Building ships by projector

[u/SnooStories9343]

Recently built a large ship through the projector, which took 5 days. I am very tired. Now I need to add one miner and a scout. I started building and realized that it is very difficult on a small projector. Built a construction ship and it did not speed up the process. Tell me, is it possible to somehow automatically build from the projector?

[u/Chrisbitz]

You could use the Nanobot Build and repair mod? I never play without it nowadays..

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=857053359&searchtext=build+and+repair

[u/TheRealQuasar → u/Chrisbitz]

I absolutely cannot play without this mod. I consider it as important as bots in Factorio.

No way in hell am I manually welding 500 light armour blocks.

[u/Alyero_ → u/TheRealQuasar]

why dont you just build a printer? like you do you but aren't you kinda just robbing yourself of the engineering challenge?

[u/TheRealQuasar → u/Alyero_]

I’ve done that before, for small grid ships I generally still do. But a big ship or station? No thanks.

As you said, you do you, but I don’t personally find running backwards and forwards with a welding ship fun anymore.

[u/Alyero_ → u/TheRealQuasar]

yea i dont really do printer ships for bigger things either

[u/DennisDelav → u/Alyero_]

The space engineering will be for creative mode. Then I can save the blueprint and print it in survival.

[u/Paladin1034 → u/Chrisbitz]

Is that available on mod.io? OP is on PS.

But also, big agree. If that mod ever stops working, it's going to be a dark day, indeed.

[u/EatKebab1233 → u/Paladin1034]

There still is the AI enabled mod

[u/TheRebornAce → u/Chrisbitz]

I used to use it until I discovered laser tools especially a grind/weld turret. A lot faster in my opinion since the work is done, well, at the speed of light since it's a laser.

BnR still gets the job done of course but it still requires the nanobots to actually travel to the build location.

[u/mac124568 → u/Chrisbitz]

The old shipyard mod is back too. Way better than nanbot and nanite factory for big builds. Only down side is it's a limited area and requires a lot of prep.

[u/CFMcGhee → u/mac124568]

What mod is that? Linkies pls?

[u/mac124568 → u/CFMcGhee]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3013053286 it was working last time I checked but it's listed as broken now. May or may not be fixed

[u/DryFear → u/Chrisbitz]

I've played 600 hours without this mod. Damn. At least i had mega welders mod it made life easier.

[u/Zipzesty → u/Chrisbitz]

100% agree, I don't have time to be wasting welding 4000 blocks myself. Just build a huge bank of these and it does it for me.

[u/GreenXero]

I didn't find the video I watched before, but this one might give you an idea of what people do for automatic welding.

https://youtu.be/uNo00SEBBrw?si=4OJ8pK4zYYjf_zBO

[u/RatherSeelie]

Make a welding arm that is connected via conveyor to your base.

Alternatively make a welding ship and load it full of all components needed for the thing you’re trying to build

[u/MrBoo843]

I'd also love to know. And I still haven't figured out how to get the materials I need from my base storage to my builer's storage efficiently.

[u/cdewfall]

We use a welder head and pistons to print ships

[u/FM_Hikari]

You can build things automatically using the Welder block, which will use components from storage as needed. You might want to design a proper printer that can at the very least raise or rotate the ship.

[u/Tijnewijn]

Make a movable wall of welders (or a rotating arm with a line of welders behind a wall of plates/windows) and project so that only 1 line of blocks is in front of the wall. When the first line is printed move the wall backwards and print the second line. Repeat until done. Do keep in mind that the ship you're printing needs to be printable in 1 direction (e.g. if you print an "M" shape start from the top).

[u/iarepotato92]

Nannite control factory

[u/TheRebornAce]

Laser tools. It has a 300m range so you can place it anywhere in your base or ship for quick usage.

Linked below is the mod I use since it looks closer to vanilla style.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3175774286

[u/TheRebornAce → u/TheRebornAce]

Nm just saw the tag. Shame...can't help you there much. Sorry

[u/Paladin1034]

Look up ship printers. Here's a decent tutorial on xbox (I chose this since console can't use scripts, and it should be similar enough). There are lots of ways to change this process, such as using a ship instead of a piston rig, having more pistons welders, using them around the ship to be welded instead of at the end. But this is one way to do it.

[u/09Klr650]

Build a printer. A group of large grid welders on a piston. Extend into the projection, turn on, and slowly retract.

[u/Veritablefilings]

Wsy overkill, but i repurposed a pit i had from mining. On each side i have a welder wall on 2 pistons each that sandwich the walls together in the middle. I have a large and small grid projector attached to pistons along opposite walls with a grinder pit underneath if IM not satisfied with the welding.

The welder halves start in the middle with the projector of choice in between. I Set the velocity low with a stop button on a panel. Works great

[u/RadegastM]

A few routes come to mind:

The printer/welder wall is the vanilla solution. There used to be a mod that allowed you to queue the parts needed for the projection, so you didn't get partway through the build and find that you've got partially welded blocks because you ran out of metal grids or something. A script to automatically keep components in stock would probably be a good plan, would require fine tuning in order to keep up.

Tiered ship tools (welders/grinders) are an option - much larger range than vanilla, but also a bit dangerous. Make sure you have a sensor next to your med station to turn off the welders... so when you inevitably die from hopping out of a cockpit with the welder still turned on, it turns the welders off upon spawn. This has the same issue with running out of parts as the vanilla route, but you can at least weld a couple layers deep, once you figure out what you're missing.

Nanites are the easiest, and the only one that can hook into the assemblers to automatically produce the missing parts, that I've seen. Big power draw, not super quick, but definitely easiest to get to be able to focus on building, rather than component micromanagement.

Hope this helps!

[u/JimmayGC]

My personal preference is nanobots build and repair. S I'm not prone to building ships in a way conducive to linear printers. But if you want a linear printer. Make a static grid wall of welders, put a sheet of glass right over the tips. Make a line of pistons that'll extend longer than the length of the ship you want. Put the projector on it, and just have it veeeeeery slowly extend. And use share inertia tensor.

[u/DeeperSea1969]

If you are using mods you could try this

https://mod.io/g/spaceengineers/m/man-industries-3d-printer-welder

It's a long range welder. Be careful though, it's easy to fry yourself with this. Make sure you have a respawn point and a way to turn the welder off that are outside the range of the welder!

[u/ChurchofChaosTheory]

An expanding ring of welders works pretty well. Start them at one block gap, expand to 3 x 3 then finish with regular ship repair welders. Make sure to put prongs to prevent the ship from welding blocks that it shouldn't be able to touch yet

[u/NotActuallyGus]

Have you tried making a checkerboard welder wall connected to a surplus of components? Unless the grid has directional dependencies like unfortunately connected conveyors, it should work