Best products from r/spaceengineers

I used to work at a local university, and rode a commuter bus to and from work every day. I started writing Archaea on my phone (it had one of those little flip out keyboards) and at first, it was just something fun to do to waste time. A few weeks of this turned into months, and suddenly, I realized that I had a pretty decent start to a book, if I cleaned it up a bit, spelled a few more words correctly, and so on.

But the process was brutal. I had written short stories before, but I had never attempted something like this. I had no idea what sort of time and energy commitment would be needed from me to get it done... and it was really overwhelming! The motivation, was the story - it was just such a cool story, what I considered almost perfect sci-fi, immersive and visceral, I found I was having as much fun reading it as I was writing it.

After a while, my muse sort of took over. They say writing is a disease, an addiction, and they're absolutely right. It is hellaciously addictive. I found myself writing nearly every free moment I had. I'd write on road trips, write on breaks, I'd write almost every waking moment.

Publishing it on Amazon is pretty straightforward - there's some formatting needed, and some other hoops to jump though to get paid, but it's really not that hard. What has been hard, is trying to break into standard print publishing. It's one of those 'don't call us, we'll call you' sorts of industries. I still have hope that I'll be 'noticed' someday... but until then, I am not letting that stop me!

Writing is pretty all-encompassing. When I start writing, I crank up some music, the headphones go on, the feet go up, and I just tunnel-vision in to the screen and melt the letters off the keys. That is sort of hard for my wife and kids, but they've sort of adapted to it, and I usually try to write in the least anti-social way that I can, because it's really a very anti-social behavior.

One thing it's totally changed, is my self-confidence. I am not scared anymore to tell a story, to put a voice to my imagination, to share my crazy concepts and ideas with people. I'm not afraid of hundreds of thousands of words, and cranking out 500 pages of novel is not the terrifying 'never-gonna-make-it' experience it used to be - - now it's cathartic.

Space Engineers is awesome, really. I love the creativity, the challenge, the tricky engineering, explosions, the bugs, the features... but I really enjoy the community around the game. I love seeing what other people make, I love watching videos - - I probably spend more time on this subreddit than I should, to be honest!

If you're interested in starting my series - <pick up Archaea for free> right now on Smashwords Amazon. If you like it, and want to <read the rest of the series> through Amazon, they have a cloud reader (read.amazon.com) that works on any device you might have.

I second the GTX 960M or 970M for sure. They perform much closer to their desktop counterparts than any earlier GPU-GPUm generation that I am aware of. There are some unicorn laptops out there with actual desktop GPUs out there as well, but they are a fair bit pricier, and have awful battery lives while using the GPU. I don't necessarily recommend one of those laptops, but I believe you should be aware of them, as I don't know your exact situation.
For the CPU, before you buy, google the exact processor that is in the laptop, as not all i7s or i5s are easily comparable for mobile stuff. Some mobile i7s are just dual cores w/ hyper-threading, for example. Check ark intel, and make sure it is a quad core.
The SSD, I absolutely recommend. If you can swing it, get at least a 240 gig SSD, as most gamers will very quickly fill a 120 gig. Even a slow SSD is much faster than a mechanical drive. (Almost always. at least)
As for the display, anything with a modern GPU in it will probably be 1080p, but it is still a good idea to check. As far as TN vs IPS, it is really up to you what you want. IPS panels are more expensive, but look better and represent colors much better. TN are faster and usually have higher refresh rates (But on a laptop, most of what you will find are 60 Hz no matter what). For a game like Space Engineers, slow response time won't make a big difference, and unless you are used to a fast TN panel, you may not even be able to perceive a difference. If you also play fast paced games like CS:GO, then you will want to go for a TN panel for sure though. It depends on what you plan to do. If your laptop will mostly be a mobile Netflix machine, you may want to go for IPS instead.

This is a pretty good starting point. Out of the box, it comes with a 256 Gig SSD and 8 gigs of RAM, but it has an unused RAM slot and an empty 2.5" slot, so you can upgrade the RAM to 16 gigs and add a mechanical drive if you so desire.

No, the gpu is definetly what's "killing it". 4gbs of ram is too little nowadays but it's not your problem right now for sure (though a $30 stick of ram will help you with the other stuff you do like multitasking, hd video reproduction with multiple windows open on chrome, etc.).

Just to give you some sort of comparison between your gpu and more modern ones: (650ti vs:)

• (starting with nvidia's gpus) gtx 750ti --- 40-60% faster, costs $110, has 2gb of vram.
  
  
• gtx 950 --- almost x2 faster, costs $120-$140, comes with 2gb of vram too.
  
  
• gtx 960 --- about x2.2 faster, costs $200, also 2gb of vram
  
  
• gtx 970/980/1070/1080 are all of course much much faster, but im assuming you dont play on 4k anyways so they may be overkill.
  
  
• (AMD's gpus now) r7 260/360 --- a little bit faster than your card, around 30% and 50% and both cost anything between $100 and $140 (like this 360 at $100)
  
  
• r9 380/380x --- about as fast as the 960 (the 380x is maybe a tad bit faster) and definetly faster than the 950, so about x2 and x2.2 as fast. They cost $200 and $230 but now their prices are definetly going down because.....
  
  
• rx 480 --- basically x3 your card, since it apparently matches up with the 980, it will cost 200$ at 4gb of vram and $230 if you want it to have 8gb of vram.
  
  What i'm saying is that you can spend $30 on a 4gb stick of ram, get 1-5 fps boost and a significant boost in your overall windows/macos/linux experience, or get a rx 480/gtx 950 for 200(my recomendation) or 150 dollars and get a significant boost, probably getting to playable levels at medium in 1080p with the 950 and most definetly full 60fps at max settings on 1080p with the new rx 480. You can also do both and probably be done with upgrading your pc for a long while, maybe 3 years or more even.
  
  Also, the 750ti, 950, 960 and 480 all need very little power compared to other cards, so you can probably just swap them with your current 650 without much hassle. I would ask /r/buildapc for more info on compatibility.
  
  

That is a shame, and all the more reason I eagerly await Star Citizen. I know it won't be the perfect space game for me, but I feel that it will come closer than anything since Star Wars Galaxies. (Although while I have high hopes for it, I doubt it will surpass SWG's breadth, at least in my mind.)

And I agree about flying with a controller. It's better than a keyboard, but it certainly isn't a joystick.

In my day, I used a trusty Logitech Extreme 3D Pro as my daily driver, an upgrade from the very awesome but somewhat lower build quality Saitek ST290.

What makes you prefer the 970?

The 980Ti is a good suggestion if you can drop that kind of money on it. If not, I would go with a EVGA GTX 980 SC w/ ACX 2.0. This is what I run and it works great, stays pretty cool and is silent as can be.

> It's not about a tutorial, it's about making the early game fun.

Ah, I think I see where I misunderstood. Yeah, first time I played, winter a year ago, I tried to do that. Had the bad luck of getting a starting asteroid that only had iron, nickel and uranium. Dug through it like swiss cheese before I realized I had to trek over to a neighboring asteroid. Still, it was pretty fast.

I think you're right -- it might be nice if it spawned a couple "scripted" asteroids near you that had some tiny deposits of everything (minus U). Then, beyond that, you'd have to search, but at least you could have agency on how you did that search.

In a sense, you're pointing out that walking is not gameplay. You're totally right.

> Sorry, didn't mean to be a dick. Well, I did, but I'm still sorry.

LOL, it's the internet. It's kind of expected. Thanks though!

Apparently they are. It looks like it's slotted to release in December! That's...kind of exciting if it's true.

http://www.amazon.com/Homeworld-Remastered-Collectors-Edition-Pc/dp/B00K6ZUOQE

A small list in no particular order:

• Space Battleship Yamato (宇宙戦艦ヤマト Uchuu Senkan Yamato): Absolute classic series and cultural icon, featuring the rebuilt space-faring WWII battleship Yamato as well as a host of other ships.
  
  
• Legend of the Galactic Heroes (銀河英雄伝説 Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu): Another classic series, featuring ships such as the Hyperion and many others.
  
  
• Space Pirate Captain Harlock (宇宙海賊キャプテンハーロック Uchū Kaizoku Kyaputen Hārokku): Known for the Arcadia, a space battleship with a touch of Age of Sail.
  
  
• Cowboy Bebop (カウボーイビバップ Kaubōi Bibappu): Considered by some to be an all-time best, has a respectable roster of spaceships including the iconic Swordfish II.
  
  
• Macross (マクロス Makurosu): Particularly known for its Variable Fighters, transforming mecha of many, many sizes and shapes. Also features larger items if you'd prefer. Note that this is a very long running series with many iterations; Whichever style you're looking for has probably been present at some point.
  
  
• Gundam (ガンダム Gandamu): Though you said you didn't like Gundam's ships, I'd ask that you give it a deeper look, as it is, like Macross, a very long running series with large amounts of variety in designs.
  
  
• Ikaruga (斑鳩): Classic arcade STG with some remarkably abstract designs.
  
  
• Gradius (グラディウス Guradiusu): Another from the arcades, origin of the iconic Vic Viper.

Some of the stuff from this release was put out with a whole lot of other electromagnetic -> audible sound recordings from the other planets a couple years ago on CD.

http://www.amazon.com/Symphonies-Of-The-Planets-Recordings/dp/B000001V2O

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLDWKpAkRHs

A lot of them, especially the Jupiter and Saturn ones, would make for a great 'filler' in the music from the default soundtrack, in my opinion. They are also nice to meditate to.

Visit the romance section of your local book store. Here's a good start.

See? It's possible!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0764HW116?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

Does this happen to be the one you’re getting? If so, I just got this two weeks ago and absolutely LOVE it. It’s a fucking beast.

This guy:

WD Black 2TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD2003FZEX https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FJRS628/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OdVtybSMVESGM

Though I am not out of ram so it shouldn't affect runtime speed much if at all.

I really wish I had an extra keyboard with dozens of keys. There are these:

http://www.amazon.com/Razer-Nostromo-PC-Gaming-Keypad/dp/B004AM5RB6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1406316713&sr=8-4&keywords=gaming+numpad

But they are ungodly expensive because they are marketed to 'pro gamers'. Maybe I could modify a regular keyboard and assign unicode to the keys somehow (if that would even work).

Here is the mobile version of your link