Space Engineers

Space Engineers

Small Block Station Elevator
25 Comments
♫ erikhale gaming 🐺 7 Nov, 2014 @ 5:24pm 
XD that awesome but funny door stuck
The n00b A 13 Sep, 2014 @ 8:46pm 
Omg... this is a great peice of engineering!

well done, sir!

By the way, now that we have timer-blocks, you can put a gravity group and a piston group on the "same button". You just ha to make the button activate the timer block that activates what you want.

Programing with timer blocks is the future, while the programmable doesn't arrives.
EvilCrazy 4 Sep, 2014 @ 12:35pm 
Great.
Skellitor301 3 Sep, 2014 @ 2:38pm 
I..what?! I think my brain just got a booboo D:
LordStuff 3 Sep, 2014 @ 6:13am 
They aren't, to be honest.
I started several threads on that theme, as I tried building elevators and large drilling stations (drilling rigs which you can simply leave behind).

I'd also like to see improvements in mechanics.
For elevators, you'd need blocks that leave enough space for the elevator cabin itself, so they can pass through the well.

Rotors and Pistons seem to have great problems when dealing with great mass objects (e.g. a giant solar panel setup, powered by a single rotor, often breaks down when you try to bring it to rest).

There are too many problems like these, that keep us from creating "complex" mechanical machines...

But the devs do a great job, the game is still early access, and I just love playing it so far.
I'm pretty confident they'll fix all that and finish the game.
Thomas Foolery  [author] 2 Sep, 2014 @ 9:28am 
Yeah, getting everything to fit just right in this was tough. It's probably wishful thinking, but I'd really like to see a block or some functionality added that makes it easier for blocks to slide against each other. You can kind of accomplish that with the rail and bumper mechanisms I used here, but it's certainly not the best design. I'd definitely like to mess around with pistons more, now that they're more stable.
LordStuff 2 Sep, 2014 @ 6:21am 
Using one sided doors greatly helps, as you can delay it with pistons (just extend them to one side, they'll need more time to open up). That way you can control both pistons with one button.

I by myself think it's a great piece of work, just because it works properly.
My designs only use pistons, but they need more space as I didn't use doors, I just used blockers, that were attached to the elevator.

I think it would be great if there was some easier way, the problem right now with engineering like this is that you can't work precisely enough.

In Minecraft everything fits perfectly, but in SE, you just don't have the preconditions needed to finish your work.
Thomas Foolery  [author] 31 Aug, 2014 @ 2:19pm 
The other big reason is because I wanted the doors to open automatically. Using pistons to open the doors would probably work better, but since you currently can't put a piston group and a gravity group on the same button, and because you would have to find a way to delay the activation of the pistons until the elevator is at the proper floor, using gravity for everything just made more sense. Using pistons would just mean more button presses and doors that would have to be opened and closed manually every time.
Thomas Foolery  [author] 31 Aug, 2014 @ 2:19pm 
Well for one, pistons were still very buggy when I started working on this and I just didn't want to deal with them, but it was mostly because using gravity allows you to do some things you just can't with pistons at this point in the game's development.

One of those things is that with gravity you can have a virtually unlimited number of floors. All five of the floors for this elevator are basically just a copy and pasted template of the same floor. To add floors more floors to an elevator using pistons, you would just have to stack more and more pistons on top of each other, and your elevator size is limited by that stack size.
[LwJg46] cornel87 30 Aug, 2014 @ 11:05pm 
Why you dont work with pistons?
Thomas Foolery  [author] 30 Aug, 2014 @ 12:04pm 
Absolutely, you're welcome to use this!
Entyca 30 Aug, 2014 @ 6:17am 
This is well clever. Great job.
Dio💀 30 Aug, 2014 @ 4:42am 
Amazing, and kudos for not using mods as it adds that bit more WOW real engineering! Can i incorporate this into one of my stations? will of course credit you and the file! :)
Thomas Foolery  [author] 27 Aug, 2014 @ 2:13pm 
That's the basic mechanism behind this. There are also generators at every floor that are always on, but set to a lesser acceleration than the generators that open the doors. These generators push on the doors to close them, or keep them closed when they're not in use.

I hope this helps you understand it a little better. A lot of the reason this looks so complicated is because of all of the bumper mechanisms on the car and the doors. I designed them to allow me to control how much pressure they were putting on the rails while I was building this, but you don't necessarily have to make them so complex. They do make it look more complicated than it really is. Good luck!
Thomas Foolery  [author] 27 Aug, 2014 @ 2:13pm 
Perhaps I could eventually do a tutorial video, but I'd like to try improving the design first. Like you said, it's too complicated right now. Pistons are definitely easier to use, but for something like this with several floors and automatically opening doors, you need to use gravity.

When you press one of the number buttons inside the elevator to go to another floor, a few things happen:
1. Gravity generators below the floor you're going to turn on to push the car up, if you are currently lower than that floor.
2. Gravity generators above that floor turn on to push the car down, if the car is currently higher than that floor. The pushing forces meet at the floor you selected, and the car will stop at that floor.
3. Gravity generators at that floor turn on, and will pull the car doors open when it reaches that floor. The car doors themselves pull the outer doors open.

Rikkavidu_GER 27 Aug, 2014 @ 8:42am 
Hi,
i love Elevators! I try to build a good Elevator, but i cant it. But you...
You MUST show and teach me to build a Elevator please! But i can English only little bit. You can record Tutorial-Videos by YouTube? You have build Gravity Blocks and Generators, Doors with Rims... I use always Pistons...
I cant learn you Bild only by locking your World, it is too complicated.
Must i build a Station only with small Blocks, or it is the Elevator integrated in a big-Blocks-Station?
Greetings!!!!
DeRavi 25 Aug, 2014 @ 9:25am 
Awesome thank you
Thomas Foolery  [author] 24 Aug, 2014 @ 3:59pm 
Thanks DeAnti!
DeAnti 24 Aug, 2014 @ 1:26pm 
@thomas good work man
@Multi hey I wanna join in
Thomas Foolery  [author] 23 Aug, 2014 @ 7:40pm 
Count me in, if you do!
fungiii 23 Aug, 2014 @ 7:37pm 
Yeah, I liked the contrast the lights gave off. I really want to get this into a proper station and have a battle outside with a bunch of large ships online.
Thomas Foolery  [author] 23 Aug, 2014 @ 7:37pm 
Part of the reason I chose to make it so dark is because I kind of envisioned using this in a station inside of an asteroid where theres no natural light. I really like the dark, almost creepy feeling. And just because having the game darker makes it feel more immersive for me!
fungiii 23 Aug, 2014 @ 7:31pm 
I just tried this out, bit dark but still amazing. I can picture this in a super station of sorts. Would be awesome for machinimas.
Thomas Foolery  [author] 23 Aug, 2014 @ 7:28pm 
Haha thank you!
fungiii 23 Aug, 2014 @ 3:48pm 
No. F*****. Way. You sir are a genius.