Cargo Ship Question

[Jeck]

So I can't log in or watch videos right now to see what's new, and my question is, what's the deal with cargo ships?

Are they basically random ships that spawn, do nothing but fly around, and you attempt to loot them? Do I understand that correctly?

[Yuni_A child]

Yup thats about it

[Neuromancer]

i think it's useless((( at first i hope that it will be really "autopilot" controlled by player((

[Grintower]

I think its an attempt to add a little bit of life into an otherwise devoid single-player survival experience. It also helps solve the problem of what to do when all resources have runout. :)

[Stony Rock]

Actually that cargo ships are just ships without any AI or pilot, which were catapulted into space with decent speed and inertia dampeners turned off. You even dont need weapons, just need fast ship with a few landing gears. Stick to cargo ship, activate dampeners, and you can loot it freely, just dont forget to put Medium cargo container on your ship first.

Also, weapons are pretty useless. Missiles do little damage against heavy armor, while gattling guns are useless at all. Max amount of ammo you can put into gun is 4. It means 30 sec firing of gattlings or 4 missiles. then you need to exit to space to recharge, pursue ship again and repeat.

Really, if it was AI controlled ship, who uses thrusters, then there would be profit from destroying ship's engines to stop it. But there isn't.

[Indigo_Black]

i just realized if u turn on ID's on a military tranceport it fricin explodes the foward pointing engins it like the movie speed lol i love it

[Daniel]

Originally posted by TRI_STAND:

i just realized if u turn on ID's on a military tranceport it fricin explodes the foward pointing engins it like the movie speed lol i love it

just need to find the generator room and take all the uranium in it, like this they lost all the power and it's give you time to look for the thing, and the weapon are not activate, i have make a test to capture a mining transport, i have succest to stop it in taking the uranium in the room because not able to find the door to enter, but even this the ship continue to advance, so i have grinded a part to be able to find the control, i have succest to capture it, but i have completly forgot to active the beacon of my base before i go after this ship, so in the final i have captured the ship but i have lost me into the space Ha ha Ha

[kymsheba]

i just flew in my spacesuit to ship came in from behind opened doors went inside and pressed T to access cockpit and turned dampeners on, then just piloted ship to my base... TADAAAA !!! new ship and cargo inside is mine. No need to take out uranium or shoot it at all and now like i said ship in working order docked at my station and cargo all mine without firing a shot or damaging it at all.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

At the moment, they're just testing the concept and seeing how it impacts performance. Once factions are implemented, they'll be able to fire back, and once some form of rudamentry ai auto-pilot is added they'll be able to respond to attacks.

They said in the ImmA that at first the random ships would depend mostly on booby-traps for protection, but later on they'll be expanding what they can do with them.

[Wardiaper]

It would be the greatest game of all time if you could blow up the turrets on the outside of the ship, board the ships, and fight NPCs to take control of the ships.

So it will just have to settle for being the greatest game this year :)

[Jack]

Best way for tons of steel, Get into Military transport via the front ( theres a big hole ). Find the big reactor, Take out the uranium except for 0.2 - 0.1. blow the reactor up using backward thrust or inertial dampers. Throw the urainium into the small reactors on the ship ( Theres 2 extra reactors). Hopefully when the turrets are working it will be more of a challenge but hey lots of steel for my super ship :P

[Wardiaper]

Originally posted by Abatos:

Originally posted by Wardiaper:

It would be the greatest game of all time if you could blow up the turrets on the outside of the ship, board the ships, and fight NPCs to take control of the ships.

So it will just have to settle for being the greatest game this year :)

Keen has stated that npc players would be rather hard to program with their current staff, so it doesn't seem like that will be in the game, at least not for a very long time. Hopefully basic ship ai and pathing will be doable.. one can only hope.

You should check out their ama on reddit, it gives a good insight as to what they're planning for the future and how they veiw the development of the game.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/21fsj9/we_are_the_developers_of_space_engineers_ask_us/

Yeah, that was a great read. I hope this thing turns into the next minecraft. The devs have a great thing going, heard sales a few weeks ago were at 250,000 copies, and if they just keep adding more stuff in a year they might be sitting on gigantic piles of cash and sales never slowing down.

The survival is very fun. I was bored with creative (because I'm not a very creative person), but survival is so fun and addicting. It just needs some danger, something to try to survive. Right now find some uranium and take your time building whatever you want.

I don't think it has to be super intelligent. Just a couple of different kinds of NPCs to harass you a little bit (just ships would be okay) but maybe easy to kill with your rifle or turrets. Something to spice it up and give you a reason to build a nice station and some fighters. And the devs have lots of experience with their previous game with AI.

Whatever they do will be fine by me. The devs have created something really special with this game and every new thing they add is like opening a present on Thursdays.

[Ruges]

I think they did it wrong by calling them AI ships. They should actually be called ghost ships. Since all they are is abandoned ships floating threw space. Or rather giant resource piles floating threw space.

So far my strategy with them has been to fly up to them with my large industrial ship. anchor to it with landing gear and then stop my ship. So now the ghost ship cannot float away. I then board it and remove the uranium, and solar cells. I then proceed to dismantle it.

First one I took everything. did not even leave an armor block behind. Second one I just started taking everything except the armor blocks. Third one I only started taking stuff that I thought I might need. And the fourth one I just took cargo and a few of the rarer items that I needed and use allot. and now I have half of a large cargo container full. I almost have more resources then I know what to do with now.

As for NPC, While I would love them. I don't think they would be implemented properly in the game. They would be stupid, and have difficulty navigating the ships. And it would be allot of effort for something they could not get implemented up to a useable standard.

However I don't think it is a total loss regarding AI. You don't need NPC's to defend these ships. You just need its weapons and internal defenses working. Programing a ship to do defensive maneuvers, programing the ships turrets to shoot back will be enough to give a semblance of an AI.

So these ghost ships are a good start. It even gives us a new ship type to build (a capture vessel). Although I would rather see conveyors working first.

[Daniel]

i think it's can be good to have a door we can open like on the space shuttle when they go deployed satelite, like this you can build a ship with a big hole, take some floating part, put it in the back, close the door and return to the base

[Ruges]

Originally posted by Daniel:

i think it's can be good to have a door we can open like on the space shuttle when they go deployed satelite, like this you can build a ship with a big hole, take some floating part, put it in the back, close the door and return to the base

You can already do this. You make your storage area. then you put your door opening and use motors to open and close the door. There are two main types you can make. A hatch type door that would swing open. Or a rotating platform.

I kinda like the rotating platform myself. You would make your cargo bay. and then on one side you would have an opening. On the narrow side of the opening you would place a motor (receded 1 block in). and then attach a platform to the rotor that takes the size of the opening you make, but only attached to the rotor. You would set the rotor to only rotate 180 degrees. So when it is in the forward motion the inside portion is on the inside of the ship. and when you reverse the motor, it turns the platform and now the inside portion is facing outside. On the inside of the platform you would place cockpit and 1 or multiple landing gears and a reactor.

With this setup you have 2 options to go pick up stuff. First is to fly to where you want to pick stuff up. Open the door so the landing gear is facing outside. Fly next to the debree so the landing gear turns yellow. get into the cockpit of the cargo bay platform and hit P to lock the landing gear. Now get back into the cockpit of the main ship and rotate the motor in forward so the platform rotates to the inside. You can now fly off with your newly gained bounty.

Alternatively instead of having to fly close enough to the debree to get the landing gear to turn yellow (since this is going to be a large ship), use a smaller ship that you dock on the larger ship to go out and pick up the debree and then move it next to the landing gear.

And if you went with a smaller forklift ship that you attach to the larger ship you could skip the platform idea and go with the hatch idea. just fly out with your larger ship. open the hatch. get into your smaller ship and pick up the debree and then drop it into the cargo bay. once it is loaded, close the hatch, dock the forklift and then fly to bigger ship to where ever.

[Stony Rock]

Just use ship with landing gear in front. Follow cargo ship, attavh yours to it via landing gear and activate dampeners. Your ship will eventually stop it.