Space Engineers: A Building Guide.

Overview

‘Aight, so you want to know the secret to building an AWESOME, JAW DROPPING SHIP? Well, there isn’t one exactly. Let me explain…

Introduction

Okay, so you want to know how to build a ship and you want to know the secret and YOU WANT IT NOW? Well as I already said, there isn’t a secret formula, there isn’t a cheat code. There is only YOUR imagination and YOUR creativity *cough* and my guide *cough*. So let us begin our journey into Space Engineers. In…

Step One: Mind-mapping your ideas..

Well, never thought I’d ever have to tell someone to do a mindmap in my life, but oh well.
So the first stage, obviously, is Mind-Mapping your creation. A mind map is basically brainstorming your ideas. An example could look like this:

Alternatively, you could try a method whereby you grab a piece of paper and a pen and scribble down your thoughts and ideas. I have a OneNote Document for all my ideas (Don’t ask me why), but you can do it the old fashioned way or on a Notepad doc or Word doc. Here’s an example:

You could even draw a basic layout, but I won’t for the sake of your eyes. (AKA My drawing looks like a cat had a nervous breakdown in a pot of paint).

Step Two: Choosing your mods.

Mods are an important part of the game, adding detail and opening new areas of design. Here I’m gonna list a few but it’s completely up to you on what YOU feel works for YOUR design. Alternatively, you could use no mods, increasing loading time and decreasing the need to fuss around. Again, I think mods are very important. So, here’s my favourite mods for design.

• Interior Doors This mod adds a single block. Interior Doors. They look cool, and act as a normal door. Geat for interior design if used right!
• Corner Lights Corner lights are a nice little feature, adding sleek light designs and multiple ways to implement them. They lighten up your steel corridors in more ways than one.
• Command Console Pack The command console pack is really, really, REALLY nice! It adds a ton of new consoles which are used as the flight seats re-textured and looking fine! One of my must-haves.
• Industrial ‘Sage’ Thruster This modded thruster, made by YouTuber EctoSage, has a very nice detailled thruster which outputs 3x the standard Ion thruster. Looks nice and well worth installing.
• Interior Walls Mod. So this Interior Walls Mod adds, you guessed it, interior walls! But not just ANY interior walls. They have many different sizes, shapes and colours available and are really nice looking (if you know how to use them)!
• Small Langind Gear This mod adds small landing gears. While they are more for small ships they are very nice and could potentially be used for landing your ships safely.
• Armour Ramps Just get it. It is AWESOME. Your builds will come to life a lot more with different sized blocks.
• Type 3 Glass Again, really nice mod. Adds more glass that is clearer and more interesting.

So that is a small (not really) list of a few mods that I like and use a lot. Bear in mind there are TONNES more mods that I have missed out, just for the sake of time and keeping this guide as short as possible. Go mod-hunting before you start your building, see what you can find!

Step Three: Beginning your building.

So we’re almost at the end product. First of all, keep reffering to Step One, where we talked about planning your ship. I’m going to show you some screenshots of what I came up with. Keep in mind I’m not the best builder AT ALL so please, no judgerino ^_^

Also one thing to keep in mind, and this is a really useful tool, is the symmetry tool. Use the M key on your keyboard to change the style of the symmetry line, and then the N key to toggle it. Very useful stuff! Okay, the examples:
Bloody hell, another thing: Make sure to use the Ctrl and Shift+Ctrl functions to quick-place blocks. Control will go along 1 axis and Shift+Control will go along 2.

When beginning your building, you want to make a general layout. Make a bix box at first, then add in the corners, slopes and other things. This is a good way to get a general shape of your ship and work in many things. It also means you can change the design at the beginning, and try different ideas out.

Step Four: Completing your building

And finally, you should have built something that looks awesome. If not, don’t worry! Just keep trying until you get a design that suits YOU! If you really are struggling, I’ve got some tips below that might help.

Tips and Tricks.

So there are a few words of wisdom that I can part with you. They should help you with your design, but don’t rely on them to make a good design. Incorporate different ideas into your ships always!
So, tips. There are a number of ways you can go about designing a ship.

• Inside out
• Outside in
  So, pretty simple. Inside out is where you start with a basic floor aforementioned in step three, and add components like living quaters, hangars, corridoors, maintenance access and all that cool stuff.
  Outside in is my preffered way of going about this. You create the outside of the ship and then work inwards, adding bits and bobs to make your ship functional.

• Don’t build the rooms straight away
  Basically, add all the components of your ship in a big open room, then close them off. Quite useful for making sure everything fits.

• Use mods
  Like I said before, mods are a great way of showing detail in your builds. Don’t be afraid to use them little of often.

• Airlocks
  Airlocks add a nice sort of design function in that it immerses you in the ship, and gives you options about oxygen setups

• Big one: USE THE SYMMETRY
  Use M and N to change the symmetry of the ship. This is really really useful as it copies whatever you place down onto the other side of the line. You can have symmetry on all 3 axis. Really really useful stuff.

• Don’t be afraid to take inspiration!
  Look around on google or on the workshop. Take bits you like and throw them on your design. Make something wonderful! There are lots of really interesting designs.

• And finally: Don’t loose faith.
  If something didn’t go how you wanted it to, don’t fret! Just start over! I know, it sounds really cheesy, but you will make some great designs if you keep going, keep learning and keep trying!
  That was so cheesy I think I need a shower now.

Conclusion

Thanks a lot for reading my guide, and I hope you found it useful and not too much of a boring read. If you have any questions please feel free to write a comment and I will reply to them as fast as I can. Please don’t add me on your friends list 🙂
Please make sure to leave a *Favourite* and *Rate* this guide so I can help more people, and also Follow me (if you want) on the Steam Workshop so you can know when I upload stuff. As always, have a wonderful day. Adios.