Modding Guide
Modding is the process of injecting user-created content into Space Engineers. Currently what is available to be modded is limited, but already clever users have managed to create a wide variety of new content beyond the default vanilla game. With the introduction of the Modding API, a groundwork has been laid to even more customization of the Engineer experience.
There is currently no one-stop shop for all the information on modding. Information can be found here on the official wiki and the official modding section of the forums.
Contents
Overview
Mods can alter the game in a variety of ways.
- Decorative Blocks alter the look and feel mods alter things like the Skybox, or add decorative blocks like hallways, exposed pipes, showers, beds, etc.
- Functional Blocks can be a combination of new looks and add existing or new functionality such as using a toilet model as a seat or making a cutting tool out of a Thruster.
- Functional blocks can be extended further or used create entirely new types of blocks by adding scripting to a mod that controls how the block is used.
- Non Block mods can alter things other than Blocks or Skyboxes. These could be things like Character Animations, Space Suit variants, Inventory Sorting, or Combat AI for ships.
The ease of mod creation is highly dependent on what skills or ability to learn a modder brings with them.
Mods can be classified by complexity:
- Texture Mods involve editing or creating new game textures using programs like GIMP, Photoshop, Paint.net. Modifying existing textures, shaders, and stats of existing blocks is the simplest way to create a mod. Such mods can be created by simply copy/pasting the *.sbc info from an existing vanilla block, tweaking the values, and dropping the custom textures/shaders and *.sbc file into its own folder.
- Models also involve texturing, but allow you to add 3D rendered models to the game. Creating new blocks with their own look requires the use of 3D modelling and texturing, for which skills are outside of the scope of this guide. Using a 3D suite such as Blender, 3DS Max, or Maya, a modeller can create new objects for use within Space Engineers, which can then be converted for use by the game using the MwmBuilder utility.
- Scripts have two main types ModAPI and In-game. They are both written in the C# Programming Language. The first is in-effect on the entire game world and can interact with almost any game element. In-game scripts, however, are loaded into a special block called a Programming Block. These scripts can only access the ship grid or station grid they are attached to. They can read data from one block on your ship, for example, and trigger a Rotor to turn a certain amount in a specified direction. Actually changing the way things behave within the game is more complicated and requires the use of coding with C# to create scripts that modify the behavior of custom blocks.
- Plug-ins are a C# program(project) that is compiled as a DLL and is run by the game's .exe file directly. Plug-ins can alter almost anything in the game(as opposed to a game world or ship grid) , far beyond what an In-game or Mod API script can do.
Official guides have been written up on the Space Engineers website and the Steam Guides page. These will give new modders a feel for how to set up one's environment and what is required to get a mod going, but a lot of footwork is still needed by prospective modders to discover how all the parts work together. Modders can obtain help or information from the Software House forums, Keen's partnered Discord channel as well as player run groups on other sites.
Save Files / World Files
Every world you generate is saved in its own folder that can be found in C:\Users\{WINDOWS USERNAME}\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers\Saves\{STEAM ID}\
File types:
- Sandbox.sbc – basic description of a world. For more details, see: save file sbc
- SANDBOX_0_0_0_.sbs – detail definition of a world, positions and states of objects For more details see: save file sbs
- *.vox – binary voxel data for an asteroid (outdated, current game converts these to vx2 format on initial load)
- *.vx2 - proprietary octree voxel storage format
- [OBSOLETE] *.xmlcache – don’t modify these files, they are cache files regenerated on each save
Mod Files Location
Each mod has its own folder located in %AppData%\SpaceEngineers\Mods\{MOD NAME}
The mod folder has to contain a sub-folder called Data with definition files of added or updated mods. Almost everything can be replaced/updated by the modder (audio, video, textures, models, gui, etc). Mods are restricted to a single world and cannot change anything that exists outside the scope of that world. For example, while you can replace things like GUI Icons for block mods, you can't replace the graphics for the entire UI because it exists outside of a world that would load the mod.
Shaders
Files with *.fx and *.fxh extension are vertex/pixel shaders for various rendering operations and can be found in steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\Effects2\.
Every shader file gets recompiled on game launch. If you modify one, restart the game. If the game crashes on launch, it’s probably due to a compilation error caused by your changes.
Shaders
Almost all textures are in the DirectX *.dds format (DXT5 compression). You will need an editing program that can manipulate them. If you use Adobe Photoshop, we recommend installing this plugin and using these settings for exporting:
Textures can be found in: steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\Textures\. There are multiple categories of texture files: GUI, particles, lights, models, voxels, etc. Model textures with “_ns” in their name contain the "normal map" in the RGB channels and the "specular map" in the ALPHA channel. Model textures with “_de” in their name contain the "diffuse map" in the RGB channels and "emissive map" in the ALPHA channel.
3D Models
MwmBuilder is the utility built by the devs for converting fbx files to mwm models.
Note: You may need administrator rights to copy or create files in Program Files folder; you can copy MwmBuilder and dlls into a different folder.
MwmBuilder Location: {Steam installations directory}\SteamApps\common\SpaceEngineers\Tools\MwmBuilder.exe
Models are stored in: steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\Models\
SIMPLE USAGE: 1) Copy FBX models to the same directory as MwmBuilder.exe 2) Create an XML file with the same name as the model. Giraffe.fbx will have Giraffe.xml. 3) Run MwmBuilder.exe 4) You'll find .mwm files in the same folder
For advanced usage see here: ADVANCED 3D MODELS GUIDE
Moddable collision models: Adding new model with collision geometry.
API
Creating a working script is a difficult process for a single individual to do, and to facilitate easy creation of scripts an API is required to guide a prospective modder in the correct direction. Initially the community did this themselves with the Mod:SEModAPI, but in Update 01.048 Keen released an official API as well. SEModAPI is no longer in development and should no longer be used. This guide and others like it on the official wiki will only discuss how to use the official API.
There are three planned "levels" of script modding for the official API: DLLs, script mods, and in-game scripting. Presumably a standalone DLL will be the most powerful (and most difficult to create), with in-game scripting providing the quickest form of modification for simple or low-scope scripts, with standalone mods standing somewhere in between.
The current implementation of the API only includes script mods, with the other two completely unsupported (though a bare-bones preview of the in-game scripting does exist). Since these mods can be subscribed to and downloaded within Steam's infrastructure, certain limitations are in place to make sure that malicious mods cannot do irreversible damage (such as deleting files on the hard drive, etc). As such, not every in-game or out-of-game function can be used. See the Scripting Whitelist page for more information.
