WOOT!! Congrats to me! This is the 1,000th blog post in the Games Blog! 😀 Here’s to 2,000, 5,000, and even 10,000 posts in the future!
With that out of the way, on Tuesday, ZoS managed to restore my chars and now I can play ESO again. Though I haven’t gotten ingame to ‘access the damage’. Instead, I feel what happened there warrants a ‘vacation’ from the game, and play another game. Aka, Space Engineers. I hope this vacation allows my brain to think more clearly, instead of using “FUCK THIS GAME!!!” thoughts.
But anyway…yes, Space Engineers. The game that makes you use your brain to figure out how to build a working space ship (or a rover, or a lander, or an atmospheric-only ship, or a… you get the point).
Mr “inspiration takes time” Adm. zalex (or just ‘zalex’ for short), he and his younger brother (I assume) have been enjoying Spring Break since this week’s Monday. Zalex says he’s been waiting for this, as he would be able to build a nice, big large ship for me. A huge exploration-class ship that can handle deep space inter-planetary voyages, with lots of cargo for the long trips.
Been on his server for all this week. And recently I started using voice chat with them. Learned quite a bit about them. Recently, they got their drivers licenses. And I’m here… still walking. Meh. I think I might make another post in my General blog about that.
I also learned that zx98’s real name is Zack. That’s cool. Also, they’re both pretty big sci-fi fans (and I can obviously see this in the ship designs they do). I even asked them if they’ve gone to one of those conventions, and Zalax says how he’d loved to go to one of them, but can’t find any in their state (South Carolina).
So let’s get to the nitty gritty here. I learned that Zalax likes ‘small-ish large ships’, instead of huge large ships(which I’m fond of). I believe that this is why he’s delaying building me a ship. That or he probably knows I’m using him. What’s ironic is his own brother is also using him. I’ve seen several ships in his collection of ships on the Steam Workshop, most with the word “mooch” somewhere in the title, and using the word “Zalaxville” in the description.
Zalax has tried to build me a ship, like four times. He’s currently working on a rather large one (once again, based off of Star Wars). Yet I can never seem to get him to help me with my current ship (that really needs some love).
And that is what irritates me about him. I don’t need him to build me a new ship. I need him to make my CURRENT one better! Yet everytime I try to ask him in the most polite way I can think of (which I’m forced to lower my impatience level greatly), it’s always “I’ll help you in the afternoon” *afternoon comes* “I’ll help you tomorrow” *tomorrow comes* “I’m working on this right now, I’ll help you later on” *later on comes* “I’ll help you tomorrow”
I’m getting tired of these delays!
This has forced my hand. Forced to say “FUCK it! I’ll do it myself!” …. And somehow, I turned my anger and frustration, into progress. I’ve pretty much gutted the ship (but being careful not to delete anything connected to a critical joint that allowed that huge part of the ship to stay attached).
I’ve shortened the length of the ship to the bridge, and greatly widened the body of the ship to support four rooms. Captain’s Quarters, Mess Hall, Crew Quarters, and a Server Room. I’ve re-positioned the accessway of the engine room(instead of having a long walkway down, it now uses a stairwell), and added actual elevators to access the shuttle bay. Speaking of the bay, it’s now longer, higher, and wider to support both a small fighter and a rover.
Overall, the new redesign looks awesome. The main interior of the ship, is based on an ‘8’(except not as round). Though I had to spread out the access from the bridge to the rooms. And last night, I had to mold the new exterior to latch onto the old exterior of the ship. That was fun.
I feel the ship is nearly completed. But there’s two major things I need to figure out.
–1. Where in the hell am I going to put the thrusters? Right now, the ship has no maneuvering thrusters (or any thrusters of that matter), only the gyros to keep it from floating away. I even had to use my new small ship to stop it from moving on me. The new ship, Zalax did (by request), the Pyro-GX from Descent I and II. It’s pretty nice, but it also feels too big and bulky compared to the actual game version. First off, the game version doesn’t have a passenger seat.
Zalax said that he would redo it, but… you know how it is. When he has other plans, he forgets everything else.
–2. I want to put an airlock somewhere on the exterior of the ship, where it’ll be able to connect to a station. I feel like I need to put it on the farthest surface of the ship (to avoid damage from merge blocks. And the farthest would be the Aft of the ship. Another idea is to just have it on one of the “spread out” arms, and just extend that to make it a proper airlock.
Though I might just do a connector instead of an airlock, as it seems most stations use these to connect to ships. Or I might just do both.
A 3rd thing would be figuring out how to get Oxygen moving through the ship. But I’m not that good with conveyors. The only issue with that, is there’s a pretty bad bug with Oxygen (which is why I have to leave it off).
The bug is with Oxygen on planets. It causes severe mini-studdering when on the planet surface (yet only happens in Creative). I haven’t seen this on Zalex’s server, but I have felt it before. And I need to know if this bug has been fixed before I tackle this rather “fun” task. I think I have an idea to use the roof for it, and pump oxygen in from the ceiling.
.
Anyway, it’s pointless to ask for Zalex’s help. He’s just going to delay it more and more. I’m sick of delays.
EDIT: He actually helped me today! And boy did he help. He helped so much, my ship is DONE! D A finally completed (yet also a collaborated) project, of my requests and his building skills. He says he loves what I’ve done. Always awesome to hear praise like that.
Was playing around with it in my Single Player world, and it’s exactly what I wanted..to be able to watch the asteroids drift by the ship as it slowly makes its way to its destination.
My only gripe with the ship, is it’s a pain in the ass to get to and from the shuttle bay. I may just get rid of the whole elevator idea and go with the old shaft that I had before. Because, this isn’t working for me. I need something that’s more reliable. Plus, having three elevators feels too much.
Access to the shuttle bay should not feel limited due to the speed (and the unreliability) of the elevator.
Actually, I could just screw the elevators completely and go with a stairway leading down to it. That would be more efficient.
The only remaining things I ask of him (and he said he doesn’t mind), is redoing the rover he made to support moving around in space (incase I need it), and redoing the Pyro-GX to make it hopefully not as bulky.
I also discovered both the Pyro and my rover both fit (barely) in the new shuttle bay. I think I might redesign the bay once again to make it even wider, where it’ll act like a garage for my two small things (they should be able to sit between eachother, instead of “Ok, I got to get this one out to get the other”.