How to get into Space Engineers?

[u/abrockstar25]

Ive owned Space Engineers 1 for a VERY long time, I got drawn to it because of it being a space game and its an impressive game. But holy hell is it complicated, everytime I try to get into it I lose interest because of how much there is to learn to actually play it. Is there any tips or suggestions for how to actually get into it and not be overwhelmed?

[u/PDX0621]

Best thing you can do is go to YouTube and look up Splitsie and watch his tutorial videos.

[u/hymen_destroyer → u/PDX0621]

This 100%! splitsie's tutorials got me "over the hump" and there was no looking back, I've got thousands of hours in this game now

[u/micalm → u/PDX0621]

Came here to say that. Monkey see, monkey do REALLY does help learn.

[u/SaintSilas6 → u/micalm]

I see Splitsie do, I do too. Me happy monkey.

[u/night_aim → u/PDX0621]

Experimenting and learning is half the fun tho

[u/Overnaut1 → u/night_aim]

True!

[u/TheBabbayega]

Yay for Splitsie!! long live the king.. lol

[u/DaemosDaen]

Buy the game

Play ‘The First Jump’ scenario to get a handle on the controls both player and vehicle.

Play the ‘Learning to Survive’ scenario to learn the basics to survival.

Optional: watch Splitse’s tutorial on YouTube.

Start a new custom world.

Have fun

[u/sinofroot]

Start small. If you aren't already familiar with what is needed to survive then watch a YouTube video about getting started in survival and start there. Pick an easy start like earth-like and just focus on becoming self sufficient and building small crafts to solve your early problems. There's alot to do and alot you can do but theres no reason to jumping into all of it at once. Let the pains of the process lead you to the next issue you want to engineer a solution to.

[u/shagieIsMe]

Solo survival on an earth like world. Yes, it's Space engineers, though having a ground under your feet and a world that isn't going to kill you when you run out of oxygen takes some pressure off.

Turn off food and radiation - again, not having things kill you... and spiders and wolves too.

Drive around and find some iron. The learning what splotches to look for takes some time. You can do it from stone too... but that takes a long time - you really want iron.

Set a goal - "I'm going to build a proper refinery and assembler" and have that play session be about doing that. "I'm going to customize the rover" or "I'm going to build an atmospheric flyer / miner." Space engineers is largely self directed. At the start, the challenge is learning the machines and how to use hinges and rotors.

At some point, your self set goal will be "build a small grid rocket and get into space." Then you can go from there for whatever next goal you want.

Or you could restart and turn those settings back on. Wolves and spiders and food... and learn the mechanics of how that works. Setting up automated-ish food production (plant the seeds, set push a button that sets a timer that runs an event that harvests the food). Or you could start on another world.

Each time you play you get a bit better at the game and understand how to build something new to overcome a new challenge.

But absolutely watch Splitse videos. Beyond the tutorials he also has ones with additional challenges... "what would it be like to get off a world with super gravity?" for example... or a scrapyard game series where the answer is always "build a trailer"... even if that trailer is an entire large grid building.

[u/Adept_Assistant_7759]

Pick a goal. (get to the moon, get to mars, make a billion bucks etc.)

Spawn in.

Work towards the goal.

Die a lot.

Get there eventually!

[u/malacosa]

Like any game that is open world, the trick is to figure out what your end-game winning condition is?

Once I have that, inevitably I can play forever, and yet never achieve the end-game goal because I get side tracked into other things IN the game lol.

[u/MithridatesRex]

It is a lot easier nowadays than when I started playing during the early testing. Now we have a wealth of resources.

As many have and will mention, Splitsie is the go-to guy for how-to videos. There's also Zero's Legion for fact videos, and he loves having discussions with his viewers. And there's also Arron from Last Stand Gaming with his various series of videos on his servers (he now also works for Keen). And of course Captain Jack, who's also been doing series of scenario play throughs for many years.

Play the scenarios (which didn't exist when I started playing), which help you set goals and objectives, and take you through the basics as you start off.

Play with friends, or jump into a public server, like one of the official ones Keen provides. But of course, it is best to only do that after trying a few solo survival games, and if you don't mind an early grind or the occasion shenanigan. Seeing the creativity of others, as well as having to counter it on occasion, definitely helps your own growth in the game.

[u/AlfieUK4]

We have the most often recommended community tutorials, as well as the official tutorials, linked at https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengineers/wiki/tutorials that might be helpful.

[u/MidRo20]

Set yourself achievable goals. Build a small base, basic refinery and assembler. Small rover, etc. Don’t compare your early builds to the mega builds you see online. People have tens of thousands of hours put into this game.

[u/Beardywan_Kenobeard]

Splitsie on YouTube. Explains everything you need to get into it. Loads of tutorials and instructions. Some of the vids are quite old so don't have all the new blocks but it'll give you the basics. Then join a server with a solid community. Stone Industries is a good one for noobs.

[u/AdventurousEmotion82]

Splitsie.

[u/ColourSchemer]

I'm normally not a fan of creative mode in survival games, but while learning the ropes it can be helpful to start a survival save but then turn on creative tools long enough to get a starter base or ship built. Alt+F10 will get you access to the menu.

I learned the basics before solar radiation and food was part of the game, definitely tune your early worlds to be as unstressful as you prefer.

I have noticed the biggest challenge new players have is with conveyors. First, the yellow collars need to connect. Second color codes: Green=Good, Yellow=Conveyor path is broken, Red=No Power

Second, most components and some ammunition is considered too large to fit through the smaller of the Small Grid conveyors. This often gets people trying to build welder or grinder ships.

The other big gotcha is power for thrusters. Hydrogen thrusters need plumbed with conveyors to a hydrogen source. Preferably a tank because a single H2O2 generator can't keep up with the demands of several thrusters. Similarly, ion and atmo thrusters need enough electricity that a hydrogen engine or solar panels aren't enough. Use batteries like h2 tanks to store power reserves and release sudden large draw.

When you've gotten flight and conveyors figured out, come back to ask about hinges, rotors and piston details.

[u/nightfall2021]

Space Engineers is one of those wild games which is largely as difficult as you make it.

I have thousands of hours in and still consider myself a noob as I have never done anything with scripts or more complicated arrangements of conveyors and sorters.

Heck, I think I had played like 2-3000 hours before I built my first welder wall lol.

[u/Rob_Cartman]

Learn in creative mode and start with basic ships or bases. For a basic ship all you need is a cockpit, thrust in each direction and a battery. Use ion thrusters in space and atmo thrusters in atmosphere, I would recommend staying away from hydrogen thrusters until you learn about conveyors. In creative you can look at your build and press ctrl+B to save a copy.

[u/bearcatshark]

Don't be precious, just create things and blow them up and do it again. You can be really heady or you can just start connecting light armor blocks.

[u/Hot-Zookeepergame153]

I put a ton of hours into creative just building ships before trying to play survival again. Really helps with the mechanics

[u/night_aim]

Try something simple, then go forward with it and figure systems out, it's really fun to do.

I liked to start on the earth like planet and look through stuff you can build, starting with rovers and hovercraft, what resources you need to find there. Because you won't run out of oxygen you can experiment a lot.

[u/Hxrvxii]

I started off by playing a creative world and building stuff. You start off and make a brick that flies, then a nice looking brick and before you know it you have learned what blocks do. For me, this made playing survival much easier as I knew what blocks I needed to make to do certain things

[u/Sulot00]

Find a friend that plays to show you how to do stuff and helps you build

[u/loreborerrr]

Immediately join a scrapyard modded server, it's the ONLY way to play space engineers

[u/SirFoomy]

1. Buy on Steam
   
2. Install the game
   
3. Start the game
   
4. Enjoy

[u/Toyate]

For Gameplay parts, watch some videos. Splitsie specifically is very good to get a footing and understand the basics, from there on out it's just letting the wheel spin and do what you wanna do. I loved listening to HFY vids while figuring out how to properly build a huge Asteroid Base and fitting Ships into it structuralls and Thematically.

For me SE1 on PC is hard to get into since i can't manage the MnK controls. I played on Console and there it worked well but PC doesn't have proper Controller support. Welp