Plugins
Plugins are a type of Space Engineers customization 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, incompatible or malicious plugins cannot only crash or slow down the whole game, but also access your files or network! Only use plugins if you understand their risk, and:
For the full official statement on plugin support, see spaceengineersgame.com/plugins.
Community Plugin Repository
Until 2023, plugins were possible to load directly to the game, although not officially recognized by Keen Software House. They were not intended for the community to use, but for Keen's own tools. To increase safety, Keen has removed this support, as well as all plugins from the Steam Workshop and Mod.io and will not allow new uploads there.
Community members such as Avaness have created a community plugin repository on GitHub. Community contributors must upload their plugin code where it is transparent and open source. The community plugin repository for Plugin Loader is also available to view on the project's website.
Examples of Plugins
- Multigrid Projector Plugin
- SE WorldGen
- Block Picker
- Better Inventory Search
- GPS Folders
- Performance Improvements
- Camera LCD
- Torch Server plugins for multiplayer
- Dedicated Server plugins for multiplayer
How to Install the Plugin Loader
Previous versions of the game allowed the use of the plugins via custom launch options, but now one of the only ways to install plugins is to use the Space Engineers Launcher for Plugin Loader. This launcher is a community-supported tool by Avaness that will start the game with Plugin Loader. Plugin Loader will download and keep plugins up to date using the community GitHub repository. Find more information on how to install it on the project's website.
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.
- Start the Space Engineers Launcher. (Not the one from Steam!)
- In the main menu, click the Plugins button.
- Enable the plugins hosted on GitHub.
- Click Save.
- Click Restart.
The selected plugins are now available to all game worlds.
Tip: Again, don't install plugins from any 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 work with the community to find a solution.
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 colourful icons or ReShade[1] 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.