Space Engineers - Hardcore Mode

A more challenging survival mode for Space Engineers. There's two mods, one contains a few new scenarios , the other the general hardcore changes. You can play with either one of these mods. Playing the hardcore scenarios with vanilla mechanics will still provide a fun challenge, but playing any vanilla scenario with the hardcore mode messes with the balance and is less recommended (though still a challenge).

Download: Latest Version

Hardcore Scenarios

Note: In sparse generation, it's advised to generate as many asteroids as possible. It's tough enough to find asteroids in sparse generation, generating more won't affect difficulty.

Sparse Asteroids

Difficulty: Medium
Generation: Sparse
Explanation: Sparse Asteroids is like regular asteroids, but the distance between large asteroids is huge. You'll need to explore to find more. You're guaranteed to spawn near asteroids though.

Hardcore

Difficulty: Hard
Generation: Normal
Explanation: You start with a small wrecked ship, which has the barebones components to create everything you need. You'll need to grind it down to get the necessary resources. Generation is almost as dense as default.

Sparse Hardcore

Difficulty: Very Hard
Generation: Sparse
Explanation: Sparse Hardcore is the same as hardcore, but with sparse generation. This is what is considered the "default" hardcore mode, which the hardcore mod is balanced for.

Super Hardcore

Difficulty: Super Hard
Generation: Sparse+
Explanation: This is almost the same as Sparse Hardcore, but you are not guaranteed to spawn near asteroids. Getting your ship running with just the starting resources, so you can travel towards an asteroid and even finding asteroids can take hours. This is the ultimate challenge, but it's not recommended unless you like pain, as it can sometimes be very hard to locate asteroids, even if you can get the ship running.

Hardcore Mode

Hardcore Mode rebalances the game to offer more of a challenge.

Note: when generating a world, turn on passing cargo ships, or you won't be able to get certain components, like reactors.

The main mechanics are:

Refining:
refining is way less efficient, so resources become more scarce and automated mining becomes a priority. The ore detector has a huge range and power consumption now, so you can use it to find more asteroids more easily.
Ship Size Differences:
ship sizes matter. Small ships will be battery powered and need a recharge station, large ships require tons of power, while stations can be mostly run on solar. There's also a difference in which tools are available. Small ships are for drilling, large ships are for grinding.
Non-craftable Blocks:
certain blocks are not craftable, like reactors, small ship grinders, small ship solar panels and large ship drills. This makes capturing passing cargo vessels essential if you want those items, especially the reactors. Large thruster power consumption was dramatically increased, so if you want to use those, salvaging reactors becomes a necessity.
Note that you can't deconstruct non-craftables and re-craft them, so you'll have to use tugs and merge blocks to install them in your ships.
Also note that blocks have been color coded in the block screen. Orange blocks can only be crafted for a certain size of ship, red blocks can't be crafted for any size. The non-craftables will have a component that says "NOT CRAFTABLE".
Power Generation:
reactors are non-craftable, solars can only be installed on large ships, but most forms of power generation have been significantly made better, so solar is actually usable and salvaging a large reactor is a real upgrade.
Passing Cargo Ships:
passing cargo ships have been altered so you'll see more military ships. Be careful out there!

Credits

Wrecked Ship - inventor200
Sparse Asteroids & Refinery Balance - bart87
General Balance Ideas:
- DaveYanakov
- FlowerChild
- Katalliaan

Hardcore Mode Changelog

version 0.3:

Components: Removed Unobtainium
Cubes: Changed the method for making blocks non-craftable (Issue/2)
Removed unneeded textures

version 0.2:

Cubes: Changed Max Power Output of large block solar panels to 250kW
Cubes: Changed Max Power Output of small block solar panels to 60kW
Cubes: Changed Max Power Output of small block small reactors to 200kW
Cubes: Changed Max Power Output of large block small reactors to 10MW
Cubes: Changed Max Power Output of small block large reactors to 5MW
Cubes: Changed Max Power Output of large block large reactors to 200MW
Cubes: Made large block small thrusters craftable, changed their Max Power Consumption to 1.4MW
Cubes: Changed Max Power Consumption of large block large thrusters to 16.8MW
Cubes: Changed Required Power Input of large block ore detector to 7.16MW

version 0.1:

Components: Added Unobtainium, a component to make blocks non-craftable
Blueprints: Changed ore to ingot recipes to be less efficient
Spawngroups: Biased spawning of passing military
Textures: Color coded non-craftables
Cubes: Changed Max Power Output of large block solar panels to 25MW
Cubes: Made small block solar panels non-craftable, changed their Max Power Output to 1MW
Cubes: Made small block small reactors non-craftable, changed their Max Power Output to 1MW
Cubes: Made large block small reactors non-craftable, changed their Max Power Output to 15MW
Cubes: Made small block large reactors non-craftable, changed their Max Power Output to 3.5MW
Cubes: Made large block large reactors non-craftable, changed their Max Power Output to 500MW
Cubes: Made large block drills non-craftable
Cubes: Made small block grinders non-craftable
Cubes: Made small block large thrusters non-craftable
Cubes: Made large block small thrusters non-craftable, changed their Max Power Consumption to 2.8MW
Cubes: Changed Max Power Consumption of large block large thrusters to 33.6MW
Cubes: Changed large block ore detector range to 15km, changed their Required Power Input to 3.58MW

Hardcore Scenarios Changelog