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[Leyic]

If someone can explain to me how to make a mod...

Mods require no packing whatsoever, but you will want an unpacked assets directory so you can copy the appropriate paths.
1. Starting with an empty directory, create a text file called <your mod name>.modinfo. Fill this with the following:

Code: [Select]

{
  "name" : "<your mod name>",
  "version" : "Beta v. Furious Koala",
  "path" : "."
}
2. In the directory, create the subdirectories that trace the paths to the files you modified (in your case, biomes/surface/forest, etc.). Place your modded files in the appropriate locations.
3. Place the directory into Starbound/mods.
4. For uploading purposes, create a readme.txt and compress the directory into a .zip file.

If needed, you could download that mod I linked and follow it as an example.

The real problem with modding at this stage is that you'd have to update the mod with each new version of Starbound released, at a minimum changing the "version" line in the .modinfo file. You'd also need to check their .surfacebiome files each time to see if they changed anything, and modify those files if they did. Otherwise, your mod's users would unwittingly be updating their games but not their biomes. Basically, maintaining the mod takes work, and with the game still in active development, you'll end up updating it often. Alternatively, give people permission to modify your mod without your consent and hope someone else decides to take up maintaining it.

Not that I'm trying to discourage you or anything; modding's great, but there is a little responsibility that goes along with it.

[Sappho]

Thank you for the explanation. Unfortunately I'm really completely lost when it comes to this stuff. I'm trying to follow your instructions but I don't understand what you mean. Please forgive my disability with coding/modding stuff...
1. The text file I can manage, I think, if that's the exact text it needs. How will I know what to update the version with when the game gets updated? Does it have to be exact?
 The empty directory, you mean a folder that I name with the name of my mod?
2. I'm not sure if I understand what you mean here. So inside this directory I create more folders, as though it were the assets directory? So inside my mod directory, I make a "biomes" folder, then inside that a "surface" folder, etc? Then put the files which have been changed inside there?
How does it work, anyway? The game looks at the mods folder first, then any files in there override the corresponding files in the vanilla game?
3. This I can handle.
4. I think I can handle this as well. But I thought in the current version, mods have to be compressed to .pak files?

Actually this mod was already created for the previous version. I tried contacting the creator and asking him to update it for the current version, but he hasn't responded. That's when I decided to take matters into my own hands and do it myself, which has been one hell of a process since I really have terrible difficulty understanding how it all works. (I tried taking a Visual Basic class in high school, and I barely passed even though I worked my ass off trying to learn and understand the code. In the end all I was able to comprehend were if...then statements.)

I certainly won't be playing the game as long as there's a chance my work might unexpectedly get destroyed by meteors, so if they don't fix it in the next version of the game, I will re-mod it anyway.

Just now I'm afraid I need to go to work, but I'll look at this more when I get home. Thanks for the help.

[Andux]

My fears were confirmed. Without having Tabula Rasa, Logical Recipes, and probably that meteor patch, my server is unplayable. Time to uninstall the whole load of it. :/

Well, the parallax fix apparently does work when only the server has it, so I think the meteor patch should be OK to keep; I'd generally expect issues only with mods that rely on custom art or sound assets.

[Leyic]

I may just be bad at explaining things.
1. Exact text, correct. The version name is shown in the launcher and on the title screen, so just copy that whenever the game updates. The empty directory is a folder that you will name with the name of your mod (Starbound doesn't actually seem to care about the directory name, only the contents).
2. Correct. Your mod will override the vanilla assets file, which is why the directory structure needs to mimic the assets directory, otherwise your files end up in the wrong places when the game loads and won't do anything.
4. The game can't read packed mods. We pack it to .zip for uploading because that's what the Chucklefish forums require. The readme isn't strictly required but is good practice for placing a description, author info, instructions, permissions, etc. Otherwise someone may find the mod on their hard drive months/years later and not have a clue what it does.

[Tarran]

Hey, does anyone know if Toxic Plain biomes still spawn in Forest planets? I've searched far and wide for them on multiple forest planets but I have not found a single one.

[Flying Dice]

My fears were confirmed. Without having Tabula Rasa, Logical Recipes, and probably that meteor patch, my server is unplayable. Time to uninstall the whole load of it. :/

Well, the parallax fix apparently does work when only the server has it, so I think the meteor patch should be OK to keep; I'd generally expect issues only with mods that rely on custom art or sound assets.

This seems about right. Serverside mods which change or remove vanilla files should be fine, but ones which add new content won't play nice with vanilla clients. Other side of the coin, but otherwise the same reason why sandbox ship mods work on vanilla servers while ship mods with modified models, etc. don't, and clientside mods that add workstations and such have their content deleted upon entering vanilla servers.

[Sappho]

I may just be bad at explaining things.
1. Exact text, correct. The version name is shown in the launcher and on the title screen, so just copy that whenever the game updates. The empty directory is a folder that you will name with the name of your mod (Starbound doesn't actually seem to care about the directory name, only the contents).
2. Correct. Your mod will override the vanilla assets file, which is why the directory structure needs to mimic the assets directory, otherwise your files end up in the wrong places when the game loads and won't do anything.
4. The game can't read packed mods. We pack it to .zip for uploading because that's what the Chucklefish forums require. The readme isn't strictly required but is good practice for placing a description, author info, instructions, permissions, etc. Otherwise someone may find the mod on their hard drive months/years later and not have a clue what it does.

I don't think you're bad at explaining, I just have a hard time with this stuff. But I'm not giving up! I think I've just about got it. I only have to include the specific files I modified, right? Not every file in that directory?

Edit: On the official forum, someone mentioned using "__modify" to change things. Do I need to do that? If so, how does it work?

[Aklyon]

As far as I know, _modify is for merging multiple mods.

[Sergius]

Yeah the original-original custom ship mod had a size limit set on ships to prevent load-time lag and keep performance sane. Princeofmars then came and punched sanity in the cojones, so you can now build very large, laggy, performance hogging ships that don't load all in one chunk and muck up server loads. But hey, bigger ships!

Awesome. That means I can finally make a proper humongous Paradroid ship.



Already finished the structure, I just need the rooms and stuff http://imgur.com/McMTK59

[Sappho]

I did it! I think. Anyone care to test it out?

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?resources/meteorelief.1433/

[BigD145]

As far as I know, _modify is for merging multiple mods.

No clue, but it's used by the "magma world forever stuck in warp" mod fix.

Code: (magma.undergroundparallax) [Select]

{
  "__merge": [
    [ "overwrite", "nohueshift" ]
  ],
  "nohueshift" : true
}


[Sappho]

Oh, does anyone have a link to the mod that fixes crops so they grow even when you're not there? I would really like that, can't find it on the official forums (although they are very tough to search for some reason).

[Aklyon]

Crops grow regardless of mods on your ship.

[Sergius]

Oh, does anyone have a link to the mod that fixes crops so they grow even when you're not there? I would really like that, can't find it on the official forums (although they are very tough to search for some reason).

Might be this one: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?resources/persistent-farmables.640/

[Sappho]

Oh, does anyone have a link to the mod that fixes crops so they grow even when you're not there? I would really like that, can't find it on the official forums (although they are very tough to search for some reason).

Might be this one: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?resources/persistent-farmables.640/

That looks like it, thanks. Although now I'm having second thoughts about using it, since it says I'd be unable to use multiplayer... Hmmmmm....

Also, I appear to have forgotten to fix the arid biome on my mod. Just updated it.