In this guide, I will be discussing the nuances afforded to us all by KSH’s addition of magnetic boots in space engineers and the profound impacts it can have on interior spaces, and general ship design in Space Engineers. I will touch on topics of spatial theory, video game level design, best practices for gravity neutral spaces, and tips/tricks for good interior lighting, texture, and paint. As with my last guide the following reflects my personal views and opinions, if you find a better way of doing some of the things I talk about in this guide I will happily discuss it with you over private chat and include your input in this guide. Without further ado lets start thinking 5th dimensionally.

Many Space Engineers have at one point in time heard the phrase “The enemies gate is down”. This is a reference to a way of thinking about operating in a zero-gravity environment in the book Enders Game, by Orson Scott Card. Importantly, the main character was intelligent enough to realize that orientation in zero gravity is relative. Now this may sound like a “thank you captain obvious“ moment but the implications of this fact, and that many people choose to ignore it, allows the main character to win in the battle room with impunity.

In general space ship combat, you want to orientate your ship in relation to a target to present minimal targeting aspect. In fighter combat you need to be aware of your ships 6 profiles, minimize the exposure of week sides to an enemy who could approach from 360* on any 3 axis. Simply put, the pilot needs to be aware of Space, and his/her position in it. This is all well and good when you are flying about in a ship.

Up until recently in Space Engineers this was the most anyone had to think about. Players walked about in their ships and ‘down’ was the floor they walked on and was usually related to the direction of the internal gravity drive. Players (mostly) did not use their jetpacks inside their ships as it was faster (more user friendly) to pass through the old interior doors by walking.

Update 1.075 gave us sliding doors which lets users fly easily though a door in any orientation but, for the most part, this did not change interior design of ships. The doors made vertical ‘Jefferies tubes’ (made from passage blocks) a more viable design choice for navigating decks, but that is about it. Most still designed the interior of their ships to align in relation the plane of force from a central linear gravity generator and that was that. Some players did play with the perception of gravity by cleverly arraigning multiple linear gravity generators or a centralized spherical gravity generator, but this was more a thought exercise than any practical design feature. Mostly because the transitions between gravity plains were jarring for the player at best, and vomit inducing at worst.

Magnetic boots in update 1.165 change this. We now can apply the same 6 direction spatial awareness in a practical and user friendly way to the interior of our creations.

We live (and game) in a 3 dimensional world:

• 1st ) Up/down
• 2nd ) left/right
• 3rd) Forward/Backwards

and experience it through time or the 4th dimension.

Mag boots grants us access to typically un-usable dimensions in game and can be a little mind-bending so lets break it down....

Take this simple 7x7x7 cube.



On the outside it has 6 faces. And exists in 3 dimensions (4 if you count the passage of time). My earlier guide[//] talked about addressing each of these 6 faces so that it would look interesting from the top/front/right/isometric views in game.

Typically the interior space of this cube(if hollow) would be a 5x5x5 space, with 125 available slots for interior bricks.



Many would subdivide into two 5x5x2 decks. Some would, by way of catwalk blocks, can sub divide this space into a 5x5x3 and a 5x5x1 spaces. Using 25 bricks to make the floor, and leaving 100 left for interior decoration. You would most likely only get around ~50 usable interior bricks after installing stairs and lights, which sadly for the time being take up a whole brick.



Mag boots let us effectively triple the available interior space into 6 fully functional 5x3x3 decks, granting us access to the 5th, 6th, and 7th dimensions of the cube.

• 5th) interior up/down
• 6th) interior left/right
• 7th) interior forwards/backwards

Now, this is just a conceptual example. When it comes to interior designing in such concept, due to vast space that a single room will use, it is not necessary to fill every empty spot. Instead the details should be focused on each "floor" and their relationships to the interior space in its entirety.

One of the hardest things to do in video game level design is to get the end user to go where you want them to go without taking control of the player’s character. You spend a lot of time making cool views or room and most of the time the end user will be looking at his shoes or go off and look at something else on the wall that interests them. At the end of the day unless you are standing next to the end user, they are going to look at and interact with your creation how they want to. Having said that, there are subtle ways the AAA game studios gently nudge the end users to look at and interact with their world the way they intend them to. Valve studios and the HL2 developers are pretty masterful at this and, more importantly, they were kind enough to talk about their process with in game developer commentary. For this section I will adapt some of the things they talk about to Space Engineers; for a more involved description I suggest you go and play through HL2 E2 with the dev commentary[half-life.wikia.com] on…



It took you a little bit but after seeing the giant neon sign to your left you realized it was surrounded by a swamp filled with things to look at other than the sign. Bright lights cause the pupils to contract narrowing your focus, and your brain tends to automatically home in on the object your eyes are focusing on. It then takes a more conscious effort to look at things in the background. In HL2 the developers use light and sound to direct the player’s attention to scripted events occurring off in the distance (explosion of the city 17 tower) and for things like where to look when enemies may spawn. This approach can be used in any number of subtle ways inside of a ship so you are not filling your interiors with “walk here” LCD bricks. Paint your interior a darker tint then use Lighting that is brighter than the general area lighting to call out something you want your player to look at. Things like a room’s main entrance/exit.



Have you ever noticed that you can always tell where you need to jump to or what things can be interacted with when playing games like Uncharted, Assassins Creed or Mirrors Edge? That the tarp hanging out the window, the climbable drain pipe, the ledge you can grapple to are all the same shade of blue. That it’s always a red button or lever that makes something work or that you walk across the same textured ice and you will not fall to your icy death. This is accomplished by consistently using color and texture to teach the player where to climb and what buttons are press-able. The same concept can very easily be transposed into your space engineer’s creation.


bright objects hypnotize the mind applied in game

Use interior blocks, catwalk panels, or even slightly different tint paint (to get the armor lip texture) to show paths.



Use the same arrangement of armor tips or round armor blocks for magboot transitions, and the player will learn that this is where you want them to walk. The key is consistency.

In my previous guide, I mentioned that when I lay out interior spaces inside of ships and stations I always start with the staircase. Doing this ensures a cohesive flow between decks. The last thing you want is to do is cram disjointed stairs between decks after the fact. (after stairs, I have gotten into the habit of running a conveyor “main line” as well) To avoid your interior spaces looking like this…




I find its best to plan the transitions of an interior space methodically. Start by sketching the interior decks as if they were unfolded into a single flat plane. Then build a quick mockup of each unfolded deck in game for you to reference.




In your sketch or in game indicate where you want the end user to transition between decks. When you build, your transition keep in mind that it is important that you stay consistent with transition design through your creation (I will touch on why in the next section) After you are satisfied fold your decks together, judicious use of the copy and paste function in game is helpful for this, and solidify the joins as you see fit.

Next need to apply edge treatments that will prohibit end users from walking through your decks in areas they are not meant to. As a rule, you should avoid placing seats, control stations and buttons along the seams of the interior decks. This will prevent situations like this



Inward sloping 30* angles and 90* interior angles cannot be walked around as of 1.107. Other bricks like the interior cover walls and catwalk bricks with railings can also help cordon off unwanted magboot access to your decks. Now that you have assembled you room it is time to make it look pretty.

There is a fantastic mod that W0lf3y introduced me to and i'll plug here.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=500818376

This helps you put paint exactly where you want to put paint. Its extremely helpful in the complex interior spaces that designing for the magboot master race requires as it lets you place paint on exposed bricks without the need of removing bricks to paint with center mouse click then re-adding bricks later.

It helps to have a paint pallet wall setup somewhere not on the main grid of the ship for you and/or your friends to reference. I also find its helpful to also have a lighting wall setup along with a paint pallet so you can always reference interior light settings. This helps greatly with consistency of paint throughout your build.


How you end up laying out whole creation is up to you but i have found that building the ship from the inside out, as described here[//] allows you to avoid any embarrassing interior paint bleeding through to the outside of your ship.



W0lf3y has taken to building double hulled ships to get around this issue in its entirety.



There are pros and cons to this approach as with all theories in ship building. It allows you to build your magboot master race rooms and paint them exactly how you want. It makes your ships much more durable in a firefight as they are essentially double hulled. It gives you a superstructure space to run things like conveyor lines and areas to hide extra equipment (gyroscopes, batteries, etc). The downside is that your ships get much larger.

I just make do with paint blead-through and find ways of coping with it on the exterior hull of the ship.

Magboot Master Race design isn't for everyone, but if you do it right you can build some really neat things the workshop has never seen. I encourage you all to visit the Magboot Master Race Mothership

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956727730

Feel free to take it apart and learn what you can.

Thank you all for reading the guide. I hope you found it helpful.
~Kilroy

Thanks to Nemisismax who helped me with edits for this guide and my mate W0lf3y for help working on the demo ship and examples for screenshots.

Bright objects hypnotize the mind artwork comes from Stephen Doyle and was from the 2011 national poetry month. I don't own this art and original link can be found here
https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/poster-gallery