Q: Copy a block in front of me (Survival)

[Cedup]

Hello there,
is there a way to copy a block in front of me?
Lets say my ship lost a landing gear of two, and I want to replace it. Do I have to get in the "G" menu und search for the landing gear and pull it in my toolbar, or is there a faster way? Like some pipette tool or something?

[Oneill_SFA]

You can bury a projector into a build and set it to that ship + have it keep projection. This will make repairs much easier. Switch on the projector and weld away.

Alternatively, and less attractive of an option imo, is you have a set area with a vise of grinders to scrap out the damaged ship and have another one set with a projector and welders to rebuild it.

[Cedup]

Cool idea with the projector! Thanks.
This, however, just solves the repairing problem, but won't help at creating new structures.
I really would love to see that feature. Like picking up the color with shift + P for blocks.

[Caca]

Not fast with your number pressing ay :D, or just filling your hotbars to no end and getting lost in selection :P

[Cedup]

It's a combination of both. The hotbar isn't that comfortable for me going over 6 since i have to lift my hand from WASD for that. Same goes for ctrl+number, don't like that either.
It's a shame you can't switch the toolbar via wheel up/down. Don't get me wrong, it could be waaay worse, they did a good job so far.

Nevertheless, I don't think it would hurt having that aforementioned hotkey.

[VanGoghComplex]

Neat idea. I hadn't thought of it before, but I'm spoiled; I've got one of those MMO mice with the 12 buttons in the thumb side mapped to my hotbar slots.

[Mike ={JcC}=]

You can do this already with Colors. Would be nice if you could do this with blocks too...

[Cedup]

Originally posted by VanGoghComplex:

Neat idea. I hadn't thought of it before, but I'm spoiled; I've got one of those MMO mice with the 12 buttons in the thumb side mapped to my hotbar slots.

Okay, that could come in handy. I do use my 3 thumb buttons, but it's not really enough vor me though. Talking mice, it would be so awesome if one had the mx master and could use both "scroll wheels" for scrolling. Like 1. the tools in one toolbar, and 2. switching the toolbars.

Originally posted by Mike ={JcC}=:

You can do this already with Colors. Would be nice if you could do this with blocks too...

That's what I thought!

[casualsailor]

People often forget that comma and period can be used to scroll thru your hotbars. I rediscovered this myself when they made the change from shift+# to ctrl+#.

Here is a good tutorial on projectors. I used it long ago when first playing around with them. He gives good tips and even shows how to use one to repair damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxM5p4SH44k

But I've since decided that instead of his method of trying to build the ship entirely from a single projection to make a separate blueprint for each layer of my ship.

Let's say I go into creative and make a 5x5 miner like he built. I would save the blueprint and it would be named "Miner" I would then use CTRL+Shift+Right Click to strip off the upper most layer and save the blueprint again. It would be named "Miner_1" automatically.

I'd continue the process of stripping a layer and saving the blueprints until I got to the lowest layer.

Now when in surival I'd first project "Miner_4" and weld that layer completely. Then project "Miner_3" and so on up to "Miner" welding each layer in turn.

This also works well with attaching bridge sections or engine pods to ships, although the rotation and movement of projections can be a little nerve racking.

[Cedup]

Originally posted by casualsailor:

People often forget that comma and period can be used to scroll thru your hotbars.

I know, would rather have this on the wheel up/down, which doesn't seem to work, sadly.

Originally posted by casualsailor:

But I've since decided that instead of his method of trying to build the ship entirely from a single projection to make a separate blueprint for each layer of my ship.

This is actually a good idea! Thanks for sharing this detailed step by step, I will try this in my survival.

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by Cedup:

Originally posted by casualsailor:

People often forget that comma and period can be used to scroll thru your hotbars.

I know, would rather have this on the wheel up/down, which doesn't seem to work, sadly.

Originally posted by casualsailor:

But I've since decided that instead of his method of trying to build the ship entirely from a single projection to make a separate blueprint for each layer of my ship.

This is actually a good idea! Thanks for sharing this detailed step by step, I will try this in my survival.

You're welcome. I had done this manually on a pvp server that did not permit projectors. I took snapshots of each layer (using color codes to help me identify conveyors from cargo boxes, etc.) so I could build it layer at a time without the projector. Then I was reading someone elses post about using multiple blueprints to build complex ships and the idea just came together.

I have standard engine pod configurations for large ships that I tend to reuse a lot and I've gotten pretty good at flipping it around to mount it on new ships using a projector.

I've recently been working on a bridge deck complete with life support blocks trying to come up with a standard that can also be easily projected on to an existing new ship. This is proved harder but I'm still working on it.

My ultimate goal is to have a group of plug and play components that can be combined to make different ships depending upon my needs to avoid designing from scratch everytime.