The Shipyard: Asteroid Marker Satellite, Theodore's Flight Pod and Engine Pod.

When I decided I wanted to get back into playing Space Engineers, I knew my main focus would once again be playing in survival mode, but this time with a world filled with procedurally generated asteroids. But with little in the way of landmarks, it could be easy to get myself turned around and forgetting where it was I had been, or was trying to return to.

Asteroid Marker Satellite Mk.1

In order to combat this, I looked into beacons and antennas, ultimately deciding upon the latter option. The design I wanted would be rather simple and cheap, and something that wouldn't run out of energy if I were to leave it to its own devices. And if it were being produced in great numbers, I wanted some way to be able to transport a number of them at the same time.

The Asteroid Marker Satellite Mk.1 came out better than I had expected. It hits all the points I had wanted for its design while still looking like an actual satellite. With an effective antenna radius of 5km, I should be able to set up a network of them stretching from asteroid to asteroid across my game world. Currently, my only qualms is that a single solar panel isn't enough to power a remote control block, and thus I won't be able to access the information panel on the underside. This means that I'll have to jot down the local ores or abandoned spacecraft or stations in a notepad file before deciding where to fly.

Theodore Flight-Pod Mk.1

Without that remote control access, and lacking any thrusters, I would have to come up with some other way to position these satellites at each asteroid. For that I decided upon a two-stage craft, which I later named Theodore after the titular character in the children's show Theodore Tugboat. Perhaps I'm setting up something of a theme here..

I made sure to set the engines somewhat far to either side; this gives it enough clearance to not damage the satellite while it's being positioned with the help of the front landing gear. An ore detector helps me better scan the asteroid itself to determine what valuable ore it contains, and a beacon for safety. A single small reactor wasn't powerful enough to not overload while the ship was simply performing maneuvers, so I added a second on the other side. Finally, a spotlight is set between the landing gear at the nose - this may seem like a poor choice, but it helps a pilot gauge just how close they are to a target. Once the beam of light starts to be blanked out, you're close enough that you should prepare to lock the gear.

Theodore Engine-Pod Mk.1

The design of the flight pod was purposefully small. It's made to grab one of the marker satellites and nestle it into an innocuous place with its solar panel correctly oriented for maximum energy. But I knew from the start that such a design wouldn't have the power to drag a group of these satellites around the cosmos on its lonesome. So I designed an extension of the flight pod. It sports a large reactor of its own, along with a medium cargo container to keep necessities in case of emergency, or in case I find something too valuable to leave behind. Unlike the front section, the engine pod was designed with the idea of eventually landing it on a station or in a larger ship's hangar for travel.

The idea is fairly simple. Keep the flight pod connected to the engine pod, and attach a number of satellite markers to the rear of that. Fly the whole thing around from asteroid to asteroid, dropping off a marker as I go at each new discovery. Although I've yet to try it outside the confines of my creative testing facility, I'm quite pleased with the look of it. And as with all of my designs, I will upload a sort of "interactive museum" to the Steam Workshop in the near future.