpit in this situation would have yeilded more cargo space. The fighter cockpit's Large conveyor port is on its back. If the length of the cockpit becomes an issue use Conveyor junctions attached to the wielders to extend their reach beyond the cockpit.

[@Splitsie]

There are a few reasons I wouldn't use that approach, the main one being that I wanted this ship to be as small as I could reasonably get it, so that it can fit into tighter spaces to reduce any reliance on hand welding. The other side of it is that you would get more storage out of the same volume by placing the small cockpit and a medium cargo container where the fighter cockpit would sit, even without the cockpit piped it would give you greater capacity. Or you could tip the little cockpit sideways and get the bonus but just cope with weird control directions :P

[@z6n387]

The grinder ship I would have put a connector under the cockpit and replaced the one at the rear with a extra battery so you have 1 on the roof one on the back or even better add 2 at the rear leaving you with 3 battery's total and he 2 small reactors;) That's if you decided not to add more reactors that is :p

[@Splitsie]

The trouble with that is then the components can't get through the connector, you're left with a small conveyor connection between the grinders and the connector so a lot of different components won't be able to pass :(

[@bodylesssoul6975]

@splitsie you should redo tutorial series to help us struggleing in the new survival update

[@Splitsie]

Already started, have the first two videos out :) Link to the first one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oX2biYRndtutY5I

[@JBiggs-ld5xt]

Yeh I brought space engineers because of it lol I stumbled across it, then his third vid was a flashback to my experience lol still loving it, I hate welding hense why I'm here in the comment ona year old vid 😂

[@niscent_]

i know the video is old and everything, but if you're gonna make a cluster of small atmospheric thrusters, just use a large. the large atmospheric thrusters in small grid have the same energy consumption as 4 smalls, and the thrust of 6. if you got the room, just use those.

[@lukemulvay3753]

Large thrusters will take up the space of 9 small thrusters, so I guess it depends on if the ship in question needs more power efficiency or space/smaller form factor

[@seamagician7042]

Say I were building a small ship from a projector, would the range of the welders be good enough to get all the interior stuff? Or if I pushed the welder inside the Blueprint would it not weld itself inside the ship ?

[@nettyvoyager6336]

when have you ever seen a symmetrical air vent in the roof of a ship or in a building its usually just a mess of pipes

[@jvedra9041]

Armor. Welding ships often need to get into tight spaces. like to add strategic bits of light armor to protect the outer bits.

[@radoslawmazurekwaw]

I tried remote miner but the issue applies to anything. When remotly controlling creaft I don't see LCD with usefull informations. In case of miner it was cargo capacity and in case of welding craft it would be cargo content. About oxygene - it changes everything. Oxygene tank complicates things a lot and ship is much longer.

[@frankvana187]

Hello Splitsie, really enjoying your videos, I subbed a few days ago. But I can't get the blocks to line up with the grid in first person :( I'm doing exactly what you are doing except for that I use a different ship (not your model). Could you tell me why this happens .. ?

[@frankvana187]

Figured it out; they wouldn't align because I was using a different paint on the new blocks. After I handmade a line of these, the new blocks snap into grid :D

[@Sealed14X]

He only has 5 directions of thrust. (Up, Right, Left, Forward, and Backward.) I think docking for a recharge may be hard if he has no Down (Descending) thrust! Still nice video and tutorial. (Perhaps I'm missing something here!)

[@Splitsie]

It was designed for work in a gravity field so that will give you your downward thrust, I find if I have down thrust and gravity I tend to accelerate too fast toward my landing site and it becomes a crash site :P Plus it's nice to save on a few thrusters :)

[@caytonsleague3687]

Hope somebody can answer this First off Awesome videos i enjoy them alot and they are helping out a bunch So, I always thought Batteries save energy But in space engineers it seems like they are producing power Or am i wrong?

[@Splitsie]

With batteries if you have all of the checkboxes in the control panel unchecked they will act like capacitors. If you have excess energy they will charge and if your system needs energy they will discharge. That's why I normally recommend that people use that setting, it's the most intuitive to me. While the batteries may be slow to charge from small nuclear reactors they can discharge very quickly if the ship requires it, I haven't looked at the exact figures, but on small grids you would need a lot of small reactors to match the peak power output of a battery. When you first build a battery it will have some charge already in it, I think it's about 25%. This can be very handy so that you can then get the ship to somewhere that the batteries can fully recharge, or to allow the conveyor system to function in order to get uranium to reactors that are otherwise unable to be accessed. Batteries will never generate power themselves, unless there is a mod out there that does that which would be strange. If you're seeing the battery getting filled then you have excess power from your reactors or solar panels. Hopefully that helps :)

[@ВикторВолков-е6г]

Can we build ventilation system wish small conveyors? I still didn't shure, how vent works.

[@Splitsie]

Yes you can, gasses can pass through any sort of conveyor :)

[@DepressedNOF]

My Welding and Grinding ships tend to break a lot (probably my fault :D) but I like to include a projector in all of my designs and self align the blueprint of the ship and leave projection on. So if something breaks, you can see it in the projectors block menu and fix it without much effort. :)

[@Splitsie]

Self-repairing or identifying missing blocks is a great use of projectors, especially where it's hard to build in symmetry, like on large ships. I've not used it a lot myself, but for those more complex builds it's really helpful :)

[@Neuroscratch]

Really nice tutorial ! Thx. Do someone know how to fill the welder's cargo ? I'm able to use my welder ship but I would like to fill de welder cargo like that I could remove the cargo container behind.

[@Splitsie]

You can do that manually by dragging components into the welders or there are a number of inventory scripts that can automate the process for you e.g. Isy's inventory manager

[@Neuroscratch]

@@Splitsie Thx for the manual tip , and i forgot to say that I'm on the Xbox Bêta, no scripts yet. But I succed to fill it manually and in fact I think I've understood why it's not possible to fill it automatically, maybe it's beacause if you need to weld somthing needing a special componement, if the welder is full, it can not drag it at the end.

[@Neuroscratch]

Just to say, in my opinion, you are the best Space Engineer professor I know on KZbin, no waisted time, clear and calm voice and precision. Thx again for your work.

[@justagoth1025]

Great video bro I really liked it and it helped me out a lot since I'm a bit new to the game. I just had a quick question that about the game, and that is. Could you give me some tips on how you commentate because I have trouble doing it on my channel, so if u don't mined could you just give some tip's? Thanks bro and keep up the good work.

[@Splitsie]

If you look through any of the threads on r/letsplay on how to improve your commentary they all give similar yet reasonable advice. The main one is practice, one suggestion I read a while back was to commentate while you're driving to work or doing tasks like that. If you can talk non-stop to yourself doing that you'll be able to do it while playing a game :)

[@Centurion54X]

How do you charge your ships with only batteries? Do you build a charge station?

[@Splitsie]

Ships with batteries can be charged when attached to another grid through their connector. If the grid they've connected to has excess power it will be delivered to the batteries on board, if the grid you attach to doesn't have enough, then the vehicles batteries will be used unless you set the batteries on the ship to recharge. Be careful with this though, as a battery on recharge will not deliver power to any systems, so if the base you've locked to runs out of power, your vehicle will drop like a stone from a connector that's no longer got the power to remain on and keep things locked :P

[@Centurion54X]

@@Splitsie thanks for the reply man love the vids just started played less than 10 hours :) just to make sure grid= connected structures like floor blocks from my turbine to my parking lot

[@Splitsie]

A grid is any continuous collection of blocks, so a ship, a base etc where the blocks are all directly connected to each other. Rotors, pistons, connector and landing gear connections would be connecting 'subgrids'. I'm pretty sure that what you've described would be a single grid, just thought I'd throw in the most succinct definition I could think of :)

[@rachels587]

Left right it's all the same lol im loving these tutorials

[@Splitsie]

You're absolutely correct! My hands are identical... well almost

[@MaximusPsychosis]

I think Capac is rubbing off on you... oor that's something he'd say.

[@macgabhann1108]

um the last guy who said that accidentally fired a mortar in my direction he was supposed to fire to the left but instead fired to the right into the motor pool. so stay away from the mortars. lol

[@Splitsie]

It is somewhat similar too the sort of thing he'd say, the trouble with Capac is that he would believe it :P

[@Bolisaris999]

As always great tutorial, but when I come to adding the large hydrogen thruster it will not let me place it, a small one yes but the large one refuses to snap, is there anything I need to do to make a large thruster sit on the connector.

[@Splitsie]

I suspect the trouble you're having is that you're trying to place the large grid thruster as opposed to the small grid large reactor (I wish there was a clearer way to say that). Instead of pressing the hotbar button to change grid size of the thruster you're trying to place, use your mouse scroll wheel to change the type of thruster while keeping to your current grid size :)

[@Bolisaris999]

@@Splitsie Thank you for the VERY prompt reply, I will try that and get back to you, Thanks again. EDIT.... Great stuff that worked okay, Thanks a lot for taking the time out to explain that, I will remember the middle mouse button trick in future.

[@kennethsmith5975]

Do you have any suggestions for scripts that fill the welders and transfer the mats from its cargo to welders

[@Splitsie]

The welders can automatically pull materials from any connected inventory (assuming it has the appropriate size for the component being moved) but if you're wanting to automatically load up when connected to a base then you'll need to use something like Isy's inventory manager or Taleden's Inventory Manager. Both are scripts that would let you set up the required predetermined amounts to autofill when connected to the base :)

[@urickyo5370]

You lined up the large port of the medium container to the large port of the conjunction. I made absolutely sure I lined up large port to large and when I try to place blocks down ( ctrl+g), steel in medium cargo, it says I need steel plates. Don’t know how to add the time point of the video but you did this around 5 minutes into video.

[@Splitsie]

I think you need the steel plates in the cockpit for cockpit placement, unfortunately the standard cockpit only has a large port on the bottom so for this ship it's not going to be an effective option :(

[@urickyo5370]

Splitsie you say steel, but that means also any other component material must be in cockpit storage for cockpit placement? I tried all types of components. None of them work for me whether it’s in cockpit storage or medium cargo.

[@Splitsie]

Have you tried it in your engineer's suit? I've almost never used cockpit placement so it's not an area I'm familiar with

[@urickyo5370]

Splitsie yeah it works fine. I’ll get into testing more :) thanks for your assistance. You’re videos are amazingly detailed, informative and you always add some funny sides to it which makes your content even more viewable :) that’s +1 sub to you :)

[@aggroknight4259]

Instead of using an excessive number of lateral thrusters to safety fly at most angles, you can instead use advanced rotors and limit them +/-90 degrees.

[@Splitsie]

If you're talking about having the welders on rotors to allow them to point other directions, that could certainly work. But the reason I have lots of extra thrusters is that when I'm welding I have a bad tendency to lose track of the horizon and rapidly lose altitude :P

[@Splitsie]

It's not so much because I'm trying to get into tight spaces as it is that I find it hard to maintain level when I'm focusing on welding

[@securitor8161]

I play a lot of survival 111 can you come up with some good ideas for low PCU designs Storage is a major issue the welding ship you created you'd have to use a large cargo container it's really hard to work around

[@Splitsie]

Playing with realistic you'll always have some fairly tough trade-offs, I agree the welder is optimised around x3 or above, but I'd usually still go for medium cargo containers due to their form factor and allowing the ship to get into smaller areas. I've not really tried to optimise my designs around PCUs but if I come up with something that I think is good I'll be sure to share it :)

[@securitor8161]

Thanks for your time sir..keep your stick on the ice..cheers!

[@starwarsfan5492]

I'm new to space engineers, how do you get resources quicker with using a rover of a drone?

[@Splitsie]

If you're talking about using something to automatically mine for you, then sadly you can't do that. The autopilot is simply unable to do it. If you're talking about using a carrier truck then you can do a more pretty and advanced version of the rover in my initial rover tutorial which would be able to carry more ore saving you multiple return trips :)

[@starwarsfan5492]

Splitsie that is not what I ment, I said I have no Transport, and I want to get recourses faster by using the hand drill, until I have enough recourses to make mining rover, or whatever.

[@Splitsie]

Ah, sorry I misunderstood :P As a first build you should be able to follow this tutorial kzbin.info/www/bejne/h4HEh4yhltmckJo The ship has some flaws that you can correct as you get more resources, for example some extra thrust to each side and forward/backwards would help make it easier to use :)

[@AaronShumaker]

How are you able to place large grid blocks onto a small grid? I can't seem to do this nor can I place large blocks offset like that.

[@GMLSX]

Easy way to avoid being coocked by the welders (or grinders) take them from the weapon group and weld by left click. No need to create a group. Same goes for the drills.

[@Splitsie]

Very true, I always like to create groups and have them with mouse control. For those times when you're drilling/welding/grinding for ages and just don't want to hold the mouse button down :P

[@TrueVoidOfficial]

I am litteraly looking how to make a welding tunnel and I keep getting your video which doesnt have welding tunnel in the title

[@danielw5225]

I wish he continued this series....

[@Splitsie]

I remade it after there were a lot of updates that changed things, it's on the front page of my channel :)

[@sh1tsweak1]

Hey there sir, I built your ship but there’s an issue with the inventory, The parts I want to use for welding won’t go into the medium storage , they just stay inside the cockpit

[@Splitsie]

Check you have large conveyor ports lined up all the way from welders to connectors, it's easy to mess up the conveyor junctions behind the welders so I always check there first :)

[@billie-jomorgan4930]

trying to build an auto welder, like a repair station for my ships and a ship building facility but cant get the welders set up properly even if i put them on pistons like ive seen in videos, they work for a half second then stop welding, theyre all connected up to storage which has atleast 1000 of everything, but i activate the blueprint move the pistons and welders in turn them on and slowly move them out but they build a few bits in the center of the ship then nothing else, like none of the welders have anything in the inventories, everything works fine,, like the grinder pit although had to make that safe, ship parts would fly everywhere at super sonic speed but the welders on that set up work fine, got welders round the inside of the grind pit and collectors that pick up scrap but cant get the ship builder to work? any ideas?

[@wishyourlife6861]

Could you do a Tutorial on How to start a Ship Early in the Game ? I always have the Power Problem and Batterys. Whew. That needs Time.

[@Splitsie]

I've made a video on your first mining ship, that's the one I would always build as my very first ship. I cover a little bit of what you need to do with your batteries on it. One thing to be aware of is how much charge your batteries have before you head off. Make sure you have enough that you won't run out mid flight, or your landing will be... rough :P

[@ImmortalJunior]

Is there not a way to place x amount of components into the ship via a connector with a sorter ?

[@Splitsie]

Nope, you need scripts for that sort of behaviour

[@errarehumanumest3810]

Just a question: is it possible to build a spaceship that can also, when landed, move on wheels?

[@Splitsie]

Yes, but the handling can get a bit weird due to the wheels being subgrids and not always correctly accounted for by the inertial dampeners, of course you can grind them off and replace them when going in for landing if you want to get around that issue :)

[@geejuugaming7556]

Im doing this step by step and my medium container wont lock on to the back of the conveyer please help

[@tacomonsternick]

Ooooo... I think I'll turn my mining ship into this, but with drills instead of welders... and maybe just make one these anyway cuz I tend to leave a lot of light armor blocks looking like scaffolding...

[@Splitsie]

It certainly speeds up the delivery of all the steel plate to all those armour blocks :)

[@brandonfrye1834]

I just enjoy using the repair and build mod

[@Autobahnderechte]

If you completly mine a Planet is there still gravity?

[@Splitsie]

Yes there would be, but your game would crash long before you managed to mine the whole thing due to the way that the voxel changes are stored

[@FritzHugo3]

I cant help me. I wish we have stationarys ranged welder who get her stuff from the basesystem. This schip here are smal, but its not smal enoth for building other smal ships or some complicated things. But finger goes up for the video, thx have helped.

[@HP-ws2vx]

Amazing vid! Pls turn up ur fov tho

[@Splitsie]

Don't worry, I did :) These were some of the very first videos I made, at the time I was also working on a machinima series so had my FOV low to remove the edge distortion that high FOV causes and kept forgetting to change it back for the other videos like this one

[@douglaswoodard3412]

also if you would of turned the center conveyors the small ports would of lined up with the cockpit ports

[@Splitsie]

But if you did that the large ports wouldn't line up for the cargo :( Since I'd lined the cargo containers up on the midline of the ship the conveyor junction could not be placed in any other orientation

[@thiagofelipe7881]

I started a world on the moon, how can i build compact ships without atmospheric thrusters?

[@Splitsie]

Ion thrusters are what you'll likely use on the moon, the gravity is low enough and without atmosphere they're relatively effective, though refining the platinum for the components may take a while

[@thiagofelipe7881]

@@Splitsie Thanks man

[@The_GingerBeard1995]

Greatness

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@Irishhawk8]

Wouldn’t a Conveyor Converter work instead of this. I tried converting the starter ships into a welder with the conveyor converter but it wouldn’t take my steel plates

[@Splitsie]

No, a conveyor converter has small ports so won't pass most components through them, you need to keep to the large ports only if you want components like steel plates to pass through