Options

From Space Engineers Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Global options apply to all Space Engineers games. They include display and screenshot resolution, graphic quality, audio volume, crosshairs, UI transparency, or UI language. Here you also find frequently looked for settings like keybindings, experimental mode, and Steam Cloud.

Click Options on the Main screen to open the Options menu. In game, you can access it from the pause screen by pressing Escape.

  • Note the UI tab next to the General tab, it’s easily overlooked.
  • Note that there are additional World Settings that apply to individual games.

Game Options

General

  • Language - Select your desired UI language.
  • Building mode (creative mode only) - Choose whether clicking in Block Placement Mode places a single block, a line of blocks, or a plane of blocks. Similar to the CTRL key+Left-drag and CTRL key+SHIFT key-Left shortcuts.
  • Experimental mode - Enables advanced features, like running scripts. This mode is active either for all games or for none. This setting cannot be edited while a game is running. See also Experimental mode.
  • Show control hints - Shows keybind tooltips in game. Recommended for beginners.
  • Show Good.Bot hints - Shows gameplay advice in game. Recommended for beginners. See also Good.Bot.
  • Reset Good.Bot Hints - Shows all gameplay advice again as if it was the first day. See also Good.Bot.
  • Show rotation hints - Show an overlay with arrows and rotation keybinds in Block Placement Mode.
  • Enable Steam Cloud - Store and synchronise saved games in the Steam Cloud, for example, when you're moving your installation from one PC to another. Currently buggy, since it interferes with Workshop blueprint saving, so it's best to switch it off.
  • Enable Trading - Allows in-game Trade offers from nearby players in multiplayer. If disabled, your character auto-ignores all player trade requests on multiplayer servers.
  • GDPR Consent Agreement - Remembers your privacy policy consent for the European Union.
  • Mod.io Consent - Remembers your consent if you want to use the mod.io workshop.
  • Enable area interaction - Allows interactions with objects without having to place the crosshair on them directly. Switch this off if you often end up grinding a different block than the one you thought you were aiming at.

UI

  • Show crosshair - Choose from the following options:
    • always hidden
    • always visible
    • visible with HUD (press tab)
  • Ironsight switch state - Choose whether pressing the secondary action key toggles aiming down sights (zooming in) with a weapon, or whether you have to hold the key.
    • Toggle
    • Hold
  • Custom Crosshair Color
    • Select a hit type: enemy, friendly, headshot, kill, or grid
    • Then select a custom crosshair color and transparency for each hit type.
  • UI scale - Adjust UI readability for various screen sizes
  • UI opacity - The user interface is opaque by default. Moving the slider to the right means 100% opaque.
  • UI background opacity - A more transparent UI background (by moving the slider to the left) lets you see what happens around you while adjusting settings in the Terminal.
  • HUD background opacity - A more transparent HUD (by moving the slider to the left) lets you see more of the game environment.

Display Options

  • Video adapter - If you have multiple graphic cards, select the best GPU here.
  • Window mode
    • fullscreen window
    • window
    • fullscreen
  • Video mode - Select your preferred screen resolution. The recommended one is marked with asterisks.
  • Screenshot size multiplier - Even if you cannot play in the highest resolution, you can take high-quality screenshots in 2x, 4x, or even 8x resolution of the current window size. Use F4 key to take the screenshot, and wait a few seconds. The high-quality screenshot will be saved into %appdata%\SpaceEngineers\Screenshots.
  • Vertical sync - Choose whether you want the game to sync with the refresh rate of your screen to resolve possible visible horizontal distortions, at the cost of slower performance.
  • Capture mouse - Whether the game should capture the mouse pointer in "Window" and "Fullscreen Window" Mode.

Graphics Options

Tip: Using the "Extreme" graphics quality is not recommended for actual gameplay.

  • Quality Preset - Sets all the settings below to a predefined preset.
  • Model quality - Lower settings reduce distance for model LOD. For Low&Medium the highest detail (LOD0) is never shown. Extreme does not use LODs at all for certain models.
  • Shader quality - Affects atmosphere quality, decals distance, particle density (25% at Low, 100% otherwise), alphamask quality, voxel shading, and some aspects of shadows.
  • Voxel quality - Distance details in terrain and asteroids.
  • Texture quality - Texture resolution and also distance at which LCD blocks have their image rendered. High RAM and VRAM impact.
  • Shadow quality - Shadow resolution and distance of shadows. At Low it also disables shadows from spotlights, otherwise it's max 4 spotlight shadows.
  • Light quality - Limits amounts of point lights that can be seen near camera: 256, 512, 2048, 4096. Does not affect spotlights (max 32 projected lights).
  • Anti-aliasing - FXAA is a post-processing effect that attempts to smooth jagged edges. Small performance impact.
  • Anisotropic filtering - Improves texture clarity seen at steep angles. Recommended 4x.
  • Field of view - Choose higher numbers the closer and larger your screen is, typically 60 for couch to TV and 80+ for chair and monitor.
  • Flares intensity - Set opacity of glare and lens flares from lights and the Sun.
  • Grass draw distance - Distance at which grass fully vanishes.
  • Grass density - How many billboards of grass are rendered. High performance impact.
  • Tree draw distance - Distance up to where trees are being rendered. Their quality is affected by Model quality setting.
  • Ambient occlusion - Extra screen-space shadowing where surfaces get near each-other. Recommended to keep on as it helps depth perception.
  • Enable damage effects - Particle effects such as sparks and smoke indicate that blocks are damaged beyond function. Recommended on.
  • Enable Post-Processing - Extra screen effects: Bloom, Vignette, Chromatic Abberation and faint dirty visor shining in the light.

Audio Options

  • Music volume - See also Music.
  • Sound volume
  • Enable voice chat
  • Voice chat volume - Volume of incomming voice chat from other players.
  • Push to talk - Disabling this will have your microphone always active.
  • Microphone Sensitivity - Only visible if the game platform (Steam, etc) doesn't already provide sensitivity to speaking.
  • Mute when inactive - Silences the game when the game window loses focus when you tab out.
  • Enable Doppler effect - Frequency of sounds is affected by relative movement between source and listener. For more info see Doppler Effect.
  • Speed based ship sounds - Thruster/etc sounds play if ship is moving, off plays them if the thrusters are actually the ones doing the moving. Recommended off.
  • Use contextual music - Plays music in the background depending on planet or activity: build music, fight music, space music, mystery music, or calm music. See also Music.
  • HUD warnings - Suit voice gives additional spoken audio warnings when your Engineer's oxygen/health/power are low.

Controls

Lets you change the default Key Bindings. There are several categories of controls:

Credits

Keen Software House

How Do I Back Up my Custom Options?

To back up your options, go to the hidden directory "%appdata%\SpaceEngineers\" in Windows Explorer and back up the file SpaceEngineers.cfg.

How Do I Reset All Options to Their Defaults?

To reset all Space Engineers options and keybonds/controls to default settings, delete the .CFG file:

  1. Close the game.
  2. In the Windows Explorer, go to the hidden folder "%appdata%\SpaceEngineers".
  3. Delete the ''SpaceEngineers.cfg'' file.
  4. Restart the game.
Retrieved from "https://spaceengineers.wiki.gg/index.php?title=Options&oldid=31450"