Starsector Question

[MagnaSonic3000]

So I'm trying to make a mod, a very lightweight one (literally just portraits), but I have no idea how the files are actually set up to read it as a mod. I have images, and a tutorial told me to just grab the mod JSON from some other mod as it's just something people do, but that's just a description and telling the launcher what it is. How does actually making the images part of the game actually work?

[spoonsinger]

Best to look at an example. On this site there is a StarSector mod called Boobsector : -

If you unpack that you can get an idea of the general structure for a portrait mod.

 

At the root you have the module details file which identifies the module to StarSector called "mod_info.json". Contains some fairly basic information about the mod, (name, author, version compatibility). Open in the Notepad++ editor of your choice and change stuff appropriately.  (Version probably because StarSector just got updated). 

 

Then there are also two folders. 

 

1) Graphics -> A folder to put your graphics in. By convention they should go in a sub folder. In the case of Boobsector "Graphics\Portraits". The portraits are 128x128 png format. 

 

2) Data\World\Factions -> contains a number of "<xyz>.faction" files for each faction you want to support. These files are just formatted text files. The name before the '.' is the faction name you want to provide the portrait for. if you open it up it looks like : -

 

{
    "portraits":{
        "standard_male":[

            "graphics/portraits/portrait_meat.png",

            "graphics/portraits/portrait_potato.png",
        ],
        "standard_female":[
            "graphics/portraits/portrait_jugs1.png",

            "graphics/portraits/portrait_jugs2.png",

        ],
    },   
},

 

As you can see, its divided into male and female sections. With the path of the image from the graphics folder being an entry in the appropriate section. The male and female section just ensures the character is addressed in a certain way in game. If you want you can put an image of a character with a massive schlong in the male section and they will be addressed as a male character.  It's sci-fi, anythings possible. 

 

Anyway that's about it. 

 

ps 

 

SMOL ( https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=24348.0 ) is quite good if you want to setup different runs with different mod profiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MagnaSonic3000]

Thanks, this should be useful. I'm not planning on making anything but portrait mods in the future, but they're pretty lightweight, so version is as easy to fix as just changing the version data, since it's only displaying images. I just wasn't sure what the factions files did, but this should help.

[MagnaSonic3000]

So I put myself in an interesting hell. I did the interesting portraits mod before Boobsector, and I think it infected my mod with its bullshit. It's now searching for that mod's portraits in my pack, even though I've scrubbed all mention of it in the faction files. And I know its my mod that's infected with it because removing my mod causes the game to load.