My 10 ESSENTIAL Mods for Space Engineers

These 10 mods for Space Engineers make the game better in so many ways, and are a must for any new survival game I start.
Workshop links:
1. BuildInfo by Digi: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
2. BuildVision by Dark Helmet: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
3. Edge Be Gone! by Whiplash141: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
4. Interactable Light Blocks by Valikai: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
5. Better Spotlights by Thorn Blackwell: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
6. No Transaction or Listing Fees by lizelive: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
7. Paint Gun - realistic painting for survival + special creative features by Digi: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
8. Binoculars by Klime: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
9. EZGPS - A Better way to Navigate in Space by 97cweb: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
10. Advanced Welding - detaching and reattaching blocks! by Digi: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Also mentioned:
Space Just Got Real (1.188 Update 4) by Dr. Novikov:steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Light Block Improvements - easy control panel access by Digi: steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...

[@vandalvanda]

Build Info's Air Vent Leak finder is being moved into its own standalone mod, so for that feature you will need to add that mod as well.

[@averagechadlegionary5824]

HUD mod you were using good sir? I really like it.

[@vandalvanda]

@@averagechadlegionary5824 it’s called “HUD - Modern and Fancy (Color)” by Adriano

[@averagechadlegionary5824]

@@vandalvanda Thank you.

[@bolland83]

"Configurable parameters" 'is one I highly recommend, allows you to change all kinds of settings including spotlight range, ore detector range, armor edges on/off, speed limit, and much more! It's replaced several other mods I used to use.

[@vandalvanda]

That's a great suggestion! I didn't realize it could do all that, I'll give it a look.

[@K-Anator]

Ooo, that sounds like something I should use, I run no armour edges as a plugin, but basically throw Better Spotlights (no haze), Ore Detector++, and Relative Top Speed in every single save.

[@KeithOlson]

Good selection. Two more I won't play without are 1. The 'Tethers' mod that adds power poles, so you can charge your starter base from your vehicle battery and then, later, charge your vehicle from your base, all without needing a connector. 2. 'Smooth Voxels', which makes the terrain actually drivable with rovers.

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks! Smooth Voxels seems like a must have, I'll definitely be adding it to my next playthrough.

[@K-Anator]

BTW a number of these can be run as plugins so you don't need them in your world's mod list, or the server's for that matter. Build Info, Build Vision, and No Armour Edges in particular from the one's you've mentioned, as well as your Fancy and Modern HUD and Colorful Icons. There's also a number of other plugins I strongly recommend giving a go: Block Picker, CTRL+G to pick the block you're looking at along with it's rotation and paint, it's Minecraft's middle click for SE and I can't live without it. Toolbar Config, so you can save your favourite loadouts and don't have to organize your toolbar in every single save. Easy Block Renaming, adds some fields to blocks making batch renaming super easy with prefixes, suffixes, and even a reset button. Sneaky Sounds, WHY IS THE DRILL SO LOUD!? Better Inventory Search, makes looking for things in massive inventory networks a bit nicer. No Forced Camera Zoom, gets rid of the collision check on the third person camera, making it way more convenient. Some other honourable mentions I use: Flight Vector, HUD Compass, Camera Panning, Whip's Turren and Whip's Camera Overlay, Remove Intro Video, and finally Welder Eyestrain Reduction. The NexusSeamlessClient is also a must have for those big public servers with multiple world regions, no more loading screen. It's so nice just having those things available at all times, regardless of the mod list, though if you're using HUD Compass, it'll interfere with the custom HUD Compass used in the Ares At War scenario, giving you a weird overlapping double compass.

[@vandalvanda]

The Plugin Loader sounds like a very powerful tool, I'll have to take a look at it at some point. The NexusSeamlessClient sounds VERY nice for people playing on Nexus servers.

[@K-Anator]

@@vandalvanda There's a lot of good stuff to be had in the plugin loader. Sometimes I forget the features I've enabled aren't vanilla lol.

[@MrBlackdragon1230]

I also HIGHLY recommend the plugin system. As soon as I tried it I never went back to playing without it.

[@samuelreyna6910]

how are you able to find the plugins? some of these plugins are nowhere to be seen in the plugin list for SELoader

[@K-Anator]

@@samuelreyna6910 It's a combination of mods and plugins, but they both work the same way, I see some on the right hand side. Make sure you've pressed the little "+" icon for both sections to see what's available.

[@MrBlackdragon1230]

Great list. Got a few others that might be interesting. One is Better vanilla Lights instead of Better Lights, as I think it does more. Another is Better Wheels (adjusted collision, improved travel, dual wheels). Another I dont play without anymore is SeShipwrightTools. There are many more but I just listed a few additional ones I use besides most of the ones you mentioned.

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks! Better Vanilla Lights looks interesting, the balancing between the different spotlights makes sense. SeShipwrightTools seems like an awesome mod for creative mode ship designing.

[@DrUrlf]

8 out of those 10 are my favorite mods of all time. They improve the building process soooooo much, I can't stress how much you need those if your main focus in this game is building, especially creative. They fix basically all the problems that come with building in the vanilla game and allow you to focus on what is important, design and/or practicability.

[@vandalvanda]

Exactly! Build Info /.Vision alone are such a huge QOL improvement

[@homersimpson5497]

Nice, great mod selection!

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks!

[@GhostOfSnuffles]

Mt two personal favorites are Colorful Icons because it gives the toolbars and cargo icons just enough color to tell everything apart at a glance and Splitsie's sneaky sounds mod which lessens the noise of the hand tools, the last one is almost essential if you record gameplay because the grinder and drill are extremely loud and that mod lower the volume of them to far more reasonable levels so you don't have to yell over them.

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks! Those two are both on my list of Favorite Mods that I'll be putting out soon, definitely nice to have.

[@Anvilshock]

4:55 If you like _that_ spotlights mod, try also Adjustable Spotlight by Rusted Droid which plays very well together with the former and lets you dip or angle the beam off the grid-dictated center line.

[@vandalvanda]

That sounds incredibly useful! I’ll be checking that out, and it may end up on my essential mod list.

[@orionicedust3834]

Great list. I would also recommend the "Easy NPC Takeovers (retired)" (still working though) for better hacking experience

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks! I'm planning to do another mod video focused on NPCs, so I'll definitely look at some of the capture mods.

[@RaaneaEV]

"Hacking Computer 3.1 - Works with Automaton Update" seems to still be active and it's kinda cool to take over a ship by literally hacking it with a computer, there is even a firewall block to counter it

[@vandalvanda]

@@RaaneaEV That's a fun way to capture a ship, but it's easy to exploit because you don't lose reputation for it.

[@Tilleen]

​@@vandalvandaI would say if the grid does not have an antenna why would they know you hacked it?

[@vandalvanda]

@@Tilleen Fair point, but that just makes too much sense /s. Also, a lot of NPCs do have antennas. Maybe a mod that disable rep loss when a grid loses broadcast? That would be nifty.

[@chrisbacon3071]

Thank you very helpful!

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks!

[@stratometal]

Oh wow I was only missing 2, which I had no idea were around. Sweet thanks!

[@vandalvanda]

Glad I could help!

[@stratometal]

@@vandalvanda Oh yeah! AND Happy New Year!

[@yankeevader]

Highly recommend Improved Experimentation if you are using the Advanced Welding mod as you can grab and move blocks around with it

[@vandalvanda]

Yep, that’s a great suggestion!

[@sebastchan7196]

Nice video, is that magnet also a mod to pick up the battery? if so which one?

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks! The mag plate is base game, but the large mag plate requires the heavy industry dlc.

[@Zerathrax]

What other mods you running for the HUD and stuff?

[@vandalvanda]

I'm running a handful of other little mods, but the most notable are: HUD - Modern and Fancy (Color), Colorful Icons, Eat Drink Sleep, GLaDOS Voice HUD. Pretty soon I'll do a video on some more of my favorite mods.

[@N3Corp]

look for "Small Oxigen tank" for small blocks That mod is a must, idk why KEEN didn't added such block in vanilla. Smooth voxels: this make the mountains more rounded. Rendering improved: this add a betterover all details to the game. Graphics revamped : this change the shadows and sun, which is not yeallow in space but white, it add more realism. i used some of these on my videos and daily on construction

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks for these! Small O2 Tank is awesome, definitely should be base game. Smooth Voxels, I haven't tested yet, but I want to. The terrain, especially on Earthlike, is just awful sometimes. Rendering Improved is cool, but I'm not a huge fan of some of the emissive effects, particularly timer blocks because they light up the whole room. Graphics Revamped is one I have not looked at, but I'll definitely take a look.

[@Anvilshock]

"why Keen didn't add" - More blocks mean more dev and artist cost. But also, because Keen aren't interested in a coherent game experience. SE is a massive bodge job of barely functioning tech demos with no design oversight (the other meaning of oversight), and what quality control there is is barely worth the word quality. (Though through no fault of the actual QC folks.) It's more like damage control. And it all hasn't ground to the deserved halt in oblivion because as bad as it is, it combines enough aspects attractive enough to keep above critical mass of audience. It depicts real-enough tech as opposed to total crazy space magic (Avorion, cough-cough), it has a real-enough look as opposed to the laughably comical and almost infantile color scheme of games like Astroneer, it is extremely moddable, it is mostly accessible unlike obscure shitefests like Starmade. Combine this with an insane amounts of stubbornly blinkered pain tolerance for lousy quality of the user base and the overall lack of competition, Keen just doesn't have the impulse to bother, which is why they keep SE on life support as a cash cow for financing their Good AI main project.

[@stepver2273]

is there some way to remove some faction gps beacons without turning like all gps markers off? i have like 500 sprt stations nearby and it’s kinda annoying.

[@vipersoup8081]

You can disable specific beacon gps’s in the gps menu ‘k’ on keyboard in the gps tab Edit: (in vanilla at least)

[@therealbahamut]

All good stuff.

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks!

[@metazare]

What mod is it you're using for the food sleep and water needs?

[@vandalvanda]

It's the Eat Drink Sleep mod by Bačiulis. It's a really cool mod, and can be supplemented with the Plant and Cook mod to add different farming blocks and crafting recipes.

[@metazare]

@@vandalvanda Thank you very much for the response. I've always used Daily Needs. I knew of Eat Drink Sleep, but never tried it because reading the description it sounded real bare bones by comparison. I did not know about Plant and Cook though, or that would expand upon Eat Drink Sleep to provide what looks to be near identical functionality. I definitely have to try it now.

[@Jesus-nc7wv]

What skybox are you using in this video?

[@vandalvanda]

I'm using "Skybox - Lagoon" by Herr Doktor. They've got loads more beautiful skyboxes.

[@Jesus-nc7wv]

thanks mate, appreciate it@@vandalvanda 🍻

[@cmtfarms9777]

Some of those don't work on xbox not sure about Playstation maybe make a list that works for those as well, other then that top notch selection.

[@vandalvanda]

Thanks for letting me know! Unfortunately I've never tried SE on console so I can't recommend mods for it.

[@cmtfarms9777]

Understandable since se is an older game but still has a high following, many are on pc so consoles are limited on the amount of mods and size of game files they can use, but many are trying to accommodate the consoles players.

[@carlthelongshoreman1979]

3:09 stargate fan I see.

[@vandalvanda]

Yep!

[@carlthelongshoreman1979]

@@vandalvanda earned a sub, started playing this game, love it so far

[@_the_Omega]

Wait a min...... A mod that lets you turn off/on GPS marker on command? Why on earth does someone want this?! We have the vanilla GPS menu where you simply can click it on and off with one click. Why the hell shall we do this wiht a extra command? This is way more complicated and has no immersion what so ever

[@vandalvanda]

Not sure if sarcastic, but EZ GPS is incredibly useful for dealing with multiple GPS Markers. For example, if you have a set of GPS Markers for Earthlike ore nodes, and you go into space, you probably don't want to see the earth nodes anymore. They can be toggled off quickly using the chat command.

[@_the_Omega]

@@vandalvanda so you ar talking about ore detector Signals?

[@vandalvanda]

No, sorry, that was a typo. I am talking about manually saved GPS Markers. I highly recommend you have a look at the workshop page for EZ GPS. It has a bunch of features, but batch hiding/showing it what I use it for the most.

[@JeffKlages-yx7xg]

38 seconds .. thats how long it took to drive me away from your channel. The music competing with the voice over was quite annoying.

[@vandalvanda]

I’m sorry to hear that, but I appreciate the honest feedback. I will keep it in mind going forward.

[@rubikmonat6589]

​@@vandalvandaIt bothered me too but I stuck it out. If you reduce it to about a third that volume it will still be there, but be less competitive.

[@brandonfrye7250]

bad video format. no time cards where is here, stop saying right here when there is text and box clutter... on top of that i cant see your mouse......Zer0's Legion has a video format i feel is better to digest. im tired of having to stop just to see where on the screen "HERE" is... Where is "HERE"? anyways back to Zer0's videos.. better to learn for somone who just got the game... make more noob friendly videos.. and make it noob format so ppl can see the mouse.. we cant see where your eyes are looking when you say "HERE"

[@vandalvanda]

Great feedback, thank you! Zer0 makes great videos. I'll try to add a cursor for future videos like this.

[@brandonfrye7250]

@@vandalvanda how many mods is too many mods I have well over 120

[@vandalvanda]

Well, my "mostly vanilla" private server has ~85 mods so I'm probably not the one to ask lol

[@brandonfrye7250]

@@vandalvanda what is your favorite modded planet. I find octave to be my favorite

[@vandalvanda]

I don’t have much experience with modded planets, but I’d probably say Agaris because it’s a great map for gameplay with big roads, distinct ore locations, and intricate water ways. Octave looks pretty cool, I’ll have to try it out.