Empyrion - Galactic Survival

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jztemple2
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Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by jztemple2 »

Hey, it's Empyrion - Galactic Survival, new on Steam today. Found out about it through an article on Steamed.Kotaku. And here's a pretty good introductory YouTube Let's Play type video.
Empyrion - Galactic Survival is a 3D open world, space survival adventure in which you can fly across space and land on planets. Build, explore, fight and survive in a hostile galaxy full of hidden dangers. The game uniquely combines elements from space simulations, construction games, survival games and ego-shooters. The game is currently under development by Eleon Game Studios.

Game Features:

Space and planet exploration: An absolute free-roaming experience awaits you: fly across space, land on planets and freely walk around.
Building and construction: You can build everything out of blocks & building parts: capital vessels, small vessels, ground vessels as well as space & planetary stations.
Survival mode: Survival is key - try to stay alive in a hostile environment. Food and oxygen are rare, resources scarce and dangers lurk around – be well prepared.
Creative mode: Freely build on planets or in space and do not care for food, resources or enemies.
Space and land combats: Empyrion features a variety of enemies reaching from (peaceful and hostile) creatures living on planets to aggressive robot drones that can attack you in space and on planets.
Single and co-operative: Besides single player, Empyrion supports co-operative gameplay with your friends.
Mining and resource gathering: For building and construction, you must gather and mine resources that you find on planets and asteroids.
Extensive crafting system: Using and combining resources, you can craft your own equipment and weapons.
Farming and food system: Grow your own vegetables and fruits or hunt creatures for their meat to prepare yourself a delicious meal. Find rare plants to prepare medical supplies.
Terrain deformation: You can entirely modify and deform the terrain. It’s a true sandbox game!
UPDATE: Warning, 64-bit only!
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Apollo
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Apollo »

This definitely looks interesting.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by GreenGoo »

I think this was in my queue (which I looked through for the first time in a few months) and watched the video. Was not impressed. Might just not be my type of game.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by jztemple2 »

Article from Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Early Alpha Impressions: Empyrion – Galactic Survival

Excerpt:
Andy Weir’s debut novel, about to be a (surprisingly great-looking) Ridley Scott movie, completely mesmerised me. The tale of a man stuck on Mars, surviving with his wits and his fantastic intelligence, captured two of my favourite things: stories of isolation, and people smarter than me being good at difficult stuff. A light, easy read, and yet utterly absorbing, it’s stuck with me since I finished reading it a month ago. Mostly in the nagging thought about how much I wish it could be a computer game.

I’ve found myself returning to this idea so many times, working out the mechanics in my head as I walk around, musing on how you’d give the player Mark Watney’s extensive knowledge, whether it could work as a scripted narrative, and so on. If I knew how you make a game (is it something to do with BASIC?), I’d have started making a game. And then, gosh, Empyrion looks like it might scratch that itch.
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baelthazar
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by baelthazar »

I played this for about 15 minutes and asked for a refund. The framerate was wonky and it seemed to make my video card run hot (like subnautica, without the vsync debug). Subnautica is a far superior game at the moment. Empyrion looked like it had some great ideas but was too fiddly for my tastes.
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Apollo
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Apollo »

OK, so I bought this last week and, 25 hours later, I'm loving it!

Basically, you start on an alien world with tiny spaceship (escape pod) that brought you there. You have a few days worth of oxygen and food, a few tools and resources, and a pistol. The idea is to mine ore and use the constructor on your (disabled) escape pod to create items. For example, you dig up iron ore with the drilling tool, use the constructor to smelt it into ingots, then use the ingots to make cable, metal components, etc. which are then used to make computers, control units, and other machines until finally you can build machines to replenish your oxygen, heal you, process your food, etc. You can build a base and equip it with the machines you've made and you can plant a variety of both earth and alien veggies to make food. You can even build a hover craft, small spaceship, or eventually a capital ship. You can even visit other planets to mine rare resources!

Right now the game is very early in development (They're calling it a "pre-alpha") but there's already 25-40 hours of gameplay and for $16 it's a great deal. Here's a couple videos to give you an idea of what the game is like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI-7IzZ4Akc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB95_-XsBOM
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Tampa_Gamer »

FYI, this early access one has been coming along nicely. If you are interested in Space Engineers, but with a more casual approach to building and with actual AI, survival objectives and with a little bit of first person shooter built in you should check it out. They just announced a free weekend on Steam and running it at 40% off (~$11 USD).
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Sepiche »

Ha, it's funny you mention this as I was hooked on it up until Stellaris released. :P

It's still got plenty of rough edges and has a bit of a learning cliff, but the core game is in there and really fun for those that like survival games.

Lots of flexibility for building bases, capital ships, fighters, hovercraft, lots of planets with unique features and points of interest, a base defense mechanic where you will get attacked by drones on a regular basis. Good stuff.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Hyena »

This is my first attempt at a survival game, and I'm really enjoying it. I got started on it over the free weekend, and couldn't pass it up for just ten bucks.

To those of you that have played, and have found the Titan, is there a way to make that your base? Can you just throw a core anywhere in there, and have it become yours? And if so, will one core activate the entire section, or do you have to put them on the various levels?
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Sepiche »

With all the drama with No Man's Sky lately I thought I might bump this for anyone that's disappointed with it. Also it's currently on sale for $10.

Empyrion is still rough around the edges, and as far as I'm aware there's still only one system that you can explore, but it's much more fleshed out in terms of base/ship building and is perhaps a little closer to your standard Minecraft style survival game than No Man's Sky is currently. They also just recently released a new update that vastly improved the visuals of the game. Still not quite to the level of No Man's Sky's graphics, but much better than previously.

Enlarge Image
Hyena wrote:To those of you that have played, and have found the Titan, is there a way to make that your base? Can you just throw a core anywhere in there, and have it become yours? And if so, will one core activate the entire section, or do you have to put them on the various levels?
You've probably already figured this out in the intervening months, but as far as I understand how it works you could add a base core to the Titan as long as it didn't already have another core and then anything that connects to that core would be claimed... if there's any sort of separation between the sections you'll have to connect them. If it already has a core you'll need to find and destroy that and then you should be able to place yours.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by ColdSteel »

I decided to hold off on NMS for a while until they have a chance to update it and have been eying this since I'm in the mood to try something like this and especially since it's on sale right now for $10.

How does it play in solo mode? I'm not really interested in the multiplayer aspects. Is it viable and fun solo?
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Sepiche »

ColdSteel wrote:How does it play in solo mode? I'm not really interested in the multiplayer aspects. Is it viable and fun solo?
Yup, perfectly playable solo. Some of the alien bases you can go to are REALLY heavily defended, so I'm not sure how viable attacking them solo is, but that's unrelated to the survival/building game.
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ColdSteel
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by ColdSteel »

Sepiche wrote:
ColdSteel wrote:How does it play in solo mode? I'm not really interested in the multiplayer aspects. Is it viable and fun solo?
Yup, perfectly playable solo. Some of the alien bases you can go to are REALLY heavily defended, so I'm not sure how viable attacking them solo is, but that's unrelated to the survival/building game.
Cool, thanks Sepiche. I wonder if maybe you could tunnel into the alien bases from below and avoid their exterior defenses? It's voxels, right? If you could, that would be pretty fun.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Sepiche »

ColdSteel wrote:
Sepiche wrote:
ColdSteel wrote:How does it play in solo mode? I'm not really interested in the multiplayer aspects. Is it viable and fun solo?
Yup, perfectly playable solo. Some of the alien bases you can go to are REALLY heavily defended, so I'm not sure how viable attacking them solo is, but that's unrelated to the survival/building game.
Cool, thanks Sepiche. I wonder if maybe you could tunnel into the alien bases from below and avoid their exterior defenses? It's voxels, right? If you could, that would be pretty fun.
Sure thing.

Hmm yeah, presumably... the tougher bases have long range defense turrets, so you'd have to start digging a little way out, and they might still try to shoot at you underground (the shells they fire deform the terrain), but might be an option. Most times when I run into really heavy defenses I hop into my bombardment fighter and pepper the site with missiles to take everything out, but I think that destroys valuable artifacts in the process.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by tgb »

I've also been considering this as an inexpensive alternative to NMS, especially with all the positive Steam reviews (!). I keep reading that there's much more of a game here.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Sepiche »

tgb wrote:I've also been considering this as an inexpensive alternative to NMS, especially with all the positive Steam reviews (!). I keep reading that there's much more of a game here.
At this stage I'd definitely give it to NMS in terms of randomness, exploration, vastness, and visuals, but the base and ship building in Empyrion is really outstanding... even compared to other Minecraft clones IMHO.

Once Empyrion gets more systems and (hopefully) randomized planets it will be pretty hard to beat though, even if it has that indie roughness to it.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by tgb »

The main thing holding me back from Empyrion is it's early access status. I really am trying to get away from buying alphas and betas because I'm usually burnt out on them by the time the finished product arrives, or I've just moved on to something shinier and newer (also unfinished, probably).
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Lorini »

Tried it, it's certainly early access. I'm going to wait until the full release to spend significant time with it.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

Lorini wrote:Tried it, it's certainly early access. I'm going to wait until the full release to spend significant time with it.
It is still very Early Access. They call it an Alpha.

However, I've already gotten my $10 worth and then some by playing over the weekend, completely absorbed. I've logged maybe 20 hours and have gone through...
  • The trials of landing my escape pod and chasing it across the countryside as it rolled away from me
  • The joy of being attacked by drones with miniguns
  • The fun of being poisoned by hostile alien spiders
  • Harvesting wood, but only from trees destroyed by drones trying to shoot at me while I hid behind them (I've never actually used my chainsaw)
  • Confusingly founding my first base
  • Harvesting mounds of resources from nearby deposits and the lake I settled next to
  • Exploring the countryside by motorcycle, harvesting plants and animals for food and medical supplies
  • Getting smeared by a hostile base, and the bounty of deaths that followed as I tried to recover my backpack
  • Building up my base to a full-fledged home, complete with food prep, medical bay, fridge, ammo, turrets
  • Being slaughtered by a pack of raptors I didn't see coming
  • Using my jetpack to both spare myself from falling damage and go too high and cause falling damage
  • Exploring crashed ships and looting them
  • Discovering that I could safely take my helmet off and breathe real air instead of canned O2
  • Confusingly making my first ship
  • Landing and flying my first ship like a drunken crash-test dummy
  • Dismantling my first ship, which ended up lodged up-side-down in the bottom of a lake next to my home
  • Discovering that you can drown if you don't put your helmet back on to breathe air underwater
  • Researching ship design and piloting to discover that thrusters in every one of 6 directions are essential for stable flight
  • Lots and lots and lots of mining
  • Lots and lots of breaking down crashed debris for spare parts and steel
  • Building a more robust and controllable ship, now dubbed The Mule
  • That right-click block menu for all kinds of different shapes!
  • Discovering the magic of the "O" key, and how it enables me to go from barrel-rolling death slides to gentle hover and safe descents
  • Escaping the planet's atmosphere, and being in awe of space
  • Drilling into asteroids and chasing ore that drifts out into space
  • Immediately going back to refuel, eat, and replenish O2 because I was ill-prepared
  • Test out ship combat with my twin gattlings mounted on the front of The Mule
  • Spending an inordinate amount of time repairing every individual panel on my ship that gets dented and banged up
  • Marveling at the very neat holes enemy drones can put through The Mule and repairing my internal parts, like fuel tanks and generators
  • Building a large hangar attachment on my house, and learning how gravity can rip apart structures that don't have adequate support
  • Restocking and upgrading The Mule, now a tiny home away from home with all parts needed for an extended space journey
  • Journeying to the moon, and meeting the bountiful hostiles that live there
  • Running screaming from Drone Bases that can rend me and my ship at insane distances
  • Exploring abandoned ships and looting them
  • Planning my first Capital Ship build in space, to go off and explore distant worlds and find new ways of dying
While I also agree that Subnautica is a more visually appealing and polished game, it doesn't cross into the genre of ship design and exploring outer space. There's a lot going on underwater in that game - enough for dozens of hours of play. I feel the same is true for Empyrion, only on land and in space.

Yes, it's very rough around the edges. Yes, the AI is pretty weak. Yes, animations are stiff. Yes, hit detection is wonky. No, the physics aren't precise... but I'm willing to overlook that because the rest is fun. I've had a lot of crashes, too, but none that really resulted in losing any time between saves - I think my PC might have a bad RAM module and am looking into replacing it.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by tgb »

The sale is over, which makes waiting easier.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

I'm still glad I didn't. :D

I created all the elements needed to make my first Capital Vessel (CV) and piled it along with 100 glass blocks and 700 steel blocks into my Mule - and made it about 1/2 way through my first design before I need to now go back to my original home base, mass-produce more steel, and then come back to finish the job. I think in the grand scale, my CV is pretty small, but it'll be an all-inclusive base with fair defense and I'm excited to try it out.

Originally I was trying to put everything I needed in my inventory, and then a little light went off and I remembered I'd be going up into space in The Mule and had as much storage as I wanted.

I've built in... 6 Minigun Turrets, 14 thrusters to try and stay in the air when I find a planet, a control tower situated 3/4 of the way back from the front, a garden in the back quarter of the ship with a glass dome ceiling, an engineering section below the control tower (complete with 4 large O2 Tanks, 4 large Fuel Tanks, a Large Generator, an O2 Station, and a Medbay), a "production floor" where I have placed a Gravity Generator and a Large Production facility (with plans to add a second) - and from there, all I have left is more decorative trappings and my Small Vessel (SV) Hangar.

I'm really having fun with the ship building, and can't wait to build a second design after I reach the end of the tech ladder and can make everything for it.
tgb wrote:The main thing holding me back from Empyrion is it's early access status. I really am trying to get away from buying alphas and betas because I'm usually burnt out on them by the time the finished product arrives, or I've just moved on to something shinier and newer (also unfinished, probably).
I plan to play it as long and hard as I can, and then put it down until it's done. I did the same with Subnautica and am now sitting patiently on my hands until 'release' ... :)
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

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So the Capital Vessel is mostly done, except for some paint. I realized as I was finishing the Warp Generator room (biggest damn room in the ship, the Warp Generator is like 5x5x2) that I didn't have an elegant place to put my landing bays. I flew around the ship, pondering, and finally settled on attaching pods to the sides near the control tower. The end result is absolutely homely and I christened the ship the TROLL simply based on looks. Bay 1 is for The Mule, and Bay 2 is for an as-of-yet unmade fighter ship (or two).

After I got maybe 70% done painting the outside I needed a break. I made a backup copy of my game and attempted flight for the first time in the CV. The handling was surprisingly swift in space, and planet entry was clean and problem-free. I enjoyed cruising over my starting world and made my way to my base ... and halfway there, my ship suddenly went dark, floundered, and crashed. Apparently this thing burns fuel at an insane rate, and the Hydrogen tanks (15 fuel each) I had filled the 4 fuel tanks with were gobbled up in 5 minutes. I had to make my way to the engine room up-side-down and refill the tanks with spare Promethian Fuel cells (30 Fuel) in order to start back up, right myself, and then fly to my home base. I landed ungracefully, but safely. The ship made my home look puny. I couldn't find a good angle for a screenshot, and will try again tonight after finishing my paint job.

The real problem with this ship is that the Minigun Turrets burn ammo for fun. They have a very long range, and fire at hostiles I can't even see - and that they don't stand a chance of hitting because the bullets have to travel too far and just miss constantly. Up close, completely lethal, though. I desperately want a toggle to turn them on or off quickly.

I did warp to a couple other destinations and found an abandoned trade station and a desert planet. The trade station was lifeless and empty, but the desert planet was appropriately hostile and full of new plants to harvest and enemies to run away from. The CV is most certainly intended to be used strictly to warp between destinations. It burns a tremendous amount of gas when it moves, and I'm not yet prepared to hemorrhage fuel (and ammo) for that. I was also very bummed out to discover that I can't take my helmet off in my CV. I'm not sure if I've got a leak, or if that's not implemented.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

The fully-functional but unpainted CV, Troll
Enlarge Image

I've already started stockpiling resources for my next, hopefully last, CV. This means cleaning out deposits on my starting world and using the Troll to get to the Lava worlds where I should find the last two rare resources needed to make the final production items (like massive engines, plasma turrets, etc).

I'm essentially going to mimic a Carrier design. 4 SV bays on the left side, a garden spanning that distance on the right, then behind those production, warp, engineering, and "home" facilities - with a control tower on the right side and just a pair of turrets to protect it. The Troll, above, was created without any real design plan and I just lumped sections together as I went.

Steam tells me I've logged 40 hours with the game, so my $10 was not wasted.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by dbt1949 »

I've had to go online to figure out how to play the game. Unfortunately the how tos are for much earlier versions that are different.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Sepiche »

dbt1949 wrote:I've had to go online to figure out how to play the game. Unfortunately the how tos are for much earlier versions that are different.
I'm sure Paingod or I could help if you have specific questions.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by dbt1949 »

Okay. I know how to walk. How do I do everything else?
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

dbt1949 wrote:Okay. I know how to walk. How do I do everything else?
Some tips I had to figure out. This should be in roughly chronological order.
  1. You can take your helmet off in the starting world safely. Hit "TAB" to get to your inventory and click it. There's also a keyboard shortcut. Until you do this, you'll consume Oxygen in addition to Food. Be sure to put your helmet back on in any oxygen-deprived or toxic area.
  2. To Deploy anything (Construction, Blocks, Starters, Motorcycles) they need to be in your hotbar inventory, which does not pull from the regular inventory.
  3. Try and follow the 'tutorial' quests. They do help get you going.
  4. Reloading is not automatic. If you don't press "R", you don't reload.
  5. Jetpack is off by default every time you load. Press "J" to turn it back on. This makes kiting creatures possible instead of lethal.
  6. Right-click to open any deployed item's inventory, even the Escape Pod.
  7. You can consume anything directly from your inventory (or a structure's inventory) by Shift+Right-Clicking it.
  8. Check the benefits and negatives of anything before consuming it.
  9. Be sure to cook anything that can be cooked before eating it. Food poisoning is dangerous.
  10. Right-click and left-click do different things when using most items. For example, a Right-click with the drill makes a tiny dent. A left-click makes a big one. Both together drill fastest, but consume fuel at twice the rate too.
  11. Drills and Chainsaws need Bio-Fuel. Bio-Fuel is processed Seaweed. Seaweed is most certainly found underwater. Bring your helmet.
  12. To build a base, right-click the Survival Constructor and and stuff it full of resources.
    1. Make sure you turn it ON, it defaults to OFF (top-right corner).
    2. Make sure you don't have the "Base" items selection picked, instead select the "Blank" (all) filter. Go to the "Blocks" list. The Base starter should be there. Remember this for SV, HV, and CV productions.
  13. When you do place your Starter blocks, you can rip them up later. All they really do is establish the foundation of whatever you're building and give you a place to start. Your Core doesn't need to sit on the ground. You can salvage it, put the resources into the Constructor, rebuild it, and add it anywhere you want in the base or ship.
  14. Be sure to occasionally backup your save game. Hit Escape and use the Backup icon in the menu bar. Saves do sometimes corrupt, resulting in ships vanishing. You'll want to restore from a previous save.
  15. When you're holding a block, paint gun, or texture gun, right-click to get more options - slants, angles, corners, etc.
  16. Use "Home" and "End" keys to rotate a block along the currently selected axis.
  17. Use "Insert" and "Delete" to cycle through the X, Y, and Z axis modes for blocks.
  18. Use "Page Up" and "Page Down" to manually force a block up or down.
  19. Your home should be walled in to give you some security against Drone attacks. That doesn't mean you can't build a nice courtyard, walls, and lights outside, though.
  20. Anything that touches your "Foundation" blocks becomes part of the structure you're building.
  21. It only being part of the structure stops when it's disconnected (destruction, removal) from a link to the Core.
  22. If the Core is lost, the structure goes Neutral until a new core is added anywhere. This works in reverse, too. You can claim a base or ship by destroying the core and adding your own.
  23. If something needs to be built "In Water" this also means "Not touching your base" - annoying but true. No need to build an elaborate stairwell and path system into a pond just to run an Oxygen Generator. :hawk:
  24. Mount turrets on rooftops or walls for best visibility. Ammo stored only in Ammo Crates will feed into the turrets. Ammo Crates don't need to be anywhere near the turrets, just touching the same foundation network.
  25. You can manually finish the bugged "Built a Turret" tutorial quest. Open your PDA (F1) and check off the box for it.
  26. When building your first SV, remember the rules on creating Starter blocks from above.
  27. When building that SV, too, it might be easiest to build it up a little, get in, set it to hover (activate it, "Space" to go up, Hold "O" to level it, and then "F" to exit). This will let you build below it without having to take it into space or do strange things like build it on blocks to start and then deal with it tipping and rolling as gravity catches it. :hawk:
  28. When you build any vessel, you need at least one thruster in each of the 6 directions for stable fight. Only having thrusters on the top, bottom, front, and back makes for a lot of crash landings until you figure this out. :hawk:
  29. They say that for every 5 Tons of weight you have in your SV, you should have an RCS and Thruster. If you lack the RCS, handling gets sluggish. If you lack the thruster, you might not lift off/flip over/hover/fly. Test out to see if you have enough thrust by trying to take off straight up. If you can, that's enough.
  30. They say flight mechanics are simplified. It shouldn't matter where your thrusters and RCS units are located, as long as they exist.
  31. As said above, hold "O" to get your ship to auto-level itself. This is massively useful to stop drifting and let you exit a hovering vehicle. I had to research this one, because the controls aren't very clear.
  32. Be careful about your elevation when you exit a hovering ship. You may not be able to get back in, even with a Jetpack. :hawk:
  33. The amount of fuel anything consumes seems dependent on how much it's doing. A ship sitting inert in space consumes very little. Running two production lines, 20 lights, and a handful of other things consumes more.
  34. Your Medbay heals you when you stand in front of it. You don't have to use it.
  35. Your CV should be built in space. The Starter block can be placed anywhere in open space. Bring 1000 steel blocks as a starter...
  36. You might consider first building a Power Plant and attaching a Constructor. That way you can rebuild items you took apart because you misplaced them.
  37. Your CV doesn't have air yet. This hasn't been fixed by the Devs. Keep wearing your helmet.
  38. Flight rules for CV's are the same as SV's. Thrusters in every direction.
  39. CV's guzzle fuel. Don't fill them with Hydrogen cells. If you do, and you fly to a planet, you might just find yourself powered-down and upside down in your shiny new CV. :hawk:
  40. Your SV isn't docked in the CV and is free-flying by itself unless it actually says "Docked - YES" on the ship HUD. :hawk:
  41. CV Turrets have massive range and bad AI. It's probably better to either give them a small amount of ammo or build a fighter craft to defend your CV until they correct this.
  42. When you want to Warp with your CV, open the Map "M" and select the target System and then click "Lock Target" below. While flying the ship, turn and face the warp target. Once you're going fast enough, you can press "K" to warp.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by dbt1949 »

Thanks, I printed that out to help me get along.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

I spent the better part of my spare time this weekend playing, and finally got to the PvE base-assault combat. It must be avoided until you've got a lot of disposable resources; ammo is spent like water in the ocean and repairs are commonplace. Enemy AI is about as good as the original DOOM, but it's enough to be a threat while you explore.

Finished my carrier design. The functional part is approximately 90 squares long, 15 squares wide, and 5 squares high (including exterior walls). The rest is design trim, and adds 2 to the width, 4 to the height, and 5 to the length - roughly. I've got a garden with 63 growing squares (enough food for four people), 4 small craft landing bays, 2 constructors (Large and Advanced), Minigun turrets in the fore and aft as well as on the deck (I've limited the fore and aft to specific cones of fire and disabled the deck turret unless I need it), a control tower, a living space with kitchen, and a large engineering area. The ship can idle in space with all the lights on and the two T3 Fuel Tanks filled with Large fuel packs for 16 hours. The whole thing took hours to build and cost around 6000-7000 steel blocks, way more than the 1500-2000 for my first CV (which now sits powered down, drifting in orbit around the starting world, in case I need to go back to it for some reason later).

I built one fighter craft to explore a new planet with, and retired it after that exploration. I acquired the materials needed to make a Railgun during that trip, and a single railgun is more potent than two miniguns working together. Armor in this game deflects a portion of each shot, so a lot of little hits are less effective than a single big shot. My T2 Sniper Rifle is the go-to for killing anything when I'm on foot, and the T2 Pistol is used as an emergency backup since lots of things drop .50 cal. The sniper does 240 damage, the pistol does 80.

The Fighter was a lot of fun to use as I skimmed over the surface of the planet. It has huge forward and reverse thrust, so it moves from stop to full speed in a heartbeat. The entire ship design was predicated on the concept of providing a minimal frontal profile - including the narrowest/longest cockpit. The ship is just 4 tiles wide, and about 12 long and 3 high (so small that I could easily shoot out a 2x2 wall and park inside alien buildings for safety). I used Shutter tiles to provide access to the internals via the top of the ship - which looks really cool and worked great. It worked well against hostile base turrets, but did take a beating and needed some field repairs. The reason it was retired was two-fold. First up, weapons. Weapons don't converge - so two while two miniguns do just fine against a wide target, they skip around a smaller one. There was no way to redesign the ship logically with a single railgun that wouldn't confuse aiming. Second up, space. With such a tight design, I found my first foray into hostile worlds fraught more with inventory concerns than combat ones. I had virtually no spare storage. I did walk off with parts to make that Railgun, though...

Enter the Gladiator. It took a wider cockpit (3x5x3) and put that single Railgun underneath it for precision accuracy that packs a punch (200 damage per shot vs. 40 damage x2 on the miniguns). The whole thing is made out of hardened steel plating, increasing the weight a bit, but adding massive health to each piece (50 health for Steel, 200 health for hardened). More importantly, I advanced the Shutter roof technique to include copious storage and shouldn't feel constrained by inventory while I explore. The resulting ship is a square wider and a square taller than the Fighter, and about the same length. The whole kit was given more thrusters and an extra RCS to accommodate the extra weight - and the handling has been good in testing. It still needs to go on an expedition to prove itself, though. If it works out, I look forward to going back to my home world and kicking the crap out of all the alien bases there that have caused me so much trouble.

Now that I'm done building CV's for a while and have only planet exploration left to do, I'm almost at the end of the game... but I've certainly gotten my money's worth so far and can't wait to see where they take it (if they ever do - some of these things just die on the table).

*Edit: Poking around on the game's forum, a lot of people have built really cool looking fighters and other ships. Elaborate, heavily armed designs. I don't think I'd want to get into that until there's some kind of automation to repair and rebuild. It's already a small pain in the ass to refit a basic ship like the ones I make. I'd hate to have to inspect 312 tiles for damage and fix each one.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Apollo »

I played this game when it was first released on Steam about a year ago, and I really enjoyed it. It was clear that the game had a lot of potential. So, after reading this thread I decided to crank it back up and see what has changed. Holy Cow! The game is vastly improved, both in content and in graphics. If they keep up this pace, we should have a truly awesome crafting/survival game in a year or so. Hell, I can't put the game down now! Three different times this weekend I played for 4 hours straight, something I haven't done with any game for many, many years.

If you are into survival/crafting/open world games, this game is already good enough to start playing now. If they never added another bit of content it would still be a bargain at the current price, so don't worry about whether or not it'll be finished. It's already a blast!
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Punisher »

Same boat as Apollo. Bought it a ways back, played, then shelved it. Took it for a spin over the weekend and was surprised at how different it looked..
Full disclosure, I am using cheats in SP mode. I just don't have the time to invest in the game.. I just found out about workshop blueprints and there are some really cool things there. I'll probably keep playing for a while and then shelve it again though. I get burnt out on games too easily. If it wasn't for cheats, there are a lot of games I wouldn't have finished in the past.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

Punisher wrote:I just found out about workshop blueprints and there are some really cool things there.
I've read about blueprints, and it sounds interesting. Basically, you build something in a free-form 'creative' mode and then create a Blueprint for it that you can import into Survival, right? You can even import and save other people's blueprints to essentially play with their ships when you make them. After that I'm hazy since I never did this, but I assume it makes for much easier production of items. All of my ships and base structures have been on the fly, and have little more than utility in mind.

I'm glad to hear the game has come so far in a year. That gives me hope that when I pick it back up in a year, I'll be more entertained. As it is, I'm still playing around with base assaults, and some of them are damn hard. It seems far safer to take that T2 Drill and burrow under the base and attack it from below. Heck, then you could probably salvage the turret components after destroying the core instead of nuking them.

Side note: The Gladiator is effective against bases, but I didn't know Rail Gun bullets would be explosive. I tend to destroy walls and turrets at once, leaving gaping holes in the hostile base. Just big enough for me to glide my ship into and use it for cover while I fight.

Side-side note: Don't get out of your ship when you'd clip into terrain. You fall into the world. :hawk: I thought I'd be all cool and stuff and park my little Gladiator ship in a tunnel while I mined resources. It fit, just barely. I didn't. I was ejected into the ether and fell to my doom. Before I died, I ALT+TAB'd and ended the task, so when the game reloaded, I was placed next to my ship on safe terrain.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Cylus Maxii »

Paingod - how about some pics of the Gladiator and the new CV?
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

Cylus Maxii wrote:Paingod - how about some pics of the Gladiator and the new CV?
I'll see if I can get any good shots tonight. The CV is pretty big, but the fighters (being function over form) aren't much to look at. I've seen some elaborate blueprint designs people made, and mine are really minimalist. Like comparing a Bugatti to a Datsun.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Punisher »

For the blueprints, it is mostly as you described. You select a blueprint, then add it to a built in factory (not something you have to build), then add the resources it needs to the factory and wait.. the blueprints take various amounts of time to build.. and also various amounts of resources...

I grabbed a bunch of Star Wars themed blueprints, but haven't had time to try them out yet.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

A few shots from my game...

Top-Down View.
Image

On top of the control tower.
Image

The Garden.
Image

Outside the Garden, Looking in.
Image

The Mule in Bay 4.
Image

Inside the Mule.
Image

The Gladiator in Bay 2.
Image

The Gladiator, lurking in an alien base.
Image

The Fighter in Bay 1.
Image

All ships.
Image
Last edited by Paingod on Tue Sep 13, 2016 11:58 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Cylus Maxii »

Thanks!
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Apollo »

I returned to my new base on Akua last night after a mining expedition only to see the sky light up with the flashes of exploding drones as the flak cannons on top of my base went into action in impressive fashion. The drones pretty much left me alone on Omicron but they're everywhere on Akua.

Paingod, your CV inspired my new design, though mine looks much more like the flying aircraft carrier that I've always wanted to fly around in space in. The ship design is this game is incredible. I've put another 100 hours into this game over the last 2-3 weeks and I just can't stop!

P.S. I've learned a lot about the game from watching Kage848's let's play videos. One big thing I learned recently is that the factory tab, accessed from the blueprint screen, has a box that lets you drop miscellaneous items into. These items are then converted into building materials and stored in the factory to be used toward the building of any blueprint in the future.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Paingod »

Apollo wrote:I returned to my new base on Akua last night after a mining expedition only to see the sky light up with the flashes of exploding drones as the flak cannons on top of my base went into action in impressive fashion. The drones pretty much left me alone on Omicron but they're everywhere on Akua.
I thought about establishing my own base on another planet, but was afraid I'd run out of ammo and the whole thing would get ripped apart while I was away. I suppose it's a good way to deal with an over-abundance of drones, though. Turrets make short work of them and require little oversight.
Apollo wrote:Paingod, your CV inspired my new design, though mine looks much more like the flying aircraft carrier that I've always wanted to fly around in space in. The ship design is this game is incredible. I've put another 100 hours into this game over the last 2-3 weeks and I just can't stop!
Have any screenshots? I'd love to see it.
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Re: Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Post by Apollo »

Paingod wrote:
Apollo wrote:Paingod, your CV inspired my new design, though mine looks much more like the flying aircraft carrier that I've always wanted to fly around in space in. The ship design is this game is incredible. I've put another 100 hours into this game over the last 2-3 weeks and I just can't stop!
Have any screenshots? I'd love to see it.
Unfortunately, it's been so long since I have posted an image on the interwebs that I wouldn't have a clue of how to post any screenshots. But, hey, thanks for reminding me about this great game again. I'm having so much fun now that I can only imagine how good it will be once it is actually finished!
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