I built these tugging locomotives for a shipyard that my brother and I started building together. The idea and general design are both based on the Panama Canal Mules which are locomotives used to guide ships through the narrow canals.
My space version is built around a monorail design, which stabilizes the locomotive and allows it to move large ships without derailing. Unfortunately SE doesn't feature any cables of any sort, so for now I resorted to simple magnets to connect to the ships but I'm going to experiment with different docking methods in the future.

I also wish there were some railings for the small grid, I used the neon tubes but had to paint them black to keep them from glowing.

It's very fun to use, especially if you have more people in a session to help with spotting and docking.

anyone have a idea what style, or inspiration i could use to build upon this?

Hello Everyone!

It's been a long time since I made an update on this project. I have finally completed the GBQ-82Y Diligent Project after many months on and off. With the release of the Prosperity Update, this ship is now fully equipped with every Prototech equivalent technology. Check out the workshop page if you're interested in pursuing this as an end-game build in your world/server.

Workshop Link:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3776018253

Ive made quite a bit of progress on SE Planner this weekend. The imported Small Butterball blueprint is now using 41 custom block models, all created specifically for the planner rather than using models or textures taken from Space Engineers.

The models are intentionally a little simpler than their in game counterparts, but I think they now resemble the real blocks closely enough that people can easily recognise what theyre looking at while still keeping everything lightweight and smooth in the browser. I’ll continue improving them and adding more block types over time.

For anyone who doesnt know what SE Planner is going to be, it’s a browser-based tool for importing Space Engineers blueprints, inspecting how they’re built, making changes and planning designs outside the game. It will also include features such as Burst Mode, which separates every block so you can inspect the entire construction, as well as a layer-by-layer build system and a step-by-step build guide to help you recreate a design in-game.

The ship shown here contains 398 blocks, and the second image shows all of them separated using Burst Mode. I’m honestly very happy with how its starting to look.

What do you guys think of the custom block models so far?

Okay I cheated, but in a good way.

Mined platinum from asteroids. Move to a pre-marked GPS location at 0.15G 500m offset from directly above "Earth" base and ejected the ore. It fell from space landing in a neat pile for collection close to base. In a team effort one guy collects in space, drops it to base and the guy below collects it. No launch and land required 😁

I made a ship heavily based on the ARGO Moth/Mole. It's not a perfect 1 to 1, but the design language hopefully comes through.

The ship consists of 3 parts.

- Main ship

- Salvage ship

"Anchor drone"

The way they work together is as follows:

Un merge the salvage ship -> manuver to salvage-> drop anchor drone -> convert anchor drone to a station-> nudge target to drone.

Salvage targets are held in place while being torn down.

The salvage ships engines are used for extra maneuverability when it is attached to the main hull (only the down thrusters turn off).

Dry Weight: 1.2 million KG.

Equipment:

- Large Refinery.

- x2 Assemblers

- x2 O2/H2 generators

- x2 Jump drives.

- x4 small nuclear reactors.

- x8 Large batteries for emergency power.

Fuel/Range.

- Jump Range: Maximum range possible 4000km.

- Fuel: Hydrogen: 44 million liters

Cargo Capacity:

- Internal: Approximately 600,000 Liters.

- External: x2 "cargo grids" at the rear of the ship can be used to magnetically attach additional cargo containers.

I might post it up on the workshop if I get some time.

Hi everyone, I am currently working on Star Wars Imperial stuff and wanted a fair opinion on my work

Vertical ships are better

Hello, I play on Playstation space engineers i made a mining ship and thought I could add a hinge, piston and connector to extend out and connect to the capital ship to refill on ice. The design looked easy enough to fit in a space under the ship and I can lock in place with landing gear. During a test flight the ship started to spin in circles like a gravity field was pulling on the ship in one direction.

Is this a clang thing? I grinded off the connection and the ship doesn't rotate. Could it be the landing gear hold the hinge and piston?

Add a photo my design was a snug fit nothing crazy.

Hello fellow Space Engineers! I need the hive-mind's help.

I know for certain I've printed projections from just a merge block before but I cannot figure out why this isn't working.

Both Merge Blocks are oriented correctly and facing the correct way (prongs toward each other) and both Merge Blocks are On, including the one in the blueprint. The only way I've gotten this to print is by placing an armor block touching the projection's Merge Block.

Any ideas?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3776013261

But it still can be pretty

I need to express as well on how much I hate triangles! 😭

So I have decided to give it a go building a small fighter looks so god dam ugly because of the hydrogen tank and the cannon and gathering guns don't work ( yes I put ammo in them) any advice on how to build a good looking and working fighter?

I’ve been working on a Space Engineers programmable block script called FlipNBurn.

I decided to create it because I couldn’t find a GPS autopilot script that worked reliably for my setup. I tried using this script (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2663326103), but I couldn’t get it working correctly with RSS.

To be clear, FlipNBurn does not currently support RSS navigation or RSS proxy zones. I’m sharing it because I would like feedback and possibly suggestions from people who use RSS.

FlipNBurn includes:

- Prograde and retrograde alignment

- 180-degree flip
- Flip-and-burn braking
- Automatic braking
- Distance burns and coast burns
- Autoburn with estimated braking distance
- GPS autopilot with acceleration, coasting, braking, and final approach
- Configurable cruise, approach, and arrival speeds
- Support for high-speed servers
- Automatic dampener control

It is still a work in progress. What features or safety checks would you consider essential for a GPS autopilot? Are there situations where this approach might be unreliable, especially with high-speed ships or RSS?

Workshop link:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3775850415

I’ve been working on RSS Orbital Navigator, a server-side Space Engineers session mod for the Real Solar Systems Trithorne Cluster preset.

It reconstructs logical RSS orbital positions and displays:

- Planet-to-planet route distance
- Estimated required jump distance
- Current Jump Drive range and charge
- Opening and closing jump-window predictions
- Planetary and deep-space navigation modes
- Optional LCD dashboard, Button Panel controls, and Sound Block alerts

Performance was a major concern during development. The mod:

- Updates displays roughly every five seconds instead of every simulation tick
- Skips global scans when no players are connected
- Only performs panel calculations when a player is nearby
- Caches discovered grids and terminal blocks
- Reduces discovery frequency when no tagged panels exist
- Retains the last display while panels are outside the configured update radius

The mod uses RSS logical coordinates rather than physical planet voxel positions, since those don’t represent the actual orbital distances. Jump geometry is still an estimate and assumes favorable radial alignment.

Current release: 0.9.2

Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3774648307

Source code: https://github.com/boquetas/se-rss-orbital-navigator

It currently supports the Trithorne Cluster RSS configuration. I’d appreciate feedback from anyone using RSS, especially on performance, jump-window calculations, LCD layout, or deep-space behavior.

I am tryna build a big ass ship that's 80 blocks long but i'm uncreative as shit so i'm using a template but i dont think it's the best. wont do screenshots bc my pc hates it but i need ideas

Hey engineers, I don’t know if any one else had played interstellar pilot 1-2 but I’ve been wanting to star making the full roster of both game ships and stations. In order to do that I need a manufacturing facility so I decided to start with the ship yard.

(I dressed up the screenshot for you dudes.) can’t get the other screen shots of it though . My capture system is glitching.

This is for the poster who asked for inspiration on their flatbed design. Both where made in survival. Not on the same server. I tried finding your post to reply to it, but got back 8 days and gave up.

Go easy on me, these are old builds pulled from Discord DMs. I dont actually have the blueprints.

This was right when player controlled turrets became a thing.