Space Engineers

Space Engineers

Real Solar Systems
 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
Echthros  [developer] 18 Oct, 2024 @ 9:08pm
Editor Guide
To open/close the Editor, type "/TSE" or "/ToggleSystemEditor" in the chat.

Controls
"Insert" / "Delete" to move up and down the hierarchy list on the left.

"Page Up" / "Page Down" to move up and down the parameters list on the right.

"[" / "]" to increase or decrease the currently selected parameter when applicable. Also used to Confirm or Cancel any confirmation popups.

"Home" to activate the currently selected button or submenu when applicable.

"End" to back out of the current submenu.

"Enter" to open chat log to directly enter a value for a parameter when applicable.

System Hierarchy
On the left, you will see a list of all celestial bodies currently in the world and how they are arranged. The very top element marked "Add New System" contains the controls for adding a new system root body. Selecting an element on the left will show all of its values in the parameter panel on the right.

Each element will have:
-The name of the body
-Icon on the left indicating whether it is a star, gas giant, or planet
-Indentation indicating how far down the hierarchy the body is (i.e. the star may have no indentation, the planet orbiting it may be indented once, and the moon orbiting the planet may be indented twice)
-(Optional) A circular arrow icon between two elements marking them as siblings

Parameter Panel
On the right, you will see a list of parameters for the currently selected body. The parameters displayed will depend on which body and submenu are currently selected.

Settings
<Show Zone Range>
Can be used to draw markers around bodies to indicate ORBIT and SURFACE zone range.

<Show Grav (Proxy)>
Can be used to draw markers around bodies to indicate gravity range of their proxies.

<Show Grav (Real)>
Can be used to draw markers around bodies to indicate gravity range of their voxel planet.

<Mark True Bodies>
Can be used to add markers to the positions of the true bodies (voxel planets) in the world.

<Show Sp. Pod Range>
Can be used to draw markers around the space where space respawn pods are allowed to spawn (if <Set Space Pod Range> is true).

<V-Planet Center (km)>
Sets the center of the area that voxel planets will spawn at when a new body is created.

<V-Planet Range Min>
Sets the minimum range that voxel planets will spawn at when a new body is created.

<V-Planet Range Max>
Sets the maximum range that voxel planets will spawn at when a new body is created.

World Settings
<Global Timescale>
Multiplier to planet orbit and rotation speed for the entire world.

<Proxy Space Aster.>
If true, asteroids will spawn in proxy space (outside of planets zones). If false, they will only appear near planets.

<Enable Planet GPS>
If true, planets will automatically be marked with a GPS when approaching them for the first time.

<Enable Orbit Lines>
If true, players can toggle the display of planet orbit lines with Alt+O.

<Set Space Pod Range>
If true, the space respawn pod will be constrained to only spawn within the area defined by the related Editor settings.

<Sp. Pod Center (km)>
The center of the zone that space respawn pods will appear in if <Set Space Pod Range> is set to true.

<Sp. Pod Range Min>
The minimum range from the center of the zone that space respawn pods can appear. They will only appear between the min and max value ranges.

<Sp. Pod Range Max>
The maximum range from the center of the zone that space respawn pods can appear. They will only appear between the min and max value ranges.

Add New Planet / Gas Giant / Star
<Planet Type> (Only for "Add New Planet")
The planet type to be spawned. Listed as the SubtypeIds of planet definitions.

<Radius>
Radius of the planet to be spawned in km.

<Root Position> (Only when new system)
Root position of new system centered around new planet.

<Orbit Radius> (Only when not new system)
Orbit radius of new planet.

Main Options
<Name>
Name of body as it will appear on automatic GPS markers. Can be randomly generated or set directly via chat input.

<Planet Type> (Only for type "Planet")
The planet type (SubtypeId). Changing this value will cause voxel planet to be deleted and replaced after a few seconds.

<Radius> (Only for type "Planet")
Radius of planet in km. Changing this value will cause voxel planet to be deleted and replaced after a few seconds.

<Orbit Zone Radius>
Radius around body that defines its "Orbit Zone". Multiplier represents the number of planet radii above the planet surface that the zone extends. For instance, a 120 km radius with an Orbit Zone Radius of 5.0x will extend 600 km above the surface (or 720 km from the center).

Entering a body's Orbit Zone will teleport all entities to the real voxel planet (and away from proxy space). All grids/players within this zone will move along with the planet along its orbit.

<Surface Zone Radius> (Only for type "Planet")
Radius around body that defines its "Surface Zone". Multiplier represents the number of planet radii above the planet surface that the zone extends. For instance, a 120 km radius with an Surface Zone Radius of 1.0x will extend 120 km above the surface (or 240 km from the center).

Entering a planet's Surface Zone will teleport all entities to the appropriate position based on the planet's current rotation. All grids/players within this zone will move along with the planet's surface while the sky and other bodies appear to rotate above. Only terrestrial planets have a Surface Zone.

<Proxy Scale>
Multiplier for the size that a body and its entire zone appear within proxy space. Setting this value above 1.0 can make planets appear larger that they really are in proxy space. For instance, a planet with radius 120 km and a Proxy Scale of 5.0 will appear to be have a radius of 600 km in proxy space. When entering or exiting the Orbit Zone for this body, all distances and velocities will be transformed appropriately to make things visually seamless.

This can allow for making planets that appear as large as their real-life counterparts in proxy space, but have more reasonably-sized voxel counterparts when you approach. It also allows for creating "mini" solar systems with planets that are very close together and much smaller than normal while in proxy space (making interplanetary travel easy), but are normal sized when you land on them.

<Has Asteroids>
If true, asteroids will appear within the zone for this celestial body.

<Root Position> (Only for "Root" bodies with no parent)
Position in world space of this root body.

<Sibling Weight> (Only for bodies with siblings)
Controls the relative mass of sibling bodies with respect to how their orbits are shaped. Values of 0 or 1 will have one body completely orbit the other. A value of 0.5 will have them orbit each other perfectly balanced (as all things should be).

<Edit Orbit Info> (Only for non-"Root" bodies that have a parent)
Opens the Orbit Info submenu.

<Edit Planet Info> (Only for type "Planet")
Opens the Planet Info submenu.

<Edit Star Info> (Only for type "Star")
Opens the Star Info submenu.

<Edit Gas Giant Info> (Only for type "Gas Giant")
Opens the Gas Giant Info submenu.

<Edit Hierarchy>
Opens the Hierarchy submenu.

Hierarchy Options
<Set/Add Sibling> (Only for bodies without siblings)
Opens Sibling submenu. Can select options to either create a new body or assign an existing body to be the sibling of the selected body.

<Swap With Sibling> (Only for bodies with siblings)
Swaps the current body with its sibling in the hierarchy.

<Detach From Sibling> (Only for bodies with siblings)
Detaches the current body from its sibling.

<Set Parent>
Sets body to be either a child of another selected body or a new root body.

<Add Child>
Opens Add New Planet / Gas Giant / Star submenu. The new body will be made a child of the selected body.

<Recreate Planet>
Deletes and recreates the voxel planet associated with the current planet body. This can be used to update the true planet position with the current spawn restrictions.

<DELETE>
Completely removes the current body.

<DELETE HIERARCHY>
Completely removes the current body and all of its siblings and children.

Orbit Options
<Semimajor Axis>
Orbital radius (can stretch if Eccentricity is > 0).

<Eccentricity>
How elliptical the orbit is. 0 is perfectly circular.

<Pitch>
Pitch angle of orbital plane.

<Roll>
Roll angle of orbital plane.

<Yaw>
Yaw angle of orbital plane.

<Orbital Period>
Time it takes for body to orbit once in seconds. Positive values orbit counterclockwise. Negative values are clockwise.

<Orbital Period Offset>
Percentage offset along the body's orbit.

---Extra Orbit Info---
<Avg Local Orbit Spd>
Average speed of the current body relative to its parent.

<Max Local Orbit Spd>
Maximum speed of the current body relative to its parent (speed at periapsis).

<Cur Local Orbit Spd>
Current speed of the current body relative to its parent.

<Max Total Orbit Spd>
Maximum theoretical speed of the current body relative to the world.

<Cur Total Orbit Spd>
Current speed of the current body relative to the world.

Planet Options
<Proxy Skin Override> (Only for type "Planet")
By default, terrestrial planets with display the proxy associated with its planet definition. This setting can be used to set the proxy for a planet to be any other defined planet proxy. This effect is purely cosmetic.

<Proxy Fadeout Height> (Only for type "Planet")
Multiplier controlling the relative height at which the planet proxy will begin to fade/shrink and reveal the voxel planet. By default, the proxy will only fade out fairly close to the planet, but this can be increased to reveal the voxels sooner. A value of 1.0 will start fading out the proxy immediately after entering the Surface Zone. This is a completely cosmetic setting and does not affect any gameplay.

<Rotation Period> (Only for type "Planet")
Number of seconds that it takes for the planet to rotate once. Positive values rotate counterclockwise. Negative values are clockwise.

<Rotation Period Offset> (Only for type "Planet")
Percentage offset along the body's rotation/day cycle.

<Gravity Strength>
Strength of terrestrial planet gravity.

<Gravity Falloff>
Falloff power of terrestrial planet gravity. Use 7 for default falloff. Use 2 for realistic falloff (inverse square with distance).

<Edit Atmo Info>
Opens Planet Atmo Options submenu.

Planet Atmo Options
<Use Atmo Overrides>
If true, this planet will have its atmosphere modified according to the settings below. Must be true to see other options listed.

<Air Density>
Density of the planet atmosphere (affects thrusters, wind turbines, etc.). Value is shared with all planets of the same type.

<Oxygen Density>
Oxygen density of the planet atmosphere. Value is shared with all planets of the same type.

<Wind Speed>
Max wind speed on planet (affects wind turbines). Vanilla wind turbine outputs will cap out at 80 by default, so higher values will not increase power output. Value is shared with all planets of the same type.

<Rayleigh Scattering>
Color essentially sets the inverse of the sky color (i.e. set to blue to get a yellow sky). Does not affect gameplay.

<Mie Color Scattering>
Color maps to sky color at sunset/sunrise. Does not affect gameplay.

<Atmo Intensity>
Overall visual intensity of atmosphere. Does not affect gameplay.

<Fog Intensity>
Overall visual thickness of distance fog. Also affected by <Atmo Intensity>. Does not affect gameplay.

<Sun Color>
Color of sunlight when on planet surface. Does not affect gameplay.

Star Options
<Radius>
Radius of star in km.

<Effect Color>
Tint color of star particle effect.

<Effect Brightness>
Multiplier to star effect brightness.

<Light Brightness>
Multiplier to light output of star.

<Damage Radius>
Radius of damage to grids and players caused by star.

<Gravity Strength>
Strength of star gravity.

<Gravity Falloff>
Falloff power of star gravity. Use 7 for default falloff. Use 2 for realistic falloff (inverse square with distance).

Gas Giant Options
<Radius>
Radius of gas giant in km.

<Planet Color>
Tint color of gas giant body. Also applies to particles when entering planet atmosphere.

<Planet Skin>
Planet skin applied to gas giant body. Some skins do not use the PlanetColor tint and cannot be recolored.

<Gravity Strength>
Strength of gas giant gravity.

<Gravity Falloff>
Falloff power of gas giant gravity. Use 7 for default falloff. Use 2 for realistic falloff (inverse square with distance).

<Rotation Period>
Number of seconds that it takes for the planet to rotate once. Positive values rotate counterclockwise. Negative values are clockwise.

<Edit Interior Info>
Opens Gas Giant Interior Options submenu.

<Edit Ring Info>
Opens Gas Giant Ring Options submenu.

<Edit Resource Info>
Opens Gas Giant Resource Options submenu.

Gas Giant Interior Options
<Air Density>
Atmosphere density of gas giant.

<Oxygen Density>
Oxygen density of gas giant.

<Wind Speed>
Wind speed of gas giant (affects wind turbines).

<Asteroid Removal>
If true, asteroids cannot spawn inside of the gas giant atmosphere.

<Pressure Dmg Player>
If true, players will take damage if in unpressurized space deep inside of gas giant.

<Pressure Dmg Grids>
If true, grids will take damage deep inside of gas giant.

Gas Giant Ring Options
<Has Ring>
If true, the gas giant will have a ring.

<Ring Skin>
Ring skin applied to gas giant ring.

<Ring Normal>
Normal vector of ring. Does not need to be normalized. Cannot be (0,0,0).

<Ring Color>
Tint color of ring.

<Ring Light Mult>
Brightness multiplier applied to ring portions exposed to sunlight.

<Ring Shadow Mult>
Brightness multiplier applied to ring portions in planet's shadow.

<Inner Scale>
Scale of ring relative to gas giant radius.

<Outer Scale>
Scale of outermost portion of ring relative to the innermost portion.

<Layer Spacing Scale>
Multiplier to the distance between the two drawn ring planes.

<Ring Rotation Period>
Number of seconds that it takes for the ring to rotate once. Positive values rotate counterclockwise. Negative values are clockwise.

Gas Giant Resource Options
<Collect Atmo Ore>
If true, resources can be gathered from the gas giant atmosphere with external collector blocks.

<Atmo Upper Ore>
Ore types collected from the upper atmo. Can have multiple types with different weights and one will be randomly picked from the list every time the collectors update.

<Atmo Upper Amount>
Amount of ore collected every update in the upper atmo.

<Atmo Lower Ore>
Ore types collected from the lower atmo.

<Atmo Lower Amount>
Amount of ore collected every update in the lower atmo.

<Collect Ring Ore>
If true, resources can be gathered from the gas giant rings.

<Ring Ore>
Ore types collected from the ring.

<Ring Amount>
Amount of ore collected every update in the ring.
Last edited by Echthros; 26 Mar @ 2:28pm
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Showing 1-15 of 17 comments
Stahlglanz 23 Oct, 2024 @ 5:59pm 
absolute great work!
anyway to use mouse? half time im confusion in navigate....xD
TiC 24 Oct, 2024 @ 7:24am 
A mouse control would be amazing since I don't have a NumPad and an AZERTY keyboard
cepelevvadim100 26 Oct, 2024 @ 7:10am 
Создал Солнце с нулевой орбитой. Почему когда я создаю его "детей", Меркурий и Венеру, Солнце смещается на обиту одной из них? Оно никак не хочет оставаться в центре системы?
GavrOs 16 Nov, 2024 @ 12:29pm 
Hi! It is not very clear how to adjust the inclination of the orbit. You did this using pitch, roll, and yaw angles. Where to look for these corners? In Wikipedia, there is only the angle of deviation from the plane of the ecliptic/equator of the Sun/invariant plane, or the angle of the argument of the pericenter and the longitude of the ascending node. And how to set the eccentricity of the orbit?
GavrOs 16 Nov, 2024 @ 12:29pm 
Привет! Не очень понятно, как настроить наклон орбиты. Вы сделали это, используя углы тангажа, крена и рыскания. Где искать эти углы? В Википедии есть только угол отклонения от плоскости эклиптики/экватора Солнца/инвариантной плоскости, или угол аргумента перицентра и долгота восходящего узла. А как задать эксцентриситет орбиты?
Echthros  [developer] 16 Nov, 2024 @ 2:54pm 
Eccentricity is one of the controls under "Orbit Options" (second from the top). For the angle controls, I used pitch, roll, and yaw instead of the more scientific terms since I figured that would be easier to understand. The angles are relative to the world coordinate system. For orbital inclination, you should use pitch or roll since those tilt the orbital plane.
How can you save a system you created in creative so you can open a new game with said system in a survival setting?
Echthros  [developer] 15 Feb @ 2:44am 
Just select "Save As" in-game and make a new copy of the world. Then exit out and change the world settings from Creative to Survival in the menu.
With the orbital zone radius, I presume this should be treated like the Hill sphere of the body?

Furthermore, I presume there is no problem with having a moon's orbital zone radius inside of a planet's orbital radius? For example, if "Planet" has a orbital radius of 10,000 km and "Moon" has a semimajor axis of 1,000 km from the barycenter of "Planet" and its own orbital zone radius of 250 km.
Last edited by Kill3rCat [1st FORECON]; 23 Mar @ 7:40pm
Echthros  [developer] 23 Mar @ 8:36pm 
The orbital zone is the area in which players and grids will travel along with the planet as it moves around in its orbit. You won't need to worry about the planet moving away from you (or towards you) if you are within the orbital zone.

There is no issue with overlapping zones. You will be considered within the zone of the body you are nearest to.
Great, thanks. That's what I thought. I had an issue with the player being flung at great speeds during a zone transition, I assumed I'd done something wrong, but I guess not. Haven't been able to repro, will let you know if it's a persistent issue.

As an aside, I presume there's some kind of culling/optimisation to hide proxies you are far away from which are small in angular size. Is there any way to change or disable this? I was trying to take a screenshot of the Galilean moons from Earth through a 'telescope' (read: camera), but I had to change the proxy size of the moons to much larger in order to get the object to render in, and then dropped the proxy size back down to normal; it seems to remain loaded in once it's been loaded once. Very minor issue, all things considered, but I enjoy such nerdy silliness.

https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/2920730820550462/2BF2458301ACC6CED98FD8632B6D9950237804C5/

Unfortunately ruined somewhat by the skybox, but hey ho.
Oh, actually while I remember, I had a couple questions about your asteroid filters. I want to spawn asteroids in orbit of a ringed planet, only around the rings.

1) In the zone editor, I don't see any setting that pertains to rings; I presume I just have to manually create a zone with the right geometry?

2) The rings are within a gravity well. Naturally I want players to be able to stop at and mine asteroids within the ring, without falling down while doing so. I figured the best way of doing this was to create a small orbiting body with a large orbital zone radius, to function as an anchor for the hopeful asteroid miners. Any issues with this approach?

3) Is there any way to adjust the size of asteroids generated, or change the density of asteroids generated within a zone?
Echthros  [developer] 23 Mar @ 9:55pm 
The proxy sphere model has vertices far away from the sphere itself that aren't connected to anything to force the engine to keep rendering them until them are very small on-screen. It does have a limit, though, so they will get culled eventually.

1. I think you would need to set the zone options to disable asteroids within the zone and then set the ring options to have asteroids in the ring. Also, make sure that the orbit zone covers the rings. Asteroid will not appear in rings if you are outside of that planet's zone.

2. Asteroids within a planet's ring will only appear if you are within that planet's zone, so they will not appear if you are in a moon's zone instead.

3. Asteroid sizes cannot be changed. Overall density can be changed by changing the <ProceduralDensity> value in Sandbox.sbc. Default is 0.35, but I believe it can go up to 1.0.
1 / 2. I understand that. But I can spawn the asteroids within the moon's zone if it overlaps the rings. However, I believe all asteroid zones are spherical, right? So perhaps I could give the moon its own invisible rings that are coplanar with the planet's rings, and use that?

3. Right, but that is a global setting that changes the density for all asteroid spawning zones. If it's not possible to change density per zone, that's unfortunate, but it is what it is.

Also, would you be willing to add a setting to toggle the ring particle effects on/off? Personally would rather not have them.
Last edited by Kill3rCat [1st FORECON]; 24 Mar @ 8:46am
Echthros  [developer] 24 Mar @ 10:46am 
There's an option to disable the gas giant ring effect in the RealGasGiants Config.xml.
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