Warning

Modding capabilities are very embryonic. Expect a lot of improvement and changes in the future.

This documentation is a draft with a few guidelines, it will evolve gradually with the development of modding features.

• Changelog
• Migration Notes
• Community Guides

• Data types
• Enumerations
• Annotations
• Example Mods
• Game texture usage policy
• Debugging mods

• Foundation library functions
• Mod management functions
• Version library
• Mod IO functions

• Mod Dependencies
• Custom classes
• Components
• Game asset override
• Behavior trees
• Events
• Building asset processor
• Level Of Detail (LOD)

• Create workplaces
• Create monuments and bridges
• Create walls
• Create particle effects
• Construction steps
• Material sets

• Create a new folder in Documents\Polymorph Games\Foundation\mods.
• In your mod folder, create a mod.json file and the main LUA script for your mod: mod.lua

The json file is loaded early and give basic information on your mod, without having to load your LUA scripts.

In addition, this file contains the list of your mod's custom maps and their info, if any.

mod.json

{
    "Name": "Simple Example Mod",
    "Author": "Leo",
    "Description": "A very simple mod example",
    "Version": "2.0.0",
 
    "MapList": [
        {
            "Id": "MY_MAP_ID_01",
            "Name": "My Custom Map",
            "Description": "This is a simple description of my map.",
            "PreviewImage": "metadata/my_map_preview.png"
        }
    ]
}

For files that don't need to be loaded, you can add those files to a metadata folder at the root of your mod. This can be used for example to contain the map thumbnail images listed in the mod.json file.

First, you have to create your new mod instance:

mod.lua

local myMod = foundation.createMod();

You can then include other script, declare new assets, override existing assets, etc…

mod.lua is the only script file from your mod that will be automatically loaded.

In order to include another LUA file, you can call the dofile function on your mod:

somescript.lua

myMod:dofile("anotherscript.lua")

This will execute the script anotherscript.lua from your mod folder. This will also pass the mod variable myMod to the script. So you will be able to access myMod from anotherscript.lua this way:

anotherscript.lua

local myMod = ... -- retrieve arguments passed to the script
 
-- do stuff with myMod
-- ...

In addition, you can pass any number of variable to the called script:

somescript.lua

myMod:dofile("anotherscript.lua", 42, "A Super String", { 1, 4, 12 })

anotherscript.lua

local myMod, anInteger, aString, anArray = ... -- retrieve arguments passed to the script

You can enable / disable mods from the Mods menu.

Be aware that even when a mod is disabled, most of the mod assets are loaded anyway, but are not active.

If you want to fully ignore a mod, you can either remove it from your mods folder, or rename the mod.lua file into something else (mod_.lua for instance).

You can log your own logs into foundation log file:

myMod:log("Hello World!") -- creates an INFO log entry
myMod:logWarning("This is a warning!") -- creates a WARNING log entry
myMod:logError("This is an error!") -- creates an ERROR log entry

In order to isolate mods related logs, Foundation will log most of mod related information in a specific log file located in Documents/Polymorph Games/Foundation/mod-%NAME%.log

However, keep in mind that a mod can interact with the game in various indirect way, and some valuable information could still be hidden in the global game log in Documents/Polymorph Games/Foundation/foundation.log.

You can also open a blocking message box for debugging purpose. This function is recommended for mod development only.

myMod:msgBox("Hello there!")

For this function to work, the user must manually set the field ModMsgBoxEnabled to true in the user settings file (usersetting.config). Otherwise, it will only create a new log entry, like the log function.

Internally, Foundation uses random unique IDs (GUID) to identify most objects and resources. When a new asset is added to the mod, Foundation will create a new ID for it, and will store the association between the “modding name” and the ID of the asset.

The generated_ids.lua file is where the association is stored. When you distribute your mod, it's important to distribute this file too. It will ensure that all your assets have the same ID from one player's computer to another, hence allowing them to share a save-game for instance.

Modders are encouraged to use mod.io to share their mods. Mods shared this way can be found and downloaded from the in-game mod browser.

Here is the Foundation page: https://foundation.mod.io

You'll have to upload a zip of your mod. Make sure the zip contains directly the mod files (mod.lua needs to be at the root of the zip).

When developing and testing a mod, you can quickly reload your game by pressing Ctrl + Shift + R.