Survival Mode
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Contents
Overview
Survival Mode is a play mode introduced in Update 01.021.024. Unlike Creative Mode, Survival requires investment of resources and introduces elements of real risk. Resources, both natural and artificial, need to be managed and death and loss of materials is a very real possibility. It might be easier to grasp if one remembers that the original name of this mode was "Realistic Mode", which describes many aspect of the mode more clearly, but this name was not selected due to gamer's familiarity with the general idea of "Survival".
Life and Death
Survival introduces health, which when reduced to 0%, will result in death. This means that more complicated setups need to be made while aware of anything that might go wrong. There are several ways one can be damaged, including:
- Explosions
- High-speed collisions
- Falling (up or down; beware of Gravity Generators set too strong!)
- Gunfire
- Energy Loss (Which can lead to Asphyxiating below)
- Asphyxiating (Suffocation) (see Oxygenbelow)
Not all damage is lethal. If the Auto-Healing setting is toggled on, then damage will automatically start to (slowly) regenerate up to 70%. In either case, health can be renewed by visiting and using a Medical Room, which will also act as your respawn point should you perish.
Death
When dying and respawning in a Medical Room, there are currently no repercussions except for the loss of any items in that Engineer's inventory, which can be retrieved by finding your engineers backpack (or body if still present) and looting it.
If there is no Medical Room present that can be used, engineers have the option of respawning in or out of a respawn ship a good distance away from the point of death and travelling back to reclaim their things.
Permanent Death
Permanent Death (if enabled) is when the engineer dies, if there is no Medical Room to use, and is forced to use a respawn ship or space suit, this will cause you to lose the Ownership of all ships and other items owned by an engineer. The ships and items you had control over previously will treat you as hostile, and deny you access in the Terminal.
Space Suit
The Space Suit protects the wearer from the harsh environments in Planets and space. It regulates its own energy supply, contains its own Oxygen supply, Hydrogen fuel for the jetpack, and a built-in Antenna with a range of 200m. It has no means of defense against Weapons, therefore the wearer is quite vulnerable to weapons fire of any sort.
Jetpack
The Jetpack is what allows the engineer to free-roam in space & Planets. It allows for easier construction, maneuvering in environments with no Gravity, climbing and breaking falls. Without it, players have no means of movement in non-gravity environments and are doomed till they run out of resources in their space suit. The space suit jetpack also comes with a built-in Inertial Dampeners, which passively allow the engineer to automatically stabilize their position, or slow down.
Suit Power
In Survival Mode the concept of suit energy represents the limited-capacity battery included in every space suit, and is drained in a variety of ways, including: Used Idle
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That last item isn't a joke. Your suit's life support system slowly drains the suit's energy, and if your energy is ever depleted, your character will slowly asphyxiate, resulting in death if energy is not replenished immediately. The energy indicator will turn red at 20% or lower, and an audio/text warning will remind you at 5%. Energy can also be replenished at a Medical Room, and will also be filled while sitting in a Cockpit, Fighter Cockpit, or Control Station, a Flight Seat or Passenger Seat, if it is powered.
Suit Oxygen
In game version 01.074 ("Oxygen update") the suit has now an internal Oxygen tank to supply the player with breathable O2.
The player now not only needs suit energy, but also O2 to breath in order to survive.
While the player wears his helmet, the suits oxygen tank provides O2 to the player.
The remaining oxygen capacity is displayed in the left status panel of the players HUD in [%]. As is the current status of the helmet (if worn or not).
For more information about the Oxygen system, follow this link.
Suit Hydrogen
Introduced in Update 01.105 the players jetpack now requires Hydrogen in order to fly around. The remaining hydrogen supply is displayed in the left status panel. The player can regain hydrogen supply by either using a medical bay that is attached to a Hydrogen Tank, or with a Hydrogen Bottle in their inventory. The effectiveness of the jetpack changes depending if the player flies in space or on a planet/moon with natural gravity. While in natural gravity, the lifespan of the hydrogen is heavily reduced.
Managing Power
Energy is not limited to just being managed within an Engineer's suit in Survival. All Blocks with any sort of active function, including the Refinery, Assembler, and others, require power to operate. Even Conveyor blocks require power in order to function (see Conveyor Mechanics). Powered blocks need sources of Power such as Solar Panels or Uranium based Small Reactors and Large Reactors.
An important mechanic to note is that only Thrusters and [Battery|Batteries]] will scale their performance based on the available power; e.g. a Refinery will not operate if there's not enough output power (if less than its maximum consumption is provided). They will simply operate at less than full potential.
Power (Uranium)
Uranium powered reactors have the largest output in the game, far exceeding alternatives such as Solar Panels or even Batteries. They are fairly expensive to build and to operate. Reactors require fuel in Survival Mode. The fuel source needed is Uranium Ingots, which is processed from Uranium Ore. Uranium consumption is based on the reactor's output and efficiency. The ore can sometimes be difficult to locate on Asteroids or Planets/Moons.
Small Reactors are capable of powering systems that require a lot of power. However as more Thrusters and blocks such as Refinerys or Assemblers are added, it quickly will be overloaded. The player can add more reactors, or build the more powerful and efficient Large Reactor.
The Large Reactors have 20x the output of a Small Reactor, but the Components required to build them is very expensive up front. That being said, once built, they are capable of powering large amounts of powered blocks, and several Large Thrusters. Space wise, it is far better to build one large reactor, than several small ones for the same amount of output.
Power (Solar)
Solar Panels are capable of generating power from direct exposure to the sun. While not able to output as much power as Small Reactors, they are a source of infinite power without any consumption of resources, except for the building of the solar panel itself. Blocks with high power consumption such as Assemblers cannot be supported by a single solar panelwith low demand on power such as [[Medical Room]s.When used in conjunction with BatteryBatteries]], they are more than capable of rivaling uranium powered reactors on small scales.
Which can passively charge Batteries and generate a limited amount of charge, at least enough for less demanding modules such as the Medical Room.
Inventory
In Survival Mode inventories have a capacity, including your space suit. On default realistic settings, Engineers have 400L of space, which when working on large builds can quickly become a nuisance. This makes ships designed for mining and construction very important, as a dedicated ship with enough containers can have an inventory many hundreds or thousands of times larger than what an Engineer can carry himself.
It also underlines the importance of proper Conveyor systems connecting all the parts of a well-oiled base. No need to be trucking things back and forth when you can make the machines do it!
Disposal of worthless materials (mostly Stone) also becomes an issue. When one is working with finite space and mining a large amount of ore to power the industrial complex, an alarming amount of Stone will be produced regardless of the care put into avoiding it. Stone intake can be minimized by using the secondary function of Drills and Hand Drills, which destroys rock without harvesting. Excess stone can be released through the use of Ejectors, though since Ejectors are limited to Small Ships, specialized setups that allow Small Ships to be connected to your Station through the use of Connectors must be utilized to take advantage of this functionality.
Block Construction
Perhaps the most involved change from Creative to Survival is the way that blocks are placed and arranged. In Creative Mode, Engineers simply select their block of choice and click in the world, and the block is placed, fully formed and fully functioning. In Survival, blocks are made up of Components, which are themselves made of Raw Materials, which are refined from Ores. Thusly, the general workflow when constructing is as follows:
- Harvest Ores, either by hand or by a ship-based Drill
- Use a Refinery to process the ores into the various Raw Materials needed for assembly
- Use an Assembler to construct the various Components making up your Block of choice
- With the Components in your Engineer's (or construction ship's) inventory, place a framework of the block in the world
- Using either a handheld or ship-based Welder, add and weld on the remaining Components to maximize the Block's integrity.
For example, let's say you want to build a Medical Room from scratch. First view that block's linked page to see the Components required for such a device (or view it within the game on the Toolbar Config screen). You'll see that a couple hundred Interior Plate are required, as well as 15 Medical Components and several other Components. If you check the build recipes for these components, you'll see that a large amount of Iron Ore will need to be mined, followed by a small amount of Nickel Ore, Silver Ore, and Silicon Ore, as well as a tiny handful of Gold Ore. Once these have been refined, an Assembler would need to be told to produce the items, and then it would only take a few minutes to produce each item on the list in the number required.
The bottommost Component on the listing is usually the bulk of the structure of the block we are constructing, and at least 1 of that Component is required just to place the block for further building. In the case of our Medical Room, we would first need at least 1 Interior Plate, at which point we could put the Medical Room on our Toolbar from the Toolbar Config screen, select it, and then place our framework with the mouse. A hollow metal framework is now where our Medical Room will be, and all that remains is to flesh it out. Using a Welder while the remaining Components are in your inventory, simply click and hold on the block and the parts will each be welded as they are needed. Once the bar showing integrity has filled past the red line, your block is now up and ready to use! Any Components used beyond the red line will be to reinforce the structural integrity of the block, preventing or mitigating damage from the more fragile and expensive inner Components.
As you can see, this process is significantly more complex than the equivalent process in Creative, and the bulk of one's time while in Survival will be tied up in one step or another of this build process. See Building for more information.
Further Reading
Mark Rosa's original Survival announcement on his development blog.
