Quick and easy mods (speed up welding, increase reactor output)

​

I was snooping around in the game's files looking for things to hack, when i came across several .SBC files that contained settings for nearly everything in the game. All you need to do is edit a few numbers and you can change anything from how much thrust your engines produce to how many detector components it takes to build a small reactor! you can use these simple mods to re-balance the game, make life easier, or just go crazy and make everything free and hundreds of times more powerful. And if you host a game, everyone who joins gets the same effects.

So without further delay, here are the instructions on how to bend Space Engineers to your will:

Changing the time and resources to build blocks:

[FONT= &#39]Tired of blocks being so expensive or taking too long to weld?
[/FONT]Quit complaining and change it yourself!

[FONT= &#39]The settings for every block in the game is located in the CubeBlocks.sbc file located in
[/FONT][FONT= &#39]D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\Data

[/FONT]Here's the settings for a light armor block:

There's lots of stuff here, but we're only interested in a few variables.
Components details every component and the amount needed needed to build the block, in order of installing;
CriticalComponent is the component you need to place the frame.
BuildTimeSeconds is how many seconds it takes to completely weld or grind the block.
Every bock in the file has these settings, and they can be changed to whatever you want.

Free reactors!


[FONT= &#39]
editing refinery and assembler costs:
the random gibberish in the Blueprints.sbc file control what you need to assemble components, and how much ingots you get from[/FONT] ore.
here is the steel plate as an example:

These settings are available for everything in this file:

Item - what you put in:
Amount: how much of the item is needed
TypeId: the category of the needed item, can be Ingot or Ore
SubtypeId: the name of the item

Result - what you get out:
Amount: how much of the item is produced
TypeId: the category of the needed item, can be Ingot or Component
SubtypeId: the name of the item

BaseProductionTimeInSeconds: how many seconds it takes to produce the object[FONT= &#39]

Editing functional blocks:

these settings let you change the operating parameters of machines, such as reactor output and how much energy the assembler uses.
They are located in the same file as the previous settings, inside the <definition> brackets of each block.
[/FONT]
Thrusters:
ForceMagnitude: how much force the block applies, and therefore how fast the thruster accelerates. also available for gyros and rotors. (try setting it to negative )
FlameScale: how big the flames from the engine appear, and the size of the block-destroying effect.
MinPowerConsumption and MaxPowerConsumption: the power it uses at idle and full thrust, respectivley. also available for some power using blocks.
Generators:
MaxPowerOutput: the maximum amount of power generated by reactors and solar panels
Ore detectors:
MaximumRange: the maximum range that the ore detector can locate ores
Lights:
LightRadius(min, max, default): the min, max, and default of the ingame light radius setting
LightFalloff(min, max, default): the min, max, and default of the ingame light falloff setting
LightIntensity(min, max, default): the min, max, and default of the ingame light Intensity setting
misc:
RequiredPowerInput: the minimum power needed for the device to turn on


[FONT= &#39]Editing AI ships:
[/FONT]
The default AI spawn ships kind of suck, so lets make new ones!

example:

Prefab file: the file that holds the premade ship, located in the prefabs folder. You can change this to another ship, or one exported with SEToolbox
Frequency: how often this ship spawns
BeaconText: the name of the beacon on the ship
Speed: how fast the ship is moving when it spawns (high values are fun)

[FONT= &#39]Revealing hidden blocks:
[/FONT]These blocks are already in the game but disabled and not available, that is until we came along!
Are they features that haven't been implemented yet? who knows?

all you need to do to enable them is to search their names and look for the <Public> tag, then change it from false to true.
there names are:
LargeRoundArmor_Slope
LargeRoundArmor_Corner
LargeRoundArmor_CornerInv
LargeRailStraight

Round armor blocks:
light armor blocks with rounded edges. I wonder why the devs left this out?


Rails:
A train track looking object that seems to be a linear slider of some sort. they are non-functional and obviously not finished yet,
but when they are, there will be thousands of awesome things to do with them!



[FONT= &#39]Enabling large ship weapons and conveyors:
[/FONT]want to finish what the devs started? well too bad, thats impossible right now.

Happy April Fools!



Thank you for taking the time to read my little guide, and i hope it will help you on your future space engineering endeavors. I will be updating this post with new mods as soon as i figure out what all these numbers do. If you have any questions or suggestions, leave them in the comments section or send me a PM.

​

 

Useful Thread, thanks.

And about the hidden Blocks, you already answer your Question by yourself: they aren't ready for Release public. Never forget, we are still in Alpha and such Things could be simply not finished yet or could get changed completely, so you could test it but you did not should use it on your Ships before they not get public.


Rails could be for some more than for only place it, could be that there is a Block missing for that right now.

 

Round Armor and Rails are not finished.

Round Armor may well be an attempt for dynamic shaped armor depending on what blocks are adjacent, as I remember remember reading the suggestion on the forums, and seeing the response from KSH staff that were interested in the idea.
if they aren't to be dynamic, there are still a number of additional block shapes to be added.
(And this is after ignoring the successive community requests for additional angled armor blocks on the 2x1x1 shape like the LargeRamp)

Rails was previously demonstrated here:

 

From the looks of it, i would say somebody found the railpiece, activated it and then builded a trainlike structure that uses thruster and gyros to keep the backparts steady on the rails while he manuely ride the "train" on the "rails" with thrusters, using the ability of the landinggears to slide on objects without destroying them.

But it looks deffinitly cool.

Dont forget the other hidden stuff like helium 3 oder helium 4. I wonder if they could plan fusionreactors. Would be plausible in 2077 and you find plenty of helium 3 in space, the easyst way to initiate a hot fusion.

 

They are not hidden.
The Helium3_...dds, and Helium4_...dds are the original texture files for the Helium asteroid ore.
As of update 01.021.024, the Ice_01, Helium_01, and Helium_02 were removed from the game as both an asteroid material and mine-able ore (in the case of Ice).

I would assume KSH have simply forgotten to remove the textures from their build (which is more the responsibility of the Graphics Designer, but they usually don't like to get their hands dirty in the build process).

 

Strange, i cant remember to saw any of the ice asteroids when i buyed space engineer and tested around. Their where iceblocks as items from time to time, in random cargo containers from creative, but thats all as far as i know.

Still a Helium ore could be used in ways of alternative energy production.

 

I wonder why they'd remove ice from the game files? It wasn't implemented yet, but does it mean they won't be adding it in the future?

 

Well i checked the mention patchnotes from survivel introduction. There is no official statement that they removed ice or helium related ore, asteroid or textures from them. A quick search also didn´t show any statement about that. Why do you think it was removed intentional, midspace? Maybe it was partially removed sooner or later because they still work on somethin. Or it wasnt removed at all, the textures are still there.

Edit:

Well as long we got the textures we can easly reactive it with Voxelmaterials.sbc and physicalitems.sbc . It´s not that we would need the minerals, but as far as i know only ice was activated, helium never was. Not as physical item and not in voxelmaterials.

 

I heard that they said that that particular ore (bluish in color) will be a sort of minable/refinable helium.. another fuel source maybe? https://forums.keenswh.com/post/a-few-goodies-hidden-in-some-files-6680943?highlight=helium&pid=1280837466#post1280837466

 

No, KSH made no announcement during the changes. This came at a time they were optimising the asteroid code, as it was causing performance issues.
Helium, was not useful for anything in game, as it produced nothing when mined (intentional as seen in the original XML files). I guess it was supposed to be a gap filler, that KSH eventually decided wasn't really needed after all, as stone could fill gaps just as easily.
Ice, was mined for Potassium Ore. Potassium Ore was only needed in building one item, and KSH simplified the number of resources needed during that same update, and removed Ice as a result.

This is what all the original 18 asteroid materials looked like (taken from my Ore sample Steam workshop, first posted in December 2013).

 

Hmm, i never encountered helium in any game i tryed last year. Strange. I remember this update:
https://forums.keenswh.com/post/update-1-014-010-6705321?highlight=ice&pid=1281069677#post1281069677

Where they introduced ice, but i never saw they had helium activated (as a ore in a asteroid) at any point of devolpment. Well, it can be easly reintroduced via modding. And as long the textures are there (and the GUI symbols are still there too) it is a 1 minute job.

 

Interesting, I searched through all the sbc files, but was unable to find anything about the players energy capacity or usage. Any idea where that is located at?

 

Just want to add a few things to this: Conveyor Tubes, Connectors, and Collectors all showed up in the CubeBlocks file. You can enable them - The Tubes and Connectors seem to do nothing, but the Collector, well, collects things that come into its collection end. There's an access panel on the opposite side. These work for both large and small craft. The others will likely be useful for planning out your conveyor trails for when those happen

Happy collecting!

 

I am working on a small application that will be able to edit everything on this post and more at the click of a button, ill post it here when its finished