Not done one of these for a while, but today was an interesting day... First a little background. I started my current Hard game on Akua, with minimal low-yield resource deposits and near non-existent escape pod inventory. So, a tough start. I began by exploring a little, mining small amounts (100 or so) of the various deposits I encountered before I discovered the front part of the Titan wreck. Securing it by destroying the guarding drones and reinforcements, I used this as my base of operations. Fast forward a while and I have an established base and resources aplenty thanks to plenty of manual mining and now several deployed T2 Autominers. I've taken out and looted most POI's on the planet, including the Drone Base, so things are pretty safe. I have a CV in orbit, near complete (I'm always tweaking) fuelled up with most of my raw materials transferred & ready for it's maiden voyage. I've been using a small SV of my own (very basic) design to ferry materials to my CV in orbit, this was currently landed on my base. However, I'd not really played with HV's since the fairly major recent changes, so I experimented and was VERY impressed with how my initial design performed. My first HV in a while was a "home away from home" affair, rather box-like, but containing all an explorer might need. A Constructor of course, along with storage, fridge, O2 etc. and was protected by four Minigun Turrets on the roof, as well as three fixed Gatlings. For a fairly large vessel, it was fairly agile. I'd already build a second "base" of sorts next to my main base in the Titan Front Section wreck. This base, consisting of just a core and a load of concrete blocks, was purely there to give me a flat landing pad. Initially for HV construction, but now - much extended - to allow my in-orbit CV to land and load up my newly created HV. Having extended "Akua Spaceport" to accommodate my CV (just), I jump into my SV and head into orbit. I land at my CV, do some last-minute checks, fuel up fully and take my CV into a atmosphere of Akua. Landing at "Akua Spaceport" was largely uneventful, though my ship was using well over 100% power during some operations. As a result, I added a second Generator to counter this. So, I load up my HV, do a few last-minute checks and blast off from Akua and into orbit. I set my target for Omicron - a modified Omicron, somewhat more dangerous than usual! Up to speed and warp engaged! Arriving in Omicron orbit, I close on the planet rapidly. Turrets are armed, but no Space Drones bother me. I close to just under 1,000m, and rotate my CV 180 degrees in order to execute my cunning plan... Shutting down the CV's Thrusters, checking fuel levels and topping it up, I wander down to my hangar deck....and jump into my Hover Vessel. Yep, I'm going to try planet fall in my HV! Entering to cockpit I get an alarm sound along with a warning of imminent death! Ignoring this I power up my HV, and disengage the docking clamps - i.e. I pressed the space bar As I disengage, my HV starts to float up slowly - it has no ability to thrust down of course. With this in mind, I apply some forward thrust and begin to move towards my Hangar Door. The door opens as my HV approaches and Omicron is displayed in its full glory. I pass through the Hangar Door - no going back now - an head to the planet... I enter the atmosphere and before long I'm falling nose first towards the ground. This takes some time as the HV speed cap still seems to apply. I take the ample time to level off my HV and prepare for landing....touch down! It was a hard landing, I totally bottomed out, yet no damage occurred. Nice. Time to explore! My mission, now I have no choice but to accept it, is to secure a base - including large landing area - before constructing a new SV and flying into orbit to collect my CV and bring it down. As it's night time where I touched down, I head East towards the sun. I am acquired by several roaming drones, as well as those protecting resource points as I travel East, but the four Minigun turrets make short work of them. I even manage to pull a number of drones away from a couple of POI's I got close to, though I couldn't loot them. Having travelled about 75% of the way around the planet - the HV handling the terrain well, with pitch and roll input from me - I encounter the Transportation Hub. I think I'll make this my base of operations for the time being. My HV's turrets dispatch the three guarding drones and I park my HV on one of the HV pads - disabling my turrets first so they don't start trying to shoot the core. I break through several doors, heading for the core, when a drone appears. My HV's guns are OFF of course, so I dash back to deal with it using my Epic Minigun. Nice. I return to my task, and moment later the Alien Core is no more. I plant my own core and fuel up the base. Now, I don't think I'll have this as my main base. One of the issues with securing a POI as a base is that this does not trigger Drone attacks. So, maybe I will build a base elsewhere, and just rob this POI for its ample resources - it's 99% Combat Steel by the look of it! Or I will build a mini-base - basically just a powered turret - close by and have that be the Drone attack trigger. We shall see. Anyway, that's it for now. Quite excited by this slightly different scenario. Sure, I have a fairly powerful HV, but it's land-bound, so it'll be interesting getting it back into orbit Scoob.
This evening I discovered an interesting lighting issue. At close distances, the light calculates normally on my SV, but when I zoom out a bit... It bleeds through the underside and illuminates the craft in a very strange manner. Honestly I kinda like it. The Shard III looks fluffin' awesome at night! Sadly, I'm just about done with Ningues. The drone base is dead, all the POIs have been neutered, if not outright conquered, and there's very little on the planet worth staying for. Shame too, I think this iceball is probably one of my favorites. Need to head back to Omicron briefly, as I forgot to conquer the Abandoned Factory, but after that I haven't decided what world to tackle next. I have two "Firebase" prefabs and a fully-assembled Terminus base in my blueprints ready to go, but there are a number of worlds I haven't yet visited in Survival mode...
Rebuilt the Pharos Communications Relay. My son "helped" me with some of the exterior so the Comm Relay has two "radios" (its the two consoles on sockets that look a little like juke-boxes) I couldn't bring myself to deleting them. I'm glad he never asked what those towers in the corners are for (the guns werent placed then) Also, added finishing touches to the Depot and created a civilian version of it. But I forgot to make pictures... doh. Then did a study about apartments for the civ building challenge: 7x11 (plus windows and some pipes sticking out - the staircase is missing, too) is about as small as I can make them. After all, I want a living room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom in the appartment. The thin walls look good but are a chore to furnish. Tonight I plan to build a few more levels and see how it works out. Edit: trouble with image caching
Working on a new civilian CV, with plenty of hangar space for HV and SV parking. It's nowhere near finished, but I'm calling it the SlamTek Zodar. Will have more pics and such when it gets finished.
Been messing around in creative mode again. I put the finishing touches on a couple of simple, wooden bases and uploaded those and then got to working on some of the other projects I have scattered around like so many unfinished lego toys. I started on a cyclon raider SV but haven't gotten very far. There was a cockpit layout from some other experiments that I started messing around with. Nothing was working out but I kept trying a bunch of different things and now it looks like what was going to be a single SV design has branched off into three different designs. Yikes! I think I may turn one of the designs into a CV(freighter of some kind). One will be turned into a heavy bomber. The other is probably going to be a light transport/fighter.
Thought I'd tease you guys with some new structures before I head off to work. I don't think it's any secret by now I favor white as a primary color. But frankly, it just doesn't look good when you try to plop something bright-white on a world like Aestus. And not everyone's a fan of bright colors. So I'm trying something a little different this time around, for the evil warlord in all of us. Shadowspire. Spoiler So far, only the Shadowspire's loft is anything like done. I'm working my way down on this one, since one of the troubles that plagued me with Angelspire was trying to adjust the base after building vertically and finding I ran out of space for certain things. "Firewall" - a combat-steel defensive bunker. Relatively cheap to build, easy to expand, nasty in numbers. Cannon turrets by default.
Methinks that Build would be a welcome addition to this Thread: http://empyriononline.com/threads/share-your-a-symmetrical-vessel-designs.7587/page-8 For that Evil Look, can't go wrong with Black + Purple, & Black + Red. Hell Yeah. Edit: For the Topic: My latest going ons in Empyrion... was to lose the Alien POI Contest. I was too late. I failed to get the Base done in time to meet its Due Date, & for extra Humiliation I found out from Jieirn yesterday that I had no competition & I was the only Entry in that Contest... so I had no competition in the Contest & still lost vs it & still totally got my ass kicked... :'( The Inside was 99.9% done then I only had its Outside left... :'(
That's a shame. I feel with you. I have a finished entry but am not allowed to participate... (which I am not complaining about, legal stuff is there for reasons) I find it interesting that you actually had the INSIDE finished before the outside. I usually have the outside finished first and then go about furnishing the inside. Now that I think about it, the apartment building is the first one where I actually started with the inside...
Actually, the dark-purple/burgundy color was always extremely muted on glow textures. What changed there was the color-masking - the textures now accept color over a much more substantial portion, dulling the overall effect. Combine that with the lighting change, and you get a relatively weaker glow. I can't wait for the day when I can start modding some decent textures into this game.
Yeah. Some more textures would be nice (and colors!). And a chooser window that 'scrolls' with the darn wheel. Who uses "paging" anymore
There's no way in hell I can hold an entire inside of a planned Creation in my head to see how to go about reserving the space for it, & I can't make a Outer Shell first THEN try to figure out how to fit everything I want inside after & somehow auto-magically succeed at guessing the right amount of Internal Space & never accidentally make it too small & have everything screw up, so I nearly always have to build from inside to outside. The Antiquated.
Oh the Mead was flowing today. The Master Shipbuilder was humming away to himself as he worked, and we have a new variant to release Today comes Faust-A Mk1, the atmospheric version of the rich-boy's plaything. Following the principles laid down by the original, it still has no guns and little armour although it's mass makes up for it. Four medium atmo thrusters give it quite a punch in the guts when you floor it, hitting max speed in well under two seconds. A combat version of this vessel is currently being considered, should there be any interest Enjoy
The Contest Peeps got back to me & said they would be willing to accept a late Entry! Woot! I'm now attempting to finish the Entry & get it turned in! Then I need to take a Vacation from Bases for a LONG time... Edit: Inside finally complete! Now for the Outside of the POI!
I think I may have to scrap one of the designs I've been working on. I was going for Last Starfighter Gunstar kinda thing but it came out looking more like a big, fat bug. The other design I had
After upgrading Fort Courage to a large greenhouse, and an advanced constructor, I set about working in Creative Mode to build an L10 cargo ship, in the same design family as the Ark Royal. Something relatively cheap to spawn in, so someone can get to getting. I give you the Skipjack.
Did some more Survival today. Nothing too exciting, just setting up auto-miners, mining manually, and finally starting the BP for my larger CV. Also, saw a cool new effect they added recently (that I'm sure they mentioned but I didn't read ) while cruising around in my HV collecting auto-miner ore: a meteor storm. A bunch of fireballs falling from the sky and making small explosions on impact. They didn't appear to leave craters but I wasn't super close, nor did I stop to inspect the area. But I did take screenshots.
