Reader Submitted: Space Engineers "The Walkyure"

Besides busy modding her outfits, Valkyrie Ice has been busy in the MMO "Space Engineers." Here is a work of hers that took over a year to make: "The Walkyure, an exercise in large scale ship building." But as the game is in early release in beta, it has been subject to change. Among the changes were some that made the ship impossible to finish as planned, at least for now.

Well, at least you can see what I spent over a year building, only to have SE's "PVP balancing" make impossible to finish.

The Ship made to use the Leviathan Engine wings, The Walkyure was supposed to be a massive carrier ship, able to support multiple fighters, manufacture more at will, defend itself against entire fleets of pirates, etc.

Instead, she's an unfinshed hulk that is likely to never be finished until Keen decides to make the game friendly to BUILDERS again, instead of PVP combat junkies.

Oh well. If you have any interest in ART instead of blowing each other up, feel free to load her. It's a world, and will load all mods. It's primarily Shao mods, with a few others for specific items. You can fly through most of her since the game has turned the majority of her into a ghost, and made it impossible to add any more blocks.

Meanwhile at Space Engineers: "The Grind"

When not in Second Life, a number of the "Furry Gamers" have been building things in the "Space Engineers" game. This includes Jasmine Dawn Shuftan (known in Steam games as Jazmare), whom has been thinking big on a certain problem: how to get lots of ores in a hurry. She had the idea of making a machine big enough to pulverize whole asteroids. So she came up with a giant rock grinder that I christened "The Grind."

As far as ships go, "The Grind" is truly a beast. Row upon row of rock-chewing grinders that work across huge lengths of surface on an asteroid. It can gather up tons of ores in a hurry. And most of it gets picked up. A few rocks avoid being gathered in by the machine, but not many.

One can see the difference what about a minute of operation did to this asteroid.

Seen from below, "The Grind" is a fearsome sight with all of those rock-gnawing metal teeth. You really do *not* want to be beneath and close when it starts up.

Jasmine made this in her own game, so when the new "Dedicated servers" feature came up and Nydia started a world, she was unable to bring it there. But no doubt she'll come up with something soon that Nydia and other SE players can enjoy.

Bixyl Shuftan.

Game Review: Space Engineers

When one things of space games, one usually thinks of alien invaders and blowing them apart in battle. Asteroids, just an obstacle to move around with no purpose other than to wreck someone not paying attention. "Space Engineers" is a game in which the main purpose is not combat, but building. Although combat is an option for the more aggressive players, most of the time will be spent mining asteroids for ores, refining ores into various metals, and assembling the metals into various parts, and using the parts to build and modify stations and ships to suit one's needs and goals. Nydia Tungsten gives her review on the game, which has been the latest hit among her gaming neighbors in Second Life.

Read Nydia's review in Other Grids and MMOs.

Gamer Weekend

Besides Second Life, there was a bit going on in online games last weekend.

The "War Thunder" multiplayer online game has gotten attention for being an air combat game with players in planes bombing enemy tanks and AA positions, as well as scrapping against each other. On May 15, they had their "Update 1.41," which released their open beta for the tank action. So far, only Russian and German tanks are available for research, and there's just one beginning tank for each.

It was also the last few days for the "Wildstar" Open Beta. This space-themed MMO in development had been talked about by a few friends of mine. In the game, players choose one of two factions, the Exiles and the Dominion, one of eight races (four for each faction), one of six classes of character (warrior, medic, engineer, etc.), and one of four paths (soldier, scientists, explorer, settler). After your introduction on your faction's spaceship, players go down to the planet Nexus where the action takes place.

The game had a bit of a cartoony feel compared to "World of Warcraft." But it wasn't kiddie stuff with some of the language. I got to level eight for one character of each faction (Chua and Aurin), in which the plot gave each faction a reason for hating the other. It wasn't perfect as bugs slowed down the action sometimes, but I thought the game was worth keeping an eye on.

So what have my neighbors in Second Life been up to when not in Second Life? The "Furry Gamers" from HV Community have taken interest in a new one from Steam: Space Engineers. In this game, players mine asteroids to build stations and ships, and can either cooperate, or fight one another. There have been some fun short films of what happens when ships ram one another.

Well, all for now. More from the gaming front soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

Image credit: warthunder.com