Grinders and Drills

[AlexMBrennan]

Could anyone explain the logic here? Specifically, why are drills limited to small ships (that's actually reasonable - mining asteroids with massive capital ships is clearly impractical) whilst grinders are limited to large ships (completely arbitrary - the astronaut can hold a grinder, and any sensible person will realize that it's more practical to try to assemble/disassemble a station with a smaller, more maneuverable ship)

[Operation40]

i had assumed the small ship grinder just wasn't ready yet..

[Tactical Nuclear Coffee]

Well i know what you mean about drills, however if you have seen the gravity driven drilling platform on the workshop, it would have helped for a large drill for a large ship. Iv also got a massive large capital ship in my multiplayer survival which is fitted with a very large drilling lance under it for mining massive area's, so i do hope they add large ship drills at some point.

As for the grinder, not tested it yet but i agree a smaller ship grinder would be the better option for general use. that being said id like to have all major tools mountable on large and small ships.

However the grinder and (hopefully) a welder for stations aswell as small & large After all you can build a station bay with welders as some sort of fly by repair station. and grinders.... Well they would imo be better suited to stations (if you want a station that is) same as the welder, fly a stolen ship into a room laced with grinders and you have yourself a very nice recycler room that pays for its self.

But back to your question... its a bit confusing why drills only fit small ships and grinders only fir large ships. But if we complain enough we might get all tools for all sizes :)

[Guardian Talon]

If you are altering a ship you want the hand grinder. If you are destroying it, the large grinder works great. a small ship grinder wouldn't have the percision for making changes or the power to rip it apart. makes sense to me.
The welder on the other hand. Large for ship yards and small for the flood of SCVs I can already see comming.

[AlexMBrennan]

a small ship grinder wouldn't have the percision for making changes or the power to rip it apart. makes sense to me.

That doesn't make sense - a small ship is much more manouverable, and thus you can position the grinder much more accurately than a large behemoth with a grinder strapped to it (whilst wasting much less energy than having to reposition a massive carrier would require).

Also, small ships are able to rip apart asteroids just fine so by your logic drills should be exclusive to large ships too.

[Zorlond]

Instead of moving around the big, heavy ship with the grinder on it (I agree, that's not energy-efficient), you could instead have the target move into the grinder. Heck, the patch video shows them sticking an artificial mass block on a little ship and having it gravitate into a set of grinders for dis-assembly.

[Guardian Talon]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

That doesn't make sense - a small ship is much more manouverable, and thus you can position the grinder much more accurately than a large behemoth with a grinder strapped to it (whilst wasting much less energy than having to reposition a massive carrier would require).

Also, small ships are able to rip apart asteroids just fine so by your logic drills should be exclusive to large ships too.

You should read a post before responding. Lets try this again. If you want to take out 1 block, you use the hand grinder so you can select that block. If you want to scrap an entire ship, you use the large grinder to do it quickly. Trying to remove 1 block with a grinder stuck on a small ship would cause you to damage and remove parts you didn't want too. Trying to scrap a ship with a small ship grinder would be time consuming. and if efficiency is an issue just use a small tugship to push it into the large grinder.

As for drills. Yes, small drills can destroy asteroids but you need several dozen, large drills would be better for that kind of stuff. But if I want gold and not everything else in the area, I need something smaller. Yet in this case I don't care if I get a few things I wasn't aiming for. A little rock and iron in with my gold is a lot diffrent then taking out an engine and accidently dumping a cargo container.

[Jota]

Small ship grinders have a much more weaponary potential use than large ones, and that's not what they are supossed for.

[AlexMBrennan]

you could instead have the target move into the grinder

The shredder they built is indeed neat (except I'd imagine that there will be problems when the reactor or artifical mass becomes nonfunctional) but you run into the issue that you need a massive grinder array for larger ships (e.g. suppose you captured a military transport and want to disassemble it) and it won't work for stations at all.

Again, I'm not saying that large ships shouldn't have grinders or that small ships shouldn't have drills, just that it is completely arbitrary to limit grinders to large ships and drills to small ships.

[Tal Maru]

I built an arm mounted on rotors on the top of my ship with 3 grinder's on the end.
It works quite well.

[stormageddon]

Easy, how would items fit in a small ship grinder? as with the drill though, they defeintly need a large ship drill like the bore of a tbm(Tunnel boring machine).

[Tactical Nuclear Coffee]

I see alot of arguments for both sides, but surely the fact that someone will find a use for small ship grinders is reason enough to add it, along with the large drill and maybe small and large welding torch (aoe repairs/building)

After all how good would it be to have a really fast welder that took needed marerials from the cargo hold to build ships faster :)

[›Kolanaki]

Grinders on a big ship mean I can make a gigantic ship that surrounds the thing I want to deconstruct and just "eat" it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJa2e6UrgC0&feature=youtu.be

[xx]

I would like small ship grinders, while not as powerful, it would allow me to have several on cutting arms. Then I can land on a ships hull and cut a section out, I can then fly to my recycleing station drop the hull segement in. Then start the station up and apply power to the piston that lightly pushs the scrap into the grinder heads.

[Funonly]

I'm waiting for the ship welders really

[Laundrymatt]

i wish they would add welders on articulating arms that way they can move to reach what u want to construct