History VideoGame / SpaceEngineers

* TheArtifact: The Passage block; originally it was meant to be a ladder block for large ships, but when ladders were found to be buggy they were removed and replaced with an area that the players would need to use their jetpacks to ride up through. This is slightly less than useless considering that the block requires resources to make, whereas not putting any blocks into a column does not. Their only value is to add, however little, to the structural integrity of the ship's corridors.

* MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness: Zig-zagged. Word of God states that the developers want the game to be as realistic as possible, so 'soft' technology like DeflectorShields and FrickinLaserBeams are unlikely to make an appearance[[note]](though there is a wide variety of sophisticated [[GameMod mods]] to that effect)[[/note]]. However, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality we still get traditional]] ArtificialGravity generators, and SoundInSpace (while optional) is present by default.

* NotTheIntendedUse: Artificial Mass allows grids in space to be influenced by ArtificialGravity, which they usually defy. This was ''intended'' to allow players to build and use wheeled vehicles in space. Instead, players discovered that orienting a gravity generator to the prow of a grid equipped with artificial mass could launch a ship into a vertical free-fall, endlessly building momentum until they broke the game's speed limit. A later patch removed the game-breaking aspect, but "gravity drives" remain a popular way for spaceships to rapidly accelerate while saving on power and fuel.
* NoWarpingZone: Warp Drives do not work within the gravitational field of planets, or within 1 kilometer of other constructs. Gravity drives - used for incredible acceleration in space - are rendered inert by natural gravity, becoming less and less efficient as they approach a planet, until they are rendered completely inert at the surface of a Earth-like or Alien world.

* SelectiveGravity: Zig-zagged. The ArtificialGravity provided by gravity generators doesn't effect standard blocks unless they have an artificial mass block attached to them, but the natural gravity found on planets and moons affects everything. Natural gravity also cancels out artificial gravity, so ships with gravity generators won't drag themselves down under the combined gravitational pull.

** Inertia dampeners require propulsion on every side of your ship in order to brake properly. If you're going at full-speed, you'd better hope your opposing thrusters are strong and/or numerous enough to slow you down before you hit something. Or turn your ship around and use your main thrusters to slow down.

Originally debuting via UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}'s Early Access program in October 2013, ''[[http://store.steampowered.com/app/244850/ Space Engineers]]'' saw a full release in February 2019, and continues to receive sporadic content updates.

* NotTheIntendedUse: Artificial Mass allows grids in space to be influenced by ArtificalGravity, which they usually defy. This was ''intended'' to allow players to build and use wheeled vehicles in space. Instead, players discovered that orienting a gravity generator to the prow of a grid equipped with artificial mass could launch a ship into a vertical free-fall, endlessly building momentum until they broke the game's speed limit. A later patch removed the game-breaking aspect, but "gravity drives" remain a popular way for spaceships to rapidly accelerate while saving on power and fuel.

* AttackDrone: Drone ships can be created through the application of a Remote Control block and an Antenna, allowing you to command the ship via another friendly Antenna nearby. A Camera is also recommended, so you can fly the drone in first-person.

* BlindJump: Jump Drives can be used without coordinates, and doing so will teleport their structure to a random location within the range of a single jump.

** The running lights present on many ship components will change between green and red based on their operational status.

* CoolStarship: There's no real limit to how large or complex your ships can be (save for your own computer's ability to render it), which allows for some pretty fantastic designs. Don't forget to spruce up your creation with an eye-catching color scheme!

* EasyLogistics: Every component on a structure capable of sending or receiving some resource can be connected to others via conveyor ports and tubes. This conveyor system transports everything from metal ingots to explosive missiles to the pilot's air supply, without the need for separate conveyor paths. Its entirely possible for a mining drill to transport its collected ore and rock through the ship's cockpit, oxygen tank and reactor core to reach a distant storage crate or refinery.

* HyperspeedEscape: Provided you can survive for ten seconds while [[SpaceIsNoisy everyone nearby can hear your jump drive spooling up]], a Jump Drive can be used to teleport away from danger. Be sure to disable antenna broadcasting and beacon transmitters (or jump out of broadcasting range) lest your enemies simply give chase.

* SeriesMascot: Aside from the generic player-character astronaut, the developer-built Large Ships ''Red 1'' and ''Blue 2'' are featured in every major trailer and official gameplay video. The unnamed Blue Fighter is also prominent.
* SnipingTheCockpit: Destroying the cockpit is the easiest way to disable fighter craft, though it's more difficult on large ships due to them often being buried deep in armor. With the camera part, they don't even need windows.

* UsedFuture:
** [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=297456650 "Shadowflux's Used Equipment Sales and Service"]] redesigns several existing devices and blocks in this style. It's proven popular enough to warrant two [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=307355703 expansion]] [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=313180944 packs]], as well as a version [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=310690236 that cleans up the grime]].
* WaterIsBlue: Or ice is, at least. Patches of ice can be found on asteroids, and the Earth-like planet features lakes of shiny blue ice.

''[[http://www.spaceengineersgame.com/ Space Engineers]]'' is a survival-crafting sandbox InSpace developed by KEEN Software House, which puts players in the role of one of the titular space engineers working in an asteroid field (or on a small planet), building all manner of spacecraft and machinery as they mine the local resources.

Currently in beta stage, [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/244850/ the game is available for Early Access]] on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, and an UsefulNotes/XboxOne port has been announced.

A spinoff - developed by a separate team - named ''Medieval Engineers'' is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJBYsv3sGAI also in]] [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/333950/ Early Access]]. It's ''Space Engineers'' [[RecycledInSpace but set in]] [[InvertedTrope the medieval period]]. [[http://blog.marekrosa.org/2015/01/medieval-engineers_22.html Improvements made]] to the VRAGE GameEngine for ''Medieval'' will be applied to ''Space'', such as compound blocks and voxel modification.

* ArtEvolution: Originally, ship components adhered to a quasi-EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture aesthetic, with smooth plates, rounded edges and the default color being very pale grey. Update 01.165 subverted it by instead making everything closer to a StandardHumanSpaceship in appearance, though still retaining the soft default colors.

* ArtificialGravity: Provided by [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Gravity Generators]] on Large Ships and Stations. There are two types: the regular one that makes a cube/cuboid field and a spherical one that has itself as the centre of gravity. Natural gravity subtracts from artificial gravity, so on a 0.25g moon an artificial gravity of 1g is weakened to 0.75g; this prevents the usage of the extremely powerful gravity drives to take off from heavy worlds.

* AsteroidThicket: Asteroids in standard maps are plentiful and not far apart, easily reachable with just the jetpack on the space suit. Subverted in the procedural-generated world - The asteroids there are several minutes apart, even when travelling at full speed.

** The [[UnnecessarilyLargeVessel largest]] and/or [[StarshipLuxurious flashiest]] of spaceships tend to be this, even without atmosphere or other considerations getting in the way. Either the ship is too fragile (making it easily wrecked), too heavy and bulky (effectively turning it into a MightyGlacier that requires tons of engines, gyroscopes and wasted power to move properly), or simply so huge and complex that it creates a mountain of lag.

** The thee-planet solar system. Vast and diverse {{Baby Planet}}s for you to explore, mine and build upon, but aside from trees, grass and hostile [=NPCs=] on two of them (which can be turned off in worldgen), they're completely desolate.

* BigBulkyBomb: Full-size SpaceMines are the same scale as other Large Ship pieces. Naturally, they produce the biggest and most destructive explosion in the game.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: A race of predatory creatures called Saberoids are a threat on Alien-type planets. They move fast, are able to burrow underground, and are strong enough to tear most light-armor blocks to pieces.
* BiggerIsBetter: At least in regards to Large ships. As you build a ship larger and larger, you have more and more space to put in larger [[ArtificialGravity gravity drives]], which can become so stupidly powerful that they can accelerate a ship to the engine speed limit almost instantaneously. A larger ship also gives you more room for turrets, armor, etc. Inverted with Small ships, which are best when their size is minimized as they cannot mount gravity drives, forcing them to rely on plain old thrusters.
* BoobyTrap: Several of the unmanned Cargo Ships were originally rigged with these, built from SpaceMines and small engines hidden inside the ship's hull. If someone tries to hijack the ship and force it to stop, the reverse-thrusters will detonate the bombs simultaneously and destroy the cargo and vital systems - if not the entire ship. These were removed in favor (in part) of having the ship be a separate faction from the player when the related updates came out, so now if you want to salvage them (they come filled with goodies, and hey, free ship), their turrets will target you. The Space Engineers wiki lists several methods you can do to avoid getting shot. As a note, the Military Minelayer still has a "pleasant surprise" more or less buried beneath the main space mine storage that will be detonated on the inertial dampeners being activated. This will gut the ship almost guaranteed.

** The JetPack on your spacesuit. The maximum speed of those little thrusters is higher than any ship's, with greater acceleration to boot.

* CameraPerspectiveSwitch: You can switch between first- and third-person perspective at will. If you're in a cockpit during first-person, you'll be treated to a pilot's-eye view as you fly around. There is an option where this may be disabled, however, locking the player into first-person perspective.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: The resources that can be mined from asteroids are represented by colored patches on the surrounding rock.
** Iron varies between pale red and bright orange.
** Cobalt is yellowish-brown.
** Nickel is pinkish-red.
** Uranium is glossy black.
** Silver and Platinum are [[ShapedLikeItself Shaped Like Themselves]], and can sometimes be confused with each-other.
** Magnesium is grey with blue patches.
** Silicon is a shiny off-white color.
** Gold is [[ShapedLikeItself fairly self-evident]].
** Ice is a shiny teal/sky blue.
* CombiningMecha: Merge Blocks can be used to connect two or more ships; the ships can form a larger "super ship" or make a booster for one of the ships. Be careful on the arrangement of components or the ships and/or stations become semi-permanently merged when they and you are forced to deconstruct or destroy components to detach them from each other.
* ConstructionIsAwesome: The prime selling point of ''Space Engineers'' is the ability to design your own spaceships and space stations from scratch. [[WreakingHavok And then destroy them with detailed damage physics]]. In Survival mode, blocks aren't instantly placed: You spawn a simple skeleton-frame, and then use a welding tool to add on its component parts and gradually piece it together. Even the simplest ship designs take some time to build.

* CoolStarship: There's no real limit to how large or complex your ships can be, which allows for some pretty fantastic designs. Except of course, how much RAM you have and how much your computer can handle. Larger ships (300+ meter range) can start causing framerate drops. Some mega ships in the Steam Community Workshop such as a full scale [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=302484334&searchtext= Titanic]] replica may cause a straight crash to desktop.

* DeathFromAbove: Meteor showers have been introduced as the game's first environmental hazard, with individual meteors capable of dealing significant damage to structures. The frequency and danger of showers changes based on the world's Environment settings:
** Safe = No meteor showers.
** Normal = Intermittent showers.
** Cataclysmic = Meteor showers are a constant danger.
** [[UpToEleven Apocalyptic]] = Showers happen within mere minutes of each-other... [[IncendiaryExponent and the meteors are on fire]].

** A Large-scale Hydrogen Thruster is pretty hefty compared to other thruster types, especially when directly connected to the Hydrogen Tanks fueling it.

** The [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=320814133 Leviathan Capital Ship Thruster mod]]. It's larger than the dev-built starting red ship!

* TheFaceless: The player-character engineers have tinted black visors that completely hide their faces. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] because [[TruthInTelevision real-life astronauts]] use black tinted visors to prevent their faces from being burned by unfiltered sunlight.
** Subverted by the Oxygen update, allowing players to remove their helmets in pressurized environments. Without his helmet, the player-character engineer [[GenerationXerox strongly resembles]] the one from ''Medieval Engineers''.

** The [[SpaceIsNoisy Sound Block]]. Nothing says 'realistic' like rigging up an exterior speaker system to blast the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' theme as you fly through the vacuum of space.
** The Jump Drive is an outright teleportation device, standing in ''very'' stark contrast to the relatively grounded tech found everywhere else. In this case it's another [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality Acceptable Break From Reality]], as the maximum speed of any object without mods is little over a hundred meters-per-second; without the Jump Drive, long-distance travel could take hours of uninterrupted flight, which already carries the risk of accidentally crashing into objects like asteroids if you aren't paying attention.
* GatlingGood: The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Gatling Gun]] on [[SpaceFighter Small Ships]], and the [[SentryGun Gatling Turret]] on everything else. Their high rate of fire and fast projectiles make them perfect for fending off meteorites and shooting down Small Ships, but low damage makes them largely ineffective against structures and heavy armor. Thanks to the difficulty of using larger, heavier blocks on in-atmosphere craft, they are especially effective on planets.

* GravitySucks: The simulation doesn't model actual orbital mechanics, anything above a planet will simply fall toward that planet, absent a countervailing force, unless it is anchored to something that has a fixed position in space, like an asteroid. This gravity effect diminishes with distance, so if a ship runs out of thrust above a planet it will slowly begin falling toward it, accelerating gradually as it does so, until it impacts the surface.

* HyperspeedEscape: Provided you can survive for ten seconds while [[SpaceIsNoisy everyone nearby can hear your jump drive spooling up]]. Be sure to disable antenna broadcasting and beacon transmitters (or jump out of broadcasting range) lest your enemies simply give chase.

* LaserSight: Present on spaceship weapons to help you aim, because - depending on where you install your weapons - the projectiles don't always line up with your crosshair. The laser sights are not visible along their lengths, [[CrosshairAware but all players can see the small neon-red dots that show where the projectiles will hit]].

* MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness: WordOfGod states that the developers want the game to be as realistic as possible, so 'soft' technology like DeflectorShields and FrickinLaserBeams are unlikely to make an appearance. [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality We still get]] ArtificialGravity, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality though]].

* OldSchoolDogfight: [[SpaceFighter Small Ships]] generally fight like this, since their weapons typically don't track targets and they can move pretty fast.

* RammingAlwaysWorks: Until the weapons were implemented, the only real way to damage other spaceships was to ram into them at top speed. [[RealityEnsues Of course, this generally leaves both ships equally mangled unless some serious hull-reinforcement is installed at the ramming point]]. To [[WreakingHavok show off the destruction mechanics]], nearly every gameplay trailer for the game features at least one ship ramming into another.
* ReactionlessDrive: Despite producing a [[WeaponizedExhaust damaging plume]], Ion Thrusters are effectively reactionless. They require no fuel source and can produce an infinite level of thrust so long as a power source exists somewhere on the same ship, be it a battery, reactor or solar panel. Averted with Hydrogen Thrusters, which require an active source of fuel that must be stored in bulky tanks.

* SpaceMines: Of the explode-by-hard-contact variant, available in small and large sizes.

* WeaponizedExhaust:
** Engines of all sizes and types cause damage to anything in the path of their thrust, literally burning holes through the obstructing materials.
** This feature is exploited in the Cargo Ships update. The ships in question are rigged with high-yield explosives that are detonated by hidden thrusters if the ship is ever forced to slow down, making hijacking attempts rather tricky. An option to turn Exhaust Damage off on a world-by-world basis was soon added, which makes internal engines on ships safe again, and disarms the booby traps in most of the cargo vessels.

* ZipMode: Warp Drives. Provided that you've saved a set of co-ordinates at the desired location, you can use a Warp Drive (or several, depending on the distance) to teleport back from almost anywhere, saving you potentially hours of travel time.

* ContinuousDecompression: Averted. Atmosphere will drain out of your ship from an open hole with an impressive spray of particles, but it stops quickly ([[MisaimedRealism albeit too quickly]]) within seconds.

* BottomlessMagazines: Weapons fire continuously, and when a given clip/ammunition container runs dry the weapon just switches to the next available one without needing a physical reload.

** As of the 1.0 release, with ladders added back to the game, the Passage block has it's original use restored. Ladder's aren't necessarily limited to being built inside Passage blocks, but they do have a niche when engineers want to build narrow pressurized human-traversal passage that don't have a lot of armor blocks surrounding them.

* SpaceStation: These can be built using Large blocks, either floating in open space or attached to an asteroid. Doing the latter will make the station totally static and immovable unless severed from whatever voxel mass it's tethered to.

** NoSenseOfDistance: Planets are extremely close to each other compared to real life; the Earth-like world and its moon are only a few thousand kilometers apart, whereas the real Moon is a hundred times more distant. Planets are [[BabyPlanet far smaller than they should be]], though the excessively curved horizon is only noticeable from a high vantage point. Courtesy of the ArbitraryMaximumRange of both rendering and ship weapons, the absolute maximum engagement range against ships with conventional weapons is under 3 kilometers, which the USS Texas battleship could triple in 1892. Physicalized weapons (i.e. Railguns, torpedos) have a much longer range, but their accuracy is garbage against moving targets thanks to [[PainfullySlowProjectile their top speed of 104m/s]]
** NoSenseOfVelocity: By default, ships have a top speed of 104 m/s, roughly equal to the top speed of an older supercar. A space shuttle orbits at 7800 m/s. The agonizingly slow speed limit makes the Jump Drive an absolute necessity for interplanetary travel. It's possible to increase the speed limit, but it has dire effects on collision detection and rotors/pistons; a ship traveling at 400+ m/s will simply phase through ships and asteroids until the game realizes its location [[TeleFrag with unfortunate results]].

* BoobyTrap: Several of the unmanned Cargo Ships were originally rigged with these, built from SpaceMines and small engines hidden inside the ship's hull. If someone tries to hijack the ship and force it to stop, the reverse-thrusters will detonate the bombs simultaneously and destroy the cargo and vital systems - if not the entire ship. These were removed in favor (in part) of having the ship be a separate faction from the player when the related updates came out, so now if you want to salvage them (and they come filled with goodies, and hey, free ship), their turrets will target you. The Space Engineers wiki lists several methods you can do to avoid getting shot. As a note, the Military Minelayer still has a "pleasant surprise" more or less buried beneath the main space mine storage that will be detonated on the inertial dampeners being activated. This will gut the ship almost guaranteed.

* FasterThanLightTravel: As of update 1.090, FTL of the "jump" variety is made possible by the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin aptly named]] Jump Drive block. It requires ten seconds to spin up before any jump, several minutes to recharge, has a minimum safe distance of five kilometers and draws a large amount of power, this in exchange for a maximum jump range (not accounting for additional transit mass) of two thousand kilometers per drive. It should also be noted that the drive's precision is ''anything'' but pin-point, and misjumps in excess of one kilometer off target are common.

* GatlingGood: The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Gatling Gun]] on [[SpaceFighter Small Ships]], and the [[SentryGun Gatling Turret]] on everything else. Their high rate of fire and fast projectiles make them perfect for fending off meteorites and shooting down Small Ships, but low damage makes them largely ineffective against structures and heavy armor.

* SnipingTheCockpit: Destroying the cockpit is the easiest way to disable fighter craft, though it's more difficult on large ships due to them often being buried deep in armor.

* ArtEvolution: Originally, blocks adhered to a quasi-EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture aesthetic, with smooth plates, rounded edges and the default color being very pale grey. Update 01.165 subverted it by instead making everything closer to a StandardHumanSpaceship in appearance, though still retaining the soft default colors.

* EverythingIsAnIpodInTheFuture: Ship systems originally featured soft edges, minimalistic details and occasionally brightly-colored lights; aided by the fact that the default color for everything was a very light grey with darker grey detailing. This was eventually subverted with Update 01.165, which completely redesigned all blocks in a more detailed and realistic style.

* TheFaceless: The player-character engineers have tinted black visors that completely hide their faces. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] because [[RealLife Real-Life]] astronauts use black tinted visors to prevent their faces from being burned by unfiltered sunlight.

* FasterThanLightTravel: As of update 1.090, FTL of the "jump" variety is made possible by the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin aptly named]] Jump Drive block. It requires ten seconds to spin up before any jump, several minutes to recharge, has a minimum safe distance of five kilometers and draws a large amount of power, this in exchange for a maximum jump range (not accounting for additional transit mass) of two thousand kilometers per drive.\\
It should also be noted that the drive's precision is ''anything'' but pin-point, and misjumps in excess of one kilometer off target are common.

** The orientation of any gravity field is determined by the orientation of the Gravity Generator itself - Whatever surface you build it on becomes the 'floor', so it's possible to build a generator upside down and walk across the roof of your ship.

* ReactionlessDrive: Despite producing a [[WeaponizedExhaust damaging plume]], Ion Thrusters are effectively reactionless. They require no fuel source and can produce an infinite level of thrust so long as a power source exists somewhere on the same ship, be it a battery or nuclear reactor. Averted with Hydrogen Thrusters, which require an active source of fuel that must be stored in bulky tanks.

* SelectiveGravity: Zig-zagged. The ArtificialGravity provided by gravity generators doesn't effect standard blocks unless they have an artificial mass block attached to them, but the natural gravity found on planets and moons affects everything.
* SentryGun: Available in three flavors: [[GatlingGood Gatling]] and [[StuffBlowingUp Missile]] turrets to protect the exterior hull, and a much smaller Interior turret to fend off players. They can be individually programmed by their owner to fire upon meteors, missiles, derelict junk and other players.

* SolarSail: The Solar Panel is commonly used to invoke this, though on their own they provide no thrust. Since it generates a decent level of energy (while facing the sun, obviously), it's somewhat common to find Small Ships and some lightweight Large Ships using masses of solar panels to power their engines while conserving valuable uranium.
* SpaceFighter: The Small Ship class, which is largely considered the workhorse of ''Space Engineers''.

* StandardHumanSpaceship: All armor blocks are made up of riveted steel plates fitted together, which are by default colored a dirty gunmetal gray, and generally have hard edges. The dev-built ships largely avert part of this though, as they are often painted in bright primary colors for easy visual identification.

* ThisIsADrill: Available as a hand-tool for players and as a system for Small and Large Ships. [[InNameOnly Though the hand-drill, despite being referred to as such, is clearly a jackhammer]].

* TrickedOutShoes: The boots of your spacesuit are magnetic, in a manner similar to the Landing Gear block, allowing you to walk and even run on any surface and transition between angles when your jetpack is turned off. However, due to the magnet being by necessity relatively weak, any gravity field will overpower the boots' magnetism.

* {{Unobtainium}}: Uranium, which is used as the primary fuel source in the game, has some shades of this. While it's fairly easy to find, it's the only non-recyclable resource in the entire game - Once the last uranium ore deposit on the map is used up, it's gone forever. The Solar Panels were specifically introduced to give players an alternative power source for this eventuality. Luckily, NPC ships will always carry at least one unit in their reactor that can be stolen, often have more than one reactor, and sometimes even carry significant amounts of refined uranium ingots in their cargo bays.

** The Jump Drive is an outright teleportation device, standing in ''very'' stark contrast to the relatively grounded tech found everywhere else. In this case it's another [[AcceptibleBreaksFromReality Acceptable Break From Reality]], as the maximum speed of any object without mods is little over a hundred meters-per-second; without the Jump Drive, long-distance travel could take hours of uninterrupted flight, which already carries the risk of accidentally crashing into objects like asteroids if you aren't paying attention.

** All those beautifully constructed titans in the workshop might not be the most functional. The well designed ones tend not to look as pretty, and you'd prefer them to play with in survival. But in Creative, you can mess with all the really cool ones, and if they break horribly you can easily paste them back in for tweaking.

* ArtEvolution: Originally, blocks adhered to a quasi-EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture aesthetic, with smooth plates, rounded edges and the default color being very pale grey. Update 01.165, however, [[SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty completely overhauled every block into a grittier, more realistic style and set the default color to a dirty grayish-brown.]]
* TheArtifact: The Passage block; originally it was meant to be a ladder block for large ships, but when ladders were found to be buggy they were removed and replaced with an area that the players would need to use their jetpacks to ride up through. This is slightly less than useless considering that the block requires resources to make, whereas not putting any blocks into a column does not. However, Passages can hold ships together, if only barely, whereas ''nothing'' can not.

* AsteroidMiners: The players themselves, since the majority of resources are acquired by mining nearby asteroids and refining the raw materials.

** The [[UnnecessarilyLargeVessel largest]] and/or [[StarshipLuxurious flashiest]] of spaceships tend to be this, even without atmosphere or other considerations getting in the way. Either the ship is too fragile, making it easily wrecked - too heavy and bulky, effectively turning it into a MightyGlacier that requires massive engines to move properly - or simply so huge and complex that it creates a mountain of lag.

* BabyPlanet: Downplayed. Planets do have visible curvature when one is standing on high ground, but they are still dozens to hundreds of kilometers in diameter.
* BadassBeard: Underneath the helmet, the player character has a scruffy black beard similar to the male playermodel from 'Medieval Engineers'.
* BaseOnWheels : A Large Ship on wheels can very easily be this.
* TheBattlestar: Large Ships, particularly the bigger ones, are commonly fitted with hangar bays for carrying Small Ships.

** Any map that has all [=NPCs=] and random encounters disabled will result in the player being utterly alone in the depths of space. You can even subvert the "beautiful" aspect by starting Empty World map and turning off asteroids in worldgen, leaving the player floating in an endless void with absolutely nothing in it.
** The thee-planet solar system. Vast and diverse {{Baby Planet}}s for you to explore, mine and build upon, but aside from hostile [=NPCs=] on two of them (which can be turned off in worldgen), they're completely desolate.
* {{BFG}}: Rocket Launchers can be mounted on Large Ships, and they're easily the biggest weapons in the game.

* BoobyTrap: Several of the unmanned Cargo Ships are rigged with these, built from SpaceMines and small engines hidden inside the ship's hull. If someone tries to hijack the ship and force it to stop, the reverse-thrusters will detonate the bombs simultaneously and destroy the cargo and vital systems - if not the entire ship. These were removed in favor (in part) of having the ship be a separate faction from the player when the related updates came out, so now if you want to salvage them (and they come filled with goodies, and hey, free ship), their turrets will target you. The Space Engineers wiki lists several methods you can do to avoid getting shot. As a note, the Military Minelayer still has a "pleasant surprise" more or less buried beneath the main space mine storage that will be detonated on the inertial dampeners being activated. This will gut the ship almost guaranteed.

** Moonbases might not be as interesting as planetary bases, but there's plenty of ice around the caps for generating oxygen and the lower gravity makes it easy for ships to take off and land, making moonbases perfect staging grounds for mining asteroids in the same system.

* CameraPerspectiveSwitch: You can switch between first- and third-person perspective at will. If you're in a cockpit during first-person, you'll be treated to a pilot's-eye view as you fly around. There is an option where this may be disabled, however, locking the player into first person perspective.

* CombiningMecha: The Merge Blocks can be used to connect two or more ships; the ships can form a larger "super ship" or make a booster for one of the ships. Be careful on the arrangement of components or the ships and/or stations become semi-permanently merged when they and you are forced to deconstruct or destroy components to detach them from each other.

** Creative use of sensors detecting asteroids and triggered thrusters can make hovercars that skim just over an asteroid's surface.

* CriticalEncumbranceFailure: Subverted. Reaching the maximum volume of your inventory doesn't stop you from moving or slow you down, but it does make you ''heavier''. Ships carrying heavy loads in cargo containers can also have their center-of-mass destabilized, depending where the container is, which can be troublesome during atmospheric trips.
* CrosshairAware: Turrets show a square reticule over whatever they're firing at.

* EverythingIsAnIpodInTheFuture: Ship systems originally featured soft edges, minimalistic details and occasionally brightly-colored lights; aided by the fact that the default color for everything was a very light grey with darker grey detailing. This was eventually subverted with Update 01.165, which completely redesigned all blocks in a [[SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty gritter]], more realistic style, and also turned the default color from clean light grey to a dirty brownish-grey.

* HyperspeedEscape: Provided you can survive for ten seconds while [[SpaceIsNoisy everyone nearby can hear your jump drive spooling up]]. Be sure to disable antenna broadcasting and beacon transmitters (or jump out of broadcasting range.)

* InSpaceEveryoneCanSeeYourFace: Strongly averted. The visor is completely opaque.

* LaserSight: Present on spaceship weapons to help you aim, because - depending on where you install your weapons - the projectiles don't always line up with your crosshair. [[SentryGun Turrets]] have a much more pronounced laser sight with a visible length that turns from [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience green to red]] whenever the turret locks on to something.

* NoSenseOfDistance: Planets are extremely close to each other compared to real life; the Earth-like world and its moon are only a few thousand kilometers apart, whereas the real Moon is a hundred times more distant. Planets are [[BabyPlanet far smaller than they should be]], though the excessively curved horizon is only noticeable from a high vantage point. Courtesy of the ArbitraryMaximumRange of both rendering and ship weapons, the absolute maximum engagement range against ships with conventional weapons is under 3 kilometers, which the USS Texas battleship could triple in 1892. Physicalized weapons (i.e. Railguns, torpedos) have a much longer range, but their accuracy is garbage against moving targets thanks to [[PainfullySlowProjectile their top speed of 104m/s]]
* NoSenseOfVelocity: By default, ships have a top speed of 104 m/s, roughly equal to the top speed of an older supercar. A space shuttle orbits at 7800 m/s. The agonizingly slow speed limit makes the Jump Drive an absolute necessity for interplanetary travel. It's possible to increase the speed limit, but it has dire effects on collision detection and rotors/pistons; a ship traveling at 400+ m/s will simply phase through ships and asteroids until the game realizes its location [[TeleFrag with unfortunate results]].

* StandardHumanSpaceship: All armor blocks are made up of riveted steel plates fitted together, which are by default colored a dirty gunmetal gray, and generally have hard edges. Heavy armor is distinguished by having a rudimentary cameo pattern printed onto the steel. The dev-built ships largely avert part of this though, as they are often painted in bright primary colors for easy visual identification.

** Due to ArtEvolution, this is the current state of the block designs; [[SlidingScaleOfShinyVersusGritty underlined by the default color being changed from clean, light grey to dirty brownish-grey]].

** Managing your stockpiles of ice and uranium. Refined uranium is needed so reactors can provide power to your machines, ice needs to be processed to create oxygen and hydrogen, and neither resource can be 'recycled' afterwords like other mined ores can be.

* ExplosionsInSpace: We've got missiles and mines as weapons, while Hydrogen Tanks, Batteries and Large Reactors will explode when destroyed. Subverted with everything else, as hull blocks gradually shatter and deform instead, while other ship systems simply suffer a CriticalExistanceFailure.

* TheAllegedCar: The Rescue Ship that players can respawn with is heavily dented, not even fully built and slow as molasses. However, it does have a very [[BoringButPractical space-efficient design and carries everything the player needs]]. Cars with wheels have a tendency to violently lose their wheels when doing sweet jumps or even just turning if the wheel arches are too small.
** Same idea here. All those beautifully constructed titans in the workshop, as mentioned below, might not be the most functional. The well designed ones tend not to look as pretty, and you'd prefer them to play with in survival. But in Creative, you can mess with all the really cool ones, and if they break horribly you can easily paste them back in for tweaking.

* TheArtifact: The Passage block; originally it was meant to be a ladder block for large ships, but when ladders were found to be buggy they were removed and replaced with an area that the players would need to use their jetpacks to ride up through. This is slightly less than useless considering that the block requires resources to make, whereas not putting any blocks into a column does not.
** However, Passages can hold ships together, if only barely, whereas ''nothing'' can not.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The [[UnnecessarilyLargeVessel largest]] and/or [[StarshipLuxurious flashiest]] of spaceships tend to be this, even without atmosphere or other considerations getting in the way. Either the ship is too fragile, making it easily wrecked - too heavy and bulky, effectively turning it into a MightyGlacier that requires massive engines to move properly - or simply so huge and complex that it creates a mountain of lag.

* BoobyTrap: Several of the unmanned Cargo Ships are rigged with these, built from SpaceMines and small engines hidden inside the ship's hull. If someone tries to hijack the ship and force it to stop, the reverse-thrusters will detonate the bombs simultaneously and destroy the cargo and vital systems - if not the entire ship.
** These were removed in favor (in part) of having the ship be a separate faction from the player when the related updates came out, so now if you want to salvage them (and they come filled with goodies, and hey, free ship), their turrets will target you. The Space Engineers wiki lists several methods you can do to avoid getting shot. As a note, the Military Minelayer still has a "pleasant surprise" more or less buried beneath the main space mine storage that will be detonated on the inertial dampeners being activated. This will gut the ship almost guaranteed.

* [[CombiningMecha Combining Spaceship]]: The Merge Blocks can be used to connect two or more ships; the ships can form a larger "super ship" or make a booster for one of the ships. Be careful on the arrangement of components or the ships and/or stations become semi-permanently merged when they and you are forced to deconstruct or destroy components to detach them from each other.
* ConstructionIsAwesome / DesignItYourselfEquipment: The prime selling point of ''Space Engineers'' is the ability to design your own spaceships and space stations from scratch. [[WreakingHavok And then destroy them with detailed damage physics]]. In Survival mode, blocks aren't instantly placed: You spawn a simple skeleton-frame, and then use a welding tool to add on its component parts and gradually piece it together. Even the simplest ship designs take some time to build.

* CoolCar: Through the application of wheels and Artificial Mass blocks, ships of any size can be built into ground-based vehicles that can drive around while within a gravity field.

* EnormousEngine: The [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=294555339&searchtext= Titan Engine mod]]. Standing at twenty blocks long and five blocks wide and tall, it easily dwarfs players and most structures, [[WeaponizedExhaust and the exhaust flame is substantial enough to obliterate Small Ships almost instantly]].

* EverythingFades: If there are too many loose objects, the game starts deleting them in a first-in-first-out method. How many is "too many" can be adjusted during worldgen. This limit doesn't apply to stations or ships, though.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Gravity Generators stand out as being very out-of-place in the otherwise MundaneDogmatic game. They are present primarily for ease-of-navigation in ships without having the clumsiness of flying in tight spaces.

* ResourcesManagementGameplay: Managing your stockpiles of ice and uranium. Refined uranium is needed so reactors can provide power to your machines, ice needs to be processed to create oxygen and hydrogen, and neither resource can be 'recycled' afterwords like other mined ores can be.
** Your spacesuit in particular needs power, oxygen and hydrogen simultaneously in order to function properly. Without hydrogen, you can't fly; without oxygen, you can't breathe; and without power your jetpack, tools and life support won't function at all.

* ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale:
** NoSenseOfDistance: Planets are extremely close to each other compared to real life; the Earth-like world and its moon are only a few thousand kilometers apart, whereas the real Moon is a hundred times more distant. Planets are [[BabyPlanet far smaller than they should be]], though the excessively curved horizon is only noticeable from a high vantage point. Courtesy of the ArbitraryMaximumRange of both rendering and ship weapons, the absolute maximum engagement range against ships with conventional weapons is under 3 kilometers, which the USS Texas battleship could triple in 1892. Physicalized weapons (i.e. Railguns, torpedos) have a much longer range, but their accuracy is garbage against moving targets thanks to [[PainfullySlowProjectile their top speed of 104m/s]]
** NoSenseOfVelocity: By default, ships have a top speed of 104 m/s, roughly equal to the top speed of an older supercar. A space shuttle orbits at 7800 m/s. The agonizingly slow speed limit makes the Jump Drive an absolute necessity for interplanetary travel. It's possible to increase the speed limit, but it has dire effects on collision detection and rotors/pistons; a ship traveling at 400+ m/s will simply phase through ships and asteroids until the game realizes its location [[TeleFrag with unfortunate results]]

** PointDefenseless: Soundly averted. While they are easily distracted by Decoy Blocks, turrets are aggressive and very accurate.

* SpaceIsNoisy: Quite a few things are fully audible in the void, especially explosions and weapons fire. The Sound Block even allows you to broadcast effects like sirens or music in the vacuum of space.
** Averted with a recent update introducing the option to use realistic sounds, now everything has an incredibly muffled, quiet sound if you're even touching them, otherwise it's completely silent. The realistic transition of sound is noticeable when you approach a ship or station airlock, once your feet touch the hull, you can hear the very faint hum of equipment, once you get inside and it's pressurized, the sounds become much more clear and distinguished, then once you open your helmet, the sound returns to what you were used to. Otherwise all you hear is just your breathing and the sound of your jetpack when not touching anything.

* TooFastToStop: Inertia dampeners require propulsion on every side of your ship in order to brake properly. If you're going at full-speed, you'd better hope your opposing thrusters are strong and/or numerous enough to slow you down before you hit something. Or turn your ship around and use your main thrusters to slow down.

* UsedFuture: [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=297456650 "Shadowflux's Used Equipment Sales and Service"]] redesigns several existing devices and blocks in this style. It's proven popular enough to warrant two [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=307355703 expansion]] [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=313180944 packs]], as well as a version [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=310690236 that cleans up the grime]].

* WeaponizedExhaust: Engines of all sizes and types cause damage to anything in the path of their thrust, literally burning holes through the obstructing materials.

** Any map that has all NPCs and random encounters disabled will result in the player being utterly alone in the depths of space. You can even subvert the "beautiful" aspect by starting Empty World map and turning off asteroids in worldgen, leaving the player floating in an endless void with absolutely nothing in it.
** The thee-planet solar system. Vast and diverse BabyPlanets for you to explore, mine and build upon, but aside from hostile NPCs on two of them (which can be turned off in worldgen), they're completely desolate.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: A race of predatory creatures called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7t37LNdy6k Saberoids]] are a threat on Alien-type planets. They move fast, are able to burrow underground, and are strong enough to tear most light-armor blocks to pieces.

** And don't even mention the [[http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=320814133 Leviathan Capital Ship Thruster mod]]. It's larger than the dev-built starting red ship!

* TheFaceless: The player-character engineers have tinted black visors that completely hide their faces. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] because [[RealLife Real-Life]] astronauts use black tinted visors to not burn at the hands of a star.
** The Oxygen update finally subverts this, allowing players to remove their helmets in pressurized environments. Without his helmet, the player-character engineer [[GenerationXerox strongly resembles]] the one from ''Medieval Engineers''.

-->-- '''[[TheOtherWiki Wikipedia]], [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 2077]]'''

Currently in beta stage, [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/244850/ the game is available for Early Access]] on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, and an XboxOne port has been announced.

* TelescopingRobot: Concealing weapons underneath ship armor is very popular. On the other hand, the ship actually needs the internal space to fit the weapons and the mechanism to deploy them. It's also liable to end in disaster if the pistons or rotors jam, which can cause [[HoistByHisOwnPetard rockets to misfire straight into the delicate internals of the ships]]. The trailer for the XboxOne port has a space station with turrets that rise out from hidden ports.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Gravity Generators stand out as being very out-of-place in the otherwise MundaneDogmatic game. They are present primarily for ease-of-navigation in ships without having the clumsiness of magnetic boots or flying in tight spaces.

** Quite literally. The effective game world encompasses a cluster of asteroids with absolutely nothing around them. There are no enemies, you can travel infinitely, and the only additions to the world are the ones you create yourself.
** The 'Empty World' map even removes the asteroid cluster, leaving your engineer utterly alone in the vacuum.
** It's gradually getting de-voidified with updates. Currently there's an option in Survival mode to add neutral, unmanned ships flying about for anyone brave enough to hijack them (especially the military ships).
** The Devs redid the skybox so now instead of being in a vast asteroid cluster, you can see bits of the Milky Way's arms, with distant specks and balls of light. The new exploration mode also adds procedural generation so you can find different asteroids and player built content to find amongst your endless journey.

* DramaticSpaceDrifting: Aside from the totally-static asteroids and stations, anything that lacks sufficient engines and gyroscopes (or the power to keep them working) can be sent into an aimless drift with enough force. The aftermath of a spaceship's destruction tends to leave plenty of ruined hull fragments quietly spinning away into the void.

* EverythingBreaks: From the asteroids to the structures and ships you build.

* ExplosionsInSpace: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. We've got missiles and mines, all of which go off with a satisfying bang, but the fireworks rarely last more than a second, and structures (beyond the aforementioned mines) generally only shatter into debris.

* TheLittleDetecto: The Ore Detector does ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - It detects nearby valuable ores in an asteroid. It'll also helpfully label what ''kind'' of ore it is.

* MobileFactory: Any Large Ship equipped with Refineries and Assemblers.

* StandardHumanSpaceship: All armor blocks are made up of riveted steel plates fitted together, which are by default colored a dirty gunmetal gray. Heavy armor is distinguished by having a rudimentary cameo pattern printed onto the steel. The dev-build ships largely avert part of this though, as they are often painted in bright primary colors for easy visual identification.

* WideOpenSandbox: Aside from player-created scenarios, the game has no objectives of any sort beyond survival, and you can build nearly any sort of spaceship or structure you want.

** Averted with a recent update introducing the option to use realistic sounds, now everything has an incredibly muffled, quiet sound if you're even touching them, otherwise it's completely silent. The realistic transition of sound is noticeable when you approach a ship or station airlock, once your feet touch the hull, you can hear the very faint hum of equipment, once you get inside with the air, the sounds become much more clear and distinguished, then once you open your helmet, the sound returns to what you were used to. Otherwise all you hear is just your breathing and the sound of your jetpack when not touching anything.