Space Engineers

Hello readers,

It’s been awhile since I posted anything about what I’ve built on this game and some of you are understandably curious about how such a thing evolves. I’ve been at it off and on (mostly on) for a few years now and to see how far we have progressed we should delve into the humble beginnings. From top to bottom is a fair span of time and certainly doesn’t include the hundreds of ships or thousands of deleted ships along the way.

These days you can find many of the ships on mod.io I will provide a link and you can casually scroll from the most recent to the oldest ships I’ve published.

What I’ve learned through this process is a bit like core engineering principles, programming fundamentals, a fair bit of strategic thinking goes into refining designs, even the well known ones can suffer greatly from misplacing things like weapon blocks, projector, shield generators, build system components, etc.

There is also the youtube channel devoted to this process which acts as a showcase for the ships in battles. That has taught me a great deal more about video production, simplicity, timing, and crowd engagement, though the channel has very limited viewership. (That can be a blessing.) Discovering other players and their designs has been fruitful and I’m delighted by some of the interactions I get from core players who have serious opinions about what I should do differently; i.e. interior lighting has been a topic.

“It’s the best thing I’ve done for myself, and I’m delighted to share the creations with others. I understand most of them feel like I do and would never really just use someone else’s ship – preferring to build their own.”

Brian Taylor

So many people in my life casually accepted the fact that a 45 year old man elects to spend about 25 hours a week building spaceships in a video game because they recognize that for me it’s an island upon which I may decompress. I don’t expect “all people” to understand what it’s like to not give one’s self permission to unwind but for me that was part of a 25+ year struggle. If I felt something wasn’t done I didn’t let myself relax. I’d advise people to break that habit, and I know this game isn’t everyone’s ideal solution. But solutions do in fact exist and that problem is all too real.

My goals and even the goal of this post is; to get people to feel encouraged to enjoy themselves a little bit, to maybe get more core players to join me in pvp or pve battles, build better stuff, enjoy more, do more fun things on purpose, and encourage others to do similarly. Some people are genuinely just not geared up for fun anymore and that is unfortunate.

If you aren’t living you are dying. Many people will scratch their head and wonder how anything here would prompt anyone to enjoy themselves more. It’s the journey to here from where I began that seems to resonate. You don’t have to want to do the same thing, but you probably want to do something. So this was my example of me doing that, and encouraging you to do your version.

Plus my ships are epic so check them out.