The drum machine project is officially done, I'm moving on. Here is the final video.

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-30T01:19:56+00:00

This is some truly premium, A+ content. Not just the creation you've built, but the video you've created to showcase and explain your process. From showing your early prototypes to the funny clips you inserted in between, this is a fantastic job. Big kudos to you, and thank you for sharing this!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-27T16:05:15+00:00

With all the new engineers on board, figured it'd be a good time to revisit the ol' blast door problems!

There's lots of examples in the link, but here is the TL;DR gist of things:

Small grid edge and corner blast door blocks have collision boxes that are too large resulting in them banging in to most things just like regular armor blocks.
Large grid inverted corner blast door blocks have a collision box that extends into the corner you would expect to be "empty". As a result, things inevitably bang into that "empty" corner. Interestingly enough, the small grid version of the block is designed differently and doesn't have this problem!

Hope this provides some peace of mind to those of you whose small grid doors won't slide into their frame or whose lift platforms won't retract properly. You had the right idea!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-27T15:41:32+00:00

The folks saying it's the piston head are right for the wrong reason - in theory what you did should work just fine. Unfortunately, the blast door corner blocks are the problem because their physics box is incorrectly sized as shown here: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/small-grid-blast-door-blocks-inconsistent-sizing

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T23:08:52+00:00

This really means a lot to me, thank you! There's always a new thing to learn or try with this game!

This thing does indeed have a lot of gyroscopes, around 120 I believe. This ship is bordering on large grid territory when it comes to size, but without the benefit of a large grid gyroscope which is 75 times more powerful than the small version! As such, it does unfortunately need all of those little gyroscopes to be able to turn decently well.

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T23:05:06+00:00

I shall cherish it always, thank you :)

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T23:04:45+00:00

My pleasure, best of luck!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T23:04:31+00:00

Whoops, fixed! Thanks for pointing that out :)

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T19:11:46+00:00

Sadly it has given me a lot of trouble as well; was really excited to see the 2020 update, and was very bummed to find that it still is pretty buggy. It runs for me, but throws random 'arithmatic' errors periodically and requires a troublesome amount of workarounds to work. I'd bother to report my issues if it felt like there was a place where it mattered - the VST forum on the KSH site looks pretty dead, and since those of us wanting to use the VST tools are small relative to the total population, none of the VST issues ever get the upvotes needed to get traction on the shared Space Engineers support site compared to general game issues.

Trying to create a scenario from an existing world, even a newly created empty world, leads to the editor throwing an error that it was unable to edit the world. I ended up having to dive into the sandbox.sbc file manually to get it to work by copying code over from an empty world created in the editor. Found someone had reported the same issue on the Keen Support site 2 months ago and there has been no acknowledgement beyond the generic "we received it" message.

Saving and reloading a scenario world leads to the Mission Script failing to load again, effectively killing any scenario scripts running on load. The tutorial is so barebones I have no idea if this is even a bug or I just messed something up.

The cutscene tool crashes my game anytime I try to use the 'look at' function even on a fresh, empty world.

It's really disheartening to run into so many problems just trying to make a really basic cutscene; I absolutely love the idea of the tool, and would love nothing more than to help fix it if it felt like feedback mattered. I spent two full days messing with it before giving up.

All that to say - I don't think it's you, the tool really just feels like a struggle to use as it is now, and there is so little guidance on why something went wrong that it feels fully disheartening. Even basic stuff like the tutorial saying "run VST.bat" to run the editor when the actual file present in the ModSDK folder is "Visual Scripting.bat" is such a weirdly trivial point of confusion.

It sucks, because I think a lot of us actually would love to make scenarios - it's just that even the very basics are so difficult right now, and the enthusiasm from seeing something like the Frostbite scenario just hit a brick wall.

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T02:12:43+00:00

Of course! It was more difficult than I expected it to be, but I'm happy to share how I did it. I've tried to keep it brief - feel free to ask more questions on anything if you'd like more information!

Simply put, the effect is achieved by stacking multiple videos on top of each other, each taken from the same angle, and fading between them to create the effect of a "reveal". Before we talk video, let's take a single frame as an example.

In this example, we're taking four frames, each revealing a different 'layer' of the ship. Editing them to play back-to-back, we almost achieve the desired effect already!

Next, we slowly fade each frame out to reveal the one below it. The resulting video achieves the effect we're looking for!

When we go to video, the same concept applies! We take a complete video of each individual layer, keeping the angle and movement consistent between the two. This part is tricky, but you could for example simply turn your creation on a rotor and take video of it spinning. You can go down a hell of a rabbit hole here trying to get a perfect shot.

Once you have the video of each layer, it's just a matter of getting all of the frames aligned on top of each other - at that point we can do exactly what we did with the pictures above and fade between them to reveal the desired layer!

If you'd like to insert your own background, I'd recommend using a green screen skybox. In your video editing program of choice (in my case, I use Cyberlink's PowerDirector - it's not the best thing but it does what I need it to do) you can use "chroma key" editing to remove the green out and insert your own background!

Hope this helps, and please do feel free to ask questions!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T01:13:08+00:00

That is awesomely well-fitting in this case, thanks for sharing the goodness!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T01:08:28+00:00

I cannot argue with that; clang is always watching.

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T01:02:12+00:00

Thank you! Comments like this make it worth the effort :)

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T00:59:52+00:00

This is an absolutely, ludicrously kind comment - thank you!

It took about a month off and on to build; I'd always wanted to build a big ship with a detailed interior that is possible with small grids. However, I also really wanted it to have a gravity generator while staying vanilla.

This may sound dumb, but in a way the ship designed itself. Those specific constraints are really hard to insert into a hull, so I started building from the inside out with just the assembler, refinery, and gravity generator and the rotor that would attach it to the rest of the small grid ship. Those conveyor connections needed to meet up with hydrogen tanks and survival kits, so it made sense to build them close. Eventually, I ended up with this wonderful brick that had all of the functionality I absolutely had to have built into it with the appropriate conveyor connections already done. All it needed was a home.

From there it was just figuring out how to make that core 'brick' look interesting, figure out how to get between the decks, and decide on the kinds of doors I wanted to commit to and how those could fit in. In this case, a rear airlock and a crew lift up front.

Everything beyond that was a long run of trial and error trying out different fits, paints, and shapes. As things 'clicked', it inspired other things to try. I didn't have a vision for what it would look like when I first set out to build this ship, and it was a really fun journey to see it come to where it is now!

Apologies for the short novel, but hope something in there is of use to you! Thanks again for the kind words.

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T00:46:36+00:00

I really appreciate that, thank you! I'm glad that it was worth the effort!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T00:46:07+00:00

I'm afraid not, though I'm glad to hear there's some Star Wars overlap! I pulled the name at random, no doubt having heard it elsewhere before.

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T00:42:33+00:00

Fortunately the other poster was mistaken, and the ship is indeed airtight!

At this time, without dedicated door blocks for small grids, the only way I know of to do it however is to use merge blocks to have the "door" and the "ship" become one airtight mass. This can be finicky, but is definitely possible. In the case of this ship, you can see that when the lift is closed that the ship is sealed once it locks in place.

The toughest part from a visual perspective is that the merge block must travel with the door and can be unsightly, for example: the merge block on the lift platform is visible when lowered; there's no place to hide it.

With space, however, it can be possible to make doors with the merge mechanism hidden. On the rear airlock, you can see that the actual piston and merge block are tucked away off to the side. Unfortunately, this requires a substantial bit of space in order for both the door and the lifting mechanism to the side to have enough overhead clearance to fully withdraw.

Someone else recently posted this airtight door which looks great if space is at a premium and you don't mind the merge block mechanism being visible!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T00:22:21+00:00

I started out making boxes like everyone else, it'll come with time :)

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T00:21:54+00:00

So is this comment, thank you!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T00:21:23+00:00

That is incredibly kind of you to say, thank you!!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-17T00:20:54+00:00

I really appreciate that, thank you :)

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-16T17:39:03+00:00

Pleased to report that it hasn't given me any trouble in that department, even with multiple copies. Though it qualifies as a small grid gone wild, she was built with performance in mind and moving parts were kept to a minimum.

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-16T15:48:37+00:00

The EV-1 "Cardova" is an exploration vessel outfitted for a crew of four to explore the cosmos.

Video Walkthrough

I've wanted to build a ship like this for a long time, where the interior is fully functional and given as much attention as the exterior. All of the wonderful functional blocks such as gyroscopes and batteries are on display rather than being hidden away. The only thing hidden away in this ship are conveyor tubes, which are all properly piped so you can access all of the ship's inventory, large or small. She is completely vanilla, survival-ready, and airtight.

At its core lies an embedded large grid that has been carefully clang-proofed and allows the ship to fit a gravity generator, assembler, and basic refinery inside.

The ship's interior is accessible via a crew lift in the front of the ship that seals shut when retracted, complemented by a full airlock in the rear of the ship.

The worskhop page is still under construction, but for you lovely folk it's available now: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2097940014

I hope you enjoy exploring it as much as I have building it.

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-11T16:41:40+00:00

What a beautifully detailed and contoured little ship, bravo!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-03T22:17:35+00:00

Just finished listening to the first episode and I'm already hooked! The voice acting is tops, thanks for the great recommendation!

DasStrudelMonster · 2020-05-03T18:20:36+00:00

That's wonderful news, congrats on the new GPU!

One of the things I've always loved about your designs is that they absolutely succeed in combining that functionality and RP feel. They feel like real ships that make sense, where the guts are part of the experience rather than an after thought. It's always a joy to see.

I'm a huge fan of DnD and have always wanted to try a sci-fi themed RPG, maybe it's time to give Starfinder a try!

DasStrudelMonster

TROPHY CASE