trouble with installing mods.

[darkrai324]

hello, so I am trying to install some mods from here on starbound but none are working or I don't know how to use them some of the mods I am using are with the links. so any help with getting these to work would be great, I am using the xbox game pass pc version btw if that helps, and I tried looking for the mods folder but there wasn't one so I tried making a mods folder but that still doesn't work, any help with this would be greatly appreciated 

 

 

[ixtheinterloper]

seeing as how we live in an era of "mod manager" this and "workshop" that, the art of manually installing mods has fallen by the wayside

now, it's time for ix to be a boomer and explain to the young'uns* how to install a starbound mod

*which, abiding by loverslab tos is anyone born before 2003, which is... terrifying to think about

 

step one: identifying root

this should be relatively simple; root, or the folder called Starbound, should be identical across all installations. you're looking for the folder containing subfolders like assets, storage, win32, and win64

for steam users, this is typically going to be Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Starbound (for anyone who knows the value of installing games to a non-standard directory i shouldn't have to explain this, but it's worth mentioning)

i don't have much experience with gog, or... discord, if you're one of the two people that bought a game from them before they shut that down, but just running a system search for Starbound should give you the information you're looking for

in addition, a cursory glance at google reveals that gamepass has additional security that needs to be approved before mods can be loaded by the game; a guide by reddit user GGriddy goes over how to enable mods for gamepass, and also explains how to install mods manually (and with pictures!) but we'll be going over that here anyway for completion sake

 

once you have located root, either go into the mods subfolder, or create one if one doesn't exist

 

step two: identifying the mod

once you know where the mod needs to go, take a second to step back and look at the mod you downloaded: in most cases, it's either going to be one of two files: a .pak, or an archive file such as .zip or .rar

 

a .pak is, for all intents and purposes, a complete mod with all of it assets bundled into an easy to use file. they aren't intended to be opened or messed with, but can be extracted from for curiosity's sake or to apply an unofficial patch

an extremely important thing to keep in mind here is that you should NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ATTEMPT TO OPEN A .PAK IN A TEXT EDITOR

for some reason, this is a common misstep for newbie modders, thinking that they can make changes to a .pak and expect it to work as intended

as a thought experiment, take any ol .zip you have lying around, make a copy of it, and open the copy in notepad and make random changes. if you try to open it, you'll be told that it's corrupted and unusable. that's exactly what happens if you try to edit a .pak; even if you think replacing entire words will work, it won't

 

once you have your .pak file, all you need to do is drop it into the mods folder (e.g., \Starbound\mods\Example Mod.pak) and launch the game; assuming the mod itself isn't broken, starbound should launch just fine and the mod will be loaded

 

a .zip or .rar is a little more complicated, being all of the mod assets in a semi-compressed state. this tends to be another stumbling point, so careful attention is needed to make sure you install it correctly

firstly, starbound has no way to directly interpret compressed archives as mods, so you need to extract them first

the second, and arguably the most important part, is to make sure the actual file structure is correct

an easy mistake to make is to extract the mod directly into the mods folder (e.g., \Starbound\mods\artwork, behaviors, dungeons, etc); doing this will cause starbound to vomit on startup and crash to desktop

to install a mod, create an additional folder in in \mods\ (e.g., \Starbound\mods\Example Mod) and then place the contents of the mod in that folder instead (e.g., \Starbound\mods\Example Mod\artwork, behaviors, dungeons, etc), and double check to make sure _metadata is present in that folder (e.g., \Starbound\mods\Example Mod\_metadata)

 

the difference between these two methods, for a short answer, is that .zip/.rar (or "unpack versions") can be customized more easily, with mods such as sexbound having configs that are substantially more difficult to modify in .pak mods, while .paks are preferable for a drag-and-drop experience

 

step three: game machine broke

assuming you followed these steps and installed mods correctly, things should work smoothly; if they don't, however, and things break, it's important to know where to locate your starbound.log

starbound.log, as its name suggests, is the log the game creates while operating. while not especially useful to the average user, it's invaluable to a modded player as it can be used to diagnose crashes or other unexpected behavior, assuming you know how to parse it

starbound.log can be located in \Starbound\storage\; you may find multiple files named starbound.log in this folder. the most up-to-date version will always be starbound.log, while older logs will be tagged as starbound.log.1, starbound.log.2, and so forth. enabling Show File Extensions may be required to find the most up-to-date (although who uses windows without show file extensions...?)

generally, requesting sexbound-specific tech support is as simple as going to the main sexbound thread, giving an explanation of the problem, and attaching the relevant starbound.log to your post or uploading to pastebin or an equivalent (as it's generally considered rude to flood a thread with a 1000 line long log file)

 

invisible actors during a sex encounter is generally a sign of an outdated mod attempting to interface with sexbound, whereas crashes to desktop are generally a sign of something more serious going on under the hood

 

i think this should cover just about everything, now you kids get off of my lawn