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.