General Search

General Search

The General Search is as much a place to access information about items in the game as it is to configure the Toolbar. It has its own settings and bookmarks to make finding things as convenient as possible. Every item in the game displays a page of information related to that item. Icons on the information page can be double-clicked () to show information about the item represented by the icon. This can be very useful for finding the resources needed to craft components.

The in-game description: "Blocks and items can be dragged to the toolbar. This includes all large blocks and any small blocks or items that are in the character's inventory. See block and item tooltips for additional controls."

Version:

0.6.3

Settings

Advanced Tooltips

The General Search has two settings that can be changed by clicking the settings tab.

The first option, "Only Show Available", hides locked items. This reduces the items shown to only those that are unlocked and available to use. This can make finding them easier but it also makes learning how to unlock specific items a little more difficult. Enabling this option is recommended for more experienced players or players who are confused by locked items.

The second option, "Show Advanced Tooltips", shows additional information at the bottom of item tooltips. This information can be useful when using search prefixes or for modders who want to see the ID's of items.

Toolbar Interaction

Toolbar Location on HUD

The toolbar has multiple uses but exists mostly as a visual representation of shortcuts to items that can be equipped, activated, or otherwise selected in some way. It is meant to be easily configurable and to display information in an easy to understand format. Each toolbar has 9 items slots and a 10th slot that represents empty hands. The empty-hands slot can be activated by pressing or (by default) at any time to generally unequip any toolbar item. Doing so equips the default manipulation tool and rope manipulation tool.

Adding and Removing Items

Item Being Dragged to the Toolbar

Items can be added, removed, and organized on the toolbar in a few ways. These include drag and drop, double-click, and right-click.

Drag and drop () is the most intuitive. Although it is not the fastest method it works in all cases. Players simply interact with the Toolbar, General Search, and inventory by using the mouse to drag icons to the toolbar and drop them onto a slot. Items can be rearranged on the toolbar using the same technique.

Double-clicking () on items will also add them to the toolbar. This interaction is a little less intuitive as the items are added to the first free slot on the current toolbar. If no free slot is available, the first selected slot is used. If no slot is selected then slot 1 is used. This method is inconsistent in inventories, where double-clicking results in an attempt to transfer the inventory item to another inventory.

The final option is right-clicking () on items to add them to the toolbar. This is the fastest method but is subject to a different caveat in its behavior. Right-clicking a consumable item will result in an attempt to consume or activate it rather than adding it to the toolbar. However, inventory items can be added by right-clicking, unlike double-clicking. Right-clicking adds items in the same order that double-clicking does.

Items can be removed from the toolbar by double-clicking or right-clicking. These both have the same behavior, giving right-clicking the speed advantage.

Equipping and Consuming

Toolbar with Slot 3 Activated

Many toolbar items can be equipped. This includes all blocks, tools, and weapons in the game. Equip items by adding them to the toolbar and pressing the number (—) that corresponds to the toolbar slot. When you equip an item it is highlighted with a dark brown color and appears in front of the character in some way. If the item is an inventory item, such as a small block or treasure map, it will become semi-transparent when the last one is removed from your inventory. This indicates that you no longer have the item available to equip. Some items are consumable. This includes all foods and drinks which are eaten, bandages which are applied, and schematics which are read to unlock research. This works the same as equipping except the item is consumed rather than being equipped. If the last item is consumed from your inventory, the slot will become semi-transparent indicating that there is nothing left to consume.

Equipping Multiple Items

Equipped items have hand assignments of left, right, or both. A right-hand item and a left-hand item can be equipped at the same time. This functionality is provisional at this time and the only left-hand item in the game is the Torch. This is new functionality and it has some inconsistencies at this time. Most notably, the last item equipped handles control input. So equipping a block and then a torch will direct input to the torch which does nothing but burn. Equipping in the opposite order will direct input to the block allowing you to place the block while enjoying the light from the torch. Items are unequipped one at a time in reverse of the order that they were equipped. e.g. if you equip a torch and then a block, you will unequip the block first and then the torch after that.

Multiple Toolbars

Toolbar Number (Multiple Toolbars)

There are multiple toolbars available for use. Nine toolbars with nine slots each allowing for a generous number of slots. Toolbars are swapped sequentially using (by default) to display the next toolbar and (by default) to display the previous toolbar. The current toolbar number is displayed on the left side of the toolbar.

Searching

The General Search can find and display all Item types in the game and blocks. This includes all inventory items like consumables, tools and weapons, large blocks, small blocks, and Schematics.

How to Search

Search for items by typing in the search box at the top. The default search mode is Split String, meaning that the search will "split the search term into smaller strings, using the space character as the separator." In this search you can type in multiple words and the search will return all items that contain the words in any order. This is a type of fuzzy search that makes it easy to find specific things if you only remember part of the name. See Prefixes for more search options. The results are sorted by into groups by special categories. This keeps like items together. e.g. if your search includes stairs, all of the stairs will be sorted together. The in-game description: "Enter search parameters into the box at the top of the screen to to find blocks and items in the game. Click the advanced search tab on the right for a list of search parameters."

Prefixes

Advanced Search Help

A prefix is a special character at the beginning of a search string that changes the way the search finds results. The following list provides more information about how the prefixes modify the search. See the Search Conditions modding guide for technical details and for creating custom prefixes.

Single String: %

Unlike Split String, this prefix uses the whole search term to find the matching definitions. This means that in order to be a valid match, the name must include the whole search term.

Category: $

This uses the categories mentioned earlier. Searching by the name of a category like "Stairs" will return all of the items in that category as results. There isn't currently a way to see categories in in-game but they are located in sbc files in /MedievalEngineers/Content/Data/Search/Categories. Like most things in Medieval Engineers search categories are moddable.

Tag: #

Tag prefix allows you to search for items based on their Tags.

Block: =

As the name already suggests, this prefix can only be used to search for blocks. It tries to match the search term against small or large. If neither of the sizes is specified, all blocks are considered valid.

ObjectBuilderType: ~

This is a very straightforward, and mostly technical search prefix. If checks the definition type to see if it includes the search term. This search is used almost exclusively by modders.

Mod: @

The mod prefix is currently the only search prefix that does not provide any meaningful results without mods. Once there are mods present, it will check the name of the mod where the definition comes from, to see whether or not it includes the search term.

Usage: !

The usage of this prefix is the most complex search prefix, simply due to returning a large number of items that might not seem connected at first glance. First, this prefix matches items that include the search term in their name. Then it returns all items and blocks that are built or crafted from the items that match the prefix. A prime example might be a search for "!Timber" which would return every item that can be crafted from timbers.

Search Limitations

These limitations are mainly due to the information available and items that are hidden behind research and search settings.

The in-game desciption: "Not all blocks and items are available in every game mode. In survival mode, many blocks and items are unknown to the character until they have been learned through research.

Search limitations can be disabled in the settings tab to the right by unchecking "Only Show Available". Doing this is a good way to learn about blocks and items that are not yet known by the character."

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Bookmarks are nothing more than saved search strings. If you find that you use the same search often you may want to make a bookmark to avoid typing it.

The in-game description: "Search bookmarks are on the left side of the screen and they can be customized. Create a new bookmark by searching for what you want and then clicking the + below the last bookmark. Give it a name and click OK.

Shift+Click on bookmarks to delete them.

Restore the default bookmarks by clicking the ? button, clicking the settings tab on the right side of the screen, and clicking the "Restore Bookmarks" button."

Bookmarks are stored inside the world save folder. If you join a multiplayer game, a save folder will be created just for the bookmarks. This means you can overwrite your bookmarks in one save with the bookmarks from another just by copying a file.