Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game that centers around exploration, survival, construction, and engineering. It was released in October 2013 by developers and publishers Keen Software House in Steam’s early access program. Since then, it has been fully released in 2019 and is currently available on Xbox and PC.
Space Engineers has some of the most in-depth building systems while boasting a truly open-world experience that players can enjoy with their friends or choose to take solo if they so wish. What’s more, is the sheer plethora of mods available for download that not only add small redesigns and QOL features to various ships and equipment but also introduce a bunch of new and interesting game mechanics.
Updated July 10, 2023 by Aldous Foster: Space Engineers has an active modding scene keeping players interested in returning to this great title. The mods on this list are still among the most popular available to players, but there have also been some excellent Quality of Life mods that have been released in recent years.
These mods can completely change the Space Engineer experience as entire aspects of the game become far more streamlined and enjoyable. Players should therefore read on to find out which mods they absolutely need to test for themselves.
14 Build Vision
Before choosing a planet, players will want to download Build Vision. This adds an accessible menu that provides more contextual information about builds. This can massively speed up build time and helps resolve any problems players find with their builds.
This allows players to view more information about the game around them and see and amend the properties of nearby blocks. This is a massive quality-of-life benefit that players will not want to ignore.
13 Build Info
Build Info is one of the best quality-of-life mods for Space Engineers. It provides a massive amount of information about the chosen block as well as several other helpful changes without needing to open up the full menu.
For example, this mod will instantly help the player find air leaks and can give information for block-specific data such as mount points. The number of ways in which this mod will help players cannot be overstated and it has certainly earned a spot as an essential mod that players should consider.
12 ADQ - Quality Of Life
The entire ADQ collection is worth taking a look at, but players should at least take ADQ - Quality of Life. This is pretty much a must-have mod for any playthrough as it makes several small fixes and enhancements to the base game.
It provides quality-of-life benefits across the board with no downsides and should be in all players' load orders. If players are looking for similar mods, the rest of the ADQ collection is also great and enhances the game in a wide variety of ways from armor to the computer voice lines.
11 Modular Encounter Systems
Over time, players may find themselves wanting to spice up their playthrough of Space Engineers and Modular Encounter Systems is the best way to do that. It adds more encounters, which can keep the player busy and help make the next playthrough different from the last.
It also adds a behavior system for NPCs and is fully compatible with other NPC mods. With the changes to spawned NPCs and ships, players will find themselves on a completely new journey.
10 Crew Enabled
The Crew Enabled mod adds all sorts of different NPCs throughout the world of Space Engineers bringing some much-needed life into the world. The NPCs can vary between hostile and friendly adding to the various survival aspects that the game already has.
The Space Pirates may be by far the most enjoyable aspect of this NPC mod, allowing the player to raid outposts guarded by hostile pirates scattered around the universe. Players can also choose to populate their ships and bases with both friendly and hostile NPCs.
9 Smooth Voxels
The Smooth Voxels mod adds some truly amazing terrain enhancements by smoothing out the land on planets, reducing the number of bumps and jagged edges. Not only does this mod seem to add graphical improvements to Space Engineers, but it also allows players to use their rovers much more freely without the fear of flipping over or getting stuck on bumpy terrain.
Smooth Voxels can also be safely removed or added from the game whenever the player chooses, giving players complete control over this mod.
8 Aerodynamic Physics
Aerodynamic Physics adds a whole new feature to Space Engineers, bringing wind to the game. This physics simulation adds drag forces, deflection forces, lift, and much more. It makes flying all sorts of different aircraft much more realistic and enjoyable, as well as gives players an actual incentive to create a more aerodynamic aircraft.
While the base game only required players to fight against gravity in order to fly their ships, Aerodynamics Physics adds wind resistance, bringing a whole new challenge for players to overcome and enjoy building against.
7 MA Plasma Reactor
The MA Plasma Reactor mod gives players a very handy and easy-to-use reactor that converts plasma fuel into plasma gas. Not only does this mod look absolutely stunning, but it’s also extremely useful.
After the plasma fuel is converted into gas, it can be transferred into plasma generators with the help of the plasma conduits, which in turn convert the gas into actual power. The whole system is quite intuitive and adds a whole new layer of depth to the game, giving players all sorts of new tools to play around with.
6 Radio Spectrometry
The Radio Spectrometry mod is a fairly massive quality-of-life improvement to Space Engineers, giving players the ability to scope out distant asteroids and see what ores they are mostly made of. This mod can be very useful, especially when players are searching for specific ores and don’t want to travel extremely long distances for no good reason.
Another great part about this mod is the fact that modded ores are automatically added to the list of ores displayed by Radio Spectrometry, meaning players won’t have to worry about compatibility issues.
5 Advanced Welding
Advanced Welding is an awesome mod for Space Engineers. It allows players to attach and detach blocks and objects from the grid anywhere in the game. This is especially useful when players want to transport certain objects like batteries since they typically lose their capacities when players grind them down.
Now with Advanced Welding, players can freely detach and transport all sorts of objects including batteries, without the fear of them losing their capacities or charges. On top of that, Advanced Welding is also great for when players simply need to realign or change the layout of their base.
4 Kagumi Space Whale
The Kagumi Space Whale mod is quite simply just a really fun mod to play around with in Space Engineers. It doesn’t add anything to the game other than a massive whale that floats around in space and either acts friendly or hostile to players based on an internal timer. The Kagumi Space Whale is equipped with a railgun on the inside of its mouth, which will open fire on players if the whale is hostile towards them.
The design alone of this mod is stunning, and it should be easy for fans of Space Engineers to see that the creator of this mod definitely took their time to perfect it.
3 When Worlds Collide
This is a really neat survival mod that players can enjoy with or without their friends. The When Worlds Collide mod adds two massive-sized planets with a special Gravity Distortion Zone in between them with tons of floating asteroids, AI, and some rather interesting gravity fields.
Players must dodge the constant incoming and unpredictable asteroids while mining and avoiding the threatening AI. The Gravity Distortion Zone is also home to many valuable ores and minerals such as platinum and uranium, giving players a good reason to put themselves in constant peril.
2 ACS Assertive Bunkers
ACS Assertive Bunkers is another great survival AI mod that gives players additional challenges to overcome. ACS Assertive Bunkers adds Bunkers throughout the world with hostile AI that will increase in difficulty depending on how often the player engages with them. The bases will spawn as the player moves around the world and will only attack if the player strikes first.
The best part about this mod is not the fully voiced NPCs, it’s the fact that the bases will get increasingly more difficult each time the player defeats them, adding a truly unique challenge to Space Engineers.
1 Undo
The Undo mod for Space Engineers is almost a staple at this point. By pressing Ctrl Z, players can undo any sort of building action that took place previously. It should be noted however that the Undo mod is currently not usable in multiplayer mode unless players are on a dedicated server with the caveat that the mod will only work on grids with at least 1 non-armor block.
This however doesn’t change the fact that the Undo mod is such a crucial tool for players to have at their disposal and adds huge quality-of-life improvements to the game.
Space Engineers is currently available on PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox One.