Here's a tip: You can use your crane arm to teleport. Pick up your craft and smash the cockpit into something, and just like that you show up at your survival kit.
Another way to identify blocks is to add an antenna and use the Show on HUD feature. Its useful when you either cannot add a control panel or if you have many blocks. You get the labels visible when looking at the block and can write them down and then go into a control panel an do the renaming. Just remember to turn down the range of the antenna if in hostile environments. :) Oh, and remember to turn on the feature both on the blocks and in the info tab.
@@Splitsie Its especially useful when you have forgotten to name a dozen lights, instead of playing around with light settings or grinding them down :P
OMG... A new Splitsie tutorial?! The sages foretold of this day, but their words had become all but lost to the annals of history, passing into legend, and eventually myth. Few remain whom remember a time when Splitsie tutorials were abundant and roamed the interwebs, as common as cat videos.
Nvm i just found the one u showed that off did u ever figure out how to better use it for cranes or after that video did u keep experimenting with it for crane purposes
I absolutely LOVE MArmOS for anything involving cranes or articulating arms. It is a _little_ complicated to figure out at first, but the script contains enough comments and there are also many example arms that you can reverse-engineer to understand how they work. Once you know how to create a functional articulating arm using the bare minimum of parts, it is pretty easy to expand it out to whatever you need. The best part of MArmOS is how intuitive it is once you get all of the parts named and in the correct orientations. It is as simple as using WASD controls and your mouse to move the end of the arm. Slap a camera on the front and you have a first-person remote controlled arm that works just like a remote controlled ship, but it's not a ship. It's an arm. It behaves exactly as you would expect an IK rig to function, which surprised me. I was not expecting a script to provide such precise and fluid control, especially when everything is using pistons and rotors. There are also lots of cool things you can do with the script to alter the control features. For example, depending on how you change a few lines, that can influence the way the "end" of the arm moves. I usually set mine up so the "end" functions sort of like the head of a chicken. The "end" acts like a gimbal, where an arbitrary point in front of the end of the arm serves as a pivot. So you can keep your mouse pointed at one spot, and rotate the arm around that spot. Instead of functioning like a ship, it sort of "strafes" around that point, maintaining the distance on all planes of motion. The script will attempt to keep the crosshair on the exact spot it is looking at, using the rotors to maintain that position while still allowing it to move in other axes. This is VERY USEFUL for creating welders, as you can easily pivot the arm around an entire contraption as it is being welded with minimal input on your part. I like to set up "welding arms" that are attached to a base or station. This works SO MUCH BETTER than trying to build an ungodly ship printer, as you can just weld up ANYTHING regardless of what grid it is on, and even with the bare minimum of pistons and rotors, it can cover a VERY long distance. And, you don't have to fiddle with trying to attach small grids to large or vice versa. It is also significantly easier to build a welding arm using MArmOS _from scratch_ than it is to try and build a complicated ship printer. I set one up in a multiplayer game about a year ago, pretty much on day one. I also used it to weld up the rest of the stuff on the base. Having it attached to the base and all containers just simplifies the whole construction process. No need to constantly go back and forth with a welding ship when you have a massive arm that can go anywhere. You can also do lots of other things with it too: cranes to lift things, drilling arms, grinding arms, welding arms, etc. There are soooo many options with MArmOS, I absolutely love it. I can't imagine trying to build an articulating arm without it. Once you get everything set up and functional, blueprint that sucker and you never have to worry about it again. It _did_ take me awhile to really figure out how to use MArmOS. I noodled around with it and a bunch of example arms in creative mode for at least a few hours. But once I had successfully built my own arm and it worked exactly the way I wanted it to, I just blueprinted it and never messed with it again. I have since forgotten how to do all of that, since I whip out the blueprints and just paste them in any time I need an arm for a task. But it is WELL worth the time to learn how it works, it really isn't as daunting as it seems at a glance once you know the basics, and the arms can be built pretty quickly in Survival.
You make cranes look so easy. After making a crane and applying said forces. It launched itself nearly to space in many pieces. Glad I took a blueprint.
I am Excited to see how far... A: Space Engineers has progressed since i found it B: You have come since I found you :) Thank you for being a part of my life.
This is really cool. I remember building my first crane/ front loader after seeing you do it. That said, the game doesn't really provide much use for such hardware. I used mine as a wrecker/ recovery vehicle for mishaps, but never for actual freight management. Cargo management would be pretty cool with such a thing. Especially loading ammunition and supplies on ships.
This is why I think Control Module and Mechanical Keybinds should be vanilla, even though they are mods, they are much easier to set up overall than scripts when it comes to this :) Mechanical Keybinds : Cockpits being main keybind pilot Control Module : Porgrammable Blocks having the say in what's going on
Yeah, something like this in vanilla would be nice, though none of the solutions I've ever used really felt clean enough to be a vanilla solution but that could be due to modAPI limitations
@@Splitsie Yeah, I think that would be it, it would also help everyone if the rotors didn't just slam the breaks sometimes too I suppose, I have had a few incidents with rotors when it comes to cranes :)
Awesome job sir. Your tutorials were what got me started (and addicted) to Space Engineers. Keep up the great work. I'd like to see a follow up on how you did it with the turret controller since I'm a bit dense -- Like lead or Catpac before his morning sandwich.
Nice to see the return of the Splitsie Tutorial Series; your original batch of videos made me into the competent engineer I am presently (still vast amounts of room for improvement, of course). Additionally, heard a phantom Capac "ow" when the crane truck drove through the camera at the very end there. The curse is real, folks.
Easily the best crane video. this was the only one I was able to explain you explain things so smothely I just got the game and I'm really into it but this game has a huge learning curve and your toturials are helping thank you god bless !!!!
I wasn't planning on watching a Splitsie tutorial for the first half hour of my day, but this has overridden everything else. Well done, I am now confident to enter the scrap business in earnest. Not retiring my mini-forklift drone yet though, it has been super useful so far.
Great to see new tutorials coming up :D Keep up great work and channel Splitsie, hope to see more in the future It would be great to see tutorial for setting up custom world(s) for multiplayer or single player, for example setting up planets, asteroid fields etc., maybe some editing and scripting etc. I didn't find good tutorials for these as they're all skipping some steps or lot of them etc.
An amazing tutorial, interesting and funny... Have to say though, the little avatar Capac is probably the most useful he's ever been 😜 Looking forward to more of these and I was wondering if maybe you could do 'when things go wrong' videos, I think the mayhem and destruction could be really funny, especially if you can convince Capac to 'help' with the demonstrations.
Very well done Splitsie, I have problems following some peoples tutorials since they tend to overlook mentioning key things (usually something they do all the time that it doesn't occur to them that others have to learn it first too, lol) but u hit all the important parts. love your work. Warning: If i don't get a road trip series soon, I will not be responsible for any actions I may take. just say'n ... hehe
Great to see another tutorial. We know how much you hate to break immersion when you are streaming with friends, but so interesting to have an out of character description of some of your constructions. Have you ever though of adding a few minutes of out of character section or blooper to the end of your scenario/edited videos?
Super Easy Ground Lock. (OSHA Approved) Same setup as shown (Piston and mag-plate mounted wherever u like, I like flush with bottom). 1) Set the piston power to zero (as low as u can), then increase it just 1 step. (the goal is to have just enough power to lift the piston itself back to full retraction and no more. setting the value - starting at zero - while extended, unlocked and with retract active.) 2) set the mag-plate to auto-lock. 3) add controls for 'UnLock' on the Plate and 'Reverse' on the piston. To operate u just press 'Unlock' followed immediately by 'Reverse piston' If u add a timer block with these two commands then u can raise and lower with one click of the same button. The advantage of this is that the Piston will: 1) Always reach the ground since there is no need to set limits. 2) will auto lock and detach WITHOUT adding phantom forces to you vehicle (or move it on contact with the ground) , but at the same time lock u in place. 3) with this setup (especially the timer block) you can use multiple pistons with One button. Even on uneven terrain and they will all lock without any SE intervention. Advanced uses are for leveling your vehicle (or un-leveling it) repair jacks. and can even be used out the sides for attachment to walls if needed.
Got back into SE recently as was thinking about something like this, but didn't know how I would do it. Had an idea but never really used hinges and rotors and pistons in such a way. Thank you!
I want to thank you for this video and all others, truthfully. Space Engineers is a tough beast to master. Add scripting to that and I am lost. But I used your tutorial and the PARK script to set up my first fully functioning crane today. It took some trial and error(on my part), but your instructions made doing this into a capable job. Thank you, again. Aaaannd, here's an edit to say I've contributed to your Patreon.
Another vanilla option is to use a pair of Custom Turret Controllers. First CTC controls the Shoulder Rotor (Main) and the Shoulder Hinge plus the Proximal Pistons. Second CTC controls the Shoulder Rotor (Main) again, but the Elbow Hinge plus Distal Pistons. By having both CTC's rotate the main rotor on the frame of the vehicle, you can fine tune your allignment as your pistons extend towards the desired item!
I've tooled around with this concept a bit and its pretty solid. Mouse control gives you better fine tuned control, but you can also use the arrow keys for this purpose.
That script is interesting, I've been doing my cranes with turret controllers, it works well enough. My life became a lot simpler after I learned how real cranes name their parts. The internet is full with layouts for cranes for operators detailing those parts. It cuts down on the confusion especially if your cranes have parts that don't line up with the human arm.
lol The funny thing was, I made this tutorial because of making the mod and how many people wanted help with it back when I first released it :P The current series is the second time I've played through my scrapyard stuff
@@Splitsie took me some time to set everything up, but finally I amd out scrapping ... this really brought me back to SE. I even bought some of the DLC I ignored in the past. Thank you very much for this incredible mod!
Show off!, using your crane skills at the end of the video without exploding😁, this Script is really helpful, i tried to use the arm script in the past but i could not get past 2 rotors and a piston(hinges were not a thing back then), so this scrip will make it way easier to controle stuff.
Something I've found that helps with the shaking, other than 'share inertial tenser', is place a gyroscope near the mag plate on the crane and turn on its override to full power.
The configuration you have for the crane is good, I would offset the "elbow" hinge by 90 degrees so that it's range is completely folded to completely straight, as opposed to a 90 degree bend in either direction. This will allow the crane to more easily reach points near the crane base and potentially load stuff onto itself.
The main reasons I don't tend to do that are aesthetics and scale, getting a hinge rotated that way and still looking neat is a much tougher ask, but if managed you're right, it can make it function a little better :)
@@Splitsie It would also work to just have two hinges, if it's aesthetics you're worried about. That would give you a full 360 degrees of rotation on the elbow!
I've actually been using dual hinges and a rotor on the end of my arm as the wrist. Offsetting one of them 90 from the other, gives you the left/right and up/down of a wrist, then a rotor on the end to manipulate the block. Makes for a very precise manipulator.
Although they aren’t available to everyone, mods and/or scripts can greatly augment your craning experience. Particularly control module, which lets you set keybinds for block/group actions, giving you simpler control of your joints and freeing up a good deal of hotbar real estate. I don’t know the technical term for them, I prefer cranes that have a lift piston forward of the shoulder joint and behind the elbow. While somewhat more difficult to set up (it will require a tutorial, trigonometry, or a lot of trial and error), you get much more leverage, which translates directly to lifting capacity. They also look cooler.
With the PARK script, you can set up "mixed" control schemes, can't you? For example, you can have your second hinge un-do all motions of the first hinge. That way, your first hinge would only control the very first pistoned segment, and everything beyond the second hinge would stay aligned the same way it was. Or with your wrist design, you can have the second wrist rotor un-do all motions of the first wrist rotor. That way the keys for your first rotor only change the alignment of your wrist hinge, not the alignment of your magplate. Obviously you'd still want individual controls for the second hinge and the second wrist hinge to be able to articulate the load.
When you have small numbers of controls, you can get things almost as clear by leaving gaps in the hotbars as by using completely different toolbars for each control point. So the first hotbar might be: 1: Shoulder rotor on/off 2: Shoulder rotor reverse 3: blank 4: Shoulder hinge on/off 5: Shoulder hinge reverse 6: blank 7: Proximal pistons retract 8: Proximal pistons on/off 9: Proximal pistons extend Of course, this works the best when you have different kinds of thing to control. Also, when the resulting hotbars are intuitive groups, (such as having the various parts of the same joint together).
Thanks for the videos. I recently found this overly complex game and have been consuming video like a capac. I just never know if the 4+ year old vid still has valid info. Or if a script /mod hasn't been updated in some time because it was abandoned or is a case of 'you can't improve on perfection'. I would enjoy seeing you revisit some of your early tutorials with the knowledge and experience you have now.
Love your stuff and glad to see a new tutorial (I've been watching a lot of the 5 year old ones). The question this video generated for me is: What would you want a crane for? What kinds of things do you actually need to lift and move around in Space Engineers?
You don't need a crane, unless you modify your game to play with no jetpack and challenging flight conditions. Then crashes become really useful for construction as flying something into place isn't a good option 🙂
I like the "just enjoy the fireworks" because yeah, if you stuffed it up that bad, might as well enjoy the ride. there's a learning curve and it usually involves feeding clang more then a few times.
On my own design i made counterweight back of the crane like real ones haves, that makes big difference and reduces the weight of the vehicle when weight is in right place.
7:20 there's a penalty to setting torque to crazy. It allows you to push stuff hard enough into the ground that they can explode. Within the white range, it usually stops moving when it should not be able to. 8:30: yesterday I put out a mod, configurable actions, that allows the player to change how fast actions change the velocity of rotors (and pistons).
2:21 i had to laugh so hard XD,... "Enjoy the Firework"... so true... By the Way theres another way, just put the Magneticplate directly under the Suspensiun (i mean put it from the bottom on the Suspension part). Now when you lower you suspension (all your wheels) then you are able to lock to the ground...
A little tip to identify quickly,your parts (or any other items in multiple). Just check "ON" the "Show on HUD" in the terminal. Then you can immediately identify them ;) It's kinda faster and less tidious than when you placed a block and a control panel to see which one is white
That only works in survival mode if you've already built an antenna, so the method I showed here is useful when that hasn't been done or won't be done :)
@@Splitsie Ah Ok ! I’m fairly new to the game and I only have played in survival until now, So I have yet a lot to learn and your videos have helped me a lot 🙂 Keep up the good work 💪
I’ve been following and using marmos since it’s conception and lemme tell you it’s no fun to use but when it gets set up right (which I’m only barley good at doing) the possibilities are endless it can record movements and everything so heckin cool 😎
I would consider trying a two stage crane using a Turret controller. Starting with Splitsy's base with the Rotor and hinge there for the base pieces, almost identically set. then the Controller would be used to control a higher stage area on the Crane. so you'd control it much like you'd aim a turret. No need for scripts that way, and you just have to put the Control options in the bar for the main rotor and hinge to movements.
i started a new game recently, with everything on realistic settings, efficiency, wolves, spiders, all that shennanigans, man its a different game. so hard to get off the ground, because stone is all you can use in the survival kit, and the yields are so god damned low. the area i landed in was in was rocky, and no good resources either, so i packed everything up onto a cool small grid 8 wheeled flatbed truck, with the survival kit built into it, and moved home today, i packed all my wind farms, refinery, assembler, etc onto my truck found a nice ice lake, with loads of resources around it. feels good. time to set up my new home today. where its nice and flat o7
This was made way easier with turret controllers and the Contact update that added the ability to set hinge/piston/rotor positions. I should really build one.
Yeah, the extra hotbar options can make a big difference, but for a fully functional crane I still think the script is the way to go, but for things that are doing the same movements repeatedly e.g. walkers the new settings are a godsend :)
It looks like the option to have multple constrol schemes in PARK would let you have a return position for each profile. That wouldn't be particularly useful for a crane like the one demonstrated here, since it's not really designed to take advantage of it. But if space is a consideration - say, because you're planning to drive your crane in and out of a garage - you could design one that folds into a compact stowage position and then unfurls when you reach the job site.
Glad to see you're still making these! I'm curious if you'd be interested in updating your older ones, some of which may be a little out of date after some of the updates from KSH?
"...if you manage that, just enjoy the fireworks" - reminds me of the time where I tried to attach a rover to my 2000 ton mining ship and flipped the whole fricking thing... still sad Shadow Play took a nap that time, didn't manage to recreate that : ( That break dancing at the end was impressive. At first I only expected a hand stand, then that it does a "cart wheel" and then it instead just showed of what you can do when physics have no say about grip anymore xD
I'm making a recovery vehicle with a heavy capacity crane... uses pistons for up/down movement... it's actually insanely strong... and it's got 6 out rigers by the rear keeping it extremely well locked to the ground, so far it works and I just need to tune speeds and build the rest of the actual vehicle
Great Video!! Really helps show the options one has with cranes. One question from your scrapyard series. How do you make a return to a home location and vice versa?
The instructions are a bit long, but are in the script itself, if you're running into troubles jump into my discord (discord.gg/zebramonkeys) and create a help post as there are lots of people in the community who are very skilled with PARK who'll be able to help out even if I'm not around :)
I really want to see a way to use inverse kinematics to position a conveyor arm to automatically connect with a vehicle. Apparently you can get the Vector3D position of a sensor on the vehicle which would allow you to then target the IK arm at that position.
I know this is an old video so this probably won be seen but Im just getting into SE and For cranes Im wondering could a rotor at 90 degreed be used instead of a hinge for the elbow joint? This would allow better range of movement I feel close to the vehicle.
@@Splitsie Fantastic. Thanks so much for the reply love the videos. Just made a pull behind trailer with a crane that lays flat similar to the one you made on the scrapyard series but single pistons side by side instead of double under each other.
My only critique is with the build style. You're mounting all the funtional components directly to each other without any blocks supporting or in-between. That arm is going to completely fall off if the rear battery takes any damage, the front wheels are only attached to the cab, and both the cab and computer to the front battery. The whole thing will be really difficult to repair or modify, and will fall apart in a crash. Everything needs to attach to the chassis, bro.
It works but it's not as easy as it could be to switch between control points and have things behave well, certainly doable for simple cranes though :)
Using vanilla is aimed more at people who are not yet confident with mods such as build vision, it took me a long time to get to use that one and then only because the mod came as part of a workshop scenario and was auto-subbed.
What is the state of joystick/throttle etc support? Being able to use joysticks, throttle, steering wheel and pedals as appropriate would be "nice". I know that with appropriate driver software I can kludge something but good native support is generally the best option.
There was a time, not too long ago, when Clang would've consumed your entire world for the sin of sticking two rotors on the same grid. Now, we have this. What a time to be alive.
Could you make a crane arm driller utilizing this? If so I have a new idea to try on my moon base, even if it doesnt reach very deep at all it could be useful if I need iron to just grab an ass load of stone right from the nearby mountainsides.
Huh I always thought that braking torque was for preventing movement while on and regular was just for active movement thx Splitsie Oh next could you do like factory crane ya know that platform that moves on rails and is generally used inside factories
Here's a tip: You can use your crane arm to teleport. Pick up your craft and smash the cockpit into something, and just like that you show up at your survival kit.
The downside is that, for some reason, your inventory and truck don't teleport with you. I hope Keen fixes that...
😂
Another way to identify blocks is to add an antenna and use the Show on HUD feature. Its useful when you either cannot add a control panel or if you have many blocks. You get the labels visible when looking at the block and can write them down and then go into a control panel an do the renaming. Just remember to turn down the range of the antenna if in hostile environments. :) Oh, and remember to turn on the feature both on the blocks and in the info tab.
Oh yeah, I should have shown that off as well :)
@@Splitsie Its especially useful when you have forgotten to name a dozen lights, instead of playing around with light settings or grinding them down :P
@@Neutral_Ground_With_Larkin If only games combining was a thing that could happen...
@@ZarHakkar Ah yeah Kerbil Space Program and Space Engineers.
@@Splitsie only thing is that you need to reload into the game for it to work sadly
OMG... A new Splitsie tutorial?!
The sages foretold of this day, but their words had become all but lost to the annals of history, passing into legend, and eventually myth. Few remain whom remember a time when Splitsie tutorials were abundant and roamed the interwebs, as common as cat videos.
lol That's the tragedy of feeling like I've covered most of the material I feel qualified to cover :D
@@Splitsie well, then update the previous tutorials 😁
@@DC2022 I agree
@@Splitsie could this be made easier by using the turret controller block
Nvm i just found the one u showed that off did u ever figure out how to better use it for cranes or after that video did u keep experimenting with it for crane purposes
I absolutely LOVE MArmOS for anything involving cranes or articulating arms. It is a _little_ complicated to figure out at first, but the script contains enough comments and there are also many example arms that you can reverse-engineer to understand how they work. Once you know how to create a functional articulating arm using the bare minimum of parts, it is pretty easy to expand it out to whatever you need.
The best part of MArmOS is how intuitive it is once you get all of the parts named and in the correct orientations. It is as simple as using WASD controls and your mouse to move the end of the arm. Slap a camera on the front and you have a first-person remote controlled arm that works just like a remote controlled ship, but it's not a ship. It's an arm. It behaves exactly as you would expect an IK rig to function, which surprised me. I was not expecting a script to provide such precise and fluid control, especially when everything is using pistons and rotors.
There are also lots of cool things you can do with the script to alter the control features. For example, depending on how you change a few lines, that can influence the way the "end" of the arm moves. I usually set mine up so the "end" functions sort of like the head of a chicken. The "end" acts like a gimbal, where an arbitrary point in front of the end of the arm serves as a pivot. So you can keep your mouse pointed at one spot, and rotate the arm around that spot. Instead of functioning like a ship, it sort of "strafes" around that point, maintaining the distance on all planes of motion. The script will attempt to keep the crosshair on the exact spot it is looking at, using the rotors to maintain that position while still allowing it to move in other axes. This is VERY USEFUL for creating welders, as you can easily pivot the arm around an entire contraption as it is being welded with minimal input on your part.
I like to set up "welding arms" that are attached to a base or station. This works SO MUCH BETTER than trying to build an ungodly ship printer, as you can just weld up ANYTHING regardless of what grid it is on, and even with the bare minimum of pistons and rotors, it can cover a VERY long distance. And, you don't have to fiddle with trying to attach small grids to large or vice versa. It is also significantly easier to build a welding arm using MArmOS _from scratch_ than it is to try and build a complicated ship printer. I set one up in a multiplayer game about a year ago, pretty much on day one. I also used it to weld up the rest of the stuff on the base. Having it attached to the base and all containers just simplifies the whole construction process. No need to constantly go back and forth with a welding ship when you have a massive arm that can go anywhere.
You can also do lots of other things with it too: cranes to lift things, drilling arms, grinding arms, welding arms, etc. There are soooo many options with MArmOS, I absolutely love it. I can't imagine trying to build an articulating arm without it. Once you get everything set up and functional, blueprint that sucker and you never have to worry about it again.
It _did_ take me awhile to really figure out how to use MArmOS. I noodled around with it and a bunch of example arms in creative mode for at least a few hours. But once I had successfully built my own arm and it worked exactly the way I wanted it to, I just blueprinted it and never messed with it again. I have since forgotten how to do all of that, since I whip out the blueprints and just paste them in any time I need an arm for a task. But it is WELL worth the time to learn how it works, it really isn't as daunting as it seems at a glance once you know the basics, and the arms can be built pretty quickly in Survival.
You make cranes look so easy. After making a crane and applying said forces. It launched itself nearly to space in many pieces. Glad I took a blueprint.
I miss these Splitsie tutorials. Glad to see another one on the channel :)
I am Excited to see how far...
A: Space Engineers has progressed since i found it
B: You have come since I found you :)
Thank you for being a part of my life.
This is really cool. I remember building my first crane/ front loader after seeing you do it.
That said, the game doesn't really provide much use for such hardware. I used mine as a wrecker/ recovery vehicle for mishaps, but never for actual freight management.
Cargo management would be pretty cool with such a thing. Especially loading ammunition and supplies on ships.
This is why I think Control Module and Mechanical Keybinds should be vanilla, even though they are mods, they are much easier to set up overall than scripts when it comes to this :)
Mechanical Keybinds : Cockpits being main keybind pilot
Control Module : Porgrammable Blocks having the say in what's going on
Yeah, something like this in vanilla would be nice, though none of the solutions I've ever used really felt clean enough to be a vanilla solution but that could be due to modAPI limitations
@@Splitsie Yeah, I think that would be it, it would also help everyone if the rotors didn't just slam the breaks sometimes too I suppose, I have had a few incidents with rotors when it comes to cranes :)
I will definitely be using this tutorial to build a crane for the SRC, Great video! 😁
Awesome job sir. Your tutorials were what got me started (and addicted) to Space Engineers. Keep up the great work. I'd like to see a follow up on how you did it with the turret controller since I'm a bit dense -- Like lead or Catpac before his morning sandwich.
Same. God bless Splitsie. And Capac, too.
You must have read my mind. I NEED this tutorial yesterday, Thank you sir!
Nice to see the return of the Splitsie Tutorial Series; your original batch of videos made me into the competent engineer I am presently (still vast amounts of room for improvement, of course).
Additionally, heard a phantom Capac "ow" when the crane truck drove through the camera at the very end there. The curse is real, folks.
Watching this black magic makes me feel like I'm rubbing two sticks together with my single rover that just learned steer properly after 3 days
It gets much easier with time, but I still manage to make things explode accidentally from time to time :D
Can't wait for your tutorials! I "upgraded" my game so many times in the past because of your tutorials.
the moment at 1:46 made me chuckle throughout the video, nice cut
Easily the best crane video. this was the only one I was able to explain you explain things so smothely I just got the game and I'm really into it but this game has a huge learning curve and your toturials are helping thank you god bless !!!!
Thanks, glad it was helpful :)
I wasn't planning on watching a Splitsie tutorial for the first half hour of my day, but this has overridden everything else. Well done, I am now confident to enter the scrap business in earnest. Not retiring my mini-forklift drone yet though, it has been super useful so far.
Great to see new tutorials coming up :D Keep up great work and channel Splitsie, hope to see more in the future
It would be great to see tutorial for setting up custom world(s) for multiplayer or single player, for example setting up planets, asteroid fields etc., maybe some editing and scripting etc.
I didn't find good tutorials for these as they're all skipping some steps or lot of them etc.
An amazing tutorial, interesting and funny... Have to say though, the little avatar Capac is probably the most useful he's ever been 😜
Looking forward to more of these and I was wondering if maybe you could do 'when things go wrong' videos, I think the mayhem and destruction could be really funny, especially if you can convince Capac to 'help' with the demonstrations.
I love the little pointer, definitely one of my best creations and I've been having fun with getting better at animating it too :D
i want you to know that i really like you using the little engineer to point at things, please keep doing that in future :D
great video!
Lol I'm glad it's as useful as I hoped it would be 🙂
Very well done Splitsie, I have problems following some peoples tutorials since they tend to overlook mentioning key things (usually something they do all the time that it doesn't occur to them that others have to learn it first too, lol) but u hit all the important parts. love your work.
Warning: If i don't get a road trip series soon, I will not be responsible for any actions I may take. just say'n ... hehe
Great to see another tutorial.
We know how much you hate to break immersion when you are streaming with friends, but so interesting to have an out of character description of some of your constructions.
Have you ever though of adding a few minutes of out of character section or blooper to the end of your scenario/edited videos?
This is a really helpful tutorial. Seeing and listening to concepts like this expands my horizons.
Perfect tutorial. I’m about to use it for my welding crane!
Thank you 🙏🏻
Super Easy Ground Lock. (OSHA Approved)
Same setup as shown (Piston and mag-plate mounted wherever u like, I like flush with bottom).
1) Set the piston power to zero (as low as u can), then increase it just 1 step. (the goal is to have just enough power to lift the piston itself back to full retraction and no more. setting the value - starting at zero - while extended, unlocked and with retract active.)
2) set the mag-plate to auto-lock.
3) add controls for 'UnLock' on the Plate and 'Reverse' on the piston.
To operate u just press 'Unlock' followed immediately by 'Reverse piston'
If u add a timer block with these two commands then u can raise and lower with one click of the same button.
The advantage of this is that the Piston will:
1) Always reach the ground since there is no need to set limits.
2) will auto lock and detach WITHOUT adding phantom forces to you vehicle (or move it on contact with the ground) , but at the same time lock u in place.
3) with this setup (especially the timer block) you can use multiple pistons with One button. Even on uneven terrain and they will all lock without any SE intervention. Advanced uses are for leveling your vehicle (or un-leveling it) repair jacks. and can even be used out the sides for attachment to walls if needed.
Got back into SE recently as was thinking about something like this, but didn't know how I would do it. Had an idea but never really used hinges and rotors and pistons in such a way. Thank you!
I want to thank you for this video and all others, truthfully. Space Engineers is a tough beast to master. Add scripting to that and I am lost. But I used your tutorial and the PARK script to set up my first fully functioning crane today. It took some trial and error(on my part), but your instructions made doing this into a capable job. Thank you, again. Aaaannd, here's an edit to say I've contributed to your Patreon.
That's awesome, so glad it helped you out and thank you for the support :)
Glad to see you getting back to some tutorial videos!
I’ll be keeping this info ready for when scrap comes out already conned some friends into joining a group to play it
lol Nice :)
Another vanilla option is to use a pair of Custom Turret Controllers. First CTC controls the Shoulder Rotor (Main) and the Shoulder Hinge plus the Proximal Pistons. Second CTC controls the Shoulder Rotor (Main) again, but the Elbow Hinge plus Distal Pistons. By having both CTC's rotate the main rotor on the frame of the vehicle, you can fine tune your allignment as your pistons extend towards the desired item!
I've tooled around with this concept a bit and its pretty solid. Mouse control gives you better fine tuned control, but you can also use the arrow keys for this purpose.
That script is interesting, I've been doing my cranes with turret controllers, it works well enough. My life became a lot simpler after I learned how real cranes name their parts. The internet is full with layouts for cranes for operators detailing those parts. It cuts down on the confusion especially if your cranes have parts that don't line up with the human arm.
Came here from the Scrapyard series and want to try this myself. Great way of promoting your previous turorials ;)
lol The funny thing was, I made this tutorial because of making the mod and how many people wanted help with it back when I first released it :P
The current series is the second time I've played through my scrapyard stuff
@@Splitsie took me some time to set everything up, but finally I amd out scrapping ... this really brought me back to SE. I even bought some of the DLC I ignored in the past. Thank you very much for this incredible mod!
Awesome tutorial, i finally have less feelings towards script because i was actually scared of them haha
Loved the crane yoga at the end
Show off!, using your crane skills at the end of the video without exploding😁, this Script is really helpful, i tried to use the arm script in the past but i could not get past 2 rotors and a piston(hinges were not a thing back then), so this scrip will make it way easier to controle stuff.
You do the best tutorials!
Try once more to master MArmOS, as a tutorial from you on that script would be the best 😁👍
"And have it lock to itself" at 1:40 made me laugh more than it should, it's happened to me SO many times
love the animated character showing which sides the hinges should be lol
Something I've found that helps with the shaking, other than 'share inertial tenser', is place a gyroscope near the mag plate on the crane and turn on its override to full power.
The configuration you have for the crane is good, I would offset the "elbow" hinge by 90 degrees so that it's range is completely folded to completely straight, as opposed to a 90 degree bend in either direction. This will allow the crane to more easily reach points near the crane base and potentially load stuff onto itself.
The main reasons I don't tend to do that are aesthetics and scale, getting a hinge rotated that way and still looking neat is a much tougher ask, but if managed you're right, it can make it function a little better :)
@@Splitsie It would also work to just have two hinges, if it's aesthetics you're worried about. That would give you a full 360 degrees of rotation on the elbow!
This game needs more people playing!!!!!
Awesome and informative as always Splitsie another excellent Space Engineers guide.
I've actually been using dual hinges and a rotor on the end of my arm as the wrist. Offsetting one of them 90 from the other, gives you the left/right and up/down of a wrist, then a rotor on the end to manipulate the block. Makes for a very precise manipulator.
Thank you Splitsie.. this was AWESOME and definitely needed!!
Awesome tutorial splitsie very good info sir as per usual...
Although they aren’t available to everyone, mods and/or scripts can greatly augment your craning experience. Particularly control module, which lets you set keybinds for block/group actions, giving you simpler control of your joints and freeing up a good deal of hotbar real estate.
I don’t know the technical term for them, I prefer cranes that have a lift piston forward of the shoulder joint and behind the elbow. While somewhat more difficult to set up (it will require a tutorial, trigonometry, or a lot of trial and error), you get much more leverage, which translates directly to lifting capacity. They also look cooler.
With the PARK script, you can set up "mixed" control schemes, can't you?
For example, you can have your second hinge un-do all motions of the first hinge. That way, your first hinge would only control the very first pistoned segment, and everything beyond the second hinge would stay aligned the same way it was.
Or with your wrist design, you can have the second wrist rotor un-do all motions of the first wrist rotor. That way the keys for your first rotor only change the alignment of your wrist hinge, not the alignment of your magplate.
Obviously you'd still want individual controls for the second hinge and the second wrist hinge to be able to articulate the load.
Loved the video. I've been curious about this script but it seemed like it was going to be to much work/stress to get it working.
When you have small numbers of controls, you can get things almost as clear by leaving gaps in the hotbars as by using completely different toolbars for each control point.
So the first hotbar might be:
1: Shoulder rotor on/off
2: Shoulder rotor reverse
3: blank
4: Shoulder hinge on/off
5: Shoulder hinge reverse
6: blank
7: Proximal pistons retract
8: Proximal pistons on/off
9: Proximal pistons extend
Of course, this works the best when you have different kinds of thing to control. Also, when the resulting hotbars are intuitive groups, (such as having the various parts of the same joint together).
Thanks for the videos. I recently found this overly complex game and have been consuming video like a capac. I just never know if the 4+ year old vid still has valid info. Or if a script /mod hasn't been updated in some time because it was abandoned or is a case of 'you can't improve on perfection'. I would enjoy seeing you revisit some of your early tutorials with the knowledge and experience you have now.
5:47 another way to know is to grind it tell its inoperable and check the panal it will show as incomplete
Love your stuff and glad to see a new tutorial (I've been watching a lot of the 5 year old ones). The question this video generated for me is: What would you want a crane for? What kinds of things do you actually need to lift and move around in Space Engineers?
You don't need a crane, unless you modify your game to play with no jetpack and challenging flight conditions. Then crashes become really useful for construction as flying something into place isn't a good option 🙂
A crane with a welder/grinder on the end instead of a mag plate is also useful to help you weld up or grind down your creations.
I like the "just enjoy the fireworks" because yeah, if you stuffed it up that bad, might as well enjoy the ride. there's a learning curve and it usually involves feeding clang more then a few times.
Awesome! This tutorial contains very valuables tips. Thanks
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I asked you to do that a few weeks ago but was afraid you didn't saw the comment.
Thank u brother finally i have a good mobility minining vehicle
Epic tutorial as always Splitsie👍
You said you weren’t doing the return bit of it, but it would be really useful if you could do a short tutorial on it! Fantastic tutorial by the way!
On my own design i made counterweight back of the crane like real ones haves, that makes big difference and reduces the weight of the vehicle when weight is in right place.
Oh yeah, I should have mentioned counterweights for very large cranes - good tip :)
This very helpful i just started in the game and i want to build a crane drill
7:20 there's a penalty to setting torque to crazy. It allows you to push stuff hard enough into the ground that they can explode. Within the white range, it usually stops moving when it should not be able to.
8:30: yesterday I put out a mod, configurable actions, that allows the player to change how fast actions change the velocity of rotors (and pistons).
What is your mod??
@@Grevlen1 It's named "configurable actions". I would link it here, but YT doesn't allow that.
14:34 PARK script tutorial starts
17:50 PARK default keybinds
20:14 controll modes
Just used this to setup my first crane, I still need to tinker but thank you so much!
2:21 i had to laugh so hard XD,... "Enjoy the Firework"... so true...
By the Way theres another way, just put the Magneticplate directly under the Suspensiun (i mean put it from the bottom on the Suspension part).
Now when you lower you suspension (all your wheels) then you are able to lock to the ground...
A little tip to identify quickly,your parts (or any other items in multiple). Just check "ON" the "Show on HUD" in the terminal. Then you can immediately identify them ;) It's kinda faster and less tidious than when you placed a block and a control panel to see which one is white
That only works in survival mode if you've already built an antenna, so the method I showed here is useful when that hasn't been done or won't be done :)
@@Splitsie Ah Ok ! I’m fairly new to the game and I only have played in survival until now, So I have yet a lot to learn and your videos have helped me a lot 🙂 Keep up the good work 💪
Man I love the Capac pointer, someone needs to write a mod Capac points at important things like power and fuel
another script that I've been using and I think works well, "Cockpit Piston, Rotor & Hinge Controller" by Tekk
yeah, I've used that one to make some very nice cranes, drills.
The PARK script! Oh, yeah! ❤
Awesome tutorial. Hopefully I can use this on the Xbox!
Everything here can be used on a cross play enabled dedicated server (so the script can run on the server), and all but the park script is vanilla 🙂
I’ve been following and using marmos since it’s conception and lemme tell you it’s no fun to use but when it gets set up right (which I’m only barley good at doing) the possibilities are endless it can record movements and everything so heckin cool 😎
Yeah, it's definitely cool I just wish I could get my head around it :P
I'm not sure if it's known already, but the color of the block is based on the distance form the parent block, greener colors are closer in the chain.
I would consider trying a two stage crane using a Turret controller. Starting with Splitsy's base with the Rotor and hinge there for the base pieces, almost identically set. then the Controller would be used to control a higher stage area on the Crane. so you'd control it much like you'd aim a turret. No need for scripts that way, and you just have to put the Control options in the bar for the main rotor and hinge to movements.
i started a new game recently, with everything on realistic settings, efficiency, wolves, spiders, all that shennanigans, man its a different game. so hard to get off the ground, because stone is all you can use in the survival kit, and the yields are so god damned low. the area i landed in was in was rocky, and no good resources either, so i packed everything up onto a cool small grid 8 wheeled flatbed truck, with the survival kit built into it, and moved home today, i packed all my wind farms, refinery, assembler, etc onto my truck found a nice ice lake, with loads of resources around it. feels good. time to set up my new home today. where its nice and flat o7
This was made way easier with turret controllers and the Contact update that added the ability to set hinge/piston/rotor positions. I should really build one.
Yeah, the extra hotbar options can make a big difference, but for a fully functional crane I still think the script is the way to go, but for things that are doing the same movements repeatedly e.g. walkers the new settings are a godsend :)
Face melted by those sick crane dance moves
I must say that is very awesome I learned a lot thank you.
It looks like the option to have multple constrol schemes in PARK would let you have a return position for each profile. That wouldn't be particularly useful for a crane like the one demonstrated here, since it's not really designed to take advantage of it. But if space is a consideration - say, because you're planning to drive your crane in and out of a garage - you could design one that folds into a compact stowage position and then unfurls when you reach the job site.
Glad to see you're still making these! I'm curious if you'd be interested in updating your older ones, some of which may be a little out of date after some of the updates from KSH?
"...if you manage that, just enjoy the fireworks" - reminds me of the time where I tried to attach a rover to my 2000 ton mining ship and flipped the whole fricking thing...
still sad Shadow Play took a nap that time, didn't manage to recreate that : (
That break dancing at the end was impressive. At first I only expected a hand stand, then that it does a "cart wheel" and then it instead just showed of what you can do when physics have no say about grip anymore xD
I'm making a recovery vehicle with a heavy capacity crane... uses pistons for up/down movement... it's actually insanely strong... and it's got 6 out rigers by the rear keeping it extremely well locked to the ground, so far it works and I just need to tune speeds and build the rest of the actual vehicle
Pistons as actuators are great - and fun :)
Great Video!! Really helps show the options one has with cranes.
One question from your scrapyard series.
How do you make a return to a home location and vice versa?
The instructions are a bit long, but are in the script itself, if you're running into troubles jump into my discord (discord.gg/zebramonkeys) and create a help post as there are lots of people in the community who are very skilled with PARK who'll be able to help out even if I'm not around :)
Could show on HUD with Antenna and will broadacast location
I love these tutorials, but where is the scavenger hunt this week! I look forward to them every week
could you do a tutorial on making a custom respawn pod or do you know of any good ones that are up to date
I really want to see a way to use inverse kinematics to position a conveyor arm to automatically connect with a vehicle. Apparently you can get the Vector3D position of a sensor on the vehicle which would allow you to then target the IK arm at that position.
There's a script called MArmOS which can do at least some IK stuff but it's much more complex to set up so I've never had much luck with it :(
Also what you can do to identify block is to grind it below usable. That way it will appear as incomplete :) If you are not in creative mode or smth
FYI n Portotech batteries are much lighter, so they may cause a problem when trying to make your truck heavy enough.
I know this is an old video so this probably won be seen but Im just getting into SE and For cranes Im wondering could a rotor at 90 degreed be used instead of a hinge for the elbow joint? This would allow better range of movement I feel close to the vehicle.
Yup, hinges are just rotors with more restrictions on them, from the game's perspective they're the same block :)
@@Splitsie Fantastic. Thanks so much for the reply love the videos. Just made a pull behind trailer with a crane that lays flat similar to the one you made on the scrapyard series but single pistons side by side instead of double under each other.
My only critique is with the build style. You're mounting all the funtional components directly to each other without any blocks supporting or in-between. That arm is going to completely fall off if the rear battery takes any damage, the front wheels are only attached to the cab, and both the cab and computer to the front battery. The whole thing will be really difficult to repair or modify, and will fall apart in a crash. Everything needs to attach to the chassis, bro.
I actually use custom turret controllers for my cranes. I haven't done too much testing yet, but at least the ideas seem sound.
It works but it's not as easy as it could be to switch between control points and have things behave well, certainly doable for simple cranes though :)
Buildview, or build info will give you a lot of extra details about the names and possibly even "control" directly from FP.
Using vanilla is aimed more at people who are not yet confident with mods such as build vision, it took me a long time to get to use that one and then only because the mod came as part of a workshop scenario and was auto-subbed.
What is the state of joystick/throttle etc support? Being able to use joysticks, throttle, steering wheel and pedals as appropriate would be "nice". I know that with appropriate driver software I can kludge something but good native support is generally the best option.
Instead of using another control block you can switch control wheels on and off on the existing one, same with prog. block when you drive
i use piston-moved landing gears when i'm loading; like IRL. It works awesomly.
you get a like from the se small crane builder , :D
11:55 Cut to the moments in Wrong Way Down when a large grid rover exploded and went into orbit because of rotor clang.
There was a time, not too long ago, when Clang would've consumed your entire world for the sin of sticking two rotors on the same grid.
Now, we have this.
What a time to be alive.
Could you make a crane arm driller utilizing this? If so I have a new idea to try on my moon base, even if it doesnt reach very deep at all it could be useful if I need iron to just grab an ass load of stone right from the nearby mountainsides.
You definitely can, even if it's slower than something that flies I think it's fun to try something like that just because we can 🙂
Huh I always thought that braking torque was for preventing movement while on and regular was just for active movement thx Splitsie
Oh next could you do like factory crane ya know that platform that moves on rails and is generally used inside factories