Space Engineers

Space Engineers

28 ratings
Moving your saves and Mods folder without breaking the game
By Darth Biomech
By default, game stores your saves, mods, blueprints and settings in C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers. This is unhandy if your game is installed on another HDD and you want to preserve your saves and unpublished mods or blueprints in case of system crash. I know how to fix that)
   
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Warning!
This guide desribes how to mess with system folders, so if you are not sure you want this, or unsure that you doing anything correctly, please stop now. If you broke something, sorry, but that's not my fault.
That said...
For the actual guide:

Windows have system utility called mklink. You can learn about it in this article:http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/278262-mklink-create-use-links-windows.html


So how to use it in relation to SE problem?
  • Press Win+R. This should open the execute window.
  • Type in "%APPDATA%", press enter. This should open the "Roaming" appdata folder of your current user, located on your system drive. Mine is, for example of this guide, "C:\Users\Darth Biomech\AppData\Roaming".
  • Locate the "SpaceEngineers" folder and open it.
  • Copy content of the folder, and paste it in the folder you want game to save your stuff to. I choosed "G:\Steam\SteamApps\common\SpaceEngineersRoaming", so it would sit neatly near folder in which SE itself is installed.
  • AFTER you copied all the contents, delete or rename original SpaceEngineers folder in the Appdata/Roaming. This is because mklink cannot create shortcut folder, if folder with this name already exists.
  • Now, press WIN button, and type "cmd" in the search.
  • Right click on the cmd.exe the search found, and choose "run as administrator". The mklink requires Administrator rights to work, so you maybe will need to type in admin password, if you are currently not under administrator account.

  • now, final step. You remember the path to the SpaceEngineers folder in appdata, and folder in which we moved the SE roaming data? In my example, it is "C:\Users\Darth Biomech\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers" and "G:\Steam\SteamApps\common\SpaceEngineersRoaming", respectively.
  • So you must type in the CMD.exe window following (In a single line, don't touch Enter yet): mklink /j (this tells it to create a junction link, what we need) "[where the link should be placed]" "[where the actual folder is located]"
  • My example is as follows, don't forget to use your actual paths instead of these examples:
    mklink /j "C:\Users\Darth Biomech\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers" "G:\Steam\SteamApps\common\SpaceEngineersRoaming"

  • Then, you press enter. If everything is fine, programm should tell you that it created link for C:\Users\Darth Biomech\AppData\Roaming\SpaceEngineers <<===>> G:\Steam\SteamApps\common\SpaceEngineersRoaming, and you will see a new folder in the %APPDATA% folder, that should look like this:
So, we're done. This folder is actually a link to your other folder, but every program will think that it is an actual folder, when in reality it is a gateway to contents of "G:\Steam\SteamApps\common\SpaceEngineersRoaming", so when game will be downloading blueprints, mods, or make saves, it will be saved on that folder and not your system drive.

So, that's it, hope this guide helped you.
10 Comments
andersenman 17 Nov, 2021 @ 10:49am 
You don't even need to set up a symbolic link. Just lauch the game with the argument -appdata "your\custom\path".
STRIKE 29 Jan, 2016 @ 2:12am 
Thank you so much for this Darth Biomech, it was a very easy to follow guide and it worked first time! thanks again :)
Pasta_power 14 Aug, 2015 @ 10:31am 
Isn't it just as simple as copy-pasting the blueprints folder in the SE AppData directory to where you want, and merging it if prompted?
Knölsvanen Konstantin 17 Jul, 2015 @ 1:59pm 
Great guide, thanks!
void catgirl rglx 13 Jul, 2015 @ 8:39am 
Alright then. Wonder if it does make a difference.
Darth Biomech  [author] 13 Jul, 2015 @ 8:38am 
Well, it worked with /J, so i put it in this. Was unsure how /D different from /J, so decided not to risk it)
void catgirl rglx 13 Jul, 2015 @ 8:18am 
No, MKLINK /D <LINK> <TARGET>. Supposedly it does the same thing as described here. That's what I've done with my blueprints folders and stuff. Just linked them in my gDrive.
YANKEE GO HOME 13 Jul, 2015 @ 4:09am 
Will have to try this in a minute. You're a lifesaver, cheers. My Windows drive has been filling up with so much SE stuff it's nearly out of space.
Darth Biomech  [author] 13 Jul, 2015 @ 12:44am 
You mean shortcut? that one will be recognized as "foldername.ink" file by programs, so it won't work.
void catgirl rglx 12 Jul, 2015 @ 1:59pm 
Junction link, huh? I'd think a simple directory link would do it. What's the difference?