The Shipyard: The Default Respawn Ship, "Yellow Rescue Ship"

Whether you start a new game using the "Asteroids" scenario or you've just joined a multiplayer server for the first time, the respawn ship is likely going to be your first vessel. Easily recognizable alongside the rest of the default ships in the game, this one in particular has become like a familiar home to me with how many times I've owned one. In general terms, I tend to call it the Yellow Rescue Ship, though I've heard others on the Space Engineers Reddit refer to it as a bus. On one occasion, this prompted me to give my ship the title of Ms. Frizzle, itself a reference to a children's television show, The Magic School Bus.

Exterior view, including starboard-side hatch.

Despite its small size, the Yellow Rescue Ship does a fantastic job at its intended purpose. All of the ship systems a player will need, whether new to the world or returning from some potentially catastrophic event, can be found inside of its small hull. The ship comes equipped with an assembler and refinery, collector and connector, one small reactor, and a single small cargo container. And, some time after the game update that gave us oxygen (01.074), the ship was equipped with an oxygen generator. There's even a working medical room, for more immediate respawning needs, and a gravity generator tucked into a corner, to make movement inside a little easier.

What the ship does lack, however, is much in the way of creature comforts. With all of the aforementioned ship systems, the interior of the ship ends up feeling a little cramped. There's room for expansion, but not a whole lot of it. Further cargo containers are best attached to the outside, replacing the conveyer block and tubes in order to offer further storage space without losing the ability to move items between the different machines from any access hatch.

Interior view.

Speaking of the exterior, most of the important and necessary systems for survival, as well as all of the ship's thrusters, are almost entirely unarmored, which can pose a problem when meteor showers are enabled, or when playing on multiplayer servers where player-versus-player is allowed. What armor there is gives the ship a distinctive look, with angles breaking up the otherwise rectangular shape. The half-built catwalks on either side of the single pane of glass give the appearance of an industrial vessel. A disposable mining tugboat, designed to help support near a worksite but be easily forgotten when it's time to move on to the next project. Given that the ship is generally deleted from online servers as soon as the player that owns it logs off, this seems to fit nicely with its design.

For players who want to keep their respawn ship, I talk about a few workarounds in one of my previous entries in my The Exploration Continues series. Beyond that, and the aforementioned suggestion on replacing the conveyer system with extra cargo containers can be expanded on in a number of ways. Solar panels, albeit expensive in the amount of silicon they require, can easily be attached along the sides of the ship. With a few alterations, the connection points for upgrade modules on the side of the refinery can even be uncovered and utilized.

All in all, I've come to love the Yellow Rescue Ship - the thought of tearing it apart, even to use its components to build a more long-term ship to travel in, feels somehow wrong. I'm sure if you give the ship a chance as well, you'll be surprised at just how much you come to enjoy it.

Welcome to Enduring the Void!

Whether you're entirely new to the game or simply looking for another venue of related entertainment, you've come to the right place. This blog will include a number of screenshots and pages dedicated entirely to several aspects of the game Space Engineers.

So, what exactly is Space Engineers? Developed by Keen Software House, Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game set amongst asteroid fields in space. Since its initial release on Steam in late October of 2013, the game has seen many exciting updates, ranging from the addition of multiplayer to in-game programming, and nearly infinite, procedurally generated game worlds. Players can collect resources in a number of different ways while trying to deal with energy and oxygen management in survival mode, or avoid the hazards altogether and build their own space ships or stations in creative mode. The game features an extensive destruction engine, allowing for every part of a construct to be deformed by impacts and damage, all in a near-future setting with realistic physics like mass, inertia and velocity.

After extensively playing games such as Minecraft, Terraria and Starbound, gameplay footage of Space Engineers was more than a little intriguing. It wasn't until the developers had included a "survival mode" to the game that I finally decided to purchase it for myself. Within my first few hours of play, I was hooked; Space Engineers is now my most played game on Steam by more than a hundred hours. I quickly wanted to add to the community in some form; thinking back to a blog I had made to follow along as I played Minecraft, I felt that doing something of the same for Space Engineers was a good fit.

So again, welcome to Enduring the Void! I hope you enjoy your visit and make sure to check back for future updates.

What You'll Find Here

• The Exploration Continues: The meat and potatoes of the blog, so to speak. These are the pages that will continue to chronicle my progress through my single player game world. I'll try to take interesting screenshots of my travels, and do my best to post at something of a regular interval. If I ever feel that I haven't made much of an impact in any given day, I'll effort to post something of the following few categories.
• Updated Transmissions:  So far, nearly without fail, the developers of Space Engineers update the game every Thursday. These pages will do what they can to explain what the additions and changes are, and their possible impact on future gameplay.
• Fringe Science: This series will talk about different concepts and ideas that may or may not have occurred to most readers. Anything you've considered and wondered about the logistics of it, or whether or not it could actually work, can be found here.
• The Shipyard: A series of posts detailing some of the design choices I've made for my own ships and those I've found while exploring my little corner of space. Eventually I'll start dipping into the Steam Workshop to highlight some of the more interesting or unique ship designs to be found.
• Fellow Engineers:  The community for Space Engineers is vast and growing by the day. Sometimes another player stands out above the rest for his contributions. Last, but certainly not least, this series hopes to introduce you to some of your fellow engineers by offering a glimpse of what they've given of their time, imagination and ingenuity. You'll also find applicable links to their YouTube channels or websites.