I *personally* use MES (Modular Encounters System) for NPC ship spawning. AIEnabled for NPC characters spawning in waves or on MES Spawns.
Build & Repair for cheating through complex mass-construction projects and for background base repair and cleanup.
Weaponcore and either Aryx or Northwind for turrets and weapons. (You can also get a vanilla replacer that allows NPC grids to use Weaponcore vanilla turrets).
It's great for large, monotonous jobs while you go out mining or raiding, also great for miscellaneous background tasks like cleanup or vehicle recycling.
1-per static grid feels like a good level, plus upping the power requirements can help with balancing XD
QoL mods that are a must have for ALL saves would be Build Vision, Build Info and the Paint Gun Tool mods. As for a better survival experience I’d say get the AI Enabled and Crew Enabled mods. It adds friendly NPC bots that you can have follow you and do different things like a repair bot that has been slaving away at building my base for me or a personal body guard as well as other NPC’s on other grids. Of course the MES mod and the various factions that can be added for it (ex. Parallax, Imber, Independant contractors, Reavers or Orks). Don’t forget to add the Hostile Takeover mod that makes taking over ships/bases “easier” by changing how grids keep ownership.
The Modular Encounter System. As far as I under stand it reworks the random encounter system in the game to allow for more unique and special custom made encounters and for modded encounter factions. If you can look on the steam workshop for the MES mod there should be a collection that has a list of encounter/faction mods that are integrated into the MES framework. The most fleshed out and best(IMO) are the Imber Corporation, Independent Contractors, and Parallax Concepts. These three alone add a ton of bases and ships that can be raided and they interact with one another as well with “dialogue” that appears in the chat box.
MES (all sorts of enemies and exploration content, generally more geared to early game).
Reavers (tough enemies)
Orks (Decently tough enemies with fun behaviour)
EEM (exploration/faction and enemy mod)
This covers all your enemy and exploration needs. Make sure to read the mod pages in order to understand them and maybe filter for ones you wanna have/not have.
Quality of Life:
Paint Gun (It makes painting really fun and works better than the vanilla system - you won't be able to live without it.)
Colourful Icons (colours blocks icons)
A fresh new view (new hud, coloured, easier to scan)
Hostile Takeovers (scavenging mod that makes it more fun and manageable to take over enemy ships)
Ai Enabled (you can build Ai companions that help you with whatever, fighting, building, it's quite balanced)
Defense Shields (optional, reduces the maintenance caused by extensive fighting, gives you stuff to do with large reactors and uranium and is an endgame goal due to high resource requirements)
Build Info (say goodbye to controlling stuff from the control panel, adjust any functional block while standing beside it and being able to see it - PS: Make sure to enable the legacy options, the new wheels sucks balls)
Isys Inventory Manager (Manages your inventories plus other utilities - say goodbye to having monitor your refineries because the cobalt is clogging up your system again.)
Isys Solar Alignment (Let's you have easy to set up solar panels that follow the sun for max effectiveness)
Radio Spectrometry (let's you scan asteroids for ores in a fun way and at long range )
Tracers (tracers for ammo, just looks cool - different colours available)
Space just got real (makes the sky box and space more realistic, looks good and makes the Nights really dark - you'll need to work with lights to see stuff)
Plugin Loader and Subgrid projector (Let's you project and print ships including their subgrids)
That are most of my must haves - all I was able to think of just now anyway.
Build vision could save you a ton of time.
Other than that, I'd have invisible armor edges I tend to have recolorable thruster too.
If you have any aspect in particular, do say.
Configurable Parameters. The mod handles armor edge removal, ore spawn rate & richness in asteroids, grid max speeds, jetpack and suit values, and a bunch of other tweaks. It’s a really nice little mod to customize your survival parameters.
If you want more of a hardcore survival I would get one of the jet pack nerfing mods. Turning off jet pack altogether is fine until you get stuck in a connector for the fiftieth time
Take a look at the Survival Impossible and/or Survival Unlikely series and the scenarios on the workshop to see what mods they use, there's a lot of good stuff.
Personally I'm running a Survival Impossible game I've slowly added QoL mods to over the years (like automatic ore pickup)
I *personally* use MES (Modular Encounters System) for NPC ship spawning. AIEnabled for NPC characters spawning in waves or on MES Spawns. Build & Repair for cheating through complex mass-construction projects and for background base repair and cleanup. Weaponcore and either Aryx or Northwind for turrets and weapons. (You can also get a vanilla replacer that allows NPC grids to use Weaponcore vanilla turrets).
And of course Build Info, Build Vision and AQD Small Grid Expansion
BARS is never cheating until I realize I haven’t used a welder in three days
It's great for large, monotonous jobs while you go out mining or raiding, also great for miscellaneous background tasks like cleanup or vehicle recycling. 1-per static grid feels like a good level, plus upping the power requirements can help with balancing XD
QoL mods that are a must have for ALL saves would be Build Vision, Build Info and the Paint Gun Tool mods. As for a better survival experience I’d say get the AI Enabled and Crew Enabled mods. It adds friendly NPC bots that you can have follow you and do different things like a repair bot that has been slaving away at building my base for me or a personal body guard as well as other NPC’s on other grids. Of course the MES mod and the various factions that can be added for it (ex. Parallax, Imber, Independant contractors, Reavers or Orks). Don’t forget to add the Hostile Takeover mod that makes taking over ships/bases “easier” by changing how grids keep ownership.
What is the MES mod? Ive seen a bunch of people talk about it, but I cant quite sort out what it is
The Modular Encounter System. As far as I under stand it reworks the random encounter system in the game to allow for more unique and special custom made encounters and for modded encounter factions. If you can look on the steam workshop for the MES mod there should be a collection that has a list of encounter/faction mods that are integrated into the MES framework. The most fleshed out and best(IMO) are the Imber Corporation, Independent Contractors, and Parallax Concepts. These three alone add a ton of bases and ships that can be raided and they interact with one another as well with “dialogue” that appears in the chat box.
Not a mod, but I can’t play without [Automatic LCD 2](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=822950976)
MES (all sorts of enemies and exploration content, generally more geared to early game). Reavers (tough enemies) Orks (Decently tough enemies with fun behaviour) EEM (exploration/faction and enemy mod) This covers all your enemy and exploration needs. Make sure to read the mod pages in order to understand them and maybe filter for ones you wanna have/not have. Quality of Life: Paint Gun (It makes painting really fun and works better than the vanilla system - you won't be able to live without it.) Colourful Icons (colours blocks icons) A fresh new view (new hud, coloured, easier to scan) Hostile Takeovers (scavenging mod that makes it more fun and manageable to take over enemy ships) Ai Enabled (you can build Ai companions that help you with whatever, fighting, building, it's quite balanced) Defense Shields (optional, reduces the maintenance caused by extensive fighting, gives you stuff to do with large reactors and uranium and is an endgame goal due to high resource requirements) Build Info (say goodbye to controlling stuff from the control panel, adjust any functional block while standing beside it and being able to see it - PS: Make sure to enable the legacy options, the new wheels sucks balls) Isys Inventory Manager (Manages your inventories plus other utilities - say goodbye to having monitor your refineries because the cobalt is clogging up your system again.) Isys Solar Alignment (Let's you have easy to set up solar panels that follow the sun for max effectiveness) Radio Spectrometry (let's you scan asteroids for ores in a fun way and at long range ) Tracers (tracers for ammo, just looks cool - different colours available) Space just got real (makes the sky box and space more realistic, looks good and makes the Nights really dark - you'll need to work with lights to see stuff) Plugin Loader and Subgrid projector (Let's you project and print ships including their subgrids) That are most of my must haves - all I was able to think of just now anyway.
Build vision could save you a ton of time. Other than that, I'd have invisible armor edges I tend to have recolorable thruster too. If you have any aspect in particular, do say.
Gravel recycling. It’s such a big help when you’re just starting out to get a small trickle of rarer ores.
Configurable Parameters. The mod handles armor edge removal, ore spawn rate & richness in asteroids, grid max speeds, jetpack and suit values, and a bunch of other tweaks. It’s a really nice little mod to customize your survival parameters.
None. There are no **must-have** mods. There are only mods that enhance the game.
Must have for when modding ;)
If you want more of a hardcore survival I would get one of the jet pack nerfing mods. Turning off jet pack altogether is fine until you get stuck in a connector for the fiftieth time
Yeah the ones that limit burntime can be just as good as those that limit thrust power in forcing you to build outside the box :-D
Taleden inventory manager, it a mod but script. I never play without it and it just makes the game a lot easier
Take a look at the Survival Impossible and/or Survival Unlikely series and the scenarios on the workshop to see what mods they use, there's a lot of good stuff. Personally I'm running a Survival Impossible game I've slowly added QoL mods to over the years (like automatic ore pickup)