REMOVE THE SPAWN SHIPS.

For the love of god, add in an option to change or remove spawn ships completely from the game. I can't host a server without 20+ nitwits spawning with a rescue ship, ramming into an asteroid and then disconnecting. It only takes 10 minutes to lag out a server.
Also with these RIDICULOUSLY OP "Rescue" ships, any PVP, survival or any other gamemodes are practically useless. You have all these great features, but you can't for the life of you change this simple game mechanic that is quite frankly ruining Space Engineers.
Holy s**t please just let me remove spawn ships for servers so I can play this game again.

 

This is not a suggestion, this resembles a rant. Please correctly end your rant by using the forum tag [/rant].

Regarding your "idea", the rescue ships will never be fully removed. However, there will most likely be an option to disable them (or at least use custom, server-dictated models).
You are correct - it is quite irritating to be trying to run a server when people continuously spawn in and simply litter the world with old ship husks.

Do not criticize the developers. They have said time and again that they do things based on community input, and this simple game mechanic is far from ruining Space Engineers - to be honest, I think it helps! If you die in space, and you don't have a med room or a beacon, you need to manually find your way back to your station/ship before your rescue ship's fuel runs out. It's better than simply respawning back on your station.

The ships are not overpowered - they're supposed to resemble escape pods with every utility you would need to survive for the time being. Also, if you want to make a "specialty gamemode" like a PVP game, just take the time to build in med rooms for teams/players.

So sorry that this one small feature which is in no way invasive is completely ruining your game to the point that it is unplayable.

 

No, the OP is uncouth but correct, it's a completely broken mechanic that rewards players for dying without a medbay and makes multiplayer rapidly become bogged down with debris.

Fortunately you can do something about it. It's possible to replace the default spawn ship with your own choice of ship. It must have a cockpit but that's about it, it could be a space scooter with no engines. There is a thread here that takes you through how to do that: I'm not searching for it for you.

 

Even though i somewhat agree to OP's points. But there is a good reason why it is as it is now.

- If spawning for the first time, the player need access to an assembler and a refinery. Without these two there is no way he can progress.
- The game cant force people to cooperate in a multiplayer scenario, everyone must get the two mentioned above for their own personal use to progress in the game.
- When first spawning in to the world the player needs to be able to move these two around till he reaches a location the player wants to settle down in.

This issue can be solved by having a fixed place in the world where everyone would spawn by default and +at the start+ refine and assemble goods.
However the problem with this would be:

- Default spawn is subject to grief
- Default spawn is subject to theft
- Default spawn is subject to ganking

The only way to really fix this would be to make pocket variations of refineries and assemblers and so the player could produce the items required to create the stuff needed to create the big ones. However this is at the cost of immersion/simulation. But i believe the community said no to this.
If this was the case, you could spawn virtually anywhere in the asteroid belt and be able to survive (that would force the players to go mine for materials and try to conserve his suit so he can obtain and establish a powersource and a way to up his suitenergy)

 

first in the spirit of suggestions, let's rephrase that original post.

[SUGGESTION] please create an option in game settings to disable the RespawnShip. it would be helpful for some game types to simply have players spawn in spacesuits as the host would in an "Empty Space" scenario.

additionally, it would be great to include an option to enable an alternate RespawnShip, perhaps from the host's Clipboard by making use of the copy/paste feature. in this way a player could pick a ship from their favorite creative map and copy that, instead of needing to modify .sbc files in any way.

even better would be a native export feature using the same type of copy/paste system, to create their own .sbc ship files!

second, to the original poster in the spirit of solving the problem in the short term.

it's not too hard to change the RespawnShip.sbc file. it doesn't even really qualify as modding imo. you can find details in the modding forums, but the basics are this:

1. get the SEToolbox tool.
2. find the folder Content/Data/Prefabs
3. rename the original RespawnShip.sbc to RespawnShipBackup.sbc
4. open a creative game (i call mine shipyard.)
5. design a small craft with only the basic thrusters, gyro, and limited fuel. try to keep it under 3000kg.
6. save the game with your man standing near it.
7. open the save with SEToolbox.
8. locate the ship by its distance to your astronaut and export it as RespawnShip.sbc.

from this point on, all players will spawn in the ship you designed. be it ever so humble, you'll find that any small ship under 3000kg will do minimal ramming damage and create much less lag. SEToolbox will also help by allowing you to sort by distance and delete a lot of that space trash that tends to drift off into space.

if you want to be nice, you can create a spawn pod with a cargo containing all the necessary parts to create a small base, including fuel and 100 reactor parts, refinery ingredients, etc. if you prefer to enforce teamwork at a central location, spawn them in a cockpit with nothing on it.

if you want to be cruel, move single asteroid moons to x and y values of 35000 and (-35000) and spawn your players in a pod that relies on only 2 solar panels for power. nothing stops a troll rammer like a 20 minute trip to base in a ship that moves faster if you get out and push.

 

Thats a great tutorial!

Also that's hilarious!
Is it possible to alter the spawn locations in the world as well? to have it spawn like 15 k out in space?

 

in a way.

it seems that spawning happens at a range of distances from the "cluster" of asteroids. so on a typical map where asteroids range out to i'd guess 2000m or so, your players will spawn out at around 3000m someplace.

if you make a world with only 1 asteroid, or no asteroids, you'll get spawning a lot closer, perhaps within 1500m.

thus my suggestion. if you move some asteroids out to 35,000m... lol. yes you'll get player spawning about 1000 or 1500m past that.

but the strict answer to your question is no, we can't control player spawning or starting inventory yet. there's a few other things i'd love to be able to control to set up certain game types as well. but that's for a separate thread i'll write later.

cheers, happy gaming. hope i helped.

 

It seems that this thread ended up being a suggestion thread after all.

While I agree with th OP about the op Spawn ships I have seen a few alternates that give the player mobility but its slow enough that even if they ram stuff its not going to do much damage and it has in its 2 medium Cargo containers with everything u need to build a small station with refinery, assembler, Grav gen and nuke reactor.

I believe though that it would be a great idea to have the ability to have finite control on the spawn point and such in the game. I would also guess that, like a few other things that have been suggested that may not make it into the game itself, would be made into a mod, Permissions to protect spawn and such, much like whats availible in Minecraft (i know its ref is used alot but it does help here), iirc there is native mod support for this game or definitely will be and so many of these suggestions would do better to be in a mod rather than coded by the devs.

 

If you want there is a pair of files out there that has the RespawnShipBackup.sbc and a new RespawnShip.sbc. It ends up being a small pod with a Small Reactor, Cockpit, a Storage Crate, a Door, and one Small Thruster in each direction.

I think the person is currently planning a new ship that will be a Small Mining Ship if they can do it.

 

I think the OP is more concerned with a map cleaning option it should not be hard to put some kind of tag in the file that specifies whether or not a block is a rescue ship or not and allow them to be deleted en mass

 

He wants an option to remove it from a Server. That way you don't spawn with one. This is a good option but would most likely require at the very least a basic faction system. As it is one can change the spawn ship. Which has been pointed out. What I said was simply if the OP didn't want to go through the hassle of doing it themselves it is possible to download and install those files to replace the basic ship.

After all when the work is out there done why not support it and encourage someone who likes doing it by using it and showcasing it.

 

All ranting aside, I could see a pile of spawn ships becoming a problem, and it would be nice to be able to turn them off in the game options. On the other hand, with a faction system and enough gun turrets, they might be a non-issue.

 

[SIZE= 10.5pt]I would have to agree to this topic completely.[/SIZE][SIZE= 10.5pt]

It is the trolls and griefers weapon of choice to use as a FREE suicide/kamikaze Ship... [/SIZE]
What I have seen is ridiculous! people creations often weeks and weeks of work destroyed in a very short. around 5 to 10 minutes... maybe even less.

So a few suggestions I have that are needed for Space Engineers:

1. Password protected servers.

2. functioning ban or blacklist (because it's not working) griefers still able to get back onto the server after "band") other people on the map were complaining about this...


[SIZE= 10.5pt]3. A map menu Option to not have re-spawn ships, at all. [/SIZE]
[SIZE= 10.5pt]And instead give the player a placeable starter kit/tool that you spawn within your inventory. [/SIZE]
[SIZE= 10.5pt]By default when placed it is a station object so it won't float away, and player can break/grind it down & can carry with them, would work like a mini lab for manufacturing, that can run off raw uranium ore but is a slow and inefficient process[/SIZE]...
[SIZE= 10.5pt]
This to replace spawning & re-spawning with troll/griefer manned/unmanned torpedoes, an infinite amount of FREE manned/unmanned torpedoes!!! 0_o ...[/SIZE]
[SIZE= 10.5pt]This in effect will mean tolls/griefers will have to take the time to make things just like everyone else, and get more into the spirit of the game)...[/SIZE][SIZE= 10.5pt]
It would also make a nice decorative laboratory block for your [/SIZE]stations [SIZE= 10.5pt]or [/SIZE]Ships[SIZE= 10.5pt] that still has some use even though it is slow and inefficient. [/SIZE]
[SIZE= 10.5pt] Fix those 3 things. it will stop trolls/griefers abusing the current spawning tools. You can't fix people... but it will take the FREE wrecking balls out of their hands when spawning & respawning & respawning & respawning & respawning & respawning and so on!! [/SIZE]

 

As useful as this option would be, it has it's own issues. In order for this to work there would need to be a static spawn point on the map that cannot be destroyed. because if someone grinds your only working med station how can you respawn ? if anything this makes greifing so much easier as under current conditions you could render the map unplayable by attacking the spawn points

 

:nono: Nope and nope.
The spawning is the same as it is now, just without your re-spawn ship.

Your character has thrusters and you should be able to charge your self from the lab once it's placed and you put fuel in it. (raw uranium ore) or placed on another powersauce.

Adding other metals and minerals to get your building materials, as well as assembling components.

NOTE: it probably won't heal you, and the lab will drop all metals, minerals, ingots etc, assembling components & items if any are inside it.

It will be slow going at first but once you have made a reactor and med bay etc, it will be as like the normal game. it is equivalent to a swiss army knife but on a really small scale.

The player will have to make their own new medical bay or ally or use a med bay that is set to Nobody ownership.

If you die before you make a med bay, you can re-spawn in random location if no medbay is available. with your 3 tools (as the game is now!) and a lab block in your inventory. Lab does not take materials to make, and you do not get any back when you grind it, it will just break back into the lab Item, and go into your inventory if you have space. It can then be replaced in another location as needed...
Note: It would be possible to disassemble the lab or make a lab in an assembler or another lab to get materials from it.

If someone steals your lab.
If you cant get it back from them dead or alive, you may die if you can find a way to charge, and respawn with your 3 tools in a random location or med bay as normal and you will have a new lab to place.
NOTE: it will be able to be placed same as you would place the starting block for a station.

To be honest, something like this should have been in the game from the get go... as a tear 0 level of progression :thumb:

 

I think a neat idea would either an option to have a minimalist spawn ship like this one:


Or a "One and you're done" respawn ship where the first time a player spawns in the world they get one to help start them start off, but after that they get a very minimal spawn ship that's basically thrusters, a weak battery, gyro, and a cockpit. So one respawn ship per player and the ship they get after that is essentially space life boat with no supplies.

 

:toot: https://forums.keenswh.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1283706278&postcount=45 :toot:

No more ramming.

 

I'm gonna repost a suggestion I made in a multiplayer thread:

Players design their own spawn ships at their end (as many as they like, the game should also come with a few defaults).
Server sets a "parts list" (component or block whitelist and maximum quantity of each) and allowed ship type (large, small, either) for a) initial ship b) subsequent respawn ships. If the parts list is empty, you spawn in your suit only.
When joining a server/respawning, the player chooses one of their spawn ship designs. Any ship that exceeds the parts list is greyed out/disabled.

Using this, you could have players spawn in something big and heavy like the rescue ship, but only once. If they die they respawn in a small pod/anti-griefer ship with a container for components. Or just their suit.
Or you could have a dogfighting arena with weapons and ammo on the whitelist and players can spawn in their fighters and fly around shooting each other with no (re)building required.

 

Just remove the default respawn ship's thrusters. Problem solved.

 

Ahhh yes, the old tried and true solution to stop griefing that causes another problem(s) for those who play normally.

Having a spawn ship with no thrusters means you will have to do numerous trips back and forth to whatever your building/mining, if it's the stock one early mining is that much more of a pain without the the rescue ships gravity generator. Goes double for any map with meteors on. Also I'm not sure if the world uses the same spawn point for rescue ships so there might be the issue of "spawn clogging".

As a side note I did a ramming damage comparison (@~80 m/s) of the default rescue ship, my minimal spawn ship, and a "space lifeboat" or a cockpit with the bare minimum to be classified as a ship.



As you can see the small ships do far less damage. And unlike the rescue ship, they would be stopped by turrets (especially missile), greatly reducing the damage potential of rammers. In fact, I believe the lifeboat does the same amount of damage to light armor blocks as an actual meteor. If you have meteors on in your map rammers really wouldn't be that much of a threat compared to the existing world itself and since you likely have defenses against meteors they'd definitely be turret chow.

 

I came up with an idea a while back that would allow the player to spawn just in his own suit, no ship needed. I think it's a pretty good idea, and fairly realistic, but that's just me. I'll paste it here.

 

yeah thats cool too but you're missing the point i was making. Merely to have the option to have the character to spawn without any ship at all. but have a station block called a lab or workbench or something that does all the basic stiff, so you can charge from clicking on it, and refine and manufacture some things, if not all things, just at the cost of taking a longer and really quite inefficiently, kinda like jtank4's screwdriver but i think it would be best to have a placeable block so you can interact with it.

But this could be a good fix too as i would design a ship without thrusters...

Anyways just have to wait and see what the future brings... but this is a good fix,

 

As I hinted earlier I have a dropship mod that eliminates respawnship ramming:

What it does: You spawn in an unpowered respawnship, this respawn ship is automatically moved to the starting asteroid. The respawnship is unpowered and has no way for the respawnee to adjust it. It lands at 5m/s on the starting asteroid and thus cannot do any damage to anyone. It has a cargo container with supplies - enough to start a base.

Ramming problem solved.

Personally I like the idea of droppshipping new players directly onto asteroids using a similar method to what my mod executes. It would give the new players a place to start their engineering careers with hopefully plenty of ore around them to go mine.

 

I have found a rather easy solution for this

1. Go to your server directory and then in Content\Data\Prefabs, for example:

2. Find the respawn ship .sbc files, for example

3. Open that file using a good editor like "notepad ++" and go to line 9

4. Change true to false and save the file, you won't be able to start with that ship.

In my opinion having a mining ship for spawn was more than lame, if you disable all the 5 or 6 spawn ships this way, you will have no more spawn ships selectable. (Also an impossible start for new players without helping them)
P.S.: And I guess you will have to repeat this after updating the files.

 

+1 to removing default spawn ship options and adding custom spawn ships.

 

I only play with a couple of friends but they are not beyond cheating. A survival map is just that you dig up what you need, but I often find them stripping down the new respawn ship for parts. This doesnt give them all they need but still a lot of valuable things and why I agree with this particular post. In my opinion spawn ships should only happen once. If it comes to survival well I cant see why your suit cannot have a small solar panel built into it giving you a trickle of energy all the time, providing you align yourself with the sun. This would allow you to keep alive even mine but with long pauses to revive.

 

If your friends use respawn ships for scrapping, just turn up the cooldown time.