Space Engineers

Space Engineers

Better Stone v7.0.12
 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
DranKof  [developer] Jan 26, 2021 @ 10:46am
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
(1) Does this work on current saves?
- Always back up your world before applying mods. It's best to just make a new game with whatever mods you want running in them before you start. Turning this mod on or off other than when setting up a game probably will not break the save but it will produce interesting changes, though some are not ideal. You can read through the comments for how the different changes have varied over the years.

(2) Does this work on custom planets?
- This mod doesn't work on custom planets unless you make a custom ore spawn definition file for it. I also don't have any official DLC at this moment beyond the first so this mod only affects the base vanilla planets.

(3) I can't find any ores, is it broken? How deep are the ores? Why can't I see any ores? There aren't any ores on the alien planet, help! (etc.)
- If you can't find ores, it might be because they're deeper. The dedicated enthusiasts love, and I mean LOVE, deep rich ore veins. The ore spots that are visible on the surface of the planets are sometimes really hard to find (alien planet, looking at you). Feel free to post to ask if a recent Keen patch broke things. If things are broken there will probably be a couple other people posting soon to confirm it--or no reply means probably nothing is wrong.
- I would recommend you to install the mod that increases the range of the ore detectors, because this mode generates ore much deeper than vanilla. Currently I am using this one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1983285397 but this is the third time I've had to change mods because they break over time.
- Here's another mod that was suggested to me that should also help with finding ores: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2819263781
- Also, every new major patch released by Keen has a 50% chance of breaking mod ores on the first release, usually within a week or two they fix it.

(4) Refinery isn't accepting ores from this mod?
- If the refinery isn't accepting certain ores from this mod, you probably have a mod conflict. I used to make patches to help modders resolve these issues but it's much easier to just change the mod load order and see if that works:
- In Space Engineers, Higher = More Precedence, i.e.
--> Put this mod at the top of your mod list

(5) I get errors when this loads. Is this breaking the sky?
- There are lots of errors generated complaining about the sky and clouds and other various files not found (14 when I last checked), those are only warnings (and a necessary nuisance common with modding) and can be safely ignored. Specifically, it is trying to find a file that this mod does not wish to replace but the game suspects it wants to replace. After it cannot find the file, it reverts to the original vanilla file.

(6) The ores are now all magenta (or gray?) balls, why?
- Magenta (pink-purple) balls are usually the result of a name mismatch between item data declarations or image path file names. Though Keen did switch from DX9 to DX11 causing purple fun for a couple weeks, Keen has not changed image file names for years. This mod has not changed any file names either. If you're seeing purple, there's probably a different mod (or language pack) that is breaking things. Test by removing different mods or changing mod load order. Yes, even that one mod that you think is surely safe.
- Still, it could be this mod that's causing it, so please post a comment if you come across this issue. If there's no one else with the issue and there wasn't any major patch release please post screenshots with as much information as you can provide (mod list, different ores in inventory, different ores on the ground with at least one being pointed at directly, etc.).

(7) TIM's auto-refining script doesn't automagically refine mod ores! What can I do?
Here is the workaround as of Oct. 2018:
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/406244471/1489992713702371705/
Last edited by DranKof; Apr 30, 2023 @ 12:23am
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Showing 1-2 of 2 comments
"you make a custom ore spawn definition file for it"
How can I do this? I have some modded planets I'd like to configure into this mod but not sure where to look in the files to get started
DranKof  [developer] Apr 17 @ 7:40pm 
When you make the custom planet you will have the xml file to tell it what ore is matched with what pixel colors on the tarrain-to-resource image map, right?

So the places where you say "gold_01" (or whatever the defs are actually called) get replaced with the better stone ore names.

To get those names, search for your steam-downloaded space engineer mods and specifically for this mod's ID, so it should be "406244471".

Extract it using 7zip or some other tool. Inside you'll find all the ore names as well as the planet override defs that I used in better stone for the vanilla planets -- you can copy/learn from those entries to get an idea of what to put as well.
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