space engineers adding textures to lcd panel manufacturer

Having never done a mod before I am kind of stumped here... Is there a guide or someone that can explain to me how to actualy put together a really basic mod that for an example, off the top of my head, takes a load of dds image files and adds them to the right folders while making the needed adjustment to the right file for them to become accessible in game?

Because I know how to do this manualy, but right now the mod production guides I can find start with Blender, 3DS Max or broken links and I don"t see those ending in a way that will be useful to me.

I can open, modify and create DDS images, I created a new folder for the mod at C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers\Mods, I managed to get the ModSDK program and I successfully got horribly confused while trying to figure out how to use it or even if it is what I need, which I am now fairly convinced it isn"t.

How to make your own custom LCD image mod like Splitsie"s Impossible Images? To install such a custom mod, you will need admin access to the Space Engineers server, or use it in singleplayer locally only. You will need basic knowledge how to edit XML files (for example in NotePad++) and how to create images (in Paint.net).

Use Layers>Layer Properties to reduce the opacity a bit (e.g. 250 instead of 255) if the image does not look translucent on a transparent LCD in game.

Each LCDTextureDefinition adds one image, this example has two. In each definition, edit two attributes:Enter the name of the image in the element (that"s the name visible in game)

In this directory, go into the Data subdirectory and look at existing SBC files to learn how game rules, sounds, planets, images, models, etc. are defined.

You recognise the list of LCD images that are included in the game. To create a mod, you mirror the structure and create a copy along the same pattern, with new IDs and paths inserted (as described here). Of course it"s not always so simple -- sometimes you don"t know what values to enter, which ones are optional, and which ones mandatory, and so on... But after you have found a related file, you can at least start asking questions about it in Keen"s modding Discord.

Tip: To search keywords in XML files fast, open the Data directoy as workspace in NotePad++, right-click it, and use the Find in Files option to search the whole directory.

The LCD Panel is a thin panel that takes an entire block face and can display a variety of messages and textures that can be displayed constantly or triggered by the Programmable Block, Sensor, Timer Block, or any other block capable of triggering.

Choosing "Edit Text" allows inputting custom text such as the name of a room to use above doors. The text can then be scaled up to fit the screen dimensions or preferred size by using the "Font Size" slider.

The "Color" sliders allow setting the text colour using RGB slider and "Backgr." allows setting background fill colours (default black). If using a transparent LCD then the text will be against transparency unless fill colour is added.

"Loaded Textures" has a list of the available default and modded (where applicable) images available for display on the screen. Select the desired image and select "Add to selection". The selected image will then show in the second "Selected textures" panel.

When multiple images are applied they can be set to cycle between with the duration between images being set by the "Image change interval" slider. To remove an image from display select it in the second panel and select "Remove selected".

The "Preserve aspect ratio" checkbox can be used to prevent the image being stretched if it does not fit the screen properly such as when using a wide LCD.

To set the LCD to display a script, choose "Script" from the dropdown. Choosing Script allows the display of information such as weather, artificial horizon for vehicles, Energy and Hydrogen level etc.

The panel"s title and text can be made public, private, or a combination of both. Textures applied can be selected from a list or custom textures can be selected. Textures can be set to rotate on a timer, changing from one to the next. GPS coordinates shown in the GPS format in the text panel will appear in the GPS and can be activated (=shown on HUD).

Selected textures - Any textures that were added, will be displayed here. The order in which they are placed effects which image is displayed first (top of the list is displayed first).

The LCD Panel could be accessed with the programmable block as IMyTextPanel. It could work in ´Texture Mode´ in which the selected textures are shown or the ´Text Mode´ in which the text is shown. The following methods are available:

Adds an image/texture to the end of the list of selected textures. If no image/texture with the name id exists the texture ´Offline´ is added instead.

Adds the images/textures to the end of the list of selected textures. If no image/texture with the name id exists the texture ´Offline´ is added instead.

After many requests, we have decided to release our internal Replay Tool that we use to create our trailers. It allows you to record the movement and actions of multiple characters in the same world. You can use your video recording software of choice to capture these moments for cinematic purposes! It’s also super useful for epic screenshot creation. The tool allows you to be the director of your own Space Engineers film where you can carefully position and time different engineers with their own specific roles. We are extremely excited to see what the community will create with this!

Important: because it’s an internal tool, it has a very basic user interface and required advanced users to be used. We believe this is OK, because most video creators who would want to use it to create epic cinematic Space Engineers videos are advanced users.

There are now Steam trading cards to collect for Space Engineers! Collect a full set of cards to earn items that help you customize your Steam profile including backgrounds and badges.

There are fourteen new decorative blocks for people who want to buy them and support the development of Space Engineers, which are available on the Space Engineers Steam Store page. Within the package you will get following new blocks:

Beds can preserve characters’ inventory and toolbar while they"re offline and keeps them alive as long as there is oxygen available. Is considered to be the same as the Cryo Chamber Block, except oxygen is used from the environment. Space Engineers don’t work from nine to five, they work whenever they’re needed: day or night, during peace and war. But when it’s time to call it a day, every engineer looks forward to resting in these beds.

Standard and Corner Desks can be used as seats, which allow players to sit on the chair attached to it. Combine these blocks to produce various designs and sizes, creativity has no limitation. Whether designing new schematics or charting a fresh course to another world, desks are essential for any engineer looking to get some work done.

Kitchens are purely decorative. The kitchens in Space Engineers come well-equipped and include stunning visual details. Space Engineers overcome challenges everyday when they’re working on new planets or among the stars.

Planters are purely decorative, but they make outer space a bit warmer by housing life in a special glass container. Build your own garden on the space station. Planters not only help to liven up spaces, but the flora housed inside these capsules also remind many engineers of the homes they’ve left behind in order to explore the universe.

Couchescan be used as seats, so take your time to relax and take a break. You don’t need to always run, fly or work, you can enjoy your cozy room and enjoy the view. The last thing anyone would ever call a Space Engineer is ‘couch potato’, but who wouldn’t like to relax after a hard day’s work on this comfy furniture?

Armory and Armory Lockers can be used to decorate interiors and store weapons, ammunition, tools and bottles; both are small storages (400L), where you can keep your equipment. Space Engineers use lockers in order to ensure that keepsakes from home, toiletries and other items are kept safe.

Toiletscan be used as a seat. The latest and greatest interstellar lavatory technology has made many earth dwellers jealous of the facilities enjoyed by Space Engineers.

Toilet Seat that can be used as a seat and is fit for the creator of the legendary Red Ship; most engineers don’t want to get up after ‘taking care of business’.

Industrial Cockpits are used to control your ships. This industrial cockpit in both small and large grid versions will make your creations look much better. Offering unmatched visibility, the industrial cockpit enables engineers to experience stunning vistas while traversing landscapes and space.

Console blocks project blueprints for downscaled ships and stations, as well as display pictograms or customizable text. They are fantastic functional LCD panels where you can project your creations and show them to your friends. The sleek and crystal clear picture offered by this console allows Space Engineers to display designs and other important information.

*Note to modders: When modding the decorative blocks, copy the current settings and then do the change on top of that. The mod will also include the DLC tag:

Keen Software House needs to stay profitable in order to continue development and support of Space Engineers, and to take risks, to invest into experiments that may not pay off in the short term, and to develop innovative concepts.

Sometimes we have to invest in people, teams, or projects, without knowing if they will work out. You need to give them time. And if you want to have a high bar for innovation, expecting novel things, you need to take the risk.

Why are they high-risk? Because they are hard to do, and usually it takes many iterations until we figure out the right way to do it. It usually takes a few iterations to perfect it. This means that doing water can take a few weeks (if we get it right from the start) or a few years (if we need to experiment, iterate, throw away past experiments, look for specialists in this area, etc). Same for the engine rewrite and AI / living worlds for our games.

A:Actually, even this update isn’t paid. The major part of this update (LCD screens, Replay Tool, new music tracks, smaller improvements) is free for everyone. Only the smaller and not mandatory part is paid - Decorative Pack, which you can purchase here.

A: The way we designed this is that even people who don’t purchase the Decorative Pack can play on servers with people who own the Decorative Pack. Players who don’t own the Decorative Pack won’t be able to build with these new blocks, nor interact with them, but they will be able to view them in-game.

A: To support future development of Space Engineers and other leading-edge projects we plan to work on at Keen Software House. Players kept asking us for something they could buy to support the development of Space Engineers, and the Decorative Pack is a great option for them.

A: Right after Space Engineers left early access and all hot issues were resolved. Most of the work was done by the Art team, the rest of the developers is working on other long-term updates.

A: We want more people to play Space Engineers, which means we must lower the barrier of entry. When the Space Engineers community grows, everyone benefits from this - more content on Workshop, more mods, more new ideas, more people to play with. This means that all non-mandatory features should be optional, so only those who really want them can pay for them. That’s why we decreased the price of Space Engineers, and made the Decorative Pack an optional purchase.

A: Hehe, if you put it this way, it sounds kind of funny. But the reality is that decorative blocks are low-hanging fruit, not a bottleneck towards those other mentioned future features. Additionally, the decorative pack can bring added profit and make the mentioned things happen.

Looking at our upcoming plans, I can say that we are going to work on another package similar to this one. It’s not a secret that we want to bring you more things you asked for in the past, such as new skins, new weapons, new economy system etc.

If you want to let me know your feedback on our decision to release paid Decorative Pack, please get in touch via my personal email address marek.rosa@keenswh.com. I welcome every feedback and we will use it to learn and provide better service.

Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game, developed and published by Czech independent developer Keen Software House. In 2013, the initial developmental release of the game joined the Steam early access program. During the following years of active development, Space Engineers sold over one million units. In total as of 2019 the game has sold over 3.5 million copiessource code was officially available and maintained by KSH to assist the modding community.Beta and was later officially released on February 28, 2019.

A 2014 screenshot showing assorted functional blocks attached to a painted light armour baseplate.Unlike functional blocks, armour visually blends together as long as each armour block has the same colour as the one adjacent to it; each stripe on the baseplate is actually three blocks wide.

Gameplay of Space Engineers begins with the player selecting or joining a world with specific settings, such as the number of asteroids (an "empty world" can also be picked) and the available starting equipment. When creating or editing a world, several advanced options are available to change how the player will interact with the world, and how the worlds will appear. This includes changing the speed with which several tools and machines will work, the size of the player"s inventory, and whether procedural generation will be used (effectively making the world infinite). Upon confirming the world settings, a loading screen appears while the world is generated. This screen consists of a random in-game screenshot as a backdrop, the game"s logo, an animated loading icon, and a randomly selected message at the center. The message may be either a helpful gameplay hint, or one of many quotations concerning space, science, and/or engineering. Many of these quotes are from notable scientists such as Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Albert Einstein, as well as authors such as Arthur C. Clarke.

Once in-game, the player is given control of a single astronaut (referred to as a "Space Engineer") and a set of tools comprising a drill, a welder, and a grinder (if spawn with tools is on). Construction begins by choosing any block from the Engineer"s inventory, and placing it anywhere in open space to create a new voxel grid. Additional blocks can then be added to this grid to create a structure.

aesthetic purpose. Armor blocks, the most basic and common of all blocks, can be realistically damaged and deformed through collisions or the use of weapons.keypads, which can be used to view and manipulate the status of other specific blocks attached to the structure. To be functionally connected however, and to transport materials, blocks called "conveyors" must be used to connect the desired machines. "Functional" blocks require power, which can be provided by solar panels or nuclear reactors attached to the same structure. While reactors must be supplied with uranium, and produce large amounts of power while active, solar panels will continually produce a low output of power when there is line-of-sight to the sun. Once being produced, power is automatically distributed throughout the entire structure and can also be stored in batteries.

Three types of structures are available: small ships, large ships, and stations. The player can toggle between placing small and large block sizes; placing a small variant of a block will create a small ship, while placing a large variant will create a large ship. If a large block is placed in such a way that it intersects terrain voxels (such as an asteroid or planetary surface), a station is created instead. Stations use the same blocks as large ships, and can be converted into large ships by disconnecting them from the terrain (though a world setting can be changed to permit unanchored stations). "Small" and "large" structures can be connected together using connectors creating sub-grids.

The size, resource requirements, and availability of blocks depends on the type of structure they are attached to. Blocks such as assemblers or refineries do not have "small" variants, whereas large ships and stations cannot use gatling guns, instead using AI-controlled gatling or missile turrets. Blocks attached to a small ship are considerably smaller, allowing a much greater level of detail, and require fewer resources than those attached to large ships or stations (for example, light armor requires 25 steel plates on a station, but only one on a small ship).

Ships can be deliberately moved and rotated by external forces and a player as long as they are powered and have at least one gyroscope, thruster, and cockpit. To be able to move in any direction and then be able to stop effectively via inertia dampeners, thrusters must be placed on the structure facing up, down, forward, backward, left, and right. More gyroscopes on a ship will increase the ship"s ability to rotate in space, but in order for the inertial dampeners to be more effective, more thrusters must be added in each direction in which dampening is required.

Astronauts floating in space are able to move forward, backward, upwards, downwards, left, or right without restriction by using a jetpack. They are also able to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. Astronauts and structures can also enable or disable inertial dampeners, which automatically attempt to reduce speed to zero when force is not being applied, and the required thrusters are installed.

If the player disables their jetpack within a gravitational field (either on the surface of a planet or a structure/asteroid with a gravity generator), movement is restricted to a plane perpendicular to the direction of the net gravity field(s). Vertical viewing angle is also restricted between −90 and 90 degrees, as in most first-person shooters. Ships and structures are unaffected by gravity generators unless equipped with at least one Artificial Mass block. If the player falls off a structure while within a gravity field, they will fall into space until out of range of the gravity generator, at which point the player"s jetpack will automatically enable itself. However, if the player touches their feet to an asteroid or structure with no gravity present, their "mag-boots" will enable them to walk across its surface and even around edges; though jumping will disconnect the player from the surface, and they cannot traverse the 90-degree angle between a floor and wall.

Several types of cargo ships can spawn randomly and fly through the world, which can be hijacked by the player or harvested for components. Some of these cargo ships are booby trapped to explode when the player attempts to commandeer them, and are sometimes armed with hostile gatling or missile turrets.

All place-able objects can be colored prior to placement using a slider-based GUI. The player can manipulate the hue, saturation, and value of the color to produce a very large spectrum of colors. There are 14 slots where new colors can be saved for later use within the same world. Colors can also be changed after blocks have been placed by clicking the middle mouse button while hovering over a block on the "Color Picker" GUI.

Asteroids and planets consist of terrain voxels, which substantially differ from blocks, and although possible to destroy by the player, cannot be created by them unless in creative mode. Celestial objects are currently fixed in space and cannot move, however, rocks/minerals that have been mined are subject to gravity and will react accordingly. Asteroids also do not currently have gravity associated with them, and can come in several basic forms including spherical, torus, and rod-shapes, as well other variations or combinations of these.

In survival mode, players need to mine, collect, and refine various chemical elements from asteroids and planets in order to craft tools, weapons, and blocks as well as produce electricity. Resources can be mined manually using a hand drill, or by using ships with the necessary equipment. Components are produced by assembling them from raw materials; however, they can also be harvested by salvaging cargo ships. To avoid death, players must monitor their health, energy and oxygen levels. Damage can be inflicted on the player by collisions, weapons, contact with thrusters, meteor showers, or by running out of space suit energy. Collisions at higher speeds result in more damage. As the acceleration value of gravity generators stacks, damage from falling can be much more dangerous when multiple gravity generators are active. A player"s health and energy can be restored using a Medical Room block, or a Survival Kit block. Energy can also be replenished by sitting in the cockpit of any powered structure. The development of survival mode began at the end of summer of 2013.

In the survival mode of the game, all actions, including survival itself due to the power requirements of the space-suit"s life-support system, depend on the gathering and refining of certain minerals. These minerals can be found on asteroids or planets, plundered from randomly spawned ships, or recovered from unknown signals. Raw materials are mined from deposits of ore on asteroids, and are then placed (or sent using a conveyor system) into a basic refinery or refinery in order to refine them to be used in assemblers. The refined materials are formed into various components in the assembler which can then be used in the construction of ships or stations.

Inventories in Space Engineers are very flexible and work in a whole-ship manner rather than in an individual one. All inventories connected to a ship can be viewed from any access panel on the same ship, however inventories must be connected via conveyors and conveyor tubes in order for items to be transferred among them. Inventories of refineries and assemblers will automatically request items to refine from connected inventories when they get low, and will send items into an available inventory when it fills up. The conveyor sorter allows inventories to be automatically removed and sorted from and into certain inventories. Instead of a common slot system, Space Engineers uses a volumetric system, measured in litres, with every item having a certain amount of volume and every inventory a certain capacity that it cannot exceed.

Planets in Space Engineers were released on November 12, 2015, after being in development since February 2015. There are several types of planets, themed after Earth, the Moon, Mars, Titan, Europa, and an "alien" planet.NPCs, and the Earth-like planet features wolves, hostile dog-like NPCs.

Planets are somewhat resource-rich, though extraction of useful products from the surface can be difficult. Resources are spread out, and due to planetary gravity and the inefficiency of ion engines within the atmosphere, the player must build ground-based alternatives.

Atmospheric flight is possible even on worlds with oxygen-deprived atmospheres. In order to leave a planet, the player will need to use hydrogen engines with sufficient fuel or build a hybrid spacecraft with atmospheric engines (for liftoff) and ion engines (upper atmosphere to space).

Hybrid surface-to-orbit craft are considerably heavier than their space-only counterparts, but can be built compact enough to fit inside a standard hangar.

On August 17, 2017, "unknown signals" were added to survival mode. These signals spawn randomly within a certain range of the player, and indicate the position of a small probe via a GPS coordinate and a repeating tone. Each probe contains components and can be disassembled, preventing the player from encountering dead end situations in which they do not have the components needed to produce the basic machines which are essential for constructing components and other machines, effectively preventing a catch-22.

Each probe also possesses a button, which when pressed has a chance to reward the player with a collectible skin, similar to a loot box. The skin can be for the player character"s helmet, suit, boots, or tools, and can be traded or sold on the Steam Market. Each skin can be obtained for free in-game, with the exception of three sets: the Veteran Set, which was awarded to players who had owned the game before and played between August and September 2017; the Medieval Set, which is awarded to players who also own Medieval Engineers; and the Golden Set, which is awarded to players who purchase the Space Engineers Deluxe Edition.

Space Engineers was developed and published by the indie video game developer Keen Software House based in the Czech Republic. Implemented as a voxel-based sandbox game set in an asteroid field in space, built on their own game engine, VRAGE 2.

The pre-release alpha build was released on October 23, 2013 on Steam, featuring a single-player "creative" mode. On February 24, 2014, the company announced that Space Engineers had sold over 250,000 copies in four months.Space Engineers have been achieved: survival mode and multiplayer.

Following the release, Keen has continued to release various updates to the game. In most, if not all cases, Keen has divided each update into a mechanical and an aesthetic component; the mechanical component being released for free while the aesthetic component (new block models, texture overlays, engineer suits, and emotes) have been released as a purchasable DLC. This may be a compromise between the need for a semi-predictable revenue stream for continued support of the game, and the need to avoid creating a "pay-to-win" situation.

Adds Dispenser and jukebox blocks, a transparent LCD panel (useful for creating custom HUDs), various interior furnishings and window blocks, new catwalk blocks, railings, stairs and half stairs, a rotating warning light fixture, and a small collection of decorative metal crates.

Adds the Frostbite Scenario, the Antenna Dish, decorative engineer cadavers (skeletons in suits, for atmosphere), a 7.5m wide by 5m tall airtight door block, an offset door, a blizzard-themed block texture overlay, a pair of "I’m Cold" and "Checking suit vitals display" emotes, and some LCD posters.

Includes a set of decorative neon tubes, sci-fi versions of various blocks such as the "Ion" and "Atmospheric" thrusters, LCD panels, Interior walls, button panels, sliding doors, and various button panels.

Adds a set of wheels with airless tyres, an exhaust pipe block, a buggy-style cockpit, two automotive-style lighting blocks, an assortment of "barred" window blocks, two view port blocks, three flavours of Storage Shelves (with crafting recipes that correspond to the items shown on the shelves),three block texture overlays ("Concrete", "Dust", "Rust 2", and "Retro future"), a "Scavenger" engineer suit model, and two new character emotes.

Adds a Large (7.5m by 7.5m) Magnetic plate, a set of truss beam blocks and Industrial conveyor pipes, a decorative cylindrical column block, a vertical button panel, remodeled versions of the Large Hydrogen Tank; Large Cargo Container; Refinery; Assembler; and Hydrogen Thrusters. And a hazard pattern block texture overlay.

A model and texture overhaul of the nuclear reactors; battery blocks; airtight hangar doors; rocket pod and gatling gun; and couch block. It also contains a "searchlight" block (a spotlight-camera-turret combo), a heat vent block, a set of bridge windows, a light panel, a "helm" station, a new helmet, a reinforced sliding door, and two new emotes.

Rosa, Marek (May 14, 2015). "Space Engineers – full source code access, total modifications and 100,000 USD fund". marekrosa.org. Retrieved June 16, 2015. Today we have a very important announcement for our modders and our community. We decided to give you 100% complete access to Space Engineers" source code. This comes as a continuation of our decision to give more freedom to modders and community.

"EULA.txt". . Retrieved October 19, 2021. The source code and art assets must not to be mistaken for free software, an open source in a free-software activist understanding, copy-left or public domain software. All source code and art assets remain copyrighted and licensed by KEEN SWH LTD. and you are allowed to use them (modify, tweak, make a derivative work, distribute, etc.) only under following conditions. [...]use this source code only for developing mods for Space Engineers.

The NVIDIA Texture Tools Exporter allows users to create highly compressed texture files - that stay small both on disk and in memory - directly from image sources using NVIDIA’s CUDA-accelerated Texture Tools 3.0 compressor technology.

This exporter combines four texture tools in a single plugin and standalone application, including flexible and powerful support for cube maps, mipmaps, normal maps, transparency, and more than 130 import formats. A new compression preview pane allows you to see how your image will be compressed in real-time, without having to write to disk.

These tools are ideal for artists and graphics engineers looking to save texture memory and reduce the size of their applications or fit more or higher-resolution textures into the same space. For instance, game developers can use this to reduce the size of the games they create - or realistic rendering and digital content creation developers can use this to fit higher-resolution textures in memory.

A 3D texture is a bitmap image that contains information in three dimensions rather than the standard two. 3D textures are commonly used to simulate volumetric effects such as fog or smoke, to approximate a volumetric 3D meshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info, or to store animated textures and blend between them smoothly.

In your Project view, select the resulting Texture Asset. Unity displays the Texture import settings in the InspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, asset or project settings, allowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info.

Unity uses the Texture3D class to represent 3D textures. Use this class to interact with 3D textures in C# scriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info.

The following example is an Editor script that creates an instance of the Texture3D class, populates it with color data, and then saves it to your Project as a serialized asset file.

You can preview the 3D texture in the Inspector, or you can write a script to preview it in the SceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info view using the Handles API. Using the Inspector is quick and convenient, but does not allow the use of custom gradients. The Handles API lets you configure the preview to your exact requirements, and allows the use of custom gradients.

In your Project windowA window that shows the contents of your Assets folder (Project tab) More info, select the Texture Asset. The Texture Asset Importer for this Texture Asset is now visible in the Inspector, and Unity renders a preview of the 3D texture at the bottom of the Inspector.

Navigate to the toolbarA row of buttons and basic controls at the top of the Unity Editor that allows you to interact with the Editor in various ways (e.g. scaling, translation). More info above the preview of the 3D texture.

Use the buttons on the right-hand side of the toolbar to choose between Volumetric, Slice, and SDF visualization modes. The preview image and the buttons on the toolbar change depending on the preview mode.

The intensity of the pixels at which the surface is rendered. When this value is positive, Unity will expand the rendered surface. When this value is negative, Unity will render empty space as a surface, and a surface as empty space.

Space Engineers has been available for quite a few years now and been at least semi-popular for all of that time. With the game out that long, especially one as intricate and creative as a game like Space Engineers, it"s no wonder it"s gathered quite the modding community. There are a ton of different mods out there, from ones that just change the game aesthetically to ones that fundamentally change the way the game is played. Let"s take a look at ten of the best mods for Space Engineers out there right now:

Updated on March 14th, 2020 by Drew Ferguson:Space Engineers still seems to be going strong, and players still seem to be creating quality mods for the space sandbox game. There is always something new to do in Space Engineers because of the open-ended nature of it; as a wise man once said, "There"s always a bigger fish."

But sometimes, you simply need more options to keep things fresh and interesting. These mods add a variety of different things to the game, from new mechanics, more NPCs, a change to existing functions, and so on, while still keeping the game with the same feel that it"s always had.

This mod adds some variation to where ores spawn on planets/moons, with the main purpose of enabling ores to be much deeper in the ground. (Seriously, like, really deep down there.) This makes mining a bit more interesting and forces you to be a bit more creative with your mining ships, all in all adding a bit more variety to the game.

This mod is almost a must-have for those control freaks out there. This gives you so much more info about what exactly each block is doing, allowing you to be a bit smarter with your creations while giving you some extra info on ships you"ve already built, too, since this mod allows you to easily track down those pesky air leaks in your ship/station.

There"s a lot of tedious busywork in Space Engineers. There are those that would argue that"s a strength of the game; it"s a good way to relax and spend some real time making something cool. But, some don"t have that kind of time or the desire to spend that long on a project, and for those people, there are Nanites. These Nanite"s can be programmed to do different things, from construction, repair, deconstruction, and more.

The NPC encounters in the default version of Space Engineers are a bit lacking, but the thought of not being entirely alone in the universe is pretty enticing. For those who like those cool encounters, this mod adds a bunch more of them to the game, making for a much less lonely experience. Sure, looking at the stars and pondering is fun. But so is becoming a notorious space pirate.

A bit along the lines of the last mod, this one adds cargo ships that fly around planets with atmosphere. This really makes a big difference in making the world feel pretty lively and, once again, gives ample opportunity to carve a name for yourself as an infamous space pirate. (I mean, you could be nice and let them be on their way, too, but let"s not pretend that"s what"s really going to happen, here.)

Starting off this list is a mod that might change the game more drastically than any other mod on this list. The Better Stone mod does a lot more than the name of the mod suggests; it adds a ton (seriously it"s a lot) of new ores to the game, in an attempt to make mining and ore spawning more realistic than it is in the base game. More than just adding new ores, the ores will also spawn a bit more realistically in big clumps of a lot of different ores, rather than a huge clump of one kind, mostly eliminating the need to run around for hours trying to find an infinitesimal amount of one specific ore.

Let"s face it: the base game of Space Engineers can be a bit dreary. Just about the entire HUD is the same washed out blue color, and after a few hours of staring at it, it starts to look more than a bit dull.

If you want to add a bit of color to the world, take a look at the HUD Colors mod. It stays pretty true to the original HUD while adding a bit of color to a few of the elements to make the whole thing pop a little bit more.

On the topic of adding a bit of color to Space Engineers, here"s another mod to help: the Colorful Icons mod. Instead of every single item in every inventory being that same washed-out blue as the rest of every HUD element, it shows every item the same color that it is in the game when it"s outside the inventory. This really does wonders for the hours of time you"ll be spending sifting through the inventories here.

Space Engineers animations have come a long way since it"s early access launch all those years ago, but there"s still times you"re doing something in-game and your character sort of just stands there. With the Animated Interactions mod, that problem is more or less eliminated. Even if you play in first-person, most of what you"re going to do has an animation with this mod, doing wonders to increase that all-powerful immersion.

Space Engineers holds one dark secret: the knowledge that ninety-percent of your time in game is going to be spent looking to see how many materials of what kind are needed to build an item, trying very desperately to memorize them for the short trip back to the assembler, only to realize you have no idea what you needed and need to go back. The Easy Inventory mod fixes this, grabbing all of the things need to build that item and automatically stuffing them into your inventory.

While the space in Space Engineers looks cool, it doesn"t quite look real. For those who want to make space look as realistic as possible, there"s the Space Just Got Real mod.

For those with a bit of adventurer in them, there"s the Exploration Enhancement mod. This mod adds an incredible amount to the table, with entirely new and complex systems like trading, police, military, random encounters, more (and cooler) cargo ships, more (and cooler) pirates, and custom factions. All of the things mentioned above come with unique systems that react to what you do.

Ever thoughtSpace Engineers was a little bit quiet? A bit lonely? Well, while it"s not quite the same as having a human companion, with the Ship AI Voice Basic mod, at least someone is talking! This mod adds dozens of voice lines to the game, all reacting and responding to what you do.

Everybody"s been there. A flip is switched, something doesn"t quite go as planned, and that huge space freighter that took dozens of hours to build is being torn apart by its own turrets.

But with the Smart Turrets mod, the disaster might have been avoided. This mod allows for a whole slew of new options, allowing for new targeting parameters, targeting specific blocks, the order in which it should destroy blocks, etc. For players who are into the combat in Space Engineers, this mod is a great addition.

Walking around on a planet in Space Engineers can feel like a pretty empty and meaningless experience. There"s so much land, and absolutely nothing to find. Well, picking up the Surface Occupation mod somewhat alleviates this problem! This mod adds quite a few different stations that will randomly generate on the surface of planets, ranging from defense installations to observation outposts. Most importantly, it makes the game-world feel a little less empty, making for a much more enjoyable time.

To return to the default Texture settings, select the element, open its Settings dialog box and go to the Modelpanel. The Custom Textureinformation text is active. Click the Reset Texturebutton to discard the customization.

You can also select several elements and choose the Resetcommand in the Document > Creative Imaging > Align 3D Texturehierarchical menu. To remove all texture customization of the elements of the 3D Window, do not select any of them and choose Document > Creative Imaging > Align 3D Texture > Reset All.

The following table ... Use this menu (Edit > Align) to align selected elements with each other, or to a custom-drawn target line, using a variety of criteria:

... AlignView is an option to set your ArchiCAD model rendering to an imported background photo. It enables the architect to automatically reconstruct the position of a camera in the interior or on the street from a picture taken of it. This feature can be…

Also, it is strange that the small slope corners have a aspect ratio of 4:1 while the small slope flats have an aspect ratio of 2:1 even though they have essentially the same screen space visually. A ratio of 3:1 fits much better for both sets of small screens.

The code that generates the texture size is pretty dang weird. It swaps between what the texture size defines, the height or the width. And the way that MathHelper.Log2 does things is kind of strange too.

Thus it is very difficultto tell how wide your screen will be without plugging them into this function to see what it will spit out for the texture size, then dividing 512 by that (which is what I did above).

Images show textures (top) and fluorescent light (bottom) produced by the new synthetic elastomer material that can mimic some of the camouflage abilities of octopuses and other cephalopods.

A team of engineers has developed a new synthetic material that can change its fluorescence and texture in response to a change in voltage applied to it.

Cephalopods, which include octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, are among nature’s most skillful camouflage artists, able to change both the color and texture of their skin within seconds to blend into their surroundings — a capability that engineers have long struggled to duplicate in synthetic materials. Now a team of researchers has come closer than ever to achieving that goal, creating a flexible material that can change its color or fluorescence and its texture at the same time, on demand, by remote control.

Zhao, who joined the MIT faculty from Duke this month and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says the new material is essentially a layer of electro-active elastomer that could be quite easily adapted to standard manufacturing processes and uses readily available materials. This could make it a more economical dynamic camouflage material than others that are assembled from individually manufactured electronic modules.

While its most immediate applications are likely to be military, Zhao says the same basic approach could eventually lead to production of large, flexible display screens and anti-fouling coatings for ships.

In its initial proof-of-concept demonstrations, the material can be configured to respond with changes in both texture and fluorescence, or texture and color. In addition, while the present version can produce a limited range of colors, there is no reason that the range of the palette cannot be increased, Craig says.

Cephalopods achieve their remarkable color changes using muscles that can alter the shapes of tiny pigment sacs within the skin — for example, contracting to change a barely visible round blob of color into a wide, flattened shape that is clearly seen. “In a relaxed state, it is very small,” Zhao says, but when the muscles contract, “they stretch that ball into a pancake, and use that to change color. The muscle contraction also varies skin textures, for example, from smooth to bumpy.” Octopuses use this mechanism both for camouflage and for signaling, he says, adding, “We got inspired by this idea, from this wonderful creature.”

The new synthetic material is a form of elastomer, a flexible, stretchable polymer. “It changes its fluorescence and texture together, in response to a change in voltage applied to it — essentially, changing at the flip of a switch,” says Qiming Wang, an MIT postdoc and the first author of the paper.

“We harnessed a physical phenomenon that we discovered in 2011, that applying voltage can dynamically change surface textures of elastomers,” Zhao says.

“The texturing and deformation of the elastomer further activates special mechanically responsive molecules embedded in the elastomer, which causes it to fluoresce or change color in response to voltage changes,” Craig adds. “Once you release the voltage, both the elastomer and the molecules return to their relaxed state — like the cephalopod skin with muscles relaxed.”

While troops and vehicles often move from one environment to another, they are presently limited to fixed camouflage patterns that might be effective in one environment but stick out like a sore thumb in another. Using a system like this new elastomer, Zhao suggests, either on uniforms or on vehicles, could allow the camouflage patterns to constantly change in response to the surroundings.

“The U.S. military spends millions developing different kinds of camouflage patterns, but they are all static,” Zhao says. “Modern warfare requires troops to deploy in many different environments during single missions. This system could potentially allow dynamic camouflage in different environments.”

Another important potential application, Zhao says, is for an anti-fouling coating on the hulls of ships, where microbes and creatures such as barnacles can accumulate and significantly degrade the efficiency of the ship’s propulsion. Earlier experiments have shown that even a brief change in the surface texture, from the smooth surface needed for fast movement to a rough, bumpy texture, can quickly remove more than 90 percent of the biological fouling.

Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University who was not involved in this research, says this is “inspiring work” and a “clever idea.” She adds, “I think the significant part is to combine the ability of mechanochemical response with electrical addressing so that they can induce fluorescence patterns by demand, reversibly.” Bao cautions that the researchers still face one significant challenge: “Currently they can only induce one kind of pattern in each type of material. It will be important to be able to change the patterns.”

In addition to Zhao, Craig, and Wang, the team also included Duke student Gregory Grossweiler. The work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and Army Research Office, and the National Science Foundation.

Publication: Qiming Wang, et al., “Cephalopod-inspired design of electro-mechano-chemically responsive elastomers for on-demand fluorescent patterning,” Nature Communications 5, Article number: 4899; doi:10.1038/ncomms5899