How to add workshop mods to your Space Engineers server

Space Engineers thrives on its modifications - between new planets or new blocks to construct your dream starliner, you can indeed have your cake and eat it too - with some caveats.

Warning: Adding mods to an already functional server can cause instability and/or a wipe of some or all progress. Please ensure you take adequate backups of your server in order to roll back if needed.

How to...

Space Engineers servers will utilise a mod downloader when starting up - mods will be checked for updates (or if they are new, ensuring they are installed) upon server startup. Adding these mods is relatively easy, requiring an edit to one file.

1. Stop your server via the Control Panel - this will cause the server to save the game.
2. Create a backup of your save folder - this is located under servers/Saves/<Your World Name Here>
3. Within this folder, edit the Sandbox_config.sbc file
4. Within the file - you are looking for the line <Mods /> as per the below picture:
   
   Remove this <Mods /> line. In its place, copy and paste the below:
   

   <Mods>
     <ModItem FriendlyName="{WORKSHOP ITEM NAME}">
       <Name>{WORKSHOP ITEM ID}.sbm</Name>
       <PublishedFileId>{WORKSHOP ITEM ID}</PublishedFileId>
     </ModItem>
   ...
   </Mods>​

   You can add more than one mod by repeating the lines between <Mods> and ... - if you have a single mod, feel free to remove the ... as a placeholder. For example:
   
   

   <Mods>
     <ModItem FriendlyName="{WORKSHOP ITEM1 NAME}">
       <Name>{WORKSHOP ITEM1 ID}.sbm</Name>
       <PublishedFileId>{WORKSHOP ITEM1 ID}</PublishedFileId>
     </ModItem>
     <ModItem FriendlyName="{WORKSHOP ITEM2 NAME}">
       <Name>{WORKSHOP ITEM2 ID}.sbm</Name>
       <PublishedFileId>{WORKSHOP ITEM2 ID}</PublishedFileId>
     </ModItem>
   </Mods>​

5.  Save the file, and go back to the Status page - start your server.
6. The server will automatically download the mods.

Further Reading

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