BTS: The "New" Eclipse - Colony LOST

Hey all,

Today I want to talk to you more about the return of the RWI Eclipse and its entry into Space Engineers - Colony LOST. I think we can all agree, this was a big surprise to many and i have had a hard time keeping it a secret, even dropping a hint to you all a few months back.

Today, I'm going to give you a little BTS look at the Eclipse and what new mods and changes were made to the ship before I release the ship to the workshop next week!

The Eclipse

When I first designed the RWI Eclipse, I never thought it would be so popular or iconic throughout my YouTube channel. Obviously the first one we know all about, as according to outdated information it was last seen heading away from a planet to drift through space... but let's not build hype on that one ;)

Having the Eclipse feature in Colony LOST was a plan from the very start. To keep the series grounded, i wanted us to have our own starship to work with, but not something as big and large as the Vengeance, as that would have been wayyyy to OTT for the start. While we made our way with The Keep on the ground, behind the scenes I was building the modern version of this iconic "little" ship.

For those of you who've downloaded the "original;" Eclipse on the Steam Workshop will know, it's outdated and mostly broken now. Either with missing mods, broken windows or just not really compatible with 2020 Space Engineers. This makes sense, as she was originally designed in 2014/2015.
Therefore, I had to rebuild her.

In the above screenshot, you can see the Eclipse 2020 Redesign in progress. For this, i stripped some sections back and redesigned others. Instead of having access doors via the side, which made no sense for survival gameplay, we now have a brand new boarding ramp. This was very important, as the purpose of this ship was to feel useful and like it could be used in survival.

Most of my RWI builds are made for cinematics, which means we don't need to worry about how a user typically gets on or off them thanks to editing magic.  Now with Colony LOST, which at its heart is a survival roleplay series, I needed to worry about this.  The Boarding Ramp for me adds 10x more immersion and also roleplay factor. Now I feel like I'm stepping out onto a brand new world when we land.

The Bridge was a core focus for me, I wanted to maintain that "awe" of looking out into space and the new planets we visited, so the giant glass had to stay, no matter how impractical it was. Meanwhile, the whole interior has been redone from bow to stern.

That's all you're getting today people. Check out my FULL breakdown of The Eclipse when it airs on YouTube within the next 2 weeks! Hopefully, you've enjoyed this mini BTS look at The Eclipse and are excited to see more of it.

- Jack