How do you get started after landing in your pod?

[Xenfall]

Trying to get into this game, I'm familiar with Empyrion. It feels like the game is pretty sluggish to start. I've landed and now it looks like I'm trying to get up a few wind turbines, a refinery, and a basic assembler. But, it seems like I'm farming a really massive amount of stone and not seeing a lot of payoff.

I hate to compare this to Empyrion, but that's what I'm familiar with. Eventually I'd search for points of interest and explore those and gather equipment/resources and use that to help outfit me for more expeditions, or use the resources to build a bigger ship, etc.

Is this how the game goes? What do you do when you first land? And, what are the next steps?

[TheVipersFang]

That seems about the way it goes. Most of the time. Unless I get eaten by a pack of wolves or spiders first. Put that stone into the survival kit, produce ingots, use the ingots to create building components and then build stuff. Basic and scruffy at first but over time those creations grow larger and less scruffy. Maybe think about adding in a few mods once you learn the basics.

[jafiwam]

Stone mining is a pretty common way to start. If you can find some ice to process then that opens the door to flying around with your drill out to find ores. Just skim along the surface and don't forget to check boulders.

You do need to keep task switching to keep ahead of the resources you will need to gather. Battery, wind/solar, ice, ores/stone, repeat.

If you have "progression" on you can grind some parts of the rover and repair them to open up more blocks.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Many players wanted a more challenging start; hence, you get to process stone into ingots using the respawn pod's survival kit, and ingots into parts, and parts into components. If you've started with default settings, Progression will also be enabled which means you'll need to build certain components to build other components. For example, you'll need to build a basic refinery and assembler before you can build an advanced refinery and assembler, respectively. Once you get some power production and refineries operations, the game will accelerate.

Unfortunately, without some NPC mods to spice up life (assuming you're playing single-player mode), all your effort will be on a dead planet without anyone or anything else around. If you do play with NPCs, you'll actually be able to accelerate the game more quickly by looting the hostile NPC ships for parts (if you don't die in the process). Great fun for the young and old.

[herrschaftg35]

The initial part always involves hand drilling which is tedious. Build solar panels on the drop pod to keep the battery charged. Then focus on building a wind-powered base with the basic refinery/basic assembler. After that, the drop pod can be modified into a rover with drills for mining boulders.

I like to build small grid rovers with a lot of cargo space primarily for mining boulders. A rover is an effective way to fill large cargo containers at the base while thousands of components are being made.

Ships require a lot of power and can only carry a small payload so initially I avoid building those for atmospheric mining. You will need a mining ship eventually since platinum and uranium can only be found in asteroids.

[ESJadenWSS]

hi xenfall, i could help you if you wanna play together ive got only around 60 hours of play time but i know a decent amount i could teach you a phew things.

[Pembroke]

Originally posted by Xenfall:

But, it seems like I'm farming a really massive amount of stone and not seeing a lot of payoff. ... compare this to Empyrion, but that's what I'm familiar with.

If you come from Empyrion then the one major difference in resource gathering is that in Space Engineers you should switch to mechanical mining as soon as you can. In Empyrion you can continue to use the hand drill as your main, or even the only mining tool, well, basically forever. In Space Engineers you're really meant to use it only in the beginning or in emergencies. The difference between hand mining and industrial mining is really big in Space Engineers. Manual mining is designed to be an early obstacle you *want* to solve by engineering.

The long term solution is to build mining vehicles but you can go industrial even in the very beginning when you're just mining stone. You can do quite fancy builds but even the very simplest stationary mining rig added to your initial base will get you tons of stone in seconds. Just build a downward pointing piston, place a drill at the end, and connect it with conveyor tubes to your refinery. The just switch it on.

Just remember to set the piston speed to *very slow*. Otherwise you might see some explosions...

But yes, very-very-much easier than hand drilling!

[Xenfall]

Originally posted by Pembroke:

Originally posted by Xenfall:

But, it seems like I'm farming a really massive amount of stone and not seeing a lot of payoff. ... compare this to Empyrion, but that's what I'm familiar with.

If you come from Empyrion then the one major difference in resource gathering is that in Space Engineers you should switch to mechanical mining as soon as you can. In Empyrion you can continue to use the hand drill as your main, or even the only mining tool, well, basically forever. In Space Engineers you're really meant to use it only in the beginning or in emergencies. The difference between hand mining and industrial mining is really big in Space Engineers. Manual mining is designed to be an early obstacle you *want* to solve by engineering.

The long term solution is to build mining vehicles but you can go industrial even in the very beginning when you're just mining stone. You can do quite fancy builds but even the very simplest stationary mining rig added to your initial base will get you tons of stone in seconds. Just build a downward pointing piston, place a drill at the end, and connect it with conveyor tubes to your refinery. The just switch it on.

Just remember to set the piston speed to *very slow*. Otherwise you might see some explosions...

But yes, very-very-much easier than hand drilling!

Awesome reply, thanks! This is what I was thinking, but I guess I just need a bit more direction.

Do you have any recommendations on an early vehicle to rush that could help me with mining faster?

[Xenfall]

Originally posted by herrschaftg35:

The initial part always involves hand drilling which is tedious. Build solar panels on the drop pod to keep the battery charged. Then focus on building a wind-powered base with the basic refinery/basic assembler. After that, the drop pod can be modified into a rover with drills for mining boulders.

I like to build small grid rovers with a lot of cargo space primarily for mining boulders. A rover is an effective way to fill large cargo containers at the base while thousands of components are being made.

Ships require a lot of power and can only carry a small payload so initially I avoid building those for atmospheric mining. You will need a mining ship eventually since platinum and uranium can only be found in asteroids.

This makes a lot more sense. I noticed there was a scenario where I started with some sort of rover, but on the server we're playing on we just start in pods.

Are there template for rovers? I may be using the wrong word, maybe it's blueprints, that I could aim towards and get a starter vehicle up and running?

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Type rover into the workshop search bar and go shopping :D

[DivineEvil]

Originally posted by Xenfall:

This makes a lot more sense. I noticed there was a scenario where I started with some sort of rover, but on the server we're playing on we just start in pods.

Are there template for rovers? I may be using the wrong word, maybe it's blueprints, that I could aim towards and get a starter vehicle up and running?

Moon drop pod is a rover, since its a pretty hard start and you need mobility to find a source of Ice in order to progress safely, which isn't easy to come by relative to other planets. Starting in space, for example, you're given a very basic ship, which can be recharged from the get go just because of how reliant that start is on luck to find basic resources in asteroids and how far-between they are.

As I'm aware, you cannot utilize blueprints without getting the blueprint Projector first, other than a reference. You're mostly better off building your own basic rover or a stationary drill. Both only require power supply.

You also should take into account that your drop pod is a source of components, some of which aren't provided by the basic Assembler, which can be salvaged with your Saw. As long as you keep the Battery, Gas generator and Survival Kit intact and connected, everything else can be salvaged - for example you can salvage the 4x atmospheric thrusters to get Metal Grids for your first Small Cargo Container to keep your inventory clear for ores.

Once you've got the Turbines or Solar Panels on your outpost and the basic Refinery, you now can process the Iron, Nickel and Silicon ores, which will increase your progression rate massively, and forget about the Stone for a long while. It's at that point when you should consider a basic rover or a drilling assembly as you will be able to procure the components on demand.

Don't forget to utilize the Build Planner function - you can RMB at any unbuilt element in world or MMB any such component in your build (G) menu to add it to planner. You then can MMB any inventory access point at base to collect all available components for what you've added to the planner from connected inventories, or you can Shift+MMB any such access point to add these components into production queue if there's a connection to an Assembler (including the Basic one). This will improve your construction rate immensely.

[Farrel]

Honestly, I think the biggest thing I can suggest to the OP here, is to start prospecting for ores as soon as you can.

Depending on the inventory sizes you picked when you created the world, you can fairly easily modify your lander into something that's just a control seat, landing gear, battery, gyro and three atmospheric thrusters (pointing up, forwards and to one side) and keep everything else in your pockets or a small storage on the ship. With a little building you can get six thrusters, but if you're careful you can fly and land on three.

Ore will spawn underground, but it has telltale 'blotches' on the surface. You'll learn to spot them from the air after a while. I find that the grey ones in the desert are easiest to see... Your hand drill has an ore detector, so if you think you've seen something, hop out, hold your drill and see if anything is in range.

Iron is a good deposit to start with, as you'll want a ton of it eventually, but then again, it can be refined from stone. Cobalt is one to look out for. It can't be obtained from stone, and you'll need it early for the fill refinery and other stuff. Generally, setting up within reach of several ore deposits really helps.

Set up the basic refinery using stone in the survival kit, but try to transition to using ores and a regular refinery as soon as possible. Subsisting on stone is possible, but it's tough.

When you need to go out prospecting, build a vehicle to do it. Some prefer buggies for energy efficiency, but you don't need an awful lot to get airborne, and ore is much easier to spot from above. The vehicle mounted ore detector is a bit better than even the top tier drill based one. The large version is better still. (Sadly, they're all still pretty short range, 300m or so)

Once you've got a basic base established. (Refinery, wind turbines, assembler, battery) consider building a dedicated mining vehicle.

[frag2k4]

So a few starter points that apply to oxygen planets and the standard pod to help would be first upon landing to grind off any overhanging armour blocks around your pod, use these to create a flat platform about 4x4 and off this a single 1x1 tower about 8 high.

Look in your progression bar and find items that need to be built to unlock other items and find these items if able on the pod, grind these down to below the function bar and then weld back up to open more items quickly.

Focus then on building a single wind turbine and place this on the top of the tower, get a few more steel plates and then grind down your survival kit, place a large grid version on the base and use these new materials to build it there (there is almost no difference between small and large grid for material only some plates)

Now you have manufacturing powered without draining your battery. Work on getting a basic assembler and refinery next and begin linking everything together via conveyor tubes and junctions. Build a battery and several more wind turbines to deal with new drain and charge up batteries for later.

Next if Single player work on converting your pod into your miner (if MP simply grind as much down as possible), the single hydrogen engine on the bottom has 4 metal grids which can be turned into 4 atmospheric thrusters which in turn can be used on top of the pod facing outwards (exhausts away from middle of pod) (you need to grind down the 4 curved armour blocks and replace with basic cubes to make this work)

Gut your pod moving the o2 gen onto the base platform and put a medium cargo container inside it and pipe it up with a connector either facing back or below (better IMO) a gyro and pipe up a cockpit, slap a drill on the cockpit conveyor and set up the thrusters in the K menu.

Begin mining at larger capacity and work towards larger mining ships and then rockets/capital ships.

Total estimated time to flying pod miner approx <30 mins

[Shaila]

Of you don't mind watching vids i reccomend splitsie and his survival vids, he shows good tips and tricks and even better tuterial vids then keen

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfMGCUepUcNzLePdu3dZfMTLfWq1bclUK

[herrschaftg35]

Originally posted by Xenfall:

Are there template for rovers? I may be using the wrong word, maybe it's blueprints, that I could aim towards and get a starter vehicle up and running?

This is a similar design I use for most early-game rovers. Again, these are only useful for mining horizontally or skimming the surface of ice lakes. Cobalt is required to make large cargo containers so you will have to utilize medium containers without it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2471772629