Tutorial Guide to Basic Mod Making For Starbound 1.0

DISCLAIMER : I am in NO WAY good, I get by with hours of trial and error everytime I try to work on my mods... But from my experiance of trial and error I feel I can give some good up to date guides to the very basics without learning some form of coding language.

Update : Added an armour template to the mod. You can use this as a visual aid to get a better idea of where you are drawing your armour.

Update 1/7/2017 : Fixed the Armour Template in the test_mod.zip


I am not going to tell you go unpack your assets because I am going to provide you with a template you can go through to learn how it works. It is currently what I use for testing any new ideas I have before I work on my own mods.

Before you start you will need...
Notepad++
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
Paint.net or any program you can create pixle art with.
http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

Now the names of folders you make in this mod are NOT important, they only have importance if in a file you edit needs a spacific path to a custom file you made for it to be used in the mod.

Example, you downloaded a sound file from some site and wish to you use it. Well here is the default sound directory for the pickaxe in the mod "/sfx/tools/pickaxe_hit.ogg" it says this because it is going through those folders in the game's packed assets file to use that sound.

You can for convenience create your own sfx folder for your new sound file but really what you can do now so long as your file is named something else say "pick_hit.ogg" or just "pick.ogg" (if it's and ogg file) is type in the line as one or the other without the "/sfx/" and it should find it because it is the only file named that.

Important file you will find is the player.config

This file is used for adding items and objects into the game. Somehow I manage to add a new pickaxe without putting it in the player.config how not a clue. Maybe something has changed for this config I am unaware of?

In the square to the right you see the commas, well that is if you want to add another item but the last one added does not need a comma (Believe forgetting this still causes game to crash). In the square on the left is the brackets that end the lines of code (again something that will break the game if you mess with them).

I labled the folders similar to the assets folders just to keep things organised for myself. That is main point of making the folders is simply to keep things organised for yourself.

I made a simple sword as a test.

In there you'll find everything you need for changing the sounds, stats, and position of the blade and the effects it has.

I highly suggest using this...

When it comes to the position of the weapon you can do it a few ways, one is move it around in what ever program you draw it in and the other is using the lines in the file that dictate its position.

Now recipes...

Here you'll find how you can set the cost to craft each items and how they'll be crafted. You'll need to know the file names of whatever resource you plan to use. In this instance the "test_bench" is crafted with "darkwoodmaterial" which is the basic wood you'll find from any old tree in the game and it requires 10 pieces.

Below the "Item" : "test_bench", you have the "count" how many will be crafted when you used the 10 darkwoodmaterials you have. If you want it to cost the coin you collect then put "money".

Below that is where you craft the "test_table" from and in this case it's the "inventorstable", the nice looking table we have with the blueprint on it to start our crafting andventures.

So if you wanted to add items to be crafted from the "test_table" you would add the name of the item where "test_table" is and put "test_table" where "inventorstable" is.

This is the most basic start to modding in Starbound with ZERO knowledge of coding. Having such knowledge will more than likely be a huge help but not needed (so long we have people that want to help each other..)

 

We can always use more tutorials in the forums.
Side Note: may want to update the thread's title with the "Tutorial" tag instead of "Modding Help".

 

Thanks I didn't notice the tag at first.

 

Thanks! This guide really helped me. (I made the account just so I could tell you this. (= Feeling special yet?)

 

No problem, glad it helped. I just answered some questions that people either tried to answer themselves or danced around it with bits of uneeded information. Also putting together a working template for people to look through I feel is a must when trying to teach how something works.

Without the template it's like explaining how take apart a motor and rebuild it without the motor. You'll have an idea but come time to put it into practice, there will be problems.

 

Was very helpful, thank you! Would be really awesome if you could explain the FRAMES and OBJECT files as well =] Like all those "orietnations", "dualImage" etc. I do understand that those are certain code pieces (not sure how are they called correctly), maybe you could provide a link where I can check all those pieces or functions or however they are called?

 

For those I'd suggest taking a look at this guide http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/unofficial-modding-ebook-2-0.2930/
The | Suit made.

 

Will do, thanks! I'm swalling all those guides for quite some time now, might need a break ;]

 

This might sound dumb, but how would you go about creating custom recipies for items already in the game? (p.s. no starbound coding knowledge whatsoever, but i still have a basic understanding of the basics of modding)

 

I think when your in the crafting code, change the name of the item being crafted to an already in-game item name. May want to check with someone else though, I haven't tried it myself.

 

Im trying to make a mod where you can actually go behind Dressing Screens, but I have no idea how. Can anyone help me?

 

The Character sprite is always rendered at the very front so you'd need to tweak the renderer to make this work. May not even be possible without rewriting part of the core game engine. Good luck

 

You may want to update the thread, the images on it aren't working

 

There we go, images should work again.

 

Code:

"renderLayer" : "Player+1",

 

Where can I find the files (like a spear for example), I have opened my assets but i still cant find them.

 

items/active/weapons then melee or ranged

 

Thanks!

 

But how do I get the sprites?