Space Engineers, 2.0e Release!

When I am focused... I am focused. Two days after the release of 2.0d I present to you 2.0e. E's goal was a solid atmospheric hover on an earth planet and every change to the ship for this release has revolved around that goal. The link:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=680662259

And now lets go over the changes.

The most visual change to 'e's exterior comes in the belly. It took ALOT of atmospheric thrusters to put her in a hover but I managed to pull it off! The lower observation deck is gone, replaced by 8 large thrusters heh. My only regret with 'e' is that she requires the ion thrusters to hover, was hoping to be able to turn those off on the ship when hovering to ease up on energy use, ahh well. Not visible in those two photos are side / front / rear atmo thrusters and these do exist. The nose has six of them built in where missile launchers used to be. The side thrusters, three in each direction are subtlety built in to the neck and the remaining four on each side are built in to the 'wings' discreetly. Rear? I removed the four sets of six in line ion thrusters and replaced with atmo's.

Big change number two, the neck. I managed to keep the neck air tight in space, win! The walking span of the neck is one block higher so for perspective you used to have to ascend one level of stairs to enter the bridge, now you don't. Due to the loss of the lower observation deck and the height increase of the neck walk span, I've completely redesigned the stairwell. Has a distinct... Egyptian feel to my eyes.

The only other change to the ship was weight reduction throughout. Removed redundant walls and blocks and whatnot.

God I love this ship :)

I'm working on a huge in-mountain base for 2.0 to dock, not present in any of the photos I have added three landing gear to the lower rear ring (2) and one where the back half of the observation deck used to be so she can park.

Also on the agenda is a overhaul of 1.0 and... let me show you inspiration for what will eventually become a 3.0 series...

This showed up on a artist appreciation article over on kotaku the other day. I love wing forward design. Love it! LOVE it! When I saw this my first mental image was of 2.0 sitting tucked up just forward of the wing... but able to dock within. That's my inspiration for 3.0. And given pace of 'new' ship design for me (not overhauls, overhauls to existing ships come quickly), 3.0 will show up in a year or two heh.

o7