Setting up your first base

Having a base of operations is the most important thing. You will always need a place where you are going to store all those resources and components that you won't ever use. But how to do it efficiently? Best solutions are usually the simplest ones. Following steps took about 3 hours and you should be able to follow it's steps on any planet, since no uranium or platinum is needed. This guide is not usable for space pods and starting in space, be it more suitable in the long run, does not provide distances short enough for this "speed base" setup.

Step 1 - launch a pod
Unless you drop sideways or in an absolutely fucked up location, don't worry, you will need your pod only for about 30 minutes. Look around and see if there is at least some space and preferably a source of ice (you will need it for your suit's hydrogen). If you find your location suitable, rename your drop pod in it's info tab to prevent despawns.

Step 2 - base platform
First step in successfully surviving is to move all your production and survival stuff to a static position. You will however need some resources, ideally without grinding your drop pod yet. Drill for stone (you will need a couple of inventories worth of it) and load it in your Survival Kit and produce ingots. You will need couple of steel plates, control panel and a wind generator.

Place couple of blocks to create a horizontal platform and one vertical pillar some 6 - 8 blocks tall. Place a control panel on one of the blocks and the wind generator on top of the pillar (that will give it clearance to produce ideal amount of power). Use the control panel to rename your base immediately to prevent despawns.

Step 3 - setting up your production
Even without progression enabled, space engineers forces you to follow through a simple progression of blocks. Survival Kit => Basic Assembler => Basic Refinery => Assembler => Refinery.

Basic Assembler Phase

Therefore you will need to setup these blocks on your prepared platform in this order. First, mine the stone by hand for the Survival Kit to create enough components for the Basic Assembler. All components can be created at the drop pod's Survival Kit.

Once your Basic Assembler is ready, you will need some space to place your shit into. You will need your first small cargo container. One thing that might be an issue is the requirement for metal grids (which require cobalt that you don't have) and small pipes (which you can now hopefully produce in the Basic Assembler. if you are lucky and your drop pod has non-vital components with metal grids in them, you can now grind those specific components and use the metal grids in the production of your small cargo container. If not, skip this part and continue without cargo container.

Basic Refinery Phase

With the access to better components you should be able to create a Basic Refinery. Once you create at least one, you should somehow automate the stone collection. You will need couple of hundred of thousands of stone for the next steps. Until then, you will need to feed it manually as you would your Survival Kit.

One simple way that does not require that much resources would be attaching an Advanced Rotor to your base via the conveyor system. And replacing the rotor head with a small version. In this way, you can attach small grid pistons and small grid drills and mine the stone around your base. Once your stone production is set up, it is time to build H2/O2 Generator and Survival Kit directly at your platform and grind down the Respawn Pod. Don't forget to read the datapad in your Respawn Pod's seat, you will need the trade station GPS position later. During this time, you can build multiple Basic Refineries and more Wind Generators to power it all.

Assembler + Refinery Phase

Assembler is the next logical step in order to create enough components for your Refinery. You will however need more metal grids than your grinded-down Respawn Pod can provide. While your refineries are chugging stone, grab a couple of hydrogen (and oxygen if needed) bottles and look around for sources of Cobalt, Silver and Gold. (Iron can also speed you up in this phase). Once you find those resources, mark them with a GPS position and grab a couple of inventories worth of each. Deliver the resources to your base, you might need another cargo container at this point. One or two small ones should be enough, don't bother with large containers until you really need them. Don't bother with a mining ship either, you need to setup your base quickly, all side projects can move you hours from having a functional Safe Zone, which is something you don't want.

Cobalt can be refined in your Basic Refineries and once you have it, you can start producing metal grids. You don't need batteries, or anything else that really requires metal grids or cobalt at this point. So just mine more stone, refine iron ore if you have it and produce enough metal grids + steel plates to build your Assembler and Refinery. Once that is done, you will be able to process gold and silver which you will need for the Safe Zone components.

During this phase, it is good to build up your power production to at least 6+ Wind Generators and Couple of Batteries that can cover your base's power requirements.

Step 4 - Safe Zone
With your production all set up and running you need to protect it. Safe Zone is the most logical step, it protects your base from damage and from raids as well if you can keep it up.

All components can now be built at your platform and you have all the positions of necessary ores. Prepare your components for the Safe Zone block. You will however find out, that there is something missing. The Zone Chips. You will need the GPS position from the Drop Pod you saved earlier. Grab a couple of hydrogen bottles and fly to the Trade Stations position, it is usually located either on orbit or somewhere around you on the planet's surface. It might take several minutes to get there, so don't forget about oxygen if needed.

Once you get there, you are either lucky and safe zone chips are available at the spot. Or you find out that they are not selling them at the moment. Since Trade station's stock changes about twice a day, you will have to spawn other Drop Pods to find other trade station positions on the same planet. If you find any that is within distance from your base, you will repeat the process of getting there.

When you are home with your safe zone chips, you can finish your safe zone and set it to a small radius to protect your base. Make sure that battery output of your base is sufficient to keep the base running.

PS:

If you can claim the bonus pack, you should do so, it will speed up your stone gathering, or it can help you with tiered batteries/wind generators

Do not reveal your position, if you are unable to obtain zone chips, find someone trustworthy to help you or plan your departure from the planet

If you encounter NPC drones that you are not ready to fight, log out for a couple of minutes, grab a coffee, they will despawn with no players around

Read !faq/!faqeng !warning/!warningeng !zone/!zoneeng information. !commands is also useful