Basic mod setup tutorial - Starfare

Checklist

• This works with version 1.0.6 and newer
• Use the wiki scripting section when making a mod

Getting started

To start, you'll need a name for your mod, I'll name mine My Awesome Mod. Now that you have a name, you can set up the folder structure:

1. Find the assets directory and create a new folder without spaces or special characters. Mine would be assets/myawesomemod.
2. In the directory you created, create a new, empty text file and name it import.txt.

Explanation of import.txt

You can skip this if you are not interested in technical details.
When Starfare is started, it attempts to load textures, sounds, meshes and so on. By default, the game looks for any loadable resources in assets/base unless you tell the game that you want to run a mod. If that is the case, the game simply looks for resources in assets/myawesomemod. But if you only want to add a campaign level, the game would only load your campaign script but no sounds, no ships, nothing.So the import.txt file tells the game what else to load aside from the files in your mod directory. The file is read line-wise. Each line should either be the path of a file to load, or an entire directory to load.

Importing necessary assets

The game absolutely requires some specific assets to be loaded. If you don't plan on modifying these, your import.txt for your mod should contain this:

base/images
base/meshes/minimap.png
base/meshes/skybox.jpg
base/meshes/ambient.png
base/meshes/cloudlayer.png
base/meshes/overlay_radon.png
base/meshes/overlay_silicea.png
base/meshes/asteroid.x
base/effects
base/strings
base/sfx

This will make the game load the standard interface textures and even sounds but no units or campaign levels.

Starting the game with a mod

Create either a .bat file or a shortcut (Batch files are preferred if you actually want to distribute your mod) to start Starfare.exe with two parameters:

starfare.exe -basedir -myawesomemod

Remember to enter your mod's folder name as second parameter.

Good luck & Have fun modding!