How to Change the Block and PCU Limits on Your Space Engineers Server

In Space Engineers, every block costs PCU (Performance Cost Units). Once the PCU budget is used up, the game shows PCU limit reached. and nothing more can be built. How much PCU there is, how it is split up and how many blocks are allowed is set in your world's config file. There is no field for this in the dashboard — but the dashboard does not overwrite these entries on startup either, so your change is kept.

Warning

Stop your server before editing the config file. A running server can overwrite your changes when it saves or stops.

The settings at a glance

All settings are in your world's Sandbox_config.sbc file:

Entry	Meaning	Preinstalled world
BlockLimitsEnabled	How the PCU budget is split up (see below)	GLOBALLY
TotalPCU	The PCU budget. 0 removes the PCU limit	100000
PiratePCU	PCU budget of the NPC factions, for example the pirates	50000
MaxGridSize	Maximum number of blocks per grid (ship or station), 0 = unlimited	0
MaxBlocksPerPlayer	Maximum number of blocks per player, 0 = unlimited	0
MaxFactionsCount	Maximum number of factions, 0 = unlimited (exception with PER_FACTION, see below)	0
EnablePcuTrading	Players or factions can trade PCU with each other — with PER_PLAYER and PER_FACTION	true
BlockTypeLimits	Limits for individual block types (see below)	empty

How the PCU budget is split up

BlockLimitsEnabled determines who TotalPCU applies to:

Value	Distribution
GLOBALLY	All players share one budget of TotalPCU. MaxBlocksPerPlayer and BlockTypeLimits then also count for all players together.
PER_PLAYER	Each player gets TotalPCU divided by Max Players from the dashboard — with 100000 PCU and 10 players, that is 10000 PCU per player.
PER_FACTION	Each faction gets TotalPCU divided by MaxFactionsCount. Players without a faction cannot build.
NONE	No block and PCU limits — see Remove the limits entirely.

You set the number of players under Change max players. The server recalculates the budget from the current settings on every start — so after a restart, a change also applies to existing players and factions. If you lower the limits below the current usage, existing builds are kept, but the affected players can only build again once they are below the new limit.

Factions with PER_FACTION

With PER_FACTION, set MaxFactionsCount to the number of factions you want on your server. If it is 0, the server allows only one player faction in this mode — in the preinstalled world, that is the existing First Colony faction. It then gets the full TotalPCU, but no new factions can be founded.

Change the limits

1. Stop the server
   Stop your server via the dashboard.

2. Create a backup
   Create a backup or download a copy of the Sandbox_config.sbc file. This lets you restore the previous state if something goes wrong while editing.

3. Connect via SFTP
   Connect to your server via SFTP, or use the file browser in the dashboard.

4. Open the config file
   In your world's folder /config/Saves/World/, open the file Sandbox_config.sbc.

5. Adjust the values
   Find the entries and change the values between the tags. In this example, the PCU budget is raised to 300000:

   <MaxGridSize>0</MaxGridSize>
   <MaxBlocksPerPlayer>0</MaxBlocksPerPlayer>
   <TotalPCU>300000</TotalPCU>
   <PiratePCU>50000</PiratePCU>
   <MaxFactionsCount>0</MaxFactionsCount>
   <BlockLimitsEnabled>GLOBALLY</BlockLimitsEnabled>

6. Start the server
   Save the file and start your server.

7. Check the change
   While the world loads, this line must appear in the server console:

   Sandbox world configuration file found, overriding checkpoint settings.

   It shows that the server has applied your Sandbox_config.sbc.

Important

Only change the values between the tags and leave the tags themselves as they are — every entry needs its opening and closing tag, for example <TotalPCU>300000</TotalPCU>. Write the values for BlockLimitsEnabled exactly in capital letters (GLOBALLY, PER_PLAYER, PER_FACTION or NONE).

If the file contains an error, the server ignores the entire Sandbox_config.sbc — without an error message in the console, only the line from step 7 is missing. It then loads the settings and mods from Sandbox.sbc and overwrites Sandbox_config.sbc the next time it saves. Your changes are lost. If the line is missing after the start, stop the server, restore your copy of the file and change the values again.

Note

Most of these entries are also in the <SessionSettings> block of SpaceEngineers-Dedicated.cfg. However, the server only uses this block when it creates a new world — for your existing world, only Sandbox_config.sbc counts. Learn more under Change world settings.

Performance

Higher limits put more load on your server: every additional block costs processing power, and large constructions can affect performance for all players. Raise the limits step by step.

Limits for individual block types

With BlockTypeLimits, you limit how often a specific block may be built — for example refineries or assemblers. You edit the list in Sandbox_config.sbc as described under Change the limits. In the preinstalled world, it is empty:

<BlockTypeLimits>
  <dictionary />
</BlockTypeLimits>

Replace this block with your limits and add one <item> per block type:

<BlockTypeLimits>
  <dictionary>
    <item>
      <Key>Refinery</Key>
      <Value>24</Value>
    </item>
    <item>
      <Key>Assembler</Key>
      <Value>24</Value>
    </item>
  </dictionary>
</BlockTypeLimits>

• <Key> is the name of the block type.
• <Value> is the allowed number — a whole number up to 32767.

Valid names from Keen Software House's default list include Assembler, Refinery, Blast Furnace, Antenna, Drill, InteriorTurret, GatlingTurret, MissileTurret, ExtendedPistonBase, MotorStator, MotorAdvancedStator, ShipWelder and ShipGrinder.

Note

The large and small versions of a block share one limit, while other variants of the same block count separately. Depending on BlockLimitsEnabled, the limit applies to the whole world, per player or per faction.

Remove the limits entirely

For an unlimited PCU budget, you have two options:

• <TotalPCU>0</TotalPCU> only removes the PCU limit. MaxGridSize, MaxBlocksPerPlayer and BlockTypeLimits still apply.
• <BlockLimitsEnabled>NONE</BlockLimitsEnabled> turns off all block and PCU limits.

Important

If BlockLimitsEnabled is set to NONE or TotalPCU is above 600000, the server automatically turns on experimental mode when loading — even if it is set to false in the dashboard. The server console shows the reason on startup, for example Experimental mode reason: ExperimentalMode, TotalPCU. To hand out more PCU without experimental mode, set TotalPCU to at most 600000.

Crossplay servers

With crossplay enabled, BlockLimitsEnabled must not be NONE and TotalPCU must not be 0. Otherwise the server switches console compatibility off while loading and players on Xbox and PlayStation can no longer join your server. The server console then reports World does not have Block Limits Enabled. or Total PCU value is 0. On a crossplay server, raise TotalPCU instead — ideally to at most 600000, so that experimental mode stays off.

Admins without a PCU limit

Admins can ignore the PCU limits for themselves in-game without changing the limits for the whole server — via the Ignore PCU limits option in the admin menu (Alt + F10). To learn how to set admins, see Add admins.