Looking for an immersive experience? Want an additional challenge in survival? Add depth to your survival worlds by enabling the food system!

In this guide we’ll take a look at how food works in Space Engineers, and how you go from surviving to thriving.

Game Options

Food is enabled by default in new survival worlds – but perhaps you’re not interested in playing with food, or maybe you’d like to increase the challenges and resource demands? No worries! We’ve added options so you can turn it to your liking.

The “Food Consumption Rate” world setting, found inside of the Survival section of your World Settings, features 4 options – scaling the decay rate of your hunger stat.

• Disabled – Turns off the food system entirely.
• Slow – 3 hours from 100% full to 0%
• Moderate – 1.5 hours from 100% to 0%, this is the default for new worlds.
• Fast – 45 minutes from 100% to 0%

Food is always disabled in creative mode. You can build and test food system blocks, but you won’t need to eat or manage stats while playing in creative mode.

Debuffs and Penalties

Keeping your character well fed is important. If your food reaches critical levels your character will lose the ability to sprint while simultaneously becoming slower the hungrier they get. Movement speed can be reduced by up to 20% while in this state. If you avoid eating entirely, your character will eventually start to receive damage and will eventually die.

Food Items

There are 9 items which serve as ingredients for crafting Meal Packs. Many of these items can be consumed raw, but will not be very filling on their own.

Foraging, Hunting, and Obtaining Food Items

Starting Out

The Algae Farm block is the first step toward creating a sustainable food supply. It does not require any unique components to craft, nor does it require maintenance once functional. Whenever this block is exposed to sunlight, it will passively grow harvestable algae over time. The more direct the sun exposure, the faster the algae cultivates. While processed Algae is generally used in simple and low quality food items, the low maintenance and capability to easily grow in all environments makes it a perfect food source for starting out, no matter what location you find yourself in.

Foraging

The Earth-like, Alien, and Pertam planets have forageable food sources which spawn on their surfaces. Earth-like is the most abundant, Pertam is much more sparse, while the Alien has large amounts of harvestable mushrooms. These items can be collected by hand, or via a Collector block.

Hunting

If you find yourself on a planet with NPCs, you can loot meat items from Wolves or Sabiroids. Be careful though, consuming raw meat can have dire consequences – cook these items to avoid food poisoning.

Stores

You can find provisions at most NPC Trade Stations. While their supplies are limited, you can purchase a variety of ration types from these stations.

Loot

NPC encounters can also be a great source of food. Search every unknown signal, and have your raiding parties scour the kitchens of that cargo ship you’ve snared – you never know what you might find in storage.

Harvesting Seeds from Obtained Items

The Food Processor block has a Harvesting category inside of its production menu. In this menu you can harvest seeds or spores from Fruit, Grain, Mushroom, and Vegetable items, which can then be cultivated inside of the Farm Plot block.

Farming

The Farm Plot block is a dynamic block, which requires care and maintenance – but can support a variety of crop types.

Water Requirements

Farm Plots have an internal water tank which is filled when connected to an Irrigation System block. The Irrigation System block processes ice into usable water for crops to consume. Without a connected Irrigation System block all crops will die.

When a crop is fully grown, water consumption drops by 90%. This allows you to keep the plot occupied as a decorative or visual element, while requiring minimal upkeep.

Light Source

The Farm Plot has a built in light which can be manipulated like other light sources. This light is for ambiance and immersion, and is not required to be on or set in any specific way for the plant to grow; nor do plants require direct sunlight.

Turning the block on or off disables the light and prevents the water tank from filling. The block being turned off does not not stop crops from growing or freeze their requirements.

Plant Management

Interacting with the soil bed of the Farm Plot opens a management window. This window allows you to plant seeds, harvest the current crop, see the plot’s current status, as well as any crop specific information (such as growth rate or water consumption).

There are two ways to harvest crops from the Farm Plot.

• Option 1: Open the management screen and click Harvest. The harvested crop will be placed in your character’s inventory.
• Option 2: Using a collector block on a subgrid, move the collector close to the crop to collect. It will be harvested and placed into the grid’s inventory.
  • Note: The collector must be on a subgrid, same grid collection is not possible.
  • Note: Collectors ignore plants that aren’t fully grown.

Crop Health

Crops in the Farm Plot have a health value, and are susceptible to the elements.

• If the plot runs out of water the plant will begin to lose health and may eventually die.
• If the plot is exposed to extreme temperatures or vacuum the crop will sustain heavy damage, dying within seconds of being exposed.
• If the plot is damaged or ground down, the crop will be removed.
• If a crop is below 100% health, but is alive, it will still be harvestable, but will have a reduced harvest amount.
• If a crop has lost health, it can still recover over time.

Meal Pack Crafting

When you first start out, you can use your Survival Kit to craft the most basic ration type, “Kelp Crisp” – which only requires algae to produce.

The Food Processor block is capable of producing all other food related items. A wide variety of Meal Packs can be crafted inside of its production menu, including cooking raw Mammal or Insect Meat. These recipes require a range of ingredients. The more complex the recipe, the more filling it will be.

Note: Food items will never expire or spoil.