Plugins are a type of Space Engineers mods for the PC platform. Their access to your PC, the game world, and generic programming of features is unrestricted, which means they can add complex and advanced gameplay.
At the same time, this means you should install plugins only from trusted sources.[1] Incompatible or malicious plugins cannot only crash or slow down the whole game, but also access your files or network!
Officially, plugins are hosted on GitHub and are installed via the SE Plugin Launcher. For full official details, see spaceengineersgame.com/plugins.
Official Support[]
Before the Automatons Update in 2023, plugins were not officially supported nor recommended by Keen. To increase safety, Keen has removed all plugins from the Steam Workshop and Mod.io and will not allow new uploads.
Keen is working with community members such as Avaness and has created an official repository on GitHub where plugins will be transparent and open source.
Examples of Plugins[]
- Multigrid Projector Plugin
- SE WorldGen
- Block Picker
- Better Inventory Search
- Performance Improvements
- Camera LCD
- Torch Server plugins for multiplayer
- Dedicated Server plugins for multiplayer
How to Install the Plugin Loader[]
The Plugin Loader is the official community-supported tool by Avaness to install plugins.
The Steam Workshop Plugin loader is now deprecated. If you are still subscribed, unsubscribe and remove the outdated custom launch options from your Space Engineers installation in Steam! The link below will take you to a short Youtube video that is very concise and clear on what to do to enable the plugins in SE directly from the Github Source. Click HERE to go to the Youtube Video. I do hope that my small edit on this page saves at least some of you the hours of fun I had trying to get back my SE plugins.
How to install plugins[]
Plugins are not added to individual game worlds like mods, instead they are added to the whole SE game. Be prepared that installing plugins will also slow down the startup time of the whole game.
- Make sure you have the Plugin Loader installed.
- Start Space Engineers.
- In the main menu, click the new Plugins button.
- Enable the plugins hosted on GitHub.
- Click Save.
- Click Restart.
The selected plugins are now available to all game worlds.
Tip: Don't install plugins from other sources, they could be unsafe or buggy.
Troubleshooting[]
If you have installed plugins and the game suddenly no longer starts, temporarily disable all plugins by holding (ESCAPE key) while the game is loading. Then report your issue to the GitHub page and wait until a fix is found.
Client or Server?[]
The plugin description will tell you whether the plugin must be installed clientside or serverside or both.
Plugins that are clientside-only also work (for you only) when you are playing on a multiplayer server. It's similar to how you could install ReShade[2] for shinier visuals that only you can see, and the server wouldn’t care.
In order for plugins with any serverside aspects to work at all, it's up to the admin of the multiplayer server to install them, in addition to the players installing them clientside.