Basic Modding tutorial: Lesson 0

Introduction to mods.

Information and discussion for custom maps and mods.
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Sleipnir
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Basic Modding tutorial: Lesson 0

Post by Sleipnir »

Please note: This tutorial is a work in progress. It will be unlocked to allow comments once it is finished.

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce you to the concept of a mod, or modification, that we use in OpenRA. Mods can either define an entirely new game (like cnc, or d2k), or apply tweaks or maps to an existing mod.

Launching Mods

You can specify which mods to load when you launch the game from the command line, or by changing the arguments in the launcher shortcuts.

Under windows, you can do this by creating a new shortcut to C:\Program Files\OpenRA\OpenRA.Game.exe.
Right click on the shortcut, select properties and go to the Shortcut tab.
Go to the target box and type a space at the end, then type: `Game.Mods='

The target box should now read:

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C:\Program Files\OpenRA\OpenRA.Game.exe Game.Mods=
After the Game.Mods= you should declare which mod(s) you want to load, as explained below.

The Game.Mods argument lets you specify a list of mods to load. The order they are specified is important; they are loaded in order, so the ones later in the list override earlier items.

For example, to load the game with the `ra_perf' mod, which adds some debugging maps to ra, you would use

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Game.Mods=ra,ra_perf
ra_perf simply adds maps to ra, it can not be run as a stand alone mod.
For example, the game will crash if you try to launch it with

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Game.Mods=ra_perf   # This doesn't work!
On the other hand, some mods (like cnc) are standalone, and cannot be run with other standalone mods.

To run the cnc mod, you would use

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Game.Mods=cnc
but expect a crash if you tried

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Game.Mods=cnc,ra   # This doesn't work either

Mod Structure

*** Todo: finish ***

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