Antenna, Laser Antenna and Beacons - Space Engineers Tutorial 

It would be cool to do a series where voice/text like discord only works over ingame antenna connections. Especially in a multiplayer military situation where relay stations could become vulnerable but important assets for both sides.

Thanks Splitsie! Your tutorials are how I found your channel all those years ago, and even now I am still learning from you.

Like now, watch later

Idea for a playthrough goal: you have to set up a satellite system that connects every planet, and then control a grid on the other side of the system. Could be fun, definitely difficult.

Some advanced gps tips and tricks: if you loose a grid, and don't have an antenna, beacon, laser antenna set up or a gps marker, you can still get the gps of the grid. Build a contract block, and set up a search contract with all values being blank except the grid name (hopefully you know which grid name your wanting to find. Then accept the contract. It will give you the GPS of that missing grid. Also, you can use the contracts block to set up a GPS that follows your grid: place the contracts block on the grid you want tracked, set up a hauling contract with all values blank except the destination to b the same contract block grid. Then accept the contract and leave the box it gives you somewhere safe. Tada, a gps location you can copy and paste from the gps tab, that stays on your ship no matter where your ship is. And only you can see it.

Yay, a new tutorial. I don’t expect to need it. But its content!🎉

Another niche use case for a beacon is if you are playing with a hostile spawn mod that has something like the Hacker Drone from Corruption. Using a beacon rather than an antenna avoids things like it chatting "WHEEEEEEEE! at you as it sets all your gyros to random overrides.

With this tutorial, I now want to see a satellite+drone control series. Anything outside of base, you can't do manually or explore only via drone, because you'll die otherwise.

Love splitsie tutorials! Great editing, good length and details, good visualization, good music. Can't wait to explore the endless possibilities of the upcoming Grid AI with you, hope you're planning on going tutorial mode on those

Ironically I watched the old tutorial on this earlier this week! Enjoyed both versions, thanks Splitsie!

Thanks for the upload! You mentioning using a beacon as a notification kind of makes me wonder if we're going to be able to use the new Logic Block to set up some kind of alarm system to go off when detecting an antenna or beacon signal. I like to set up little bases on ore nodes to auto drill while I have drones going back and forth so I'm hoping to be able to rig up a control room with status lights for each of the bases to tell me when the drilling has completed or the cargo containers have filled.

i have never used laser Antenna. let's find out if i have been missing something

I had not realized laser antenna would attempt to reconnect while moving. Steve is looking a bit Scavvy, keep an eye on him.

Welcome back Splitsie! Looking forward to whatever you're cooking up.

another usecase of the laser antenna: If for some reason (for example a kind of chalange were hud elements like gps are turned of) you cant use gps, Just connect to laser antennas together. theyll become a compass between vehicle and base as the the mobile antenna keeps looking in the direction of the base antenna (as seen in the vid)

So happy you're back making these!! Literally the only reason I can function in this game is due to you're old tutorials! Keep it up man!

Thnx for the tutorial. One question, if you play with Reavers or any other enemy. Does the laser antenna 'attract' the same way as an beacon or normal antenna do?

More splitsie knowledge!

you said @7:15 it could be handy if something happend then this happens. then if the inventory is full turn on a beacon.... then do this i love to see a tutorial about this. Also, would be nice if you could update the Info LCD Mod tutorial i find this mod intresting and quite fun but very difficult to use, how to show damaged blocks in a display, inventory level ( full - empty ) the main page on steam is 5 + years out of date i love to use this with welder ships, to display what i have in my inventory, so i know if i am out of plates. Lastly i have been watching your Assertive Acquisitions series. and i have learned something so important and fun - you used the command Special Hidden on a cargo container. That is so, SOO useful and i am using it constantly now, auto refill attack ships, auto fill welder ships........ Thank you so much for this one. i find this so useful, might be worth it to make a short tutorial about it? ( + isy's inventory manager )

Great video. I used to use Lazer antenna on a MP server so my clan could build bases in certain areas and not broadcast our loot. One thing that we did was at the end of the linear scale for power, we created relay satellites with two lazer antenna and a crapload of solar panels. Thankfully nobody stumbled into the sats. Looking back, one thing you could do is make some explosive prox mines that detonate and kill the lazer antenna if an enemy gets to close, that way they cant find your base by looking at the settings

I would love to see a remake of all your tutorials, just because so much has changed in space engineers since you made the first tutorials. Love your content Splitsie :)

I remember when you created the relay towers in survival impossible to connect to the asteroid iron catapult mining base. You mentioned something about the laser antennas at the moment

I started playing Space Engineers after watching Splitsie's videos, your earlier tutorials were very useful and I have copied many designs in terms of welder and drill ships. 😅

Awe YEAH!!! Look at Steve standing tall and being helpful!! I have tried to use laser antennae in the past, but they always struggled to attain connections. So this demonstration shed some light on what I was probably doing wrong.

Nice tutorial on “frickin’ lasers”, Splitsie. You know what you need to revisit: Parachutes. I mean, it’s not exactly going to redeem your reputation from Engineer Core, but you can at least put the record straight.

So I tried putting laser antennas from a planet to a station 1,500 km away, but I encountered two issues. First, I encountered an issue where the laser antenna would not connect if they were over 500km away. I am going to assume this is a bug as there were no asteroids blocking the laser and the terminal UI suggests that there is no hard limit. I had to make relay stations 500km apart. Second, I encountered another issue where I had to be like 1km above the surface of the Earthlike planet in order to connect to a relay station in space.

I don’t even play space engineers. Why am I here watching the tutorials?!!?

Something that might not have been clear in the video is that laser antennas can establish links to bases at extreme range (like between planets), but if you add a regular antenna to the remote base, the laser antenna at the remote base on the same grid as the remote antenna will let you link to other antennas within range of the remote base antenna. Okay, that's still confusing... 1. Build laser antenna on home base. 2. Build laser antenna at outpost. 3. Build regular antenna at outpost on same grid. 3.a. Regular antenna at outpost can communicate with other regular antennas in range of outpost. 4. Establish link between home base laser antenna and outpost laser antenna. 4.a. Home base can now access/control any grids in the outpost's regular antenna network. 4.a. Make sure outpost has a remote control block. This will act like a cockpit, as if you were actually there (lets you use toolbar rather than just control panel). 5. Make sure regular antennas on static and mobile grids near outpost are also broadcasting far enough to reach outpost regular antenna. 5.a. Make sure grids in range of outpost regular antenna have remote control block if you want cockpit controls on grids in range of outpost. 5.b. Make sure grids in range of outpost regular antenna are transmitting their regular antennas far enough to reach the outpost. If, say, a drone is broadcasting 500m, and a regular antenna is broadcasting 5 Km, you can access the drone terminal out to 5 Km, but you can only remote control the drone within 500m, because the drone must be able to transmit back to the outpost to be remote controlled. Since the outpost's regular antenna is on the same grid as the laser antenna, establishing a link with the outpost laser antenna via home base laser antenna is effectively acting as if you're in a control seat at the outpost, despite being hundreds or even thousands of Km apart. I know, this can still seem a bit confusing, but once it clicks in your head, it makes a ton of sense. As long as all grids in the network can both send and receive signals to at least one other grid in the chain of signals (the network), they can be controlled if equipped with a remote control, and of course, have adequate power.

Is it just my bad memory or maybe a mod but I thought beacons can also be used to jump drive to, same as GPS location.

Can you make a new beginners tutorial with a beginner base rover and ship in it that would be great!?

Survival Unlikely 2 Return of the clones?

If only Australian internet worked as well as this. Lol

Hi Splitsie. One thing you forgot to mention regarding the Laser Antenna is that it's also only visible for you and your faction, if you set one up / are in one and set the antenna to share.

Thank you Splitsie, for this easy to understand tutorial. Learned something new today!

I have done a couple play through where I setup an antenna highway between default solar system earth and Mars. My God is it messy on the Hud.

Gj. Rework tutorial with convejrrs

Finally a new SE video! It's great to see that you revisit the old tutorials didn't know that we can have relays! Time to build some satellites! I would love to see some 'tips and tricks videos' of things you have learned over the years or maybe some new cleaver ways of using existing blocks in order to build cool stuff.

Beacons are also ... jump drive positions! \O_o/ How did you miss that one lol! The range of jumping to the beacons appears infinite. I tested to 5000km, so as long as you’re in broadcast range you good! But beacons do have a max display range, unlike gps markers. Should you mod them as I did they vanish after 500km. Though no body found any ill effects from this yet and they still work as jump targets even if you can’t see them. Fun for RP plays. id=2746189435

Laser antennas are great for secret bases, you can remote to things but not output a visible signal. (also a stealth ship just floating about far from people but still connected.)

I actually didn't know the Suit could be used as a Relay too. That's so interesting!

This was very interesting - and explained things not covered in the earlier tutorials. Thanks!

hmm, laser scout drones.

I primarily use laser antennae to connect bases in a hidden manner to avoid reavers. I also like to create a laser antenna connection to a cheap base with a regular antenna with a large radius so i can control drones in my area, and if reavers come, they go for my cheap base far away from my important stuff.

Hmm... what about antennas and ore detectors, more in-depth brake down of the ore detector and its relation with antenna.

Watched and 👍 Liked

8 months ago

That was a lovely little tutorial, thank you, please keep these coming! You did a tutorial set about not making brick-ships, could you do another using some of the newer blocks and maybe something about making good looking bases/stations as well, because I always struggle with making something look nice and useful and not a brick! Also could you do a weapons tutorial, both block and character weapons, sometimes its hard to know which ones work best for certain tasks.

Yet another really informative video, but I have two questions 1. When you was showing the lasers and you lose connection, what was keeping you connected at that point? 2. Could you, there be a way to keep a bunch of little relay stations either in space or on the ground so you could keep constant connection? Similar to how we have satellites in orbit irl?

It should be noted that Safe Zones create line of sight problems for the laser antennas, and this disruption has a massive range. Simply put, a laser antenna on a ship can connect to another laser antenna of a base, within the safe zone, but outside of it the safe zone blocks it. Simply extending the base antenna outside the safe zone with a piston, or having it otherwise peek outside the safe zone is not enough. It needs to be hundreds of metres away from the field, beyond the maximum operational range of that safe zone. The reasons for this aren't clear to me, but this is a continuing problem on public servers, and possibly in private games as well.

Hay Splitsie, May be a long shot but would you ever consider doing a video collaboration with smaller youtubers such as myself, i feel there is allot you could teach me about the game plus it could make good content for both of us. Also a grate video as always!

This was really helpful, thank you

huh i never knew about the relay thing. my only question is if i have a base outside of a antenna but have a laser one onnected, does the relay still work, so an i say, control a drone at the other base

I'd love a funcitonal demo on Laser Antenna functions from Planet to Orbit (I.E Satellite connections) or Interplanetary connections. I can never seem to get them working correctly; Particularly in the case of Planet surface to a Satellite 60km above it in orbit.

Two wishes. Beat out tutorials on the new upcoming blocks. Secondly, MArmOS.

Merge blocks and printing/ blueprints with merge blocks up next please....

Take all your play list and make a modern version for all of them. Bringing new players to the game with a up to date versions. Show modern content with the latest updates. For the casual player with only a 1000 hours. And a couple of dlc releases. One may not know how your older vids mix well the latest released DLC's. You videos are very enjoyable. It is a blast to hear other YT makers refer to your shows. More vids more Capac, more "P" for parking...

Thank you! Learned so much about SE from you. I do have a question though; why or how is it that in space, when I try to set up relays, I lose contact outside 12 km or so? And yes, I've ensured all have power, have ownership, and have range. Haven't seen any answers of redit or anywhere that aren't "have you turned them on ?" Yes I have. Is it an SE glitch?

I’m playing Survival Impossible and finding that I am getting attacked by drone spawns that I had no indication of on my HUD. Would antennae on my bases and outposts increase my visibility of hostile grids? Or should I be trying to remove and add mods? My mod list is unchanged from the scenario on the workshop.

Conveyor systems. Specifically performance impacts when you use only junctions

I'm doing a playthrough right now with the intent of setting up a relay network through the whole system, and currently have relays set up between Earthlike and Mars every 250km or so (for acceptable power usage). I'm having a very annoying issue though where the connections between the relays seem incredibly unstable. In the Remote Access menu, the distant relays are constantly flickering. It just occurred to me that it might have to do with the fact that I'm using a solar alignment script and maybe there are power issues on distant relays... but I'm wondering if this is an issue anyone else has seen with distant / multiple relays!

Thanks Splitsie! On my own save im playing only with remote controlled rovers controlled by laser antenas and beacons (normal antenas set to 10m-20m max only to relay the signal between laser antenas), no base GPS coords. Witch forces me to build sattelites and huge towers, planning in advance on how to launch those sattelites only with cameras and be careful to not screw up (and lose signal or power) else ill lose its location rip sattelite. That idea came from one of ur tutorials. Maybe just mayyyybe this could inspire you with some cool ideas for S.I.

One thing you didn't mention is why you may not want an antenna. I think that is a basic mechanic we all should know. Attracting hostile NPCs. I have played 100;s of hours but am not 100% on how it works myself, but my understanding is that your suit antenna will attract NPCs and their fire. Even when hidden, and that they will lose track of you if u turn it off as long as they can no longer see you directly? I assume the same is with antennas? by shutting them off you can stop attracting NPCs from far away? Especially turn off to avoid Player enemies. And finally that the laser antennas do not attract NPCs and their broadcasts cannot be seen by anyone but you are the grids they connect. What I would also like an answer to is - does the relay function work for people outside you faction? or NPCs, especially players. do they also get the relay benefit or can they only see transmitters when they are in their actual broadcast range?

Thanks for interesting video. Playing SE since 2013, never used laser antennas, i can't imagine a good use for them on multiplayer servers. In my opinion they can only make harm, when a hostile player finds one of bases and will see the direction of this antenna, to go to find another base there.

Yhea professor Splitsie is back! now a question, Splitsie have you seen the game Hardspace: Shipbreaker? i think its a game you could have fun with to do for a few relaxed single player streams.

Active antenna movement base on signal location would be so immersive. A slight mod of the turret controller would do it I suspect. Hummmmm maybe none... But to seem real it would need to see outside of weapons range by a lot. And also provide a display. (yea I know some mods have tried this). Dish ant plus ant control block plus LCD... equals sensor array.

I just realized, laser connections would make the most sense between relay stations And you control your remotes through antennas from there. Yeah, they may find your relay station and take it out, but that wouldn't give them your precise location. An observant foe, might still deduce the vector from the laser antenna though.

I think the power consumption of all of these need a reality check. The laser sucks way to much power, yes they are inefficient, but dear god not like that. The tall base antennas imply low frequencies (also a wide band width) so those can talk hundreds of miles with only a few hundred watts. So those suck way way too much power. Implying a directional reflector type ant in the model and then it not being directional (and tracking :) ) triggers the RF Engineer in me hard...

PRELUDE for Survival Impossible!!!!

Decoys! I’ve tried testing how they work, and I get consistent results when I put the decoy and other block equally far from the turret (i.e the turret targets the decoy 10x more often than the other block). But I can’t figure out how the distance factors in to the targeting priority. I’ve tried increasing the distance to the decoy and noting the targetting probability, but it doesn’t appear to be linear, quadratic or exponential :s Would be nice to know the formula so that we can know how many decoys we need to protect out ships at a given distance :)

The Lazer antenna's infinite range seems nice, but with it's ridiculous power cost you probably can't do something cool like link plants up.

I love laser antenna for pvp because I can make a network that is relatively hidden unless someone finds it and tracks it. Also..."your base doesn't move" bitch mine got wheels! XD

Imagine a series or server called “Vassals” that is basically centered around doing everything with drones. You can only have 1 player-present ship, every other ship you have must be a drone or remote controlled. Only exception is when you are building new ships/drones

Where is my assertive acquisitions content? The ending you guys have planned for this series is kind of a series that I wanted to plan for you guys. the adventures of captain Capac with his super carrier and crew keeping the peace in the galaxy! Think of the tales of Don Quijote but space themed, starship troopers a little star trek and guardians of the Galaxy all rolled into one.

Your next tutorial should be on power systems. Pros and cons, when one is better than the other [ie no wind in space (no duh) but why solar might be better than hydrogen power.] , on say a mining ship which is better running on batteries or using hydrogen? , etc. Which then can lead into programs and scripts that either are always use (solar tracking if you have a solar farm), inventory manager, power toggling hydrogen engines based on battery charge, etc

As far as how far you can go with linking one antenna to the next, I once set up a grid of communication satellites that enabled communication between Earth, the moon, Mars, and Europa, as well as my asteroid base between Earth and Mars. So yeah, there's pretty much no limit but what your system can handle.

wasn't the control function bugged for the laser antenna bugged awhile back? Looks like they fixed it

That antenna relay is something I've been wondering about. I've just never taken the time or had the to learn it. But now that you have done the heavy lifting for me, I may have to force a use for it. In the name of science, of course. Lol Edit: Thank you very much for the informative video. :D

Question regarding the laser radars, does the power consumption apply to both parties? Like if the base is attempting connecting with a satellite 4km away in orbit, because the base is the one that established connection would it take the brunt of the power consumption? or do both the base and the satellite have to provide equal amounts of energy? I assume the latter but it doesn't hurt to ask and confirm. I bring this up because I am having difficulties getting two laser radars to connect in a MP server. The base is on a moon surface, protected by the Defense Shield mod, 8km away from the nearest safe zone, attempting to connect to a satellite that is floating 4km in orbit. They both have clear line of sight with no visible obstructions but both continuously state they are searching for each other at target GPS coordinates. I have tried moving the bases laser radar outside of the defensive shield, moving it to a ship owned and built by me so both the satellite and the base radar is owned by me and still no progress. Since the satellite is basically a battery with some solar panels, radars, cameras, gyros, antenna, could the power draw from attempting to connect at 4km away be causing the satellite radar to basically be stuck in a limbo as its unable to draw enough power to establish a connection?

It's a shame lazer antennas draining so much power. It will be so nice to play engineers with remote controls, but the requirement of such ammounts of power is just dumb.

hope all is well with the Covid Gang. you guys should celebrate getting back together with a short 'Gang Beasts' episode.

Question on the laser ant. can you get a connection to keep with two grids that are moving with out the use of a static grid? for example you and a mate are flying two separate fighters using laser ant to keep track of each other in a covert style. Another way i have thought about this is lets say you are mining, you have some fighter protection. you want to stay covert so others dont wonder into your ant range to ambush you. you also want to keep a small profile so perhaps you have your mates hiding/ scouting adjacent asteroids. In this way you can have a HUD reference to your allies with out giving up your location bubble.

I know there are mods, but you'd think theyd made the vanilla range a lot greater, would make it very functional to have relays. But yeah ill mod that on anyway, i already have one in mind lol. I already use the same ore detector range mod anyway. Is there a way to use these blocks to build a recon ship that can locate stations and trade outposts? I feel like i used to know how and be able to do it with my recon fighter, but i cant remember how lol.

Laser antennas have been a little bugged in survival. I found the best way to get them to work properly is to get the GPS coordinates for the stationary and paste it to the laser antenna of the grid you intend to move (i.e. your ship/rover), if you attempt to paste the coordinates of both into one another or the moving grid into the static one it tends to freeze and stay stuck in the "searching" setting. You can sometimes get it to work by saving then reloading your game but it's still kind annoying when it should work but it doesn't.

I once used these to send a little drone mini factory equipped with a projector alongside a pair of utility drones to completely mine-process-and build and entire base on a planet I never set foot on. Another note for those that might not know, laser antennas do not work to go through an atmosphere, they work inside it just not from space and back (at least on Xbox unless something has changed since then)

Lasers were my fave in EA versions becuase in MP no one could see my grid locations. Using a satelite in orbit over my base I could then copy the satelites cords and just past it into anything so it trys to aim at it, and rely it to the whole satellite network. This comes in crazy good for more stable use like a ground vehichle but it wasn't that too bad in EA. But yeah for long range its infinite it wasn't back then, I could turn it on for bursts from huge distances to remote access something, then toggle it off once done. I do like that bit of change though If I wanted to send from another planet costs would be insane but do able. I just miss the whole it was still doable for say a rover or atmo flying miner to connect to a satelight in that hemisphere and I could just copy paste cords into it to change which static structure I was connected to say if I had more then one base for some reason, I could either do one base always have on linked, and back then solar and some batteries was enough to keep the power running for the rely, or I could use like a notepad or sticky not app on my computer with cords to otehr static things to have it connect. Issue now is I am worried about cost to do that on small grid craft, say if I wanted to turn the base refinaries on and off or something like that as I get on approuch to base to unlaod raw materials...

Splitsie it would be amazing if you did a in-depth tutorial of using timer blocks for automation projectors and so forth.

Laser antenna RC only run where you have to launch a rocket into space to establish satellites for proper ground coverage. It would be your very own satcom system that actually has a function.

A renewable energy renewed tutorial in honor of Capac! (This can talk about variation of power of wind turbines on weather and so do solar, comparing space and how to setup a rotation simple math for them to work nicely if not even a remote control setup?)

I'm guessing the chances of getting an AI block tutorial are fairly high, once they're released of course.

how many times has (me) steve? been in game?? i like hearing my name in his game... .lolz.. thanks for the tutorial....

So a laser antenna should relay to a regular antenna, correct? Allowing long distance remote control of drones without each drone having a laser antenna, assuming a “carrier” or unmanned base does have that single laser antenna..

I was just having troubles with laser antenna two days ago, well timed!!! 3k hours on SE and I never tried them

Brilliant video, thank you! I was using some of them right without knowing lol

Dang Man I’ve been trying to figure out how to use this thing for a long time. Thank you so much.! (the laser antenna)

I love the physical examples. Great video!

I have tried setting up relay networks a couple of times with the laser antenna but couldn't figure it out. This tutorial really helps with that might do another attempted at visiting every planet with remote access only in the near future.

I got 800+ hours on SE and still don't know how laser antenna's work. Now I do, THX!

Cool stuff! Some day I will try playing the game, eventually.

Laser antenna are also good if you are using remote drones on an unfriendly multiplayer server to get tasks done. You won't be broadcasting your presence to anyone nearby. You just need to be mindful to not maneuver in a way that you'd break the connection.

Do the laser antenna reconnect if they are BOTH mobile, and they have both moved since disconnection?