How to Make a Respawn Ship Mod

Overview

This guide will show you how to create and publish your own Respawn Ship mod from start to finish.

Test Platform

This document was created using Space Engineers v1.072 on Windows 7 (64-bit)

Last updated and verified to work with Space Engineers v1.185.301

It does not include the latest game features such as spawning at particular planets yet. It only covers spawning in the planet atmosphere (which used to be just space). I’ll update it when I get some time to figure that out.

If you follow this guide and it works for you on a version of Space Engineers newer than what I have tested on, please leave a comment and let me and others know which version of Space Engineers worked for you. If this guide breaks with a new version, I will be sure to update it accordingly.

Prepare Your Ship

1. Load your world in offline mode (or the F11 debug menu will not work nor will your local mod) as well as Creative mode with Copy/Paste enabled.
2. Create a ship you want to use.
   • Make sure it is powered by a partially or fully charged battery and/or reactor with Uranium ingots in it (Use SHIFT+F10 to spawn items if needed).
   • Make sure any items you want are included such as cargo contents and ammo.
   • In the Info tab, make sure you name the ship how you want it displayed. The filename will reflect this name as well. Example: Minimal Reactor
   • If your ship contains a parachute hatch, make sure it is set to auto-deploy and has a canvas in its inventory. It helps if it is lined up with center of mass.
3. In the Control Panel of the ship, select all components (Left-Click top and then SHIFT+Left-Click bottom) and set the Owner as Nobody
4. Exit the ship and look/aim at the ship and press CTRL+C to copy it. Press ESC to cancel the duplicate as it is not needed.
5. Press F11 to bring up the debug menu and click the link called Export clipboard to file
6. While we are here, take a picture of your ship.
   • Press 0 to clear what you are holding in your hand.
   • Press TAB to remove the GUI interface.
   • Arrange the best position to view your ship in the light and have it take up the entire screen.
   • Press F12 to take a Steam Screenshot and go through the steps to save the image to your PC somewhere. Might even take several screenshots such as the inventory, other sides, cockpit view, etc.

Create Your Mod Folder Structure

1. Click Start -> Run and type %appdata% and press ENTER
2. Find and double-click the SpaceEngineers folder.
3. Find and double-click the Mods folder.
4. Right-click on an empty area and create a new folder with the name of your mod.
   Example: HL Respawn Minimal Reactor
5. Double-click the newly created folder.
6. Right-click on an empty area and create a new folder called Data
7. Double-click the Data folder.
8. Right-click on an empty area and create a new folder called Prefabs

Add Your Ship

1. Move your exported ship to the Prefabs folder of your mod location.
   Example Source: %appdata%SpaceEngineersExportMinimal Reactor.sbc
   Example Target: %appdata%SpaceEngineersModsHL Respawn Minimal ReactorDataPrefabsMinimal Reactor.sbc
2. To make sure there is no problem with spaces in the filename, rename the file to remove all spaces.
   Example: MinimalReactor.sbc
   NOTE: The actual name of the file is not referenced anywhere. The key reference is the SubtypeId inside the file.
3. Edit the file using a text editor like Notepad or Notepad++ and search for <SubtypeId> and remove any spaces in the name as well if needed. This value must match the <Prefab> key in RespawnShips.sbc which is covered later.
   Example: <SubtypeId>MinimalReactor</SubtypeId>

Add Thumbnail Preview Image

1. Use one of the screenshots you made earlier and place it in the root of your mod folder and rename the file to thumb
   Example: thumb.jpg
2. Edit the image and resize it to be no larger than 300 wide or 300 high and save in .jpg format with at least 75% compression. This will keep the overall size of the mod very small. The goal is to have a “preview” image…not a high-resolution image…we will add those later and keep it separate from the mod download.

Decide About Default Ships

At this point, you need to make the decision if you are going to have this ship added with the existing default respawn ships or make the default respawn ships disappear so only your ship(s) are displayed.

Add Your Ship to the List of Respawn Ships

1. WARNING: The tags are case sensitive so don’t use entries like <Ship>…</ship>
2. Copy the RespawnShips.sbc file from <Space Engineers game location>ContentDataRespawnShips.sbc to <Your Mod Folder>DataRespawnShips.sbc
3. Using a text editor, edit RespawnShips.sbc in your mod folder
   NOTE: We are going to remove all ships referenced in this file except for one and use it as a template for our own.
4. There are probably 8 default ship definitions which are surrounded by <Ship> and </Ship> tags. Delete all but one ship definition.
5. With only one ship left defined, change <SubtypeId> to be unique to your ship. It can be called anything but needs to not match the same as any other SubtypeId in this file (including any other mods that add respawn ships)
   Example: <SubtypeId>MinimalReactor-by-LHammonds</SubtypeId>
6. Change the <DisplayName> to read how you want it displayed in the list of ships to pick from.
   Example: Minimal Reactor
7. Set the <CooldownSeconds> to whatever you want. A default is already set from the last ship.
   900 seconds = 15 minutes (good for large ships)
   660 seconds = 11 minutes
   540 seconds = 9 minutes
   300 seconds = 5 minutes
   240 seconds = 4 minutes (good for very small ships)
8. Set the <Prefab> to match the <SubtypeId> key in your .sbc ship file.
   Example: <Prefab>MinimalReactor</Prefab>
9. Save and close the file.

Example of final YourShipName.sbc

NOTE: Do NOT copy/paste this to your file. This is an example only. The original format/ships might change over time so always use what the game’s current version provides.

Spawn Location Configuration

Now you need to determine where you want your ship to respawn.

Here is a list of potential places to consider:

• Low orbit in the Earth-like planet, moon, Alien, Titan moon, Mars or Europa moon..
• High orbit above the Earth-like planet, moon, Alien, Titan moon, Mars or Europa moon (outside of gravity field)
• An exact coordinate in space

If you start a new Star System savegame, then open the “SANDBOX_0_0_0_.sbs” file with a text editor, you can find the coordinates of the 6 default planets. Here are the coordinates for each planet as of version 1.185.301:

If you added custom planets, you can find them in there as well.

If you want to be near a specific planet, just plug in the planet’s coordinates into your ships “Position” definition under the “PositionAndOrientation” section in the ship file.

In your ship file, add the following under the “CubeGrids” section and then make adjustments as necessary:

Explanation of tags:

• UsePositionForSpawn – Enables position usage for spawning. It is set to false by default. If this position happens to be near a planet, it will instead use planetary alignment settings.
• PlanetSpawnHeightRatio – Spawns the ship at a specified height between the upper atmosphere and the outer gravity radius. The value is clamped between 0.05 (low orbit) and 0.95 (high orbit)
• SpawnRangeMin / SpawnRangeMin – Additional (optional) randomized height spawned at a planet. This allows a little randomization for the spawning of ships. The distance is in meters.

NOTE: Ships that spawn near planets will align the cockpit with the gravity vector so that the ships will always be upright. This is particularly helpful with ships or escape pods that have no gyroscope and will free-fall to the planet with only a parachute to stop them.

Here is a partial example of a respawn ship that will spawn near Titan but outside the gravity field in high orbit:

Here is a partial example of a respawn ship that will spawn in Europa’s low orbit with a random height above ground:

Remove the Default Spawn Ships from the List (optional)

1. Copy the RespawnShips.sbc file from <Space Engineers game location>ContentDataRespawnShips.sbc to <Your Mod Folder>DataRespawnShips.sbc
2. Using a text editor, edit RespawnShips.sbc in your mod folder
   NOTE: Instead of removing the default ships, we are going to disable them and add an extra entry for our ship.
3. Copy and paste a ship definition between <Ship> and </Ship> and modify it to match your ship like the above section (steps 4-6)
4. Edit each of the 8 default ships’ <Ship> tag to be <Ship Enabled=”false”> in order to keep them from showing up in the ship selection.
5. Save and close the file.

Example of final RespawnShips.sbc

NOTE: Do NOT copy/paste this to your file. This is an example only. The original might change over time so always use what the game’s current version provides.

Verify That Your Mod Actually Works

1. Create a new custom world, set Game Mode to Survival, click on Mods and your mod should be listed with a white folder-like icon to the left of it. Add your mod and click OK. The folder icon means it is a local mod. Once published, you will see another entry with a Steam logo next to it meaning it is a WorkShop mod.
2. Click OK to load the world.
3. Kill your toon by whatever creative means you like and make sure your ship shows up in the list of ships. Make sure to select it to verify it works.
4. Try out the ship for a while and make sure things like Ownership are set to you, cargo contents are correct, fuel levels are right, etc.
5. Kill your toon again and verify that your cool-down timer is working like it should (might need to kill your toon again in rapid succession to see the full timer…don’t forget the evil laugh when you do it).

Create a Good Description

Give a good, clean and concise description of the purpose of your mod and save this in a text file. You can expand the details later but try to get the basics in a single sentence 1st.

Also list which mods are required if you used modded parts. It is polite and helps efficiency to create links to the other mod pages.

To create a link, use URL bbcode to make some text get an clickable web address.

Example Code:

Example Output: HL Respawn Minimal Reactor

Other bbcodes that can work are as follows:

Bold:

Italic:

Underline:

Images:

Code:

[code]cout << “Hello World!”;[/code]

Quote:

NoParsing:

Bullet Lists:

Upload The Mod to Steam Workshop

1. Start Space Engineers and click New World, Custom World
2. None of the settings matter. Just click the Mods button and select your local mod in the list (should have a white folder next to it)
3. Click the Publish button and then click Yes stating that you agree to giving over your 1st born child.
4. Place a checkmark in the Respawn Ship category and click OK
5. Mod Published – Click OK to see it pulled up in the in-game workshop
6. You can now edit the description, add those high-resolution images and videos.

NOTE: I tend to prefer making changes direclty in the Steam client rather than the in-game pop-up due to some wonkiness of the system…clicking “Browse” when picking images for example is very clunky in-game but perfectly normal direclty in the Steam client.

References / Clarification

%appdata% is a variable that points to the roaming folder of the currently logged in user.
Windows XP Example = C:Documents and Settings<user name>Application Data
Windows Vista/7/8 Example = C:Users<user name>AppDataRoaming

Space Engineers client save games = %appdata%SpaceEngineersSavesYourSteamID<save game name>

Local mods are accessible to you only and only work in games set to offline mode. The folder path is %appdata%SpaceEngineersMods<Your Mod Name>

Export location = %appdata%SpaceEngineersExport

Steam workshop mods are accessible in every online mode to everyone. The folder path is %appdata%SpaceEngineersMods<SteamWorkshopID>.sbm

Steam folder can be automatically set to one of two places depending on your OS architecture (but you have the option to move it anywhere):
Windows 32-bit Default = C:Program FilesSteam
Windows 64-bit Default = C:Program Files (x86)Steam

Steam game locations default to the Steam folder but again, you have the option to pick a different location.
Default location = <Steam folder>steamappscommon<game name>

Default RespawnShips.sbc for Space Engineers 01.186.101

NOTE: Do NOT copy/paste this to your file. This is an example only. The original format/ships might change over time so always use what the game’s current version provides.