Greetings, from Space! (Space Engineers Blog #1)

From the encouragement and inspiration of Calm Wind (a fantastic author on this site, I recommend you check out his work), I have decided to share some of my creative work with a community beyond my nearby friends. I have yet to write any stories for this site, but I do have an idea in the works, though it may be a while in coming.

So, for now, I shall share what I have labored over in Space Engineers, a really fantastic game that I feel goes beyond the premise of Minecraft to present a true challenge and greater replay value. A brief description of the premise is this: You collect and process resources from asteroids to design and build ships and stations in space. The kicker is this game is still in its Alpha-stage, and it already is a lot more fun than Minecraft in my opinion. For more general information about the game, you can click here. But, let’s move on to the creations.
The first one I’ll present is a small ship I call the Hornet-MK1 Interceptor. Designed for short-range to medium range defensive capabilities, the Hornet MK1 was the first fighter that I designed with any sort of satisfaction with the end product.

Below is an image with the interface and stats for the Hornet (as well as a sneak preview of another ship).

The MK1 uses no mods in its design, making it instantly available to a player just starting out and learning the game. Its internal conveyor system is highly functional and accessible, allowing for easy incorporation into other designs for refueling and resupply. It’s fast and maneuverable for its mass, granting decent ship-to-ship combat capabilities.
However, it is not perfect, not by a long shot, for three reasons: Power supply, thruster placement, and expense of materials. The primary propulsion comes from two Large Thrusters, which are bulky and use up a great deal of power. Power for the ship stems from several Small Reactors, which quickly become overloaded in intensive maneuvers. This problem is compounded by the problems with thruster placement. I originally designed the thruster bays with the thought of limiting Thruster Damage to other entities such as carriers and station hangars. (Thrusters can damage and burn through blocks when enabled: Picture placing a torch in Minecraft, but needing to keep where you place it in mind so it doesn't set your roof and doors on fire.) What I didn’t think of was limiting said thruster damage to the fighter itself. Rapid turns and sudden rolls would leave me missing engines and parts of the armor, leaving me confused as to whether or not I hit something or encountered debris. (It took forever and the design of the MK2 for me to determine the cause.)
Finally, the cost and complexity of this ship, given its design flaws, was barely worth the trouble of gathering resources for it in Survival. For a fun Creative Mode showdown, it passes, but I soon found better solutions for Survival.

Next, I shall present the Broadchurch-Class MK1 Heavy Carrier. My second attempt at building a Large Ship (and first in Creative Mode), the Broadchurch was originally designed as a sort of “pirate ship”, meant for a crew of 4-5 to “salvage” the unmanned cargo ships that pass through. It was designed before the Hornet, and was my pride and joy for a while before I developed another Large Ship(which I will most likely be showing next if this blog goes well).

Here are the stats, and a few internal shots:

Sadly, the Broadchurch is not very well lit internally, so these internal pictures aren't very good, even with Google+'s intervention. (was still learning basic construction at the time, and lighting a ship was a pain in the butt back then). If there's interest, I'll make another blog touring the inside of the Broadchurch in detail (once I get some proper lighting in there ).

In closing, I'll just leave a few pictures to illustrate how hard it is to destroy the Broadchurch. I once decided to pack the whole thing with Warheads(powerful stuff) to do a "stress test" on the thing:

As you can see, the thing has already been attacked with rockets, other small arms fire and was even rammed by an early Hornet prototype. At this point, I was getting impatient in trying to find its limit.

Here was the resulting explosion of 100+ Warheads:

....
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....And the aftermath:

It's a tough ship. All things considered, it moves fast and well for a ship of its size. Unlike the Hornet, my only main complaints are the resource requirements needed to build this thing. Of course, I still have yet to take it into combat, since I've never had a crew for it...

And that's all the time I have for now. Thanks for viewing! Hope you enjoyed!