Introduction

The reason why 'space' is called 'space' is because it's just that; empty. Also, it is, by far the harshest environment known to man.
This mod is an attempt to make space in Space Engineers a bit roomier and, you know, space-like to make Survival mode a bit more interesting.

Features

-Space exploration galore!
The distance between asteroids increased to 15-30km (10 times the stock); you will now not see all asteroids from your starting position. Sometimes you may see one. Sometimes you may even have to look for your first one! And once you find it, don't lose sight of it or, chances are, you will never find it again.

-Scarcity of resources!
Since finding asteroids can be problematic, more often than not you will be forced to make decisions what to use your gold ingots for, or how much uranium can you actually put in your new ship without endangering your fragile mining operations

-Increased importance of fuel and solar power!
Refining efficiency has been reduced to 30%-40% of stock values. Uranium now takes over 3 times longer to refine, so net gain of fuel is much lower and makes fuel extremely valuable. Makes you think whether you actually need all of the 380 thrusters and gyroscopes. Put only as many components as you need and save every drop of nuclear fuel by fine tuning energy consumption. Solar panels are a viable choice now, especially for refining / assembly jobs.

-Reduced spawn rates of cargo ships!
You patch of asteroid belt is no longer a busy highway. You might get ONE SHIP EVERY HOUR. If that. And ships are much more likely to be of military nature, making them harder to hijack / rob.

-Need for more infrastructure!
Since asteroids are far apart and ships appear only occasionally multiple stations / outpost may be necessary to meet your resourcing / scavenging / building needs. Large distances and scarcity of fuel also may make freight / transport ships a good idea.

-improved performance on low-end systems!
Totally unexpected side effect. World elements are spread over much larger area with huge swaths of nothing in between, your screen will never be filled with space stations, ships and large quantity of asteroids, thus improving performance. I know it did on my laptop!

Installation
Download and unzip Scarcity.7z to your Space Engineers folder, overwriting all files. Done! Automatic installer coming up in next release. If there ever will be one :)
If you think you will not like the mod and want roll back changes, BACKUP YOUR CONTENT/DATA FOLDER FIRST. Otherwise you will have to reinstall your game.

Instructions
Refining efficiency and spawn rates will work with existing saves, but asteroid positions will only be changed when you start a new game.

Currently only "Lone survivor", "Two platforms", "Crashed Ship" and "Asteroids" have been modified as the others are more of a demonstration of features and suitable for creative mode anyway.

I suggest starting a world with 16 asteroids, otherwise it may be really hard to find even one at first.

Disclaimer
This is a work in progress. Also, this is my first mod. Therefore unexpected behavior of some kind or other is probably not unexpected at all. You download and install the mod at your own risk.

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First things first, thank everyone who took interest in my mod!

In this update refining efficiency re-balanced: refining times reduced by 10% for all ores except uranium. A single refinery now produces just about enough uranium to power 2 refineries and paraphernalia. Solar power looks ever so attractive!

Also, if you need help finding asteroids, I increased range of Large Ship Ore detector to 15km at cost of massive energy drain, as I'll be the first to admit that flying around for hours on end and finding an asteroid can be frustrating.

More features coming soon.

Enjoy the new release! Comments always welcome.

New mod for Space engineers

New mod for Space engineers

News

An ultra-light mod that significantly alters the way you'll play Space engineers. Goal of the mod is to make Survival mode a more challenging experience...

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Scarcity mod update 3

Scarcity mod update 3

Full Version 5 comments

Previous version was apparently braking the game. This version is primarily a compatibility update for version 1.035, but small changes were made for...

Scarcity mod update 2 (self-extractor)

Scarcity mod update 2 (self-extractor)

Full Version

Re-balance update mostly: lowered refining times by about 10% for all ores except uranium, which was increased even further (1 refinery produces enough...

Scarcity mod update 2

Scarcity mod update 2

Full Version

Re-balance update mostly: lowered refining times by about 10% for all ores except uranium, which was increased even further (1 refinery produces enough...

Scarcity mod update 1

Scarcity mod update 1

Full Version

fixed mod crashing the game issue with version 1.033

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 19)
Guest
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Corpus_Callosum
Corpus_Callosum - - 418 comments

Is this on workshop? If not, you should find a way to add it.

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cronoseprime
cronoseprime - - 41 comments

I have made a map that is setup like this mod. I have placed asteroids at random distances from the starting astroid. It is on the Workshop.
Steamcommunity.com

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cronoseprime
cronoseprime - - 41 comments

Now with video

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Guest
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Hotshot823
Hotshot823 - - 409 comments

When will there be a new update that will be compatible with the latest version of space engineers?

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Guest
Guest - - 688,627 comments

This mod is exactly what I want for my dedicated multiplayer server. Can somebody shed some light on how to run this on a server? Would all clients connecting also need to have this mod installed? THANKS!

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Guest
Guest - - 688,627 comments

Is there a way to apply this so a old save? Also can this be used on servers?

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bart87 Creator
bart87 - - 4 comments

Refining and spawn rates will apply to old saves. Existing asteroids will not move, though :( To the best of my knowledge, it should work on servers as long as everyone connected has the same version. Didn't test multiplayer, though, so I'm not sure.

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