How to Fix a Slow or Lagging Space Engineers Server

Space Engineers reports its own health as simulation speed. At 1.00 the world runs at full rate. Below about 0.90 players feel it as rubber banding and slow blocks. The panel console prints warnings when it drops.

1. Check the simulation speed

Join the server and press Alt and F11 for the performance overlay, or read the console, which logs the figure when it falls. This tells you whether you have a server problem or a client problem. If simulation speed is 1.00 and one player is lagging, the problem is at their end.

2. Clear floating objects

Loose components, ore and dropped items are simulated individually and are the most common cause of a slow world. In instance/Saves/<WorldName>/Sandbox_config.sbc:

<MaxFloatingObjects>56</MaxFloatingObjects>

Lower is faster. The server deletes the oldest objects once the cap is reached.

3. Delete abandoned grids

Every ship and station is simulated whether or not anyone is near it. Join as an admin, press Alt and F10, and use the entity list to find large or unowned grids. Sort by block count and delete what nobody is using.

The admin screen also has trash removal settings, which can delete unowned grids, stopped debris and grids below a block count automatically. Turning these on is the single most effective fix for a long running world.

4. Review your mods

Some mods add scripted logic that runs every tick. If the slowdown started after a mod was added, remove that mod on a copy of the world and compare. Back up instance/Saves/<WorldName>/ before touching the mod list, because removing a mod deletes its blocks.

5. Consider the world's age and size

• Voxel damage from mining accumulates and is stored per world. A heavily mined asteroid field is expensive forever.
• Large numbers of NPC drones and cargo ships add up. <EnableDrones> and the cargo ship setting in the world config turn them off.
• Very large worlds simply need more memory than a small plan provides.

6. Turn off what you do not use

In the world config, <EnableWolfs>, <EnableSpiders>, <EnableEncounters> and drone settings each cost simulation time. Disable the ones your server does not want.

Back up before a cleanup

Deleting grids cannot be undone from in game. Stop the server and download instance/Saves/<WorldName>/ from Files first.

What to send support

Open a ticket with the simulation speed figure, the world's rough age and grid count, your mod list, and the last hundred lines of the console.