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
There is also the problem that underground bases can easily be spotted from several Kilometers away. The removal of voxel changes the way the surface appears at a distance. Usually in the form of a massive hole.
(This has nothing to do with Space engineers but..) Do you guys like Pineapple on pizza? Personally I LOVE Hawaiian pizza with my whole heart, Might be because I am in Australia (Our national pizza) but I am curious on this debate on why others don’t like it
@@LastStandGamersI have never herd of that pizza before and I just looked it up and it look amazing… It’s 3:54am and now I crave pizza… (Where I am there is no delivery option) :(
@@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
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.
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.
One possible effort would be excavating a greatly larger space than needed, and having the true secure chamber suspended in the middle with defences positioned externally on the base as well as at points of the interior facing inwards to enable them to hit would be sappers. Though this also has issues. Accessibility to defending persons, as well as the massive time requirements for setting it up come to mind immediately.
@@aone9050 If that was true, it would be the exact opposite, because tunneling under defenses to penetrate a vault is a time honored tradition of robberies.
To be fair, underground bases are very effective for PvE if you have several MES mods enabled. Voxels are much tougher for NPC enemies to get through than any blocks.
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.
There are mods where you can install blocks that ban the use of drills within a certain radius. Unlike safezones, they don't require zone chips or crazy amounts of power. Not being able to dig through someone's base helps cut down on base sprawl and rat's nests of attack tunnels.
simple fix for the drill issue on servers, a drill-disabling field generator, as long as the base has power, enemy players can't use drills withing 500m from the base or something
This is what I do as a single player but my mothership I always have to be extremly careful with because of clang. Running into an asteroid once and losing a quarter of your ship once is enough. It depends on server rules but underground bases also just take so much longer tk build since you have to worry about digging and defenses around the shell of your base so people can't just dig in
This is the mortal engines iteration the problem is the weight of cargos and what happens to the base and the server when the mobile cargo pops. On LSG we have static storage in these iterations to get over this issue!
I also think big moving carrier like a thing in desert of Kharak is far more better. No matter land only or space allowance in the server. I always have 1 very big ship that can do all base thing (even constructing destroyer and carry it with you). Just moving it around make people hard to verify where exactly you are. Especially in space LeL. The only problem is it a "little bit laggy :D"
@mayshiratoshi6390 yea and some us can't support the lag so having a static base is useful. But at the end of the day there's pros and cons to all base types
Mobile star-bases are the best, as you have an infinite void to hide in, and barring mods/exploits/other shenanigans they are effectively impossible for hostiles to locate with but a single random jump in to the that infinite sky. That said, I think this is a surface-base vs underground-base vid, and land-carriers are one of those "coolness inversely proportionate to practicality" kinda things...
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)
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.
above ground they can FLY to your rooms, under ground they have to DIG to your rooms, its just another layer of armor, albeit not as strong, BUT it keeps the enemy in the dark, they dont know where your rooms are, where as above ground its easy to make our your room layout. also, all the negatives also apply to the enemy, its as equally inconvenient for them too. ... also, i hate having my back open, at least i know from which direction im being attacked, id rather get them in a choke point instead the risk of being attacked from all sides
@@callmeskal820 An above-ground base doesn't have that trade-off because it has no stealth to trade away, so it's not that you have to choose between stealth and defense underground, it's that you get to choose
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
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.
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 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.
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 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.
I hope with Space Engineers 2 you can claim the group around your base, keeping people from digging around it. Or better yet, give us something we can build that claims the ground, much like a safe zone. Add that for asteroids, and I’d be ecstatic! However, you’d still want missiles to be able to destroy the ground, or people would just use dirt and stone as armor for all bases. 😅 Hmm… The more I think about it, scratch that last part. Making the ground indestructible would force us players to raid bases outside of our ships, and would add a lot of fun FPS raiding gameplay to the game. I could go either way.
As someone who uses PMWs (player made weapons) as my main focus in the game, I have to say that the thought that underground bases offer orbital bombardment protection is outright ridiculous. Most underground bases can be defeated by a well designed bunker busting munition. Hell, I've destroyed bases that are hundreds of blocks below ground by just dropping a really heavy thing on it. Blast doors are ideal, as they don't deform. A 3x3x10 kinetic penetrator, with a sensor detonated warhead above it, will completely gut any shallow underground base if dropped with any semblance of accuracy. If that doesn't work, just print another. And another. And another. Underground bases can't protect against orbital bombardment, because the only way to stop a bombardment is to go destroy the ship. And underground bases are the worst at that because they only have a few places to launch ships, which an attacking player can easily obstruct or destroy. It's a joke. TL:DR: anyone who thinks an underground base will stop orbital bombardment has never taken part in orbital bombardment. They're probably thinking of a ship sitting 2KM up, firing weapons and dropping bombs in visual range. That's not the case. We sit outside of the planet's gravity well, using laser antennae to align ourselves perfectly, and use gravity generators to drop hundreds or thousands of blocks on the target.
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
I remember a pvp base I constructed on Space Engineers. Dug a 3x3 corridor that stretched for roughly 6km, then created a checkpoint defended by artillery turrets, then finally dug a 20km tunnel using my hand drill, forcing any assailants to either dig me out with their ships, or enter the rat tunnels on foot to locate the main base. Said rat tunnel was chaotic, mostly because I spent 10 hours running around underground like a madman, making sure it would be hellish to traverse, and after those 20km tunnels were complete, I utilized a few warheads to blow a sizeable chamber to build a brick within. The Brick acted as my main factory and refinery. Because at this point, it was an excavation site around 13km deep underground at this point, with 3x4 tunnels dug out with a rover I designed to allow me to have a gravity-aligned tunnel dug as closely as possible. The whole thing was a nightmare, and eventually someone managed to dig their way to me "The Matrix" style with a large-grid warship converted to bore its way to me. One thing to note, the server was a laggy mess at that point with hundreds of kilometers of the only planet of the server being a cratered hellscape of abandoned stations and their connected large and smallgrid rovers and ships ripe for stripping.
Some years ago we started playing on a fresh server with a lot of people we've never met before. The host told us that underground bases are allowed as long as they wouldn't "turn out too crazy". I'm a full dwarf player, so I'm very experienced when it comes to building underground bases. To save some time, I built my usual tunneling machines. It's basically a pipe network with huge automatic machines slowly crawling alongside the pipes while digging away the voxels in front of them and building a base module behind them. The idea behind them was to have a tool for searching ores very deep below the surface level (Deep Ores mod basically moves all ore spawns a few miles further down compared to vanilla) while also providing a comfortable way to mine them and get the ressources into our containers. Those machines can replicate themselves as well, so at the start I usually build one which in turn builds five more of its kind. This was no different on the first day on this fresh server. I was tired as fuck and just wanted to set up everything for the next day so that my friends and me would have a headstart. After I was done with the neccessities and six machines ready to go, I happily went to sleep. The next day we noticed that the server was offline. Turns out that I forgot to turn my machines off before going to bed. Over the course of 9 hours they had built 1000 refineries and over 3000 large containers and filled half of them completely on max container size settings. The planet looked like a piece of swiss cheese and the lag killed the fucking server. After that, the host decided to wipe the server and start a fresh scenario, but this time he prohibited underground bases altogether. Though I might have been the sole cause for this dilemma, I am also a full dwarf player - and I don't play on servers where underground bases aren't allowed. So I basically just fucked up the rules for a lot of innocent people. I consider this story a pro for underground bases, btw. :
Something to consider, and this is a personal observation i have yet to be able to put into practice, Leave a cavity outside the walls, build a basic exterior wall, and add turrets. Keeps the worms at bay, and prevents that easy cheese. The upside being, you don't plan on that invasion happening, but you prepare for it anyway
Well, in my opinion, and from what I’ve seen, I’ve been overly bombarded with war heads 16 times on separate occasions when it comes to bases. Even some shielded ones. I can definitely say that it is not perfect. In fact, far from it, but for underground bases, I would say it gives you weather protection. Which is good for acidic rain. Also, for interior defense, they could have Turrets placed inside of their bases. Including Gatling’ which would definitely do some extreme damage. Personally, what I intend on doing with my next mountain base is also having doors that are mediately protected with guns. He did bring up a good point though about the insights not being guarded by enough turrets so for that, I’d probably put a lot of interior Turrets. This is because they are small and do moderate damage to small light armored grids. Also, with my next one I was planning on making it airtight so that would probably make it harder to penetrate because it would have windows at least at some areas and other areas it would just have armor walls. I was also thinking of making the area pass the interior hanger, which uses extremely large player made large grade doors. Sort of elevator for moving down vehicles, and perhaps even fighters to a area that can act as a bunker. To avoid anything like a modded, super laser, but at the bare minimum guard against. The war heads, which I deal way too much with.
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.
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.
Whenever i made an underground base i made sure that the interior of said base had no rocks showing, id dig out and put unbuilt blocks where i planned to expand, made sure the ceiling was covered, the floor, and the tertiary walls. Some people like the rocky look, however like you said someone with a hand drill ( if they know the layout of your base [maybe a traitor,ive had it happen]) Can dig straight to your goodies. Cover up all your axises, always have a backup plan or a secondary base ready to bug out. (Your secondary base doesn’t have to be as big as your main, you can always work on it later) The most successful inground base ive had was on a asteroid. planets, not so much as planets have alot of traffic. Just my 2 cents, i only have about 300 hours in SE but those tips always run through my head when building a underground base, everything else Aaron touched on is good advice.
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.
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.
The key part to any good underground base. Is to dig it deep into a mountain or some place. Then hollow out a massive hole with your base in the middle floating. After that place turrets in every angle around your base (underground). When the rocketman mole shows up they will have no chance to avoid the turrets. You can also set up mini warheads with proximity sensors to slow them down further. Either way, above ground or below takes effort to build. Remaining hidden and unfound is always the best defense. If/when you are found. Then it deploy many above ground turret bunkers in the area.
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.
I think it comes down to what youre wanting to do. If youre in an area that isnt easily accesible and you wish to stay hidden due to the valley a few kilometers away is a hot mess of warfare, a Subterranean base works well. Also helps you get established before breaking out into the surface with your hangers and hardened defences, thpugh i would argue having a few layers of tunnels around your base that has turrets is a wise idea to prevent mining vehicles and lonely suited men with a drill from finding you.
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.
@@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
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
I usually build one underground backup base near my main base called „Alamo Site“. It’s basically a storage and command bunker where I keep a certain amount of resources. if my Mainbase gets blown to pieces, I don’t have to start over from zero. It also controls my orbital defense grid (I always build a satellite defense network consisting of recon and PMW missile silo satellites). Underground bases are a pain to setup but if they are used as Storage or backup facilities they are incredibly useful. In some scenarios they even become a necessity. Have you ever played on mars with cataclysmic metroids? You are far better off if you build your base underground than on the surface because you never have to repair damages from metroids if you do it properly.
The first two rooms for an underground base should be a hanger/car park with all parking spots connected item/resource grid. The refineries and what not should all be much deeper and having more than 3 ways to get from a to b isn't a bad idea either. The store rooms should be even deeper and the "Trophy" room(s) should be even further. There should be multiple levels with 2-3 respawn points on each level. There should be an armory on each level or an access port to retrieve weapons from deeper in the base. There should be at least 3 int turrets at any turns and 4 plus a gat turret at 3+ junctions. All natural surfaces in the base should be covered with at least 2 block thick heavy armor preferably increasing in thickness the deeper you go and the surface should also have a platform buried that is at least 2 blocks below surface and 3 blocks thick and stretch at least 50-100 blocks from the closest point of contact of the entrance. A backup entrance/Exit should be given thought and carefully excavated in a manner that makes it difficult to perceive in atypical fashion. If building in a ravine try seeing if you can build an exit or secondary entrance on the other side of the mountain/plateau with said entrance being in a enshrouded spot. If not trying to actively hide build a standard defense base on top of the main entrance. Use the surrounding topography to develop lines of sight while minimizing exposer for auto defense turrets. Try to build compact if possible anti siege weaponry to take out assault ships and or capital ships and be prepared for kamikaze style attacks. A ship that isn't good at taking hits but doesn't cost much to replace can still do damage if given the chance. Try to have a backup base with long-range engagement ships so you can sweep from behind. If you can have some remote controlled kinetic missiles to take out small grid ships that are hovering outside base if kinetics are still viable. Its been awhile since I played. Sadly as pointed out if you are far enough away its possible to see an underground base. Also weapon core doesn't take in account of voxels when targeting. I guess the server could implement a way to make it so that player static structures aren't visible past a certain distance but I am not positive this is possible. Also would still let ships and rovers be seen through the ground although they are smaller so that might mitigate that. This is if the server has high pcu for each clan/team and a good enough pc to run it on. Hopefully most of the graphical issues gets fixed in later updates. Looking back at this comment I realized some of it is rather... impractical due to pcu and possible playtime limits but it still might be feasible so if this helps someone then glad for it.
I mean on one hand, you're right. On the other, in modded situations, you can use things like the concrete mod to build multiple-layer-thick walls to end up curbing the attackers breaching through walls thing. They're tough enough in that configuration that you'd probably lose less resources storming through the base than trying to breach tunnels. As for the attackers not having a lot of options, you could just enjoy the push instead, but that doesn't really fix the issue. For the defenders, though, underground bases are nearly perfect if you can just fix the wall breaching problem.
My underground base has an entrance that is disguised as a raided mess, anyone sniffing around would conclude within the first 5 minutes that the base is abandoned and no there are no valuables left to loot. Little do they know, I have 100’s of tunnels deeper within the abandoned area leading nowhere like a maze of confusion. Only I know the correct tunnel that leads to my actual base. This strategy has served me well for 4 years on a PVP server no raids :)
Bit late to the party but oh well, when I actually play on a server I usually build a mix of above and underground, with a large amount of storage and production being underground and maybe one large hanger and I always armour the walls unless a server rule exists saying that drilling cannot be used. Sinking conveyors and “power lines” is also nice for a neat look.
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.
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.
It seems to be like underground bases do have a use, but they shouldnt be your long term base. I think making a functional underground base to get started is a great idea! Get on your feet and start building up some power while you remain stealthy and once you can defend yourself in an open engagement you start on your permanent location above ground or in space
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.
Unground bases can be drilled through - above ground bases can be ground through. Warheads work both ways. On LSG we worked around have major lag problems with voxels by limiting the area your aloud to have the underground base, and I believe with the growing advancement of nukes, underground bases have become some of the only ways to safely protect your cargos and production. Even if the 100x100 cube becomes a 20x20 that gives the community the ability to better protect are production and cargos from being blown up (which causes more problems sometimes for the server than voxels do) and prevents accidental wipes.
counterarguments to your points 1.simply build walls and not use raw voxels for interior walls. now they have to go through the blast door anyway with less energy wasted on voxels and in a possibly harder to breach position 2.claustrophobic encounters, or cqc, is incredibly volatile because of how quick it becomes, ontop of chokepoints. the point of burying a base is to slow an enemy down. ontop of that, it leaves intel hard to come by since you cant just eagle eye a bases layout from above. 3.the counter to placed mineheads is to just put more armor layers. or make your base "exterior" look like rock so its easy to miss until your drill goes clang, leaving it hard to figure out its layout from a moles perspective. possibly even bury "goodies" for them to find like turrets and mines. a motion detector can see through terrain and walls alike. 4.lockdown procedures should be standard on things of signifigant size. even more effective underground if you reinforce the place as they cant just walk around and try another wall, rather they have to find it and dig blindly for it. 5.there should be no "getting ready" state for underground, as you can easilly conceal fully ready defenses with a hidden corner or so on without fear. without distant sight of it by recon, they have no way of knowing its there. if it kills quick enough, it can even repeatedly get players if they die before sending a message about it 6.last but not least, you my have to go through tunnels but so do they. as well as removing support if its far enough down. and if you can dig around, so can they. plus a tunnel they dig is even smaller, perfect fish in a barrel for something.if they leave the hole open, put a trap down real quick for the next team coming behind them. in short the home advantage by knowing where theyll go and knowing the shortcuts to get to them first. bonus points if you have hidden tunnels for doing this.
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 😊
This can apply only to PvP, and if you manage to make your base nearly invisible from outside using only radar antennas and far away relays the enemies will have a hard time finding your base in the first place. The main problems as I see it is the server slowdown and increase in size of the save file, and the fact that if you're in a place without air, just voxels won't make it to make your base airtight, you'll still need to create rooms with blocks, and that will take plenty of time between digging and building.
However, some advantages to underground bases: - Harder to find than above ground bases. - Due to enemies only being able to see your entrances, they do not know anything about the base layout or what to expect inside, making underground bases a maze for those who don't live in it. - While walls can be drilled, more valuable areas such as storage and command centers can be completely sealed, and turrets can be placed strategically anywhere in the base. plus, as said before, this base is a maze to them, so they don't even know where to drill. - Due to being underground, your base is much harder to attack with weapons such as bombs, meaning that if your enemy wants to raid you efficiently, they have to go in.
the server load is undeniable but if you build the base like a dungeon, with surprise turrets everywhere, cameras and custom turrets, you can pretty much force stalemate while having nearly inifnite basic materials via refining stone. And of course, have an emergency exit
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.
Great video, I think that drilling in by hand with the drilling tool is not cool but drilling in with a drilling ship would be cool. I didn't think about the lag a bunker would cause maybe it would only be viable on a dedicated rp server rather then a competative pvp server.
i quite like having an underground base, but only one with interesting areas. whenever i make one i go out of my way to add "spectacles" such as monorails (the trains on rails that go over the air idk) complex and good looking door opening sequences, backways, etc. it makes me feel like im in a secret facility like black mesa or the sirpensky (rotfront)
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 hearing that underground bases are visible from orbit since the voxels get rendered weirdly from space, so players can find underground bases quite easily, which negates the stealth aspect if there are spaceborne players.
I have a tendency to make a sort of "open air" hole base. That is to say, the base is partially inland into the earth, but also open to the surface, think Owan and Beru's house from star wars. It's not as stealthy, but it provides a decent amount of internal protection from air attacks.
when I made my first hidden base there were turrets and heavy armor block everywhere after a lot of time so I don't care about intrudors but I see your point (I will still do them under ground no matter what
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.
consider making underground hangars and an exterior base; disguises a bit of what you are doing without locking you inside, cliff also provides cover from at least one side making it easier on your turrets attempting to engage.
The easiest bases to find from orbit are underground ones. The voxel deformation effect amplifies the further away you go up. Even a small underground base looks like a mountain sized crater from 30km up.
A kind of ‘Claim’ block would work to salve most of the described problems for building underground. It would work similarly to the safe zone block but but act faction based. It would significantly reduce the effectiveness of Grinders and hand drills wean used by other factions.
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.
I'm literally in a briefing skills class this week and watching this video just made me think of how great of a presenter you are lol. I know it's roughly scripted, but your structure and creative writing make it very good content.
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.
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.
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 also think the their needs to be a mechanic in game that allows you to claim a territory that only allows the owner to mine in a given region. This would eliminate the issues of mining into a base.
Best thing to do with underground bases is make it as an above ground base is a large cave. That way there is no part of your base right next to voxels. Then you can arm the exterior with a liberal amount of interior turrets. This eliminates the effectiveness of breachers. They cannot plant explosives within range of your base because the cave walls are too far away from your base wall for them to do so without being shot.
One positive you didn't mention is the ability to control an attackers economy of effort. An invading force may take my hanger and some basic storage, but they will have to dig or fight through a few kilometers of rock and tunnels if they want anything worth while.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
There is also the problem that underground bases can easily be spotted from several Kilometers away. The removal of voxel changes the way the surface appears at a distance. Usually in the form of a massive hole.
They must fix this for real! The community should pressure this change on the devs
They simply look way better = I have won the fight on under ground bases being better
(This has nothing to do with Space engineers but..) Do you guys like Pineapple on pizza? Personally I LOVE Hawaiian pizza with my whole heart, Might be because I am in Australia (Our national pizza) but I am curious on this debate on why others don’t like it
Ham and Pineapple is good
but a meat feast would be my go to.@@Fire-superme
@@LastStandGamersI have never herd of that pizza before and I just looked it up and it look amazing… It’s 3:54am and now I crave pizza… (Where I am there is no delivery option) :(
I feel disgusted by the replies on this comment 🤢 you have committed a war crime in the eyes of Italians
@@thefalloutphoenixItalians are just prideful their food isnt even the best
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
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.
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.
If the server is set up to prevent sappers (drilling around defences and into the base), then small underground bases can be viable.
Even if its set up that way prepare for the frustration when you can't get out to fight....
One possible effort would be excavating a greatly larger space than needed, and having the true secure chamber suspended in the middle with defences positioned externally on the base as well as at points of the interior facing inwards to enable them to hit would be sappers. Though this also has issues. Accessibility to defending persons, as well as the massive time requirements for setting it up come to mind immediately.
Any good server admin would prohibit and punish sappers. It’s low effort raiding.
@@TheBojaboja wow, roleplay dweebs have kind of taken over, if you're allowed to say that kind of stuff with no pushback.
@@aone9050 If that was true, it would be the exact opposite, because tunneling under defenses to penetrate a vault is a time honored tradition of robberies.
A claim function needs adding that either blocks players without permission from mining voxels or drastically slows them down (almost to a crawl)
The best underground base is one disguised as a raided/destroyed ground level one
ghost town silo was my thought too
To be fair, underground bases are very effective for PvE if you have several MES mods enabled. Voxels are much tougher for NPC enemies to get through than any blocks.
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.
There are mods where you can install blocks that ban the use of drills within a certain radius. Unlike safezones, they don't require zone chips or crazy amounts of power. Not being able to dig through someone's base helps cut down on base sprawl and rat's nests of attack tunnels.
simple fix for the drill issue on servers, a drill-disabling field generator, as long as the base has power, enemy players can't use drills withing 500m from the base or something
Wouldn't it be better to just have all mobile bases? Make carriers or transport vessels and defend them with a fleet
This is what I do as a single player but my mothership I always have to be extremly careful with because of clang. Running into an asteroid once and losing a quarter of your ship once is enough. It depends on server rules but underground bases also just take so much longer tk build since you have to worry about digging and defenses around the shell of your base so people can't just dig in
This is the mortal engines iteration the problem is the weight of cargos and what happens to the base and the server when the mobile cargo pops. On LSG we have static storage in these iterations to get over this issue!
I also think big moving carrier like a thing in desert of Kharak is far more better.
No matter land only or space allowance in the server. I always have 1 very big ship that can do all base thing (even constructing destroyer and carry it with you). Just moving it around make people hard to verify where exactly you are. Especially in space LeL.
The only problem is it a "little bit laggy :D"
@mayshiratoshi6390 yea and some us can't support the lag so having a static base is useful. But at the end of the day there's pros and cons to all base types
Mobile star-bases are the best, as you have an infinite void to hide in, and barring mods/exploits/other shenanigans they are effectively impossible for hostiles to locate with but a single random jump in to the that infinite sky.
That said, I think this is a surface-base vs underground-base vid, and land-carriers are one of those "coolness inversely proportionate to practicality" kinda things...
Weapon Core is pretty much standard on most servers now, so remaining hidden is not possible.
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
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.
above ground they can FLY to your rooms, under ground they have to DIG to your rooms, its just another layer of armor, albeit not as strong, BUT it keeps the enemy in the dark, they dont know where your rooms are, where as above ground its easy to make our your room layout.
also, all the negatives also apply to the enemy, its as equally inconvenient for them too.
... also, i hate having my back open, at least i know from which direction im being attacked, id rather get them in a choke point instead the risk of being attacked from all sides
@@callmeskal820 that would of course cross the line of cheating in my book
At least if you build on the surface you can get turrets all around to deter them.
@@callmeskal820 An above-ground base doesn't have that trade-off because it has no stealth to trade away, so it's not that you have to choose between stealth and defense underground, it's that you get to choose
@@callmeskal820 Camouflage, turret doors, building your base under mountainous terrain so turrets can pop-out from the side of hills??
@@LastStandGamerswhat if they dig under your above ground base and cut their way in those turrets are useless at that point
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
All my long runs on vanilla servers have been this way. They get you eventually though....
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.
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 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.
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 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.
I hope with Space Engineers 2 you can claim the group around your base, keeping people from digging around it. Or better yet, give us something we can build that claims the ground, much like a safe zone.
Add that for asteroids, and I’d be ecstatic!
However, you’d still want missiles to be able to destroy the ground, or people would just use dirt and stone as armor for all bases. 😅
Hmm… The more I think about it, scratch that last part. Making the ground indestructible would force us players to raid bases outside of our ships, and would add a lot of fun FPS raiding gameplay to the game.
I could go either way.
As someone who uses PMWs (player made weapons) as my main focus in the game, I have to say that the thought that underground bases offer orbital bombardment protection is outright ridiculous.
Most underground bases can be defeated by a well designed bunker busting munition. Hell, I've destroyed bases that are hundreds of blocks below ground by just dropping a really heavy thing on it. Blast doors are ideal, as they don't deform. A 3x3x10 kinetic penetrator, with a sensor detonated warhead above it, will completely gut any shallow underground base if dropped with any semblance of accuracy. If that doesn't work, just print another. And another. And another.
Underground bases can't protect against orbital bombardment, because the only way to stop a bombardment is to go destroy the ship. And underground bases are the worst at that because they only have a few places to launch ships, which an attacking player can easily obstruct or destroy. It's a joke.
TL:DR: anyone who thinks an underground base will stop orbital bombardment has never taken part in orbital bombardment. They're probably thinking of a ship sitting 2KM up, firing weapons and dropping bombs in visual range. That's not the case. We sit outside of the planet's gravity well, using laser antennae to align ourselves perfectly, and use gravity generators to drop hundreds or thousands of blocks on the target.
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
I remember a pvp base I constructed on Space Engineers.
Dug a 3x3 corridor that stretched for roughly 6km, then created a checkpoint defended by artillery turrets, then finally dug a 20km tunnel using my hand drill, forcing any assailants to either dig me out with their ships, or enter the rat tunnels on foot to locate the main base.
Said rat tunnel was chaotic, mostly because I spent 10 hours running around underground like a madman, making sure it would be hellish to traverse, and after those 20km tunnels were complete, I utilized a few warheads to blow a sizeable chamber to build a brick within. The Brick acted as my main factory and refinery. Because at this point, it was an excavation site around 13km deep underground at this point, with 3x4 tunnels dug out with a rover I designed to allow me to have a gravity-aligned tunnel dug as closely as possible.
The whole thing was a nightmare, and eventually someone managed to dig their way to me "The Matrix" style with a large-grid warship converted to bore its way to me.
One thing to note, the server was a laggy mess at that point with hundreds of kilometers of the only planet of the server being a cratered hellscape of abandoned stations and their connected large and smallgrid rovers and ships ripe for stripping.
Well the underground part is just to house the soft mushy guts of the base, and i build a planetary defense platform above it, that's how i do it.
Some years ago we started playing on a fresh server with a lot of people we've never met before. The host told us that underground bases are allowed as long as they wouldn't "turn out too crazy".
I'm a full dwarf player, so I'm very experienced when it comes to building underground bases. To save some time, I built my usual tunneling machines. It's basically a pipe network with huge automatic machines slowly crawling alongside the pipes while digging away the voxels in front of them and building a base module behind them. The idea behind them was to have a tool for searching ores very deep below the surface level (Deep Ores mod basically moves all ore spawns a few miles further down compared to vanilla) while also providing a comfortable way to mine them and get the ressources into our containers.
Those machines can replicate themselves as well, so at the start I usually build one which in turn builds five more of its kind. This was no different on the first day on this fresh server. I was tired as fuck and just wanted to set up everything for the next day so that my friends and me would have a headstart. After I was done with the neccessities and six machines ready to go, I happily went to sleep.
The next day we noticed that the server was offline. Turns out that I forgot to turn my machines off before going to bed. Over the course of 9 hours they had built 1000 refineries and over 3000 large containers and filled half of them completely on max container size settings. The planet looked like a piece of swiss cheese and the lag killed the fucking server.
After that, the host decided to wipe the server and start a fresh scenario, but this time he prohibited underground bases altogether. Though I might have been the sole cause for this dilemma, I am also a full dwarf player - and I don't play on servers where underground bases aren't allowed. So I basically just fucked up the rules for a lot of innocent people.
I consider this story a pro for underground bases, btw. :
Something to consider, and this is a personal observation i have yet to be able to put into practice, Leave a cavity outside the walls, build a basic exterior wall, and add turrets. Keeps the worms at bay, and prevents that easy cheese. The upside being, you don't plan on that invasion happening, but you prepare for it anyway
Well, in my opinion, and from what I’ve seen, I’ve been overly bombarded with war heads 16 times on separate occasions when it comes to bases. Even some shielded ones. I can definitely say that it is not perfect. In fact, far from it, but for underground bases, I would say it gives you weather protection. Which is good for acidic rain. Also, for interior defense, they could have Turrets placed inside of their bases. Including Gatling’ which would definitely do some extreme damage. Personally, what I intend on doing with my next mountain base is also having doors that are mediately protected with guns. He did bring up a good point though about the insights not being guarded by enough turrets so for that, I’d probably put a lot of interior Turrets. This is because they are small and do moderate damage to small light armored grids. Also, with my next one I was planning on making it airtight so that would probably make it harder to penetrate because it would have windows at least at some areas and other areas it would just have armor walls. I was also thinking of making the area pass the interior hanger, which uses extremely large player made large grade doors. Sort of elevator for moving down vehicles, and perhaps even fighters to a area that can act as a bunker. To avoid anything like a modded, super laser, but at the bare minimum guard against. The war heads, which I deal way too much with.
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.
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.
Whenever i made an underground base i made sure that the interior of said base had no rocks showing, id dig out and put unbuilt blocks where i planned to expand, made sure the ceiling was covered, the floor, and the tertiary walls. Some people like the rocky look, however like you said someone with a hand drill
( if they know the layout of your base
[maybe a traitor,ive had it happen])
Can dig straight to your goodies.
Cover up all your axises, always have a backup plan or a secondary base ready to bug out. (Your secondary base doesn’t have to be as big as your main, you can always work on it later)
The most successful inground base ive had was on a asteroid. planets, not so much as planets have alot of traffic.
Just my 2 cents, i only have about 300 hours in SE but those tips always run through my head when building a underground base, everything else Aaron touched on is good advice.
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.
Need something like the base shield that invisible and makes drilling way harder
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.
Sounds like digging should be a LOT harder than it is currently, that would solve most of the problems with ppl exploiting them.
Or at least a device that reinforces terrain across a given area.
Alot of the problems you mention can be fixed by having a large air gap around the underground structure and just filling it with turrets
The key part to any good underground base. Is to dig it deep into a mountain or some place. Then hollow out a massive hole with your base in the middle floating. After that place turrets in every angle around your base (underground). When the rocketman mole shows up they will have no chance to avoid the turrets. You can also set up mini warheads with proximity sensors to slow them down further.
Either way, above ground or below takes effort to build. Remaining hidden and unfound is always the best defense. If/when you are found. Then it deploy many above ground turret bunkers in the area.
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.
I think it comes down to what youre wanting to do. If youre in an area that isnt easily accesible and you wish to stay hidden due to the valley a few kilometers away is a hot mess of warfare, a Subterranean base works well. Also helps you get established before breaking out into the surface with your hangers and hardened defences, thpugh i would argue having a few layers of tunnels around your base that has turrets is a wise idea to prevent mining vehicles and lonely suited men with a drill from finding you.
Yeah SE needs a "1km home block" wich disables not owners to destroy Voxels by Drilling
Agreed. Building an underground base is basically useless. Can just drill to the weakest point then grind. Horrible system.
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.
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
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
I usually build one underground backup base near my main base called „Alamo Site“. It’s basically a storage and command bunker where I keep a certain amount of resources. if my Mainbase gets blown to pieces, I don’t have to start over from zero. It also controls my orbital defense grid (I always build a satellite defense network consisting of recon and PMW missile silo satellites).
Underground bases are a pain to setup but if they are used as Storage or backup facilities they are incredibly useful.
In some scenarios they even become a necessity. Have you ever played on mars with cataclysmic metroids? You are far better off if you build your base underground than on the surface because you never have to repair damages from metroids if you do it properly.
The first two rooms for an underground base should be a hanger/car park with all parking spots connected item/resource grid. The refineries and what not should all be much deeper and having more than 3 ways to get from a to b isn't a bad idea either. The store rooms should be even deeper and the "Trophy" room(s) should be even further. There should be multiple levels with 2-3 respawn points on each level. There should be an armory on each level or an access port to retrieve weapons from deeper in the base. There should be at least 3 int turrets at any turns and 4 plus a gat turret at 3+ junctions.
All natural surfaces in the base should be covered with at least 2 block thick heavy armor preferably increasing in thickness the deeper you go and the surface should also have a platform buried that is at least 2 blocks below surface and 3 blocks thick and stretch at least 50-100 blocks from the closest point of contact of the entrance. A backup entrance/Exit should be given thought and carefully excavated in a manner that makes it difficult to perceive in atypical fashion. If building in a ravine try seeing if you can build an exit or secondary entrance on the other side of the mountain/plateau with said entrance being in a enshrouded spot.
If not trying to actively hide build a standard defense base on top of the main entrance. Use the surrounding topography to develop lines of sight while minimizing exposer for auto defense turrets. Try to build compact if possible anti siege weaponry to take out assault ships and or capital ships and be prepared for kamikaze style attacks. A ship that isn't good at taking hits but doesn't cost much to replace can still do damage if given the chance.
Try to have a backup base with long-range engagement ships so you can sweep from behind. If you can have some remote controlled kinetic missiles to take out small grid ships that are hovering outside base if kinetics are still viable. Its been awhile since I played.
Sadly as pointed out if you are far enough away its possible to see an underground base. Also weapon core doesn't take in account of voxels when targeting. I guess the server could implement a way to make it so that player static structures aren't visible past a certain distance but I am not positive this is possible. Also would still let ships and rovers be seen through the ground although they are smaller so that might mitigate that.
This is if the server has high pcu for each clan/team and a good enough pc to run it on. Hopefully most of the graphical issues gets fixed in later updates. Looking back at this comment I realized some of it is rather... impractical due to pcu and possible playtime limits but it still might be feasible so if this helps someone then glad for it.
I mean on one hand, you're right. On the other, in modded situations, you can use things like the concrete mod to build multiple-layer-thick walls to end up curbing the attackers breaching through walls thing. They're tough enough in that configuration that you'd probably lose less resources storming through the base than trying to breach tunnels.
As for the attackers not having a lot of options, you could just enjoy the push instead, but that doesn't really fix the issue.
For the defenders, though, underground bases are nearly perfect if you can just fix the wall breaching problem.
My underground base has an entrance that is disguised as a raided mess, anyone sniffing around would conclude within the first 5 minutes that the base is abandoned and no there are no valuables left to loot. Little do they know, I have 100’s of tunnels deeper within the abandoned area leading nowhere like a maze of confusion. Only I know the correct tunnel that leads to my actual base. This strategy has served me well for 4 years on a PVP server no raids :)
Bit late to the party but oh well, when I actually play on a server I usually build a mix of above and underground, with a large amount of storage and production being underground and maybe one large hanger and I always armour the walls unless a server rule exists saying that drilling cannot be used. Sinking conveyors and “power lines” is also nice for a neat look.
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.
I love the idea of underground fortresses, I think a rule against mining into underground bases would settle a lot👍
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.
It seems to be like underground bases do have a use, but they shouldnt be your long term base. I think making a functional underground base to get started is a great idea! Get on your feet and start building up some power while you remain stealthy and once you can defend yourself in an open engagement you start on your permanent location above ground or in space
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.
Unground bases can be drilled through - above ground bases can be ground through. Warheads work both ways. On LSG we worked around have major lag problems with voxels by limiting the area your aloud to have the underground base, and I believe with the growing advancement of nukes, underground bases have become some of the only ways to safely protect your cargos and production. Even if the 100x100 cube becomes a 20x20 that gives the community the ability to better protect are production and cargos from being blown up (which causes more problems sometimes for the server than voxels do) and prevents accidental wipes.
counterarguments to your points
1.simply build walls and not use raw voxels for interior walls. now they have to go through the blast door anyway with less energy wasted on voxels and in a possibly harder to breach position
2.claustrophobic encounters, or cqc, is incredibly volatile because of how quick it becomes, ontop of chokepoints. the point of burying a base is to slow an enemy down. ontop of that, it leaves intel hard to come by since you cant just eagle eye a bases layout from above.
3.the counter to placed mineheads is to just put more armor layers. or make your base "exterior" look like rock so its easy to miss until your drill goes clang, leaving it hard to figure out its layout from a moles perspective. possibly even bury "goodies" for them to find like turrets and mines. a motion detector can see through terrain and walls alike.
4.lockdown procedures should be standard on things of signifigant size. even more effective underground if you reinforce the place as they cant just walk around and try another wall, rather they have to find it and dig blindly for it.
5.there should be no "getting ready" state for underground, as you can easilly conceal fully ready defenses with a hidden corner or so on without fear. without distant sight of it by recon, they have no way of knowing its there. if it kills quick enough, it can even repeatedly get players if they die before sending a message about it
6.last but not least, you my have to go through tunnels but so do they. as well as removing support if its far enough down. and if you can dig around, so can they. plus a tunnel they dig is even smaller, perfect fish in a barrel for something.if they leave the hole open, put a trap down real quick for the next team coming behind them. in short the home advantage by knowing where theyll go and knowing the shortcuts to get to them first. bonus points if you have hidden tunnels for doing this.
05:19 The Aisling's angels... that is one way of making me cry real tears...
Another idea: A "Termite Mound". A mostly above-ground fortress with heavy armor, limited entrances, so it has the best of both worlds.
Mod Safezones to block Voxel destruction, but allow grinder/gun battles. It's not perfect, but it does help solves the intro problem.
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 😊
This can apply only to PvP, and if you manage to make your base nearly invisible from outside using only radar antennas and far away relays the enemies will have a hard time finding your base in the first place.
The main problems as I see it is the server slowdown and increase in size of the save file, and the fact that if you're in a place without air, just voxels won't make it to make your base airtight, you'll still need to create rooms with blocks, and that will take plenty of time between digging and building.
However, some advantages to underground bases:
- Harder to find than above ground bases.
- Due to enemies only being able to see your entrances, they do not know anything about the base layout or what to expect inside, making underground bases a maze for those who don't live in it.
- While walls can be drilled, more valuable areas such as storage and command centers can be completely sealed, and turrets can be placed strategically anywhere in the base. plus, as said before, this base is a maze to them, so they don't even know where to drill.
- Due to being underground, your base is much harder to attack with weapons such as bombs, meaning that if your enemy wants to raid you efficiently, they have to go in.
the server load is undeniable but if you build the base like a dungeon, with surprise turrets everywhere, cameras and custom turrets, you can pretty much force stalemate while having nearly inifnite basic materials via refining stone. And of course, have an emergency exit
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.
Great video, I think that drilling in by hand with the drilling tool is not cool but drilling in with a drilling ship would be cool. I didn't think about the lag a bunker would cause maybe it would only be viable on a dedicated rp server rather then a competative pvp server.
i quite like having an underground base, but only one with interesting areas. whenever i make one i go out of my way to add "spectacles" such as monorails (the trains on rails that go over the air idk) complex and good looking door opening sequences, backways, etc. it makes me feel like im in a secret facility like black mesa or the sirpensky (rotfront)
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 hearing that underground bases are visible from orbit since the voxels get rendered weirdly from space, so players can find underground bases quite easily, which negates the stealth aspect if there are spaceborne players.
I have a tendency to make a sort of "open air" hole base. That is to say, the base is partially inland into the earth, but also open to the surface, think Owan and Beru's house from star wars.
It's not as stealthy, but it provides a decent amount of internal protection from air attacks.
when I made my first hidden base there were turrets and heavy armor block everywhere after a lot of time so I don't care about intrudors but I see your point (I will still do them under ground no matter what
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.
consider making underground hangars and an exterior base; disguises a bit of what you are doing without locking you inside, cliff also provides cover from at least one side making it easier on your turrets attempting to engage.
I like this bases. its more difficult and the war never ends😈. To destroy our enemies we need an complet army 😎🔥
The easiest bases to find from orbit are underground ones. The voxel deformation effect amplifies the further away you go up. Even a small underground base looks like a mountain sized crater from 30km up.
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 😊
Arron slowly starts piling the underground-related puns...Cheeky:)
A kind of ‘Claim’ block would work to salve most of the described problems for building underground.
It would work similarly to the safe zone block but but act faction based. It would significantly reduce the effectiveness of Grinders and hand drills wean used by other factions.
Make the base open to flanking attacks to prevent mining. Add Willis shafts to add a layer of interesting infiltration.
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.
I'm literally in a briefing skills class this week and watching this video just made me think of how great of a presenter you are lol. I know it's roughly scripted, but your structure and creative writing make it very good content.
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.
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.
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
Well couldn't one just simply do the same to a normal base?
Start digging far away until they're just underneath and fill everything with warheads...
I also think the their needs to be a mechanic in game that allows you to claim a territory that only allows the owner to mine in a given region. This would eliminate the issues of mining into a base.
Best thing to do with underground bases is make it as an above ground base is a large cave. That way there is no part of your base right next to voxels. Then you can arm the exterior with a liberal amount of interior turrets. This eliminates the effectiveness of breachers. They cannot plant explosives within range of your base because the cave walls are too far away from your base wall for them to do so without being shot.
After 2500 hours, I agree with your points.... i like to have an above ground base but early on will have a small bunker on Pertam.
One positive you didn't mention is the ability to control an attackers economy of effort. An invading force may take my hanger and some basic storage, but they will have to dig or fight through a few kilometers of rock and tunnels if they want anything worth while.
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