Space Engineers Tutorial: Sorters and Conveyor Systems (tips, testing and tutorials for survival) 

5 years and these are still an excellent reference for me. I tend to take long breaks and forget everything when I come back, this series always has the answers I need 👍

You are great! i dont know why but you are the first to properly explain AND show how to setup these things. 10/10

Started playing SE about a week ago (though it's been in my steam library for going on three years) and your videos have been a great aid to me! I'm a science teacher and I recognize a good teacher when I see one. Well done.

I don't know if you have knowledge about it but player made drones (like cargo ships or small miners) would be a great addition to your tutorials

I really appreciate your tutorials. Your thinking is fairly easy to follow. I like your conversational style. I also like that you make mistakes and talk us through what to do about it.

I bought this game on a sale in 2017 with Medieval Engineers. Started to play this in the fall of 2021. It's been a learning curve. I have around 40 hours of playtime at the moment. I'm now learning about this layout from the video. I haven't been to space in my survival world yet lol A great tutorial, and I saved the layout on MS paint so I can look at it later. Also learning about blueprints too. The game is fun.

I'm really into having very organized storage, so this video has definitely helped me design a more optimized storage layout! One thing I think might help to prevent the ore sorters from pulling ice is to have another sorter before it blacklisting ice. Sequentially speaking, the ores would move from whatever storage they are in, pass through the Ice Blacklist sorter, and then pass through the Ore Whitelist sorter. This should allow the ores to reach the refineries while keeping the ice out of the way, and this should save from having to manually whitelist each individual ore in the whitelist sorter. I always feel a constant strive to improve efficiency, especially in Space Engineers, and your videos are really aiding in that. Keep up the good work!

Back when sorters first appeared in Space Engineers, I was obsessed about making a good sorting system that would supply all production blocks with what they need. I built a system similar to yours, but inability to disassemble components was a serious flaw. When I tried to make a two-way connection between the assembler and component container, the sorter kept infinitely drawing components from the container and putting it back there again. There were also problems with one refinery (out of many) hoarding all ores and needing constant manual supervision. In the end, I came to the conclusion that a system based only on sorters is impractical. A good hands-off approach requires TIM or AIS, in my opinion. Maybe if Keen added two-way sorters and refinery cooperation in the same way assemblers work, it would be more functional.

Still using this as a "blueprint/template" for my base in 2020, thanks Splitsie

I love this video. I always forward it to people who have questions. In my version, I add a second assembler for disassembling only and name it accordingly.

I appreciate the blow up version of these descriptions. I need this type of information to be where I want to be in the game. From this video I see some of my many mistakes and see I now much redo all of my failed production that did not work. I will be watching more your videos for sure.

Your tutorials sent me and my friend from struggling to build a survival kit to building an interplanetary ship with retractable landing gears and ramp

Not a new player, i have 700+ hours, but took a long break from it and your types of videos are fantastic to new and old players!!!

For give me for this but: i think you have everything sorted out here... Thank you for doing these videos, they have really helped me with this game

I am so glad you make these videos. I was watching Dragon Nation Gaming until I realized he was a massive ass to everyone in his comment sections. You have much more charisma and intelligence, and I thank you for the work you put in to these.

Cant stop binging these videos. Thanks for so much help

Thanks man !!! Im new in this game and i was struggling for couple of hours to figure out how to unload my miner and sort things out. This is exactly what i was looking for :)

Only video out there like this thank you. I was stuck. I’m not anymore. 10/10

Your videos are the only reason I can do anything in this game. Thank you!

Great tutorials! Im watching them all as a marathon right now ^^ quick lazy tip: For the component&tool&ammo (main) storage (Assembler exhaust) just blacklist the ingots and you are good to go since you already filtered it down before it connects to the assembler so you can only pull ingots except that what you want. So it is just 2-3 less clicks but less clicks nevertheless. Also you can set-up a disassembler with an ingot exhaust and a direct connection to the main storage since you already sorted it not to contain ingots, connect the dissassembler to the assembler (or it's intake sorter but it sometimes takes more than it has to dissamble and it keeps adding up if you leave it unchecked)

I think there may be a simpler solution to the problem you identified at the 22:17 mark, with the Sorter pulling all Ore, including Ice, into the Refinery Container. Rather than having to Whitelist all of the allowable Ores separately, leave it to pull all Ores but place another Sorter behind it which is set to Blacklist Ice. I haven't tried it, but I reckon that the Sorter closest to the Refinery would attempt to pull all Ores but the one furthest from the refinery should block the Ice from getting through.

A great tutorial, as always. The use of the antenna to show names of objects was a fine idea, but I couldn't read them on my poxy screen (or is it just my aging eyesight). In this case, I think colour coding the lines would have been visually appealing as well as showing the paths of the items. I colour code all of my conveyor systems on ships and stations as I find it helps me to better trace lines if there is something that is not working as it should. One glitch in the demo that you may not have notice: At the 16:59 mark, when your ship made the docking connection, all of the sorters turned off, meaning that none of the sorting should have happened. I presume that this is a Creative mode glitch.

This is probably my favorite of the series so far, thanks.

Man your a life saver bro been playing on Xbox and with no scripts gotta use sorters was having a hard time figurreing it out till this video ty bro!!!!!!

I could hear the fear and pain in your voice during the intro to this video, Splitsie. I can relate. I've just spent the last two hours trying to solve a sorter blockage, to no avail, which is why I'm here. On behalf of all of us, thank you for your brave service. ;)

Wow Splitsie, I really appreciate your videos. You have helped me in creating a foundation to build on. I wish the game developers would implement more like this directly into the game itself so we don't have to rely on scripts or mods (not that I'm against them). They seem to break sometimes when the game gets updated. I hope support for this game continues. I think it has real promise to become even better than it is now. Keep up the good work my friend!

these videos are awesome :)

Wow, this is awesome! I'm super late to the SE party, but now that I'm here, these videos remind me of Paradox games...they make no, or terrible, tutorials for rather complex games, then popular youtubers have to make those tutorials. YOU da man for this game! They should pay you!

Splitsie your a legend when it comes to SE always use your guides.

Thanks for clearing up sorters and storage for me. Confusion reduced!

I know your series of tutorials are kind of old.. But they are still the best tutorials out there... Thanks

I typically go incoming (blacklist ice) -> prestorage (whitelist and blacklist ore) -> ore and main storages. Blacklist ice goes to whitelist ice then a free conveyor to both the o2 genny bank and the main storage (allowing you to pull ice/h2 tanks for ships). Ore storage goes to refinery bank, ingot storage, assembler bank, main storage. Main storage loops back to incoming. I also design ships with a one way small cargo container for ice, so you can feul them as required without the main base pulling the ice in. Any ice or ore stuck in main storage is pulled by a seperate puller to the prestorage area, while since the 'goods incoming' loop is all on pull, any items stuck in the incoming line will be pulled through.

1. you have no backflow means in the first setup if a ship happens to need to refuel. There are also times you may need some of the items stored on one of the one-way paths. One option to get around these drawback is switches so you can switch between sorting and 2-way access. (IE if you flip a switch it'll turn off the path to take ice from the ice storage tank and turn on the block that pulls it in from everywhere else). As for mining vessels you can do a double sort block for them too, where as you can turn on one that'll pull what you want from those ships on/off so the connector is more universal.

Thanks dude honestly could figure this out in my own

for a new player such as myself, this is incredibly helpful, thank you!

Best space engineers videos on the internet!, thanks mate 👍

This a great video, it is exactly what i was looking for many thanks. easy way to to stop ice going to refinery but a blacklist ice sorted before the ore sorter

These are by far the best Space Engineers tutorials

you're the best space engineer youtuber you should have million's subscribers so you can do it full time

Thanks for this. was trying to figure out a sorting system

Wonderfully clear and concise. Thank You

thx for the tips. i was having trouble with the "Drain All" button. i was interpreting it as a one time purge of items rather than automatic or manual override

Thanks yet again Splitsie. A tutorial that was thought out and presented like you know what you are doing, unlike alot of others which just seem to be some Rando that's only just started playing the game and spends half the time yelling "Hey look at that! I t looks like um... dunno but it's cool huh, wow I love this game already". Good on ya.

You´re the best! Thank you so much! (New in this game and have to learn so much!)

I find sorters to be rather inflexible. I don't know if it is a bug but the sorters seem to blacklist anything that isn't on the whitelist; even then it is a one way direction. You even demonstrated that when you docked the ship and wanted to move components. This was still quite helpful as it shows I'll need a 3x3x1 space to easily support 3 sorters. More if I want to add redundancies in anything that might be, occasionally, taking fire.

How did I miss this video.this video helped out alot

without your outstanding tutorials,this game would be really frustrating for me. thanks!

Hoy, Im in my first 10 hours of Space Engineers. Thank you for this!

Thank you so much for this video. I've got a hydrogen based drilling ship that's been plagued with conveyor gremlins. I think i have a better understanding of this system now.

I started painting my pipes and cargo containers according to what goes through them. Helps a lot with orientation.

Splitsie you Can also have a disassembly function to this Conveyor system without touching anything that's already automated. What you do is stick another conveyor junction after the conveyor sorter leading to the components Storage. And have another conveyor sorter on the branch off lead to another assembler which will be dedicated to disassembly with the sorter white listed only for components. This will make it a one way to allow you to manually move it over to the Assembler Named Disassembler without it going back to the cargo container for components. Then Connect the Disassembler with a Conveyor leading to the ingots storage with a sorter with Ingots white listed and and Drain all Checked then all you got to do is move the components you want to Disassemble into the Disassmbler and Disassemble the components and it will then transfer all harvested ingots back into ingot storage for use in the Assembler.

This is one of the major parts of why I enjoy SE. I'm the type of guy who can fiddle for hours just to come up with a neat little setup for a rover, base or even space ships. This game makes my OCD tickle with joy. I try to not use to many scripts so I also enjoy doing setups like these, even though Izzy makes it hard to resist taking a little shortcut.

The sorter going from the assembler to storage can be set up with blacklist for ingots as well, as ingots are the only things going into them. That means there will only ever be ingots and whatever the assembler creates in that pipeline. As for disassembly, I would probably go with a dedicated disassembler, an assembler set to "disassemble" with its own storage and a "drain all" sorter with an empty blacklist. Anything going into the container goes to the assembler, gets disassembled and then just ship the components over to the component storage from there. Disassembly is mostly a manual process anyway, it is very rare to use any form of automatic disassembly when you're so late in the game that you have a fully fledged sorting system going. And the little automatic disassembly you may want would be for things like destroyed enemy ships anyway, so those would be easy to just hook up a connector to your disassembly container.

Thank you for saving me a massive headache

Helped me out a lot. Thank you!

i have to try doing this. im new to this game but i enjoy it alot

I was struggled with one issue. I have a bit different setup. I built all production facilities in one building with sorters in and out (plus individual sorters for facilities). If I set pull all on input sorter it occured that it moves forward and back bottles as it's stored in in H2/O2 generator. Finally I built additional sorter that pulls only ores and next sorter that disallows pulled ores back as closer then storage is docked rover. With this video you remined me about oxygene and hydrogen tanks. When I build it outside production facility, probably additional sorters will not be needed anymore as only thing allowed to be moved in will be ores.

Great tutorial video, thanks Splitsie! One comment though - on your hub-and-spoke design, it looks like you have the reactor connected in to the main "spine" conveyor. Don't you actually want that to be connected in to the storage container that the assembler is connected to and using for ingots? Otherwise it won't be able to share the uranium ingots with the assembler, and the "drain all" on the ingots sorter will starve the uranium out of the system for the reactor. Also, the other comment about allowing access for the uranium would still need to apply to the ingot storage side. Thanks again for the great video!

Sorters can suck? Welp, thanx once again for teaching me something I didn't know. This gives me loads of ideas and I'll have to restart work on the server I was building. But that's ok. I loved the asteroid base I was building, but at the same time there were a few things I wanted to change, but never got around to it because it would have involved dismantling a majority of the bassbecause of how tightly I compacted some of the systems together

Very nice vídeo!!! Congrats

more than 2 years and the P isnt still sorted :) Love your videos. Thank you very much

This is definitely going underneath my base tomorrow. Been looking for an easy way to do this, been hand sorting everything but now my operation is getting too big for that xD

You could allow ingots at the main entry connector sorter, this will allow mining ships with integrated refineries to unload ingots as well.

thank you for all your help!!

Just started playing the last two weeks and I'm finding your videos really help. Question: Is the H2/O2 loop with the conveyor sorters still valid? I've set it up, set the whitelist for the bottles but it's not working. Any tips would be really helpful thanks

Great really helpful video, 2 questions tho, What would you use as the main interaction with he system? And how would you connect a medical room to this to replenish hydrogen?

so hard to rember all but at least we got this to come back to

You are a tutorial God for this game. Also ICE IS AN ORE?!.... welp back to the drawing board

thank you very much this helped alot !

For the ore issue around the end with the wheel-and-spoke system, you could set a second sorter in front of the main one (probably even just directly connected to main storage) that's got ice blacklisted so it can't drag it through.

"Spawn into targeted container" option will help you a lot. Congrats for the tuto.

Spaghetti! ;) Nice video and well explained. I never used the sorters like this because I always had scripts that did the job for me. They basically came out too late in my opinion. This also reminded me that I always wanted to write my own sorting script that is a bit more light weight and easier to manage than TIM.. Maybe I'll find the time some day ;)

A few things. The first is that I never need to make missiles, but I play only in singleplayer and I like to snipe the turrets of the cargo ships to keep resource gain high. Takes longer, but it's worth it. The second is that I make 4 large storage containers for each group of items. Steel plates, Dumb components (steel tubes for example), Smart components (computers and other electronics), and other (ammo, bottles, parachutes). I do this for bases that I build. Outposts and mining stations just use the one. And the third is that I recommend setting up a disassembler when you have enough resources. That way you don't have to set the assembler back and forth.

for the wheel and spoke design, can't you put 2 conveyor sorters in line, one set to black list ice, the other white listing *ores*

Any time you have a one way connection (like to your Ice storage or to your component storage) you really need to complete the loop using a switched off sorter. In your scenario you mentioned that you cannot disassemble components. You can also not get ice out of your storage for example if you put an o2 generator on a ship and wanted to fill it from storage. In your assembler loop a connection from the main storage to the assembler using a switched off sorter would allow you to toggle the existing sorter off, the "new" sorter on and manually move components back into the assembler for disassembly. You need this reverse loop in any one-way system or it can be a real pain.

Thank you been meaning to get a refresher will be putting to use soon also was trying to get components into my welding ship but havent worked out how just yet the items were stored in the connector at the dock point but never made it inside... any tips would he helpful thanks.

I actually use large grid small cargo storge containers instead of conveyors. It's extremely resource expensive, but it increases storage density massively.

dont get me wrong, you are the best youtuber to watch content for space engineer but for starters its really hard to find information about something specific. I hate how youtube is changing to worse every month. But there is rarely information on how to build things. i always only get presented the finished vehicle or building and never see you or anyone building this stuff. For example Mining towers: i saw various forms of mining tower, from you too but never are these concepts explained and im stuck here with my wobbly piston tower. it looks awful. i dont have 200 hours freetime to figure out what is possible and what not. Also transitions from big grid to small grid or the other way round are single headache. Why is this game made so complicated? it looks simple but when you start building there are tons of problems

When i put on small ship ( survival mode ), small reactor, and connect it to a storage directly via conveys - then i put in storage inventory uranium ingots, they are not pulled in automatically from storage. What is the catch?

Ive been messing with the sorting systems and i took inspiration from your second approach. The thing i noticed here is that while it does what i want when pulling the result from the refinery and assemblers, it is also then pulling the item from the resultant container and putting them back into that container. So the items are always moving around. I am having a look at the TIM script, however even the description on the Steam page is blowing my mind. It does so much, yet possibly not what i want, which is probably not the case. Any suggestions to correct my situation?

The right one seems better to me, if move the O/H section between the storage's of component/main and ore (with 3D compacting, maybe remove the ice ore storage and add an arc refinery). Also less sorters and conveyors than the left one. It can be (size wise) compacted much more of course. Even more by thinking in 3 dimensions and swap out cargo containers with filters(+conveyors) and loop back. Then if need more storage just leave expansion space to add cargo containers (and again 3D give expansion in at least 6 directions, for the different type of equipment.)

The later example has one flaw. Your reactor should be hooked into the Cargo at Assembly since Ingots are pulled there, not Main like it is. TY though, finally learned how to get bottles too and from with this.

16:57 "Press P to park" ? Man, older tutorials hit different hehe :-) something tells me you wouldn't say that today!

i have a quite similar setup - with a few tweaks: i play with weapons disabled (yes, i'm lame), so i have no use for all the guns, ammo and pleb hand tools. i put an assembler (called "pacifist") in front of the refineries in order to disassemble generally useless stuff (and send the ingots to the storage right away) i got a script to evenout the ores between refineries and i placed a seperate assembler on my system labeled "manual disassembler". it is set to disassemble anything you put in it (by hand / conveyor) oh, also: colourcoding makes this kind of system a lot easier for others to understand.

One thing to watch on the loops is automatically pulling items will cause the system to pull a small amount constantly moving it through the system in the loop. It is better to have sections of the loop able to toggle manually or at least have a sensor or timer trigger the loop when needed.

A proper tip that im now a bit more versed in Space Engineers, if you're wanting specific refineries to input and output specific ores, you need to make sure the conveyors are sorted coming out of them, if you link all the conveyors at the end the refineries without sorters forcing a flow it will use those conveyors to autobalance the inventories of the refineries. Very big oopsie on my part trying to design a bespoke factory that processes the low yield ores with more yield modules and the higher yield ores with speed modules, and finding that my design just had them all autobalance 😭

How do you stop assembler from accumulating ingots, I tried drain all but the ingot is just sitting there and if its full it will not make components made from ingot that it has access to but is not in the inventory of assembler.

This is EXACTLY what I needed to know. Many thanks. I have a question though; how do I prevent the assembler pulling too much of one ingot and not enough of another e.g. loads of iron but not leaving space for silver etc.? I have to keep manually adjusting assembler inventories. With 10 assemblers this will become a nightmare. Thanks.

Is there a video on, or can someone explain having this loop but with being able to pull ice out to fill hydrogen tanks for hydrogen thrusters on ships landing on the connectors?

is there any way to pull all items into the right container but let them access from all of the doors?

Hey man just started and using your videos alot. Right now I'm setting up my second base and I want it to be a proper base so I dont change alot later. I've copied the second base design in this video but am wondering if all of this really necessary? I thought the refinery and assembler pull material and communicate with eachother perfectly. Dose this speedup the process?(sorters and all)

The assembler and refinery dont pull anything in my Game even with sorters how do i fix that? Pls Need an answer fast

I usually perfer a proper bus system when it comes to conveyors. So everything can access everything. If I want automation, I use a programmable block ^^

15:15 good video so far. though i just started playing space engineers, still having a hard time struggeling with the beginning set up and i allready can tell, that i use the disassembler function a lotta times. espacially at the moment when im about to finnish my first rover, end phase of Stone gathering, there's the point where i want to upgrade my storage from maybe 6-7 k total to + 40-60 k when you see " sh*t, i need cobald to build that stupid big storage thing xD" so, i have to avoid using the big storages, wich means, the first rover ressource supply fully loaded with +50k is blocking up the beginner refinery. in order to prevent that from happening, i pushed out 20 medium sized small grid Containers in a row wich i locked in place on a hight so my rover could be used to transport materials wich started blocking up the inventory space between the assembler, the refinery, and the first connector (6-7 k) (as you won't have big grid containers at this stage) i realy liked your sorting system here, but it would be cool to see how to do a set up wich includes the disassembling, might be realy usefull for planning out spaces for further production lines in the future for newbies in this game. could prevent them from having to rebuild the entire starter setup later on. thumb up, nice vid, good quality.

Could you do a video of how to make an automated disassembly setup?

Will these two systems pull ice out of engines and H2/CO generators?

I have a question about conveyor networks; what non conveyor blocks can be used as conveyors? Large reactors on Large grids seem very poor at pass-through, are there blocks that work better? Is there a way to use the blocks with better pass through as a way to save space and mass? So may questions.

I have 2 connectors on a station. I have ships docked to both of them. Whenever I get into one of the ships and undock it, it undocks the other ship at the same time. Is there a way to make this not happen?

I have small gun ships and im fine Whit a limit set og ammunition. Is there a way so the erytime i park my ship on a cornektor it Will make sure i only have 10 crates og ammo in the ship

Im having a problem where my Main Large Storage container is blinking. The sorters on set to pull from my drop box, then the sorter than lets me have when I ask is set to drain all 'off' but my storage is very quickly blinking its contents into the sorter thats set to drain all off.