You're forgetting one impenetrable defense. Playing alone because you have no friends that play space engineers. No one will attack your underground base then.
yea its not protected from orbital strikes, its very easy to make a orbital Cannon that can pierce through 50m of Voxels with a single shot, can fire 10-15 rounds a minute
I mean there was a server I was on that didn't have warheads damage voxels, and also while it allowed digging into underground bases it required you use a ship. It was pretty fun as the defender and we (me and 10-20 other friends, we took shifts) held out for a 12 hour long siege against a force of about 30 people, all with dreadnaughts parked above (which through some creative tactics, we were able to take down some and later retrofit to our own purposes which was epic). We won the fight and it was the most fun I ever had in Space Engineers. Very specific conditions but it was so crazy with grinder drones, explosives, tight hallways, blast doors, etc. We had a secondary small base hidden outside we used to harrass them from behind, I mean it was legit the most fun I ever had.
A well moderated server with good community members makes anything possible sounds like you had a blast. What sort of mining machine did you find most effective at breaching there base.
To be fair pvp servers should have engagement rules in terms of time. As long as the enemy attacks during the time you available to play it is great. Not a fan of sneaky raids where they steal everything you have while you offline.
@@archangel8172 Maybe some sort of modded safe zone could be used that the server has an off period for all of them across the server kind of like a regulatory battle timeframe, but for people who can't get on to defend their base they should have a leeway system that checks if a minimum number of faction members are online at that moment for a fair defense and if they aren't then their safe zone stays up. But I'm just spit balling an idea I rarely play in pvp servers because I never have enough friends to not be bullied out of anywhere I set up or I'm harassed before I can even get anything off the ground. Maybe add some RP text to popup saying, SOLAR FLARE HAS DISABLED SAFETY NETS REBOOT IN ** HOURS1
@@Sworddeath727 i was leaning more towards a moderated server. Where you are just forbidden from attacking another faction unless it was agreed upon by both parties. Basically make the pvp an opportunity to have fun and get rich of someone. You register with the admins and then they organize the pvp between you and the faction you attacking. They would give you a window to act in accordance to what the parties agreed upon and afterwards it once again becomes a no pvp. In addition, defending from a raid would give you an opportunity to register for you to be the raiding party next time around. This way in order to attack someone you first would have to have suffered an attack from someone else. Just to keep it fair.
@@Sworddeath727 Or it can be done like in Eve online where each faction has it's active hours. Any structure belonging to that faction can only be attacked during the corp active hours.
When you build any base in SE, it must be able to remain hidden at all costs. Once it's found, it's already pretty much screwed, as other players won't stop coming after you, no matter what. They can set up respawn points and just keep coming back after they die, continueing the assault until they win.That's why underground bases and deep space bases are the most popular types.
@@JamesTDG thats the main ethos of space engineers pvp combat, jump ready space stations. The popularity of underground bases boomed only when they introduced planets, before that it was space station / capital ship warfare. SE's game engine was not just made for multiple large earth excavations projects
@@andrewhoughton8606 I do too. I think what would make sense is if the time invested in digging would offset the cost of heavy armor. I thinl the solution is to make deep bedrock devoid of useful ore and material, slow to dig, impervious to damage from small blocks and have mining it deal periodic damage to drills. Make it a massive time sink to save on resources but make it worthwhile.
Well they could make a block that makes voxels not take damage in a area round it. If you make it use power to do it, that would mean no base would be able to last forever as they would run out. And the bigger the base the more you would need, and you couldn't do mining while they were on wither.
@@-JustHuman- possible, would be a tad annoying though, i feel like im kinda in both parks, it should be possible to drill around the base, but not easily, IE as @Raso719 mentioned, youd have to bring a dedicated vehicle to achieve anything and the resources to maintain it along with protecting it personally this sounds fun, having the enemy bring a vehicle in to dig into another part of your base (im thinking them bringing it into your base not somewhere above ground) and the defenders going out and trying to destroy it well the attackers defend, it would give a good set of alterations to the flow of a fight like that, + the attackers would need to calculate when to send in a breacher vehicle
The trick is to make the base so annoyingly impenetrable, that assailants give up before they're even halfway through. I recommend making all the tunnels impossibly narrow and heavily armored to deter breaches. Place several thousand tons of armored blocks as the base; make it thick enough to deter sappers. I recommend at least 20 blocks deep. The key is to make the prospect of taking your base cost more than your base; essentially, diminishing returns in SE warfare.
A traditional system of tunnels just strikes me as a bad design choice in general. The more horizontal/vertical an underground base is, the more opportunities for a would-be sapper to entirely bypass defenses via tunneling/the more space you have to make sure is reinforced. I imagine the ideal layout would be something more onion like, with a series of heavily defended outer layers surrounding the critical stuff in the center. That way no matter their direction of approach, they'll have to go through the same amount of defenses to reach anything vital. They might could still tunnel to bypass the initial blast door, but they'll have to attack every layer past that conventionally.
One thing I've considered (but never done because I only play solo) is making tunnels/hangars that are just below the surface then have warheads set to open them up during an attack as a one time sneaky exit for fighters.
two positives to underground bases you didn't include are they're cheaper, you have to dig the materials while making the base either way but with bunkers it's just easier, but also turrets have less to focus on because the enemies are narrowed into a corridor.
A rule I always go with is have a escape tunnel with a escape vehicle that can house all your valuable to act as a separate grid to immediately disconnect in the event to a total loss of a base.
Having an area control field, similar to the noc station shield gen that prevents drilling of terrain would help alleviate the cheese tactics. I remember some years ago, several of the random asteroids being hollow or with large voids scattered about it's mass. Those make good bases as well since they are naturally dug out, and therefore not affecting server performance the same as a dug out base would. I wonder if the dev team can continue to refine the engine to take things like this into account.
The main downside to underground bases, is the voxel damage, we kinda need natural caves, this way, you can start a base inside the tunnel and hide in there. Plus, it'll make things more lively, (this already sort of done in asteroids)
Love it.. also great to see so many old underground bases I worked on appear in this video! I like the challange of underground bases. The vault server was allot of fun for me! Shame the game is not optimised for them.
a thought occurs about the performance, I wonder if it is possible to make a planetary voxel map that has natural caves, like that one asteroid with all the hollows already a part of it. even put critical resources within said caves so players have reasons to build in them. they'd still need to dig stuff out for building but I wonder if that would be less of a hit performance wise. I don't know, I don't do code, just pretty ships.
I don't code either, or even build pretty ships, but as far as I know planets in SE are, technically and mechanically speaking, just very very large asteroids. It should be possible, but I couldn't say for sure.
Natural caverns and other buildable terrain (cliffs, gullies) would be great. It would have some impact but less than if you dug out the same cave from voxels - it's the difference between the "map" every player already has for planets and the complexity of the geometry being rendered in graphics and physics. Natural caves wouldn't increase the map loading much, unless there are lots of small caverns. I have no idea how the game handles the voxel physics.
Underground is bad but inside of an asteroid ? If the asteroid is big enough and hollow : hangar for your ships, protected from meteor showers and well hidden amongst the sea of other asteroids
I think if you have no rules or conventions then the only secure base is in deep space where nobody can find it. Anything on a planet is at risk as soon as you mine or dig because the voxel distortion can be seen from orbit. The main advantage of underground bases is they are really cool. And the second biggest one is they are the cheapest way to make some blast cover without grinding a ton of resources. Especially in the age of railguns and artillery. If voxel warhead damage is off you could make a pretty secure base by treating the outer cave walls as enemy territory. Make a huge cavern with a floating island in the middle with the base on with turrets all the way round. Or alternatively have a cavern with a floating floor at the halfway mark with your base buildings on it and turrets facing up and down.
Underground bases are cool and good, so long as built right. Assume every point can be breached, plan accordingly. Really difficult to plan for that as people can just tear through the rock and plant a warhead. I suppose you could try a minefield or what not, but it is just a rabbit hole of trying to prepare for every possible attack... that's why I like these bases best when they are meant to be stealthy such as a 3x3 opening or are just on a PVE server where players dont attack it.
Voxel deforestation is a big issue for servers, there's no doubt. The other issues like salt from voxel digging, underground warheads, and directly accessing a loot room are present for any voxel based static grid. Not just underground bases. With above ground bases you have to worry about orbital bombardment as well, which certainly makes me salty. The underground bases I've been a part of are a mix of underground production, storage, and power. With grinding, and mass vehicle storage kept outside in a protected area.
I think just basic rules to be agreed upon before hand could solve the use of hand drills and building bombs underneath enemy bases. Personally I would just make a scouts-honor rule that only vehicles can do tunneling, and you can’t plant bombs. Plus I’ve been kicking around the idea of using warheads and sensors as an underground minefield
You need to have two things on your server to enable people to have defensible Planet bases. The first thing being a Thruster inhibitor where the radius is outside of Maximum weapon range of your longest range weapon to prevent ships from bombarding from above. Allow the owner of the base access to turn this feature on or off, as if it were a module and make it consume a bunch of power. And of course no other enemy player can turn one on in the vicinity and of course make the effect invisible from a distance, but have a warning message to approaching ships. This would promote ground combat for starters. And the other mod, make it so the player who's base it is has a module to turn off their enemies drill in a radius around their base and of course just like the Thruster inhibitor, enemies around cannot enable the same without destroying the one that's there first. As far as the data goes for server voxel changes, there's nothing to do except for having multiple servers for different areas.
I think there is no way to stop the digging and grinding so its probably best to have the base just hanging in a bubble cavern or something. Basically your base is a ship underground with weapons all over it as protection.
im a big fan of the aesthetic of a bunker base, specially the exposed stone. for sappers, I wonder. different tiers of rock having different density, requiring better equipment to drill through, hand drill / small grid drill / large grid drill, though also potential for different types of drills in terms of tiers / drill tips. if sappers were forced to commit an expensive drill, with expensive support systems, it would in part balance deeper bunkers. would be a fundamental change to game balance, and well beyond the scope of SE, perhaps something for SE2 that being said, some sort of seismic sensor to detect drilling would introduce some fun counterplay, preparing defenses where they are aiming to penetrate the bunker, would just be a single hole as opposed to the more partisen, drill new tunnels all throughout and generate Salt for defenders. tldr, sappers will sap because its easier than penetrating walls and defenses, so what about the uno reverse, bedrock is difficult to penetrate
There are some upsides if done right: tunnels can be turned into deathtraps. So, you've got your entrance tunnel. Then you have to turn 90 degrees. At the rear of the entrance tunnel, you have a literal wall of weapons so anything entering into that shaft will be instantly obliterated. At the 90 degree tunnel, you have the same. So you now force an attacker to slow down to make a turn, and this puts them right in the line of fire. As long as you are conservative in how you do this, you can make it fairly quick and easy to get in and out of while being highly defensible.
@@LastStandGamers nope i think if you create like a warning system that would start a drone or maby few and release them from out side the base and trap them inside you would have the advantage from both sides and you could save most of your base atleast even if you can just get them to retreat back to space i would say that's a win
I have a defensive idea. I call it the treasure fleet. Your storage is a series of hangar bays with a hundred automated drones that consist of little more than a rocket powered box. When you come under attack, you launch the lootboxes, which scatter as quickly as possible across the system. Once the attack is over, you recall the lootboxes. I think it's a fun idea because there is no way to track and capture that many ships, but the attackers will get a few, meaning that they get rewarded for their attack, but you cannot get completely cleaned out.
When building an underground base, taking measures to ensure you don't get trapped in the event of an attack is key. Can easily be done with creating multiple entrances. An emergency evacuation tunnel that leads to a safe area to exit is just one viable option
Underground bases are great for a solo, small group, or just early game. The problem is when they get to absurd sizes like the ones you showed in the video. Those are some incredible works of art and look really cool to actually play with, but they're awful for all the reasons you said and then some. Groups of those sizes or small groups that have tons of assets are much better off moving to a space station. The only other use I could see for an underground base is to only have a small section of the base underground, like a small safe room or escape hangar or something.
People talking about problems with diggers coming in to sap through terrain into a base, but I see that as a feature... make defense tunnels that contain warheads and sensors. If they dig close enough they get a nasty surprise. If they were already digging in, a bigger hole aint really worse from the explosion. Way harder to sprinkle minefields aboveground since... flying and the need to place infrastructure to both hide and manage the mines. Randomly looking for a treasure room just needs traps and a few mimic chests to make it more pain than gain.
The problems mentioned made me think there's a space here for an in game device (mod asset or DLC) like a force field, that locks all voxels in a set area in place no digging & no explosive destruction, but leaves player built blocks destructible. That at least would allow people to build and destroy bases in accordance to some kind of set rule.
I feel like on a smaller scale, being a solo player building small, underground is a great way to play. but for BIG groups... having a mobile force that act as a "fleetl" and relocate often is, in my belief, more secure and fun.
One good way to use an underground base that is either underused or under reported but commonly used is as a secondary recovery base/recovery cache. if your main base is huge but say once every couple of weeks you send a single cargo shuttle to a dense supply and industry cache you could build up a fairly large emergency reserve. If on a server that runs nanites you might be able to fully bounce back to full strength almost overnight with a sufficient reserve stowed away. Since the base is small and dense it needs no defense, and it does not need to be convenient since you only ever rarely make delivery drops and the stealth/ inconvenient measures can be disabled or removed if the main base is wiped and you end up enacting your contingency base. I want to be clear that it should NOT EVER be the main base, but it should be a fairly good backup base that contains enough industry, resources, and essential vessels that you can essentially throw together your next wave of forces together rapidly instead of simply being removed from play as a faction. By keeping the base small and dense it has minimal effect on server resources and since it is only rarely used for emergency with the plan to remove extra security when the recovery plan is enacted it never drives players to not play. Lastly, there is essentially no reason to have any defenses or scripts on the base simply because it is only the plan B and will rarely, if ever, actually be used. This capitalizes on all the benefits an underground base can possibly have while minimizes the negative effects they typically suffer from. Also, if you actually plan to have combat at your underground base a huge thing no one ever considers is just mining the ground until it is thin but not fully broken through. it blends in since you left the original terrain, but is fairly easy for you to drill or blast through in just a few moments. After all if you are defending at a underground base you want a mix of absolute security (original terrain) and expediency (blast through that thin wall). If the attack fails and the secondary entrance is discovered you can still have internal defenses, but usually at this point the battle is lost anyway. I don't see a need for a fancy secondary door for this reason.
The main reason for an underground base is so that you are hidden. For small groups it is great because you can hide away so no one can find you. I once had a underground base so well hidden that a big group ended up building on the surface above it, not digging deep enough to get to it. Eventually the bigger group was wiped out, leaving lots a free loot to salvage. The next thing is with an underground base you should hollow out a large cavity around the main base, having guns on all sides (if you haven't built to the lowest point in the world). This way no one can sneak above or below, and it makes it far harder for attackers to attack, they first got to dig deep to get to you, and you shoot them when they do. So now you are both hidden away making detection less likely, and you have layers of defence making the time it takes too long. Added that you can also set up proximity mines if the enemy uses a mining ship to come get you, they will destroy the ship. The big issue is that many groups build a large base on top that attracts everyone's attention, then they get pushed into the under ground after. Also mined voxels do a number on server performance. Space Engineers main issue is actually the fact that it keeps a record of what the voxels were like from the start of the world, then what work was done on it. Constantly loading and unloading these. Primarily in LODS does it load the original ground, but this semi open loop causes a lot of server lag and larger files. Personally I still don't like being on planets, and on the server I've been playing on for almost a decade now, my faction is still solely space faring with out giant ships. Just hard to get out of from the days when the world was just a few scattered asteroids, eventually with infinite added, then the server admin added in the planets around causing one of our large ships to crash across the planet.
I haven't messed with safe zones but they can block drilling; if they can be set or modded to block voxel damage in general so someone can't just warhead through the voxel then allowing them to be used for only that purpose during base defense(say, have a GM or neutral party confirm the setting, maybe take ownership for the duration of the battle) would be a potential solution atleast the sapper issue. And it's not like there's much more stopping anyone from digging under a surface base to plant warheads or bypass defenses, it's just less tempting and a little more work since you'd typically have to drill further and be careful not to breach the surface too early. Main reason for underground bases IMO is style; they're neat and fun and interesting. Tho choke points are also nice, just have to be sure to leave yourself a sally port and build with atleast some practicality in mind.
Nice video! Thank you for posting! I usually play underground bases and I always try to make multiple small bases around. You do make a lot of good points. My main concern is if you build above ground could a spy satellite still spot you from space? As well as ground bases? I see a lot of people talking about orbital strikes and how that is the main issues they see for building above ground. Could you make a video on ways to defend or ways to prevent being spotted building above ground?
So as long as you choose the side of a mountain as your entry point. Else you'll be spotted. Its a defensive move snd honestly going dwarf is a good idea
I think smaller underground bases are more useful than larger ones. Or a network of smaller ones that can be locked and be able to provide multiple avenues of escape and/or fallback points. Large ones tend to be detected more quickly as enemies will at some point start to home in on activity via recon or some other method. They get eyes on it and observe for a period of time they will start to put together an idea of how big the base might be by the forces that move in and out, or the security that is around the entrance and start to figure out how to best deal with it. Even if there were some methods to camouflage them as some have posted larger bases will undoubtedly be sniffed out faster than smaller ones. And while smaller ones knocked out quickly, they are cheaper by comparison and can be setup much more quickly and honestly are easier to hide. And depending on the nature of the base they can be setup slightly closer to enemy bases if done right. Giving a fortified location to assault from or multiple fortified locations to assault an enemy. And if there is a network of tunnels to some of these bases can be used to ferry supplies, vehicles, and personnel between them. With smaller isolated bases being setup to draw attention or as temp holding stations for other a small taskforces and/or convoys that moves when it's dark or even during the day as rapidly as possible so that even should they be detected the loss suffered is mitigated by the fact that while one group might have been sniffed out another group(s) can move quickly unnoticed to those other holdout bunkers or the network and disappear from view. These networked bases will cost about as much resources as larger ones if not more in some ways, but the trade is that should one be detected enemies now have to contend with a network of rat mazes rather than one large one. And burning the network will take more time and manpower than the enemy might be able to throw at it at once. Drawing the fight out and exhausting attackers more since it's unclear if there is one central base or if this a disjointed network of cells. Main issues is time and location, where the first of this network is setup? How long it will take to build it up? How many are connected to the network? Their locations? Where are the isolated bunkers and holdouts going to be in proximity to these networked bases? Where is the enemy concentrations in relation to them? These have to be asked and have to be analyzed.
I remember building an underground base on a server with a group of players. Unfortunately one of the faction members went crazy and nuked the place. No matter how strong your base is, someone on the inside can ruin it.
The easier solution is to have an open base concept underground. Have large open areas that are defended a central point. Base design should be more along the lines of Rust, with interior buffers protected by turrets. I've found a minimalist underground base with a central for lack of a better term Keep, works best. That and having several smaller base hidden around the map as backups.
I played SP years ago. Before planets were introduced. Back then I found it incredible difficult to reach enough refinery capacity to feed turrets reliable enough to keep save from asteroid bombardment. Repairing the damage would have been cheaper but incredible annoying. I guess they have tweaked it in the meantime.
When Keen confirmed planets the Forums were filled with players proclaiming that they were going to build "Secret Hidden Underground Impenetrable Fortresses" and be INVINCIBLE. I built my first base in a giant asteroid back when there were no planets. The further along I got, the more I realized that building a base was a bad idea, in general, in Space Engineers, except perhaps as a building exercise. Building a huge, sprawling underground base with all the trimmings can be rewarding, and you don't have to worry about how they look. Underground bases are automatically cool. In THIS game, they are also sitting ducks with a big "I Am Here" flag over them. For a lot of reasons, most of which were outlined in this video, you just shouldn't. In my opinion. a Mothership in space offers more offensive and defensive options, including bugging out while you can. Build a base for the experience. Go nuts. But on a server where you will most certainly be attacked don't waste your time, resources and effort on a giant stationary target. If your enemy wants to destroy your base, make 'em work for it. Make it mobile.
Heres a design for an underground base wich might just work but its a bunker for infrastructure and materials only. Detonate a cargocontainer of explosives to get a nice big spherical cave. Create your base in the center of this sphere making sure that it does not touch more walls than absolutely nessecary. Pleaster the outside with turrets and you now this base is immune to most attacks but dedicated mining attacks that has to dig the base out of the ground first to allow for orbital bombardment.
Voxal void defense. Lack of voxals around the underground base for defense. Voxal anchors to compensate for lack of anchor points. Drawback. Extra reinforced main entrance and omnidirectional security points. Trapdoor attack positions. Points of quickly removable voxals for unexpected attack. Tradeoff for higher unexpected retaliation rate is access to launch zones (recommend extra security checkpoints Can't wait to play this game, trail makers is great but honestly airo/hydro arodinamics is not worth the limitation (had PS4) I'll should be able to get a PC by the end of the year) So many nomad test to conduct lol
I think if you allow only diging with a ship or rover it could add a fun layer becase that is a dedicated veical that can break or malfunkshon while also alowing a difrent form of atack
Being able to keep your base as low profile as possible is the easiest way of ensuring its survival. In this way, having your base sequestered underground or on the side of a cliff with minimal exposure, e.g. turret locations and landing/walking zones, is extremely advantageous. Granted if you got a whole fleet coming down on your base uncontested it's going to be a bloodbath no matter how well made your base is. On equal footing, however, is when this philosophy comes best into play.
I think the ideal base is a mix of both, utility things are undergound to protect agaisnt asteroids n stuff, while having point defense towers or something and a docking bay above ground. Early-mid game at least while magnesium is still semi rare
"You end up with an underground carpark" 😅😅 THAT Imo, is the biggest upside of them, as you mention afterword... I've been working on my D.U.M.B. design for years, I always start with one as a shipyard to work on my capitol ship before heading out. That being said, I always play solo and base building eats the hell out of my pdcs or pdis or w/e tf so mine never get too complex 🤦
I would agree. Underground bases could be a problem UNLESS their outside defences are good. I've always played only with my friend, so there weren't any other players but we have a bunch of mods to add other factions. Building stuff underground would usually give us the advantage of it being way more protected from bullets or shrapnel coming from Assert drones chasing us. It also helps that we always build a long range missile system to shoot stuff down, picture the patriot system.
I think a small underground base for a small squad would be effective. it isn't gigantic with winding tunnels, just the large garage area with a room or two for energy and storage.
easiest solution would to add a projection block that makes all the terrain around the block significantly harder to destroy, like going through obsidian with a gold pickaxe.
Socially underground based are fine with me but lag isn't, but if that wasn't a problem Just use sensors to detect enemy's while there digging and boobytrap them with a small grid mine layer/ ambush vehicle
Underground is fine as long as you reinforce it. The voxels can add as a defence against large barages of rockets. Its also a good way to conceal a base.
Only way to keep underground bunkers hidden was not putting antennas and beacons near it because it will give away its position to anyone else but gps works still since people can’t see your gps cords except they can still try jump and direct ai ships to beacons’ location and security is important to keep underground base safe and also checking entire base including tunnels are recommended
Honestly, as someone who mainly plays in singleplayer, and hasn't toyed with underground bases yet, I think I've gotten a lot of ideas from this video, but if I ever join a server, I'll probably just stick to finding a desolate place in space to build a station base.
Pros & Cons of course, but makes for a good fun experience trying to defend or attack an underground base. You assume people will just make tunnels, but maybe make a base underground which is simply a box inside a box inside a box etc... That would prevent players from drill through rock. Also you assume server lag, but on a nexus server with multiple servers its not normally a problem as most bases are small. Also I think you assume thats your only base. People could have multiple bases and simply have an underground base as a fun activity for people to attack using small grid or on foot, rather than huge ships. Most players online wont have all the equipment to attack underground bases. No matter what you build, players will always attack if they find you, so why not have some fun with it and give other players something to find rather than an empty universe.
As a PVE player, I find underground bases to be most viable on planets with extreme weather like Pertam. Electrical storms can decimate an early starting base with how often lighting strikes during said storms. Otherwise I opt to build on the surface, building small colonies and cities rather than a traditional military base all-in-one build.
The issue is that armour has virtually no strength in this game. I wouldn't leave an underground base exposed to the bare voxels, but even a compound that is built out of heavy armour is going to be breached. There is no equivalent of Minecraft's obsidian here; at least not that I know of.
If defenders plant mines with sensors in ground, mining won't be safe way around. The deeper enemy dig hole, the deeper they risk to get burried as soon as defenders notice them with sensors and trigger mine field. EDIT: I'm advising using sensors as border guard who use sensors in woods to track trespassers.
with the underground stuff, i do wish there was a way to "Un-drill" or back fill holes and tunnels with out using the admin tools. I dont play on the multi server side of SE enough to comment on that but in Single player i do build into mountains and Asteroids. I do agree that lag and Sim speed drop are bad.
I've been thinking about putting gattling gun turrets rigged to sensors around the underrground parts of my base. That way anyone trying to drill in gets targeted.
While I agree that it certainly does present a tactical weakness, I will also point out that pvp or no I still will do some things just for the rule of cool. But again thats just me 😊
I agree. And I really think that those famous "house rules" need to exist in this case and the punishment for disobeying them should be heavy. The goal is always to create balanced gameplay, especially when it comes to PVP. But I have many thoughts about this, but it would be too long to write everything here. I agree with everything from the technical and practical aspect.
Sooo.. what about asteroid bases where most of the hollow cave was already created by the server? better than underground bases? I love tunnelroids myself.
The only point of an underground base is a stealth base. A base they don't know where it is can't be attacked. But you need a bug out plan for when the base is found.
I think underground bases are situational. Theyre really good if you know what youre doing but if youre on a planet with no wind its a challenge to keep it powered
One of the biggest things, imo, is the RP aspect of it. As someone who nearly always bases underground (diggy diggy dwarf) the best part of it is feeling like my base should be a part of the world. While yes you can do the same with bases above ground, if you can't mixed the two together, it reduces the greatness of the base aesthetics, thus diminishing the RP value.
Interesting takes. A few things: Pve has less worry of invasion than pvp does. Original state is null after a change is made, so instead of a mass log of change, there should be original state, current state, and an event listener for voxel change, and some extra threading for the physics. Penatrability is dependent on design. Underground shouldn't mean less armor. The point is to increase strength and overall recoverability. If you opt to use dirt instead of armor, you're a fool. Irl a dirt ceiling=collapse. Treat it the same in the game. Armor EVERYTHING. Also irl, an enemy will be no holds barred. Treat it the same in game, and dont be so attached. Decoy cooridors do wonders Paint externals to camouflage. My triton base is an ice blue/grey washed frosted texture. Pretty invisible unti you're a few 100 meters away.
Underground bases has one pretty good upside it's good as a secret base and a good place to store you're ships you could make you're under ground base as a little ship yard for a tactically surprise attack for the enemy by building the ship Underground then when the time has come opening up a big hole leading the ship out to bring devastation to the enemy
So, just so you know, there's a way to build (almost) fully functional bases INSIDE voxels. Yes, it's probably banned on all servers, yes, it's bug usage but it is very fun to play that way.
For our PVP server, underground bases prevent death from passing MES ships and for starters who don't have a safe zone up yet, are able to hide under the radar until they can. In space, asteroids are even more viable for starters. Out of site, means out of mind to all your enemies. Also, as most servers are heavily modified, having custom safezones, defense shields, and other nifty addons makes underground bases fun in their own way. Performance issues, yes it will cause more CPU load, but slap on Nexus, performance plugins, use Windows NFTS compress, perhaps even a ram disc if you worried about drive lifespan. I'm more worried about BARS, scripts and 200k+ PCU ships doing sumo wrestling.
*Underground* Protection: Offers natural protection from potential external threats such as enemy attacks or meteor showers. Conceals your base, making it less visible to other players or AI threats. Aesthetics: Some players prefer the immersive and realistic feel of building underground structures. Resource Accessibility: Easier access to certain resources that may be found underground, such as ores. Stealth: Provides a stealth advantage *Above-Ground or Space Station* Visibility: Offers better visibility for surveillance and monitoring the surroundings. Solar Power: Floating stations can leverage solar power more effectively without worrying about obstacles. Mobility: Floating stations provide mobility and can be moved to different locations. Aesthetics: Some players prefer the aesthetic appeal of above-ground structures. *Considerations for Both* Functionality: Consider the specific functions of your base and how well each location supports those functions. Resource Management: Evaluate the availability of resources in the chosen location and how easily they can be accessed. Defense: Assess the defensive capabilities of each type of base and whether one offers better protection against potential threats. Multiplayer Dynamics: In multiplayer settings, the preferences and strategies of other players may influence your decision.
Underground bases just like most structures in SE are very practical if the builder knows what they're doing when they build it. You can make a argument against bases in SE in general and say mobile bases are the only worth while bases to have in SE. As for any impact on servers well that just comes a long with being a server admin. Maybe with Vrage 3 Keen will be able to design a new SE that makes underground bases more server friendly.
If you’re gonna build and underground base, just hollow out a sphere deep underground and build inside that sphere with 2/3 of the diameter still opened up. You get the benefits of an above ground base and the benefits of an underground base.
My biggest problem with them is that I have to dig them out, which is an actual nightmare on Space Engineers specifically. Minecraft? Yeah, no, I can do that easily. SE though? I'd sooner put myself between sixty eight opposing Gravity Generators and fire them up, turn myself into a fine paste.
These are the mods that’s strangely no one has made yet: 1. nerf the all drills by making them costly. (Like a poke should cost %5+ /s) + no carving mode. 2. Grinding a powered enemy block other than a door should cause damage + energy drain.
If faction locked inhibitors are used, the drilling issue can be sidestepped. Limit the growth of bases by setting a maximum area of coverage and a maximum number of inhibitors per faction. I know inhibitors exist, there's several MES mods that use them, ill bet someone can figure out how to allow faction members to drill while everyone else cannot.
Not an SE player but part time dev and gamer. Take this with a grain of salt. On the side of performance, it seems like there could be some vertex culling and other optimizations that can be done. Although I have no idea how much performance would actually be gained. On the topic of blasting through rock, it seems like the defenders would benefit from having deeper layers of rock be stronger and more resistant. Material close to the surface is easy to mine by hand, but below that is hard (or impossible) without machine tools. Possibly also adjust mining to take longer unless a specific high powered tool is used. Something that is great for mining or blasting but can be countered. Think giant laser drill but it needs coolant and power and if any subsystem is shut down then it goes offline (or boom) On the topic of popping through the floor and peeking at goodies, there are ways to prevent this with graphical overlays. It just needs to be implemented. Think how minecraft used to have similar issues, but now just shows a texture on the screen. The rest of the issues seem to come down to players not properly setting up their bases. This would eventually be solved by people learning what to do and what not to do. Feel free to let me know where I am far off or pretty close. I have no idea how good these ideas are for SE.
not sure why someone hasnt made a mod where you can put down some kind of field generator that makes all ground blocks within a set range be as strong as heavy armor, that would solve the digging problem instantly and bring in a new siege mechanic where destroying this generator might be a quick way to bypass some defenses by tunneling if they design their base poorly
If people put the effort into actually building defences against sappers then they can work well, if you leave your walls rocks, just build a floor and have a single door at the end of a long coridor full of turrets and call it a day, only for the enemy to just... go around, than you cannot be upset for being so tactically deaf as to expect the enemy to just charge head long directly into your most fortified and defended killbox instead of just going the easy way through the rock you left unguarded.
If you hold the size of the base as a constant this is true, but if you instead keep the resources required to build the base constant, the underground base is going to be much larger and more sprawling, as well as much more 3-dimensional.
Biggest upside to underground bases:
- Perfect for those who can build interior, but not exterior
That's a really good point didn't think of that one.
What about those who can build exterior, but not interior?
@@joeallen9104 would be perfect for building Potemkin villages then, i guess
@@joeallen9104 If you can build an exterior, but not interior, then why are you building in a cave?
@@AliceDoesThings404 I'm not.
You're forgetting one impenetrable defense. Playing alone because you have no friends that play space engineers. No one will attack your underground base then.
No friends gang win again!
Together alone
Forever alone
That way I'm always the best player on my server.
I offered to buy my friend a copy and he said “don’t waste your money” DUDE THIS GAME IS A BLAST
On PVP servers yes, its bad. On PVE servers with loads of enemy AI that constantly attack you, i like to have my main storage stored in the mountains
I agree for PVE its one of the safest ways of living and surviving unless there are bugs on.
@@LastStandGamerswell if your base is a built above ground they can still dig under you couldn't they?
@@TomTomXIV Due to the way voxels work, they'd be better served shooting out your foundations than digging them out.
Well it’s good until the enemy discovers your underground base. It’s hidden and protected against orbital strikes or spy planes/ships
U can see them from space cus game bad
Edited voxels are spottable from five miles away + if you run weaponcore it has a 9km detection range that does not care about voxels lol
Hopefully Space Engineers 2 fixes that, it's really game-breaking
AI ships in a pve server:
yea its not protected from orbital strikes, its very easy to make a orbital Cannon that can pierce through 50m of Voxels with a single shot, can fire 10-15 rounds a minute
I mean there was a server I was on that didn't have warheads damage voxels, and also while it allowed digging into underground bases it required you use a ship. It was pretty fun as the defender and we (me and 10-20 other friends, we took shifts) held out for a 12 hour long siege against a force of about 30 people, all with dreadnaughts parked above (which through some creative tactics, we were able to take down some and later retrofit to our own purposes which was epic). We won the fight and it was the most fun I ever had in Space Engineers. Very specific conditions but it was so crazy with grinder drones, explosives, tight hallways, blast doors, etc. We had a secondary small base hidden outside we used to harrass them from behind, I mean it was legit the most fun I ever had.
A well moderated server with good community members makes anything possible sounds like you had a blast. What sort of mining machine did you find most effective at breaching there base.
To be fair pvp servers should have engagement rules in terms of time. As long as the enemy attacks during the time you available to play it is great. Not a fan of sneaky raids where they steal everything you have while you offline.
@@archangel8172 Maybe some sort of modded safe zone could be used that the server has an off period for all of them across the server kind of like a regulatory battle timeframe, but for people who can't get on to defend their base they should have a leeway system that checks if a minimum number of faction members are online at that moment for a fair defense and if they aren't then their safe zone stays up. But I'm just spit balling an idea I rarely play in pvp servers because I never have enough friends to not be bullied out of anywhere I set up or I'm harassed before I can even get anything off the ground.
Maybe add some RP text to popup saying, SOLAR FLARE HAS DISABLED SAFETY NETS REBOOT IN ** HOURS1
@@Sworddeath727 i was leaning more towards a moderated server. Where you are just forbidden from attacking another faction unless it was agreed upon by both parties.
Basically make the pvp an opportunity to have fun and get rich of someone. You register with the admins and then they organize the pvp between you and the faction you attacking. They would give you a window to act in accordance to what the parties agreed upon and afterwards it once again becomes a no pvp.
In addition, defending from a raid would give you an opportunity to register for you to be the raiding party next time around. This way in order to attack someone you first would have to have suffered an attack from someone else. Just to keep it fair.
@@Sworddeath727 Or it can be done like in Eve online where each faction has it's active hours. Any structure belonging to that faction can only be attacked during the corp active hours.
When you build any base in SE, it must be able to remain hidden at all costs. Once it's found, it's already pretty much screwed, as other players won't stop coming after you, no matter what. They can set up respawn points and just keep coming back after they die, continueing the assault until they win.That's why underground bases and deep space bases are the most popular types.
exactly why i build a large ship with everything on it, if it is found it can be moved
Mobile home class bases are also really good too, right?
@@JamesTDG Yea. Great for moving quickly if you get found.
@@JamesTDG thats the main ethos of space engineers pvp combat, jump ready space stations. The popularity of underground bases boomed only when they introduced planets, before that it was space station / capital ship warfare. SE's game engine was not just made for multiple large earth excavations projects
Thats why you build a station out in the void.
If the terrain can be dug, i shall be a dwarf.
Agreed.
“I am a Dwarf and I am digging a hole” -Simone
@@Fire-superme"Diggy Diggy Hole!"
Agreed!! 🧝♂️
rock and stone!
I think bedrock needs to be more durable so drilling through rock is at least as difficult as drilling through blast doors.
I always build base under ground but build it likes it is above ground so full mutli layers heavy armour
@@andrewhoughton8606 I do too. I think what would make sense is if the time invested in digging would offset the cost of heavy armor. I thinl the solution is to make deep bedrock devoid of useful ore and material, slow to dig, impervious to damage from small blocks and have mining it deal periodic damage to drills. Make it a massive time sink to save on resources but make it worthwhile.
Well they could make a block that makes voxels not take damage in a area round it. If you make it use power to do it, that would mean no base would be able to last forever as they would run out. And the bigger the base the more you would need, and you couldn't do mining while they were on wither.
@@Raso719 this sounds like it would be a great addition, the question is how deep would deep bedrock be for these effects to kick in?
@@-JustHuman- possible, would be a tad annoying though, i feel like im kinda in both parks, it should be possible to drill around the base, but not easily, IE as @Raso719 mentioned, youd have to bring a dedicated vehicle to achieve anything and the resources to maintain it along with protecting it
personally this sounds fun, having the enemy bring a vehicle in to dig into another part of your base (im thinking them bringing it into your base not somewhere above ground) and the defenders going out and trying to destroy it well the attackers defend, it would give a good set of alterations to the flow of a fight like that, + the attackers would need to calculate when to send in a breacher vehicle
The trick is to make the base so annoyingly impenetrable, that assailants give up before they're even halfway through. I recommend making all the tunnels impossibly narrow and heavily armored to deter breaches. Place several thousand tons of armored blocks as the base; make it thick enough to deter sappers. I recommend at least 20 blocks deep. The key is to make the prospect of taking your base cost more than your base; essentially, diminishing returns in SE warfare.
two words
Willis ducks
make them go though a maze of them
@@gamerproductions5469 That means nothing, Google doesn't even give an answer.
@@Razumen that means you haven't played SE in months.
There a block that was added two updates ago
They mean Willis Ducts*, it's Keen's reference to Bruce Willis always crawling through air ducts in Die Hard movies@@Razumen
A traditional system of tunnels just strikes me as a bad design choice in general. The more horizontal/vertical an underground base is, the more opportunities for a would-be sapper to entirely bypass defenses via tunneling/the more space you have to make sure is reinforced.
I imagine the ideal layout would be something more onion like, with a series of heavily defended outer layers surrounding the critical stuff in the center. That way no matter their direction of approach, they'll have to go through the same amount of defenses to reach anything vital. They might could still tunnel to bypass the initial blast door, but they'll have to attack every layer past that conventionally.
One thing I've considered (but never done because I only play solo) is making tunnels/hangars that are just below the surface then have warheads set to open them up during an attack as a one time sneaky exit for fighters.
two positives to underground bases you didn't include are they're cheaper, you have to dig the materials while making the base either way but with bunkers it's just easier, but also turrets have less to focus on because the enemies are narrowed into a corridor.
A rule I always go with is have a escape tunnel with a escape vehicle that can house all your valuable to act as a separate grid to immediately disconnect in the event to a total loss of a base.
Weapon Core is pretty much standard on most servers now, so remaining hidden is not possible.
Having an area control field, similar to the noc station shield gen that prevents drilling of terrain would help alleviate the cheese tactics. I remember some years ago, several of the random asteroids being hollow or with large voids scattered about it's mass. Those make good bases as well since they are naturally dug out, and therefore not affecting server performance the same as a dug out base would. I wonder if the dev team can continue to refine the engine to take things like this into account.
The main downside to underground bases, is the voxel damage, we kinda need natural caves, this way, you can start a base inside the tunnel and hide in there. Plus, it'll make things more lively, (this already sort of done in asteroids)
MES Cave Systems
Love it.. also great to see so many old underground bases I worked on appear in this video! I like the challange of underground bases. The vault server was allot of fun for me! Shame the game is not optimised for them.
a thought occurs about the performance, I wonder if it is possible to make a planetary voxel map that has natural caves, like that one asteroid with all the hollows already a part of it. even put critical resources within said caves so players have reasons to build in them. they'd still need to dig stuff out for building but I wonder if that would be less of a hit performance wise. I don't know, I don't do code, just pretty ships.
I don't code either, or even build pretty ships, but as far as I know planets in SE are, technically and mechanically speaking, just very very large asteroids. It should be possible, but I couldn't say for sure.
Natural caverns and other buildable terrain (cliffs, gullies) would be great.
It would have some impact but less than if you dug out the same cave from voxels - it's the difference between the "map" every player already has for planets and the complexity of the geometry being rendered in graphics and physics. Natural caves wouldn't increase the map loading much, unless there are lots of small caverns. I have no idea how the game handles the voxel physics.
Underground is bad but inside of an asteroid ? If the asteroid is big enough and hollow : hangar for your ships, protected from meteor showers and well hidden amongst the sea of other asteroids
I think if you have no rules or conventions then the only secure base is in deep space where nobody can find it. Anything on a planet is at risk as soon as you mine or dig because the voxel distortion can be seen from orbit.
The main advantage of underground bases is they are really cool. And the second biggest one is they are the cheapest way to make some blast cover without grinding a ton of resources. Especially in the age of railguns and artillery.
If voxel warhead damage is off you could make a pretty secure base by treating the outer cave walls as enemy territory. Make a huge cavern with a floating island in the middle with the base on with turrets all the way round. Or alternatively have a cavern with a floating floor at the halfway mark with your base buildings on it and turrets facing up and down.
Underground bases are cool and good, so long as built right. Assume every point can be breached, plan accordingly. Really difficult to plan for that as people can just tear through the rock and plant a warhead. I suppose you could try a minefield or what not, but it is just a rabbit hole of trying to prepare for every possible attack... that's why I like these bases best when they are meant to be stealthy such as a 3x3 opening or are just on a PVE server where players dont attack it.
Voxel deforestation is a big issue for servers, there's no doubt. The other issues like salt from voxel digging, underground warheads, and directly accessing a loot room are present for any voxel based static grid. Not just underground bases. With above ground bases you have to worry about orbital bombardment as well, which certainly makes me salty.
The underground bases I've been a part of are a mix of underground production, storage, and power. With grinding, and mass vehicle storage kept outside in a protected area.
I think just basic rules to be agreed upon before hand could solve the use of hand drills and building bombs underneath enemy bases. Personally I would just make a scouts-honor rule that only vehicles can do tunneling, and you can’t plant bombs. Plus I’ve been kicking around the idea of using warheads and sensors as an underground minefield
You need to have two things on your server to enable people to have defensible Planet bases. The first thing being a Thruster inhibitor where the radius is outside of Maximum weapon range of your longest range weapon to prevent ships from bombarding from above. Allow the owner of the base access to turn this feature on or off, as if it were a module and make it consume a bunch of power. And of course no other enemy player can turn one on in the vicinity and of course make the effect invisible from a distance, but have a warning message to approaching ships. This would promote ground combat for starters. And the other mod, make it so the player who's base it is has a module to turn off their enemies drill in a radius around their base and of course just like the Thruster inhibitor, enemies around cannot enable the same without destroying the one that's there first. As far as the data goes for server voxel changes, there's nothing to do except for having multiple servers for different areas.
05:19 The Aisling's angels... that is one way of making me cry real tears...
I think there is no way to stop the digging and grinding so its probably best to have the base just hanging in a bubble cavern or something. Basically your base is a ship underground with weapons all over it as protection.
im a big fan of the aesthetic of a bunker base, specially the exposed stone.
for sappers, I wonder. different tiers of rock having different density, requiring better equipment to drill through, hand drill / small grid drill / large grid drill, though also potential for different types of drills in terms of tiers / drill tips. if sappers were forced to commit an expensive drill, with expensive support systems, it would in part balance deeper bunkers. would be a fundamental change to game balance, and well beyond the scope of SE, perhaps something for SE2
that being said, some sort of seismic sensor to detect drilling would introduce some fun counterplay, preparing defenses where they are aiming to penetrate the bunker, would just be a single hole as opposed to the more partisen, drill new tunnels all throughout and generate Salt for defenders.
tldr, sappers will sap because its easier than penetrating walls and defenses, so what about the uno reverse, bedrock is difficult to penetrate
There are some upsides if done right: tunnels can be turned into deathtraps. So, you've got your entrance tunnel. Then you have to turn 90 degrees. At the rear of the entrance tunnel, you have a literal wall of weapons so anything entering into that shaft will be instantly obliterated. At the 90 degree tunnel, you have the same. So you now force an attacker to slow down to make a turn, and this puts them right in the line of fire. As long as you are conservative in how you do this, you can make it fairly quick and easy to get in and out of while being highly defensible.
I love underground bases.
You have a very good point about underground bases aswel gave me some new ideas to construct something new🎉 🙏
Are these ideas a top secret ?
@@LastStandGamers nope i think if you create like a warning system that would start a drone or maby few and release them from out side the base and trap them inside you would have the advantage from both sides and you could save most of your base atleast even if you can just get them to retreat back to space i would say that's a win
I have a defensive idea. I call it the treasure fleet. Your storage is a series of hangar bays with a hundred automated drones that consist of little more than a rocket powered box. When you come under attack, you launch the lootboxes, which scatter as quickly as possible across the system. Once the attack is over, you recall the lootboxes. I think it's a fun idea because there is no way to track and capture that many ships, but the attackers will get a few, meaning that they get rewarded for their attack, but you cannot get completely cleaned out.
When building an underground base, taking measures to ensure you don't get trapped in the event of an attack is key. Can easily be done with creating multiple entrances. An emergency evacuation tunnel that leads to a safe area to exit is just one viable option
Underground bases are great for a solo, small group, or just early game. The problem is when they get to absurd sizes like the ones you showed in the video. Those are some incredible works of art and look really cool to actually play with, but they're awful for all the reasons you said and then some. Groups of those sizes or small groups that have tons of assets are much better off moving to a space station.
The only other use I could see for an underground base is to only have a small section of the base underground, like a small safe room or escape hangar or something.
People talking about problems with diggers coming in to sap through terrain into a base, but I see that as a feature... make defense tunnels that contain warheads and sensors. If they dig close enough they get a nasty surprise. If they were already digging in, a bigger hole aint really worse from the explosion. Way harder to sprinkle minefields aboveground since... flying and the need to place infrastructure to both hide and manage the mines. Randomly looking for a treasure room just needs traps and a few mimic chests to make it more pain than gain.
The problems mentioned made me think there's a space here for an in game device (mod asset or DLC) like a force field, that locks all voxels in a set area in place no digging & no explosive destruction, but leaves player built blocks destructible. That at least would allow people to build and destroy bases in accordance to some kind of set rule.
Mod Safezones to block Voxel destruction, but allow grinder/gun battles. It's not perfect, but it does help solves the intro problem.
I feel like on a smaller scale, being a solo player building small, underground is a great way to play.
but for BIG groups... having a mobile force that act as a "fleetl" and relocate often is, in my belief, more secure and fun.
One good way to use an underground base that is either underused or under reported but commonly used is as a secondary recovery base/recovery cache. if your main base is huge but say once every couple of weeks you send a single cargo shuttle to a dense supply and industry cache you could build up a fairly large emergency reserve. If on a server that runs nanites you might be able to fully bounce back to full strength almost overnight with a sufficient reserve stowed away. Since the base is small and dense it needs no defense, and it does not need to be convenient since you only ever rarely make delivery drops and the stealth/ inconvenient measures can be disabled or removed if the main base is wiped and you end up enacting your contingency base.
I want to be clear that it should NOT EVER be the main base, but it should be a fairly good backup base that contains enough industry, resources, and essential vessels that you can essentially throw together your next wave of forces together rapidly instead of simply being removed from play as a faction. By keeping the base small and dense it has minimal effect on server resources and since it is only rarely used for emergency with the plan to remove extra security when the recovery plan is enacted it never drives players to not play. Lastly, there is essentially no reason to have any defenses or scripts on the base simply because it is only the plan B and will rarely, if ever, actually be used. This capitalizes on all the benefits an underground base can possibly have while minimizes the negative effects they typically suffer from.
Also, if you actually plan to have combat at your underground base a huge thing no one ever considers is just mining the ground until it is thin but not fully broken through. it blends in since you left the original terrain, but is fairly easy for you to drill or blast through in just a few moments. After all if you are defending at a underground base you want a mix of absolute security (original terrain) and expediency (blast through that thin wall). If the attack fails and the secondary entrance is discovered you can still have internal defenses, but usually at this point the battle is lost anyway. I don't see a need for a fancy secondary door for this reason.
The main reason for an underground base is so that you are hidden. For small groups it is great because you can hide away so no one can find you.
I once had a underground base so well hidden that a big group ended up building on the surface above it, not digging deep enough to get to it. Eventually the bigger group was wiped out, leaving lots a free loot to salvage.
The next thing is with an underground base you should hollow out a large cavity around the main base, having guns on all sides (if you haven't built to the lowest point in the world). This way no one can sneak above or below, and it makes it far harder for attackers to attack, they first got to dig deep to get to you, and you shoot them when they do. So now you are both hidden away making detection less likely, and you have layers of defence making the time it takes too long. Added that you can also set up proximity mines if the enemy uses a mining ship to come get you, they will destroy the ship.
The big issue is that many groups build a large base on top that attracts everyone's attention, then they get pushed into the under ground after.
Also mined voxels do a number on server performance. Space Engineers main issue is actually the fact that it keeps a record of what the voxels were like from the start of the world, then what work was done on it. Constantly loading and unloading these. Primarily in LODS does it load the original ground, but this semi open loop causes a lot of server lag and larger files.
Personally I still don't like being on planets, and on the server I've been playing on for almost a decade now, my faction is still solely space faring with out giant ships. Just hard to get out of from the days when the world was just a few scattered asteroids, eventually with infinite added, then the server admin added in the planets around causing one of our large ships to crash across the planet.
I haven't messed with safe zones but they can block drilling; if they can be set or modded to block voxel damage in general so someone can't just warhead through the voxel then allowing them to be used for only that purpose during base defense(say, have a GM or neutral party confirm the setting, maybe take ownership for the duration of the battle) would be a potential solution atleast the sapper issue.
And it's not like there's much more stopping anyone from digging under a surface base to plant warheads or bypass defenses, it's just less tempting and a little more work since you'd typically have to drill further and be careful not to breach the surface too early.
Main reason for underground bases IMO is style; they're neat and fun and interesting. Tho choke points are also nice, just have to be sure to leave yourself a sally port and build with atleast some practicality in mind.
Another idea: A "Termite Mound". A mostly above-ground fortress with heavy armor, limited entrances, so it has the best of both worlds.
Nice video! Thank you for posting!
I usually play underground bases and I always try to make multiple small bases around. You do make a lot of good points.
My main concern is if you build above ground could a spy satellite still spot you from space?
As well as ground bases?
I see a lot of people talking about orbital strikes and how that is the main issues they see for building above ground. Could you make a video on ways to defend or ways to prevent being spotted building above ground?
So as long as you choose the side of a mountain as your entry point. Else you'll be spotted. Its a defensive move snd honestly going dwarf is a good idea
I think smaller underground bases are more useful than larger ones. Or a network of smaller ones that can be locked and be able to provide multiple avenues of escape and/or fallback points. Large ones tend to be detected more quickly as enemies will at some point start to home in on activity via recon or some other method. They get eyes on it and observe for a period of time they will start to put together an idea of how big the base might be by the forces that move in and out, or the security that is around the entrance and start to figure out how to best deal with it. Even if there were some methods to camouflage them as some have posted larger bases will undoubtedly be sniffed out faster than smaller ones. And while smaller ones knocked out quickly, they are cheaper by comparison and can be setup much more quickly and honestly are easier to hide. And depending on the nature of the base they can be setup slightly closer to enemy bases if done right. Giving a fortified location to assault from or multiple fortified locations to assault an enemy. And if there is a network of tunnels to some of these bases can be used to ferry supplies, vehicles, and personnel between them. With smaller isolated bases being setup to draw attention or as temp holding stations for other a small taskforces and/or convoys that moves when it's dark or even during the day as rapidly as possible so that even should they be detected the loss suffered is mitigated by the fact that while one group might have been sniffed out another group(s) can move quickly unnoticed to those other holdout bunkers or the network and disappear from view. These networked bases will cost about as much resources as larger ones if not more in some ways, but the trade is that should one be detected enemies now have to contend with a network of rat mazes rather than one large one. And burning the network will take more time and manpower than the enemy might be able to throw at it at once. Drawing the fight out and exhausting attackers more since it's unclear if there is one central base or if this a disjointed network of cells. Main issues is time and location, where the first of this network is setup? How long it will take to build it up? How many are connected to the network? Their locations? Where are the isolated bunkers and holdouts going to be in proximity to these networked bases? Where is the enemy concentrations in relation to them? These have to be asked and have to be analyzed.
I remember building an underground base on a server with a group of players.
Unfortunately one of the faction members went crazy and nuked the place. No matter how strong your base is, someone on the inside can ruin it.
The easier solution is to have an open base concept underground. Have large open areas that are defended a central point. Base design should be more along the lines of Rust, with interior buffers protected by turrets. I've found a minimalist underground base with a central for lack of a better term Keep, works best. That and having several smaller base hidden around the map as backups.
I played SP years ago. Before planets were introduced. Back then I found it incredible difficult to reach enough refinery capacity to feed turrets reliable enough to keep save from asteroid bombardment. Repairing the damage would have been cheaper but incredible annoying. I guess they have tweaked it in the meantime.
When Keen confirmed planets the Forums were filled with players proclaiming that they were going to build "Secret Hidden Underground Impenetrable Fortresses" and be INVINCIBLE.
I built my first base in a giant asteroid back when there were no planets. The further along I got, the more I realized that building a base was a bad idea, in general, in Space Engineers, except perhaps as a building exercise. Building a huge, sprawling underground base with all the trimmings can be rewarding, and you don't have to worry about how they look. Underground bases are automatically cool. In THIS game, they are also sitting ducks with a big "I Am Here" flag over them. For a lot of reasons, most of which were outlined in this video, you just shouldn't. In my opinion. a Mothership in space offers more offensive and defensive options, including bugging out while you can.
Build a base for the experience. Go nuts. But on a server where you will most certainly be attacked don't waste your time, resources and effort on a giant stationary target. If your enemy wants to destroy your base, make 'em work for it. Make it mobile.
Arron slowly starts piling the underground-related puns...Cheeky:)
Heres a design for an underground base wich might just work but its a bunker for infrastructure and materials only. Detonate a cargocontainer of explosives to get a nice big spherical cave. Create your base in the center of this sphere making sure that it does not touch more walls than absolutely nessecary. Pleaster the outside with turrets and you now this base is immune to most attacks but dedicated mining attacks that has to dig the base out of the ground first to allow for orbital bombardment.
Thank you for the tips. It definitely will help.. me and my buddy's In a small little series thing where doing.. in the future 😊
Voxal void defense. Lack of voxals around the underground base for defense.
Voxal anchors to compensate for lack of anchor points.
Drawback. Extra reinforced main entrance and omnidirectional security points.
Trapdoor attack positions. Points of quickly removable voxals for unexpected attack.
Tradeoff for higher unexpected retaliation rate is access to launch zones (recommend extra security checkpoints
Can't wait to play this game, trail makers is great but honestly airo/hydro arodinamics is not worth the limitation (had PS4) I'll should be able to get a PC by the end of the year) So many nomad test to conduct lol
underground bases in this game is like having underground bases in dwarf fortress
I think if you allow only diging with a ship or rover it could add a fun layer becase that is a dedicated veical that can break or malfunkshon while also alowing a difrent form of atack
Being able to keep your base as low profile as possible is the easiest way of ensuring its survival. In this way, having your base sequestered underground or on the side of a cliff with minimal exposure, e.g. turret locations and landing/walking zones, is extremely advantageous.
Granted if you got a whole fleet coming down on your base uncontested it's going to be a bloodbath no matter how well made your base is. On equal footing, however, is when this philosophy comes best into play.
I think the ideal base is a mix of both, utility things are undergound to protect agaisnt asteroids n stuff, while having point defense towers or something and a docking bay above ground. Early-mid game at least while magnesium is still semi rare
"You end up with an underground carpark" 😅😅
THAT Imo, is the biggest upside of them, as you mention afterword... I've been working on my D.U.M.B. design for years, I always start with one as a shipyard to work on my capitol ship before heading out.
That being said, I always play solo and base building eats the hell out of my pdcs or pdis or w/e tf so mine never get too complex 🤦
I would agree. Underground bases could be a problem UNLESS their outside defences are good.
I've always played only with my friend, so there weren't any other players but we have a bunch of mods to add other factions.
Building stuff underground would usually give us the advantage of it being way more protected from bullets or shrapnel coming from Assert drones chasing us.
It also helps that we always build a long range missile system to shoot stuff down, picture the patriot system.
I think a small underground base for a small squad would be effective. it isn't gigantic with winding tunnels, just the large garage area with a room or two for energy and storage.
I've played enough Dwarf Fortress to know underground forts are the best Fort. Strike the Earth, Engineer!
easiest solution would to add a projection block that makes all the terrain around the block significantly harder to destroy, like going through obsidian with a gold pickaxe.
Socially underground based are fine with me but lag isn't, but if that wasn't a problem
Just use sensors to detect enemy's while there digging and boobytrap them with a small grid mine layer/ ambush vehicle
Here's my favorite benefit:
Evil underground villain lair.
Underground is fine as long as you reinforce it. The voxels can add as a defence against large barages of rockets. Its also a good way to conceal a base.
Only way to keep underground bunkers hidden was not putting antennas and beacons near it because it will give away its position to anyone else but gps works still since people can’t see your gps cords except they can still try jump and direct ai ships to beacons’ location and security is important to keep underground base safe and also checking entire base including tunnels are recommended
Honestly, as someone who mainly plays in singleplayer, and hasn't toyed with underground bases yet, I think I've gotten a lot of ideas from this video, but if I ever join a server, I'll probably just stick to finding a desolate place in space to build a station base.
Me who has a secret base inside a secret base inside an underground base inside a moon base:
Aight, imma demolish the whole thing
Pros & Cons of course, but makes for a good fun experience trying to defend or attack an underground base. You assume people will just make tunnels, but maybe make a base underground which is simply a box inside a box inside a box etc... That would prevent players from drill through rock. Also you assume server lag, but on a nexus server with multiple servers its not normally a problem as most bases are small. Also I think you assume thats your only base. People could have multiple bases and simply have an underground base as a fun activity for people to attack using small grid or on foot, rather than huge ships. Most players online wont have all the equipment to attack underground bases. No matter what you build, players will always attack if they find you, so why not have some fun with it and give other players something to find rather than an empty universe.
Make the base open to flanking attacks to prevent mining. Add Willis shafts to add a layer of interesting infiltration.
As a PVE player, I find underground bases to be most viable on planets with extreme weather like Pertam. Electrical storms can decimate an early starting base with how often lighting strikes during said storms.
Otherwise I opt to build on the surface, building small colonies and cities rather than a traditional military base all-in-one build.
The issue is that armour has virtually no strength in this game. I wouldn't leave an underground base exposed to the bare voxels, but even a compound that is built out of heavy armour is going to be breached. There is no equivalent of Minecraft's obsidian here; at least not that I know of.
The thing with u bases is: if you have 1 central vault door, you can hide the base very nicely
If defenders plant mines with sensors in ground, mining won't be safe way around. The deeper enemy dig hole, the deeper they risk to get burried as soon as defenders notice them with sensors and trigger mine field.
EDIT: I'm advising using sensors as border guard who use sensors in woods to track trespassers.
In my personal world with my friends they’re neat because I set up some scattered everywhere like a scenario so they can be scavenged
I've always built underground for the protection from meteors and lightning it offers.
Time to build a vehicle specifically meant for laying siege to underground bases. Nice giant drill with pop out turrets should do the trick 🤣
with the underground stuff, i do wish there was a way to "Un-drill" or back fill holes and tunnels with out using the admin tools. I dont play on the multi server side of SE enough to comment on that but in Single player i do build into mountains and Asteroids. I do agree that lag and Sim speed drop are bad.
I've been thinking about putting gattling gun turrets rigged to sensors around the underrground parts of my base. That way anyone trying to drill in gets targeted.
While I agree that it certainly does present a tactical weakness, I will also point out that pvp or no I still will do some things just for the rule of cool. But again thats just me 😊
I agree. And I really think that those famous "house rules" need to exist in this case and the punishment for disobeying them should be heavy. The goal is always to create balanced gameplay, especially when it comes to PVP. But I have many thoughts about this, but it would be too long to write everything here. I agree with everything from the technical and practical aspect.
If i had negotiations at an enemy base that i knew about. I would try to hide warheads in it until it's the right time
Sooo.. what about asteroid bases where most of the hollow cave was already created by the server? better than underground bases? I love tunnelroids myself.
i always did bunker bases because im building the pit anyway for resources, i might as well use it for something
The only point of an underground base is a stealth base. A base they don't know where it is can't be attacked. But you need a bug out plan for when the base is found.
I think underground bases are situational. Theyre really good if you know what youre doing but if youre on a planet with no wind its a challenge to keep it powered
One of the biggest things, imo, is the RP aspect of it. As someone who nearly always bases underground (diggy diggy dwarf) the best part of it is feeling like my base should be a part of the world. While yes you can do the same with bases above ground, if you can't mixed the two together, it reduces the greatness of the base aesthetics, thus diminishing the RP value.
Interesting takes.
A few things:
Pve has less worry of invasion than pvp does.
Original state is null after a change is made, so instead of a mass log of change, there should be original state, current state, and an event listener for voxel change, and some extra threading for the physics.
Penatrability is dependent on design. Underground shouldn't mean less armor. The point is to increase strength and overall recoverability. If you opt to use dirt instead of armor, you're a fool. Irl a dirt ceiling=collapse. Treat it the same in the game. Armor EVERYTHING.
Also irl, an enemy will be no holds barred. Treat it the same in game, and dont be so attached.
Decoy cooridors do wonders
Paint externals to camouflage. My triton base is an ice blue/grey washed frosted texture. Pretty invisible unti you're a few 100 meters away.
Underground bases has one pretty good upside it's good as a secret base and a good place to store you're ships you could make you're under ground base as a little ship yard for a tactically surprise attack for the enemy by building the ship Underground then when the time has come opening up a big hole leading the ship out to bring devastation to the enemy
So, just so you know, there's a way to build (almost) fully functional bases INSIDE voxels. Yes, it's probably banned on all servers, yes, it's bug usage but it is very fun to play that way.
For our PVP server, underground bases prevent death from passing MES ships and for starters who don't have a safe zone up yet, are able to hide under the radar until they can.
In space, asteroids are even more viable for starters. Out of site, means out of mind to all your enemies.
Also, as most servers are heavily modified, having custom safezones, defense shields, and other nifty addons makes underground bases fun in their own way.
Performance issues, yes it will cause more CPU load, but slap on Nexus, performance plugins, use Windows NFTS compress, perhaps even a ram disc if you worried about drive lifespan.
I'm more worried about BARS, scripts and 200k+ PCU ships doing sumo wrestling.
*Underground*
Protection: Offers natural protection from potential external threats such as enemy attacks or meteor showers.
Conceals your base, making it less visible to other players or AI threats.
Aesthetics: Some players prefer the immersive and realistic feel of building underground structures.
Resource Accessibility: Easier access to certain resources that may be found underground, such as ores.
Stealth: Provides a stealth advantage
*Above-Ground or Space Station*
Visibility: Offers better visibility for surveillance and monitoring the surroundings.
Solar Power: Floating stations can leverage solar power more effectively without worrying about obstacles.
Mobility: Floating stations provide mobility and can be moved to different locations.
Aesthetics: Some players prefer the aesthetic appeal of above-ground structures.
*Considerations for Both*
Functionality: Consider the specific functions of your base and how well each location supports those functions.
Resource Management: Evaluate the availability of resources in the chosen location and how easily they can be accessed.
Defense: Assess the defensive capabilities of each type of base and whether one offers better protection against potential threats.
Multiplayer Dynamics: In multiplayer settings, the preferences and strategies of other players may influence your decision.
Underground bases just like most structures in SE are very practical if the builder knows what they're doing when they build it. You can make a argument against bases in SE in general and say mobile bases are the only worth while bases to have in SE. As for any impact on servers well that just comes a long with being a server admin. Maybe with Vrage 3 Keen will be able to design a new SE that makes underground bases more server friendly.
If you’re gonna build and underground base, just hollow out a sphere deep underground and build inside that sphere with 2/3 of the diameter still opened up. You get the benefits of an above ground base and the benefits of an underground base.
My biggest problem with them is that I have to dig them out, which is an actual nightmare on Space Engineers specifically.
Minecraft? Yeah, no, I can do that easily. SE though? I'd sooner put myself between sixty eight opposing Gravity Generators and fire them up, turn myself into a fine paste.
These are the mods that’s strangely no one has made yet: 1. nerf the all drills by making them costly. (Like a poke should cost %5+ /s) + no carving mode. 2. Grinding a powered enemy block other than a door should cause damage + energy drain.
If faction locked inhibitors are used, the drilling issue can be sidestepped. Limit the growth of bases by setting a maximum area of coverage and a maximum number of inhibitors per faction.
I know inhibitors exist, there's several MES mods that use them, ill bet someone can figure out how to allow faction members to drill while everyone else cannot.
Need a way to harden the ground to basically unbreakable or a very slow dig process.
Not an SE player but part time dev and gamer. Take this with a grain of salt.
On the side of performance, it seems like there could be some vertex culling and other optimizations that can be done. Although I have no idea how much performance would actually be gained.
On the topic of blasting through rock, it seems like the defenders would benefit from having deeper layers of rock be stronger and more resistant. Material close to the surface is easy to mine by hand, but below that is hard (or impossible) without machine tools. Possibly also adjust mining to take longer unless a specific high powered tool is used. Something that is great for mining or blasting but can be countered. Think giant laser drill but it needs coolant and power and if any subsystem is shut down then it goes offline (or boom)
On the topic of popping through the floor and peeking at goodies, there are ways to prevent this with graphical overlays. It just needs to be implemented. Think how minecraft used to have similar issues, but now just shows a texture on the screen.
The rest of the issues seem to come down to players not properly setting up their bases. This would eventually be solved by people learning what to do and what not to do.
Feel free to let me know where I am far off or pretty close. I have no idea how good these ideas are for SE.
not sure why someone hasnt made a mod where you can put down some kind of field generator that makes all ground blocks within a set range be as strong as heavy armor, that would solve the digging problem instantly and bring in a new siege mechanic where destroying this generator might be a quick way to bypass some defenses by tunneling if they design their base poorly
If people put the effort into actually building defences against sappers then they can work well, if you leave your walls rocks, just build a floor and have a single door at the end of a long coridor full of turrets and call it a day, only for the enemy to just... go around, than you cannot be upset for being so tactically deaf as to expect the enemy to just charge head long directly into your most fortified and defended killbox instead of just going the easy way through the rock you left unguarded.
If you hold the size of the base as a constant this is true, but if you instead keep the resources required to build the base constant, the underground base is going to be much larger and more sprawling, as well as much more 3-dimensional.
I only play SP or MP with Frinds vs AI We always go for a underground base Overground there are hangars for Large Ships the rest underground