New Modder Seeking Assistance

[BountyHunter]

Hello, I am new to modding and new to this forum and quite happy to have found it! After jumping right in to Don't Starve ROG and playing for some time without making any real headway, I decided to download some mods to improve my gaming experience without making the game too easy. Still unsatisfied, I took to rewriting some of the mods to meet my criteria.

 

This is my first ever attempt of anything of the sort, as I am not very computer savvy. Soon however, I had acquired so many small mods that I experienced significant lag. In an attempt to resolve this I compiled as many of the mods as possible with my very limited knowledge of coding. Realizing I could eliminate some mods outright by changing the games code, I began tinkering in the game files.

 

After being met with much success, I became confident and started deleting mods, mostly to alter recipes, in anticipation. Then in the "recipes.lua" folder, I made my changes and rebooted the game, but the recipes were unchanged. I have seen this method work for people on YouTube. So I restarted my computer. Still nothing. I scoured the games folders seeking alternate files containing recipes and found none. So where does the game draw this information? On a hunch I deleted the entire "recipes.lua" folder, and still the game was unchanged. Will I have to remake the mods I deleted to overwrite recipes? Should I bother restoring the seemingly useless recipes folder? Or am I simply Going about this all wrong?

 

I have tried to be as thorough as possible here, for anyone who took the time to read this entire lengthy first post of mine; I am grateful. I am also grateful in advance for anyone who can offer advice.

[Mobbstar]

Rule #1 of modding: Make a mod.

 

Don't edit or overwrite game files directly, make a mod folder in the mods directory. You can then make a scripts folder there, and any file there (or in the subfolders) that is called the same as a file in the data/scripts folder (or its subfolders) will be loaded instead!

 

However, sometimes it's not even necessary to do that. You can change some things from the modmain.lua file. e.g:

 

GLOBAL.TUNING.WILSON_WALKSPEED = 8

(you can find all those variables in tuning.lua)

 

Also check out the API docs.

 

EDIT: By the way, the reason your changes didn't work may be because a mod is already overriding that file.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Mobbstar

[Mr.Mulk]

Hello, I read your post and I hope I can help. Sometimes the game files can be a bit stingy, and not want to change. My suggestion, although requiring creating your own mod is to use this tutorial: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/51011-custom-recipe-character-specific-short-easy-question/

 

I understand the reason you were working with the game files was so you didn't have to use mods which can  cause lag. This is understandable, although you can use the above tutorial to create a compilation of custom recipes for your servers. If you like, you can go more in-depth and make this mod character specific, although if you wish to just make custom recipes, this will also work. (You will have to create this as a separate mod, although I am sure there is some way to add the lines to the lua in the game files)

Edited July 10, 2015 by TheSlackPack

[BountyHunter]

I appreciate the quick replies. I did make a compilation mod borrowing formulas from others, though I deleted it expecting my modifications to the game files to replace it. If I must I will remake it, but I would prefer if the changes were to the games defaults unless there a reason I should not modify game files?

 

@Mobbstar

The "API docs" are a great resource where I have learned much of what I know, apart from trial and error. In fact it wasn't until I discovered them that I felt I could have some success writing a mod. That said I have reviewed every folder in every mod I am running and I cannot find where every recipe could be replaced, so I have ruled out another mod as causing this issue.

 

@TheSlackPack

I looked over the post you linked to, it seems I have a similar formula that works quite well for overwriting recipes. I do not wish to make character specifics at this time. Any thoughts as to where the game is drawing its information for the recipes with that folder deleted?
 

[Mobbstar]

I appreciate the quick replies. I did make a compilation mod borrowing formulas from others, though I deleted it expecting my modifications to the game files to replace it. If I must I will remake it, but I would prefer if the changes were to the games defaults unless there a reason I should not modify game files?

 

If you make it a mod then you can disable it at all times, which is useful should problems occur.

 

You can't really upload it thought, because it's just a compilation of other mods for the sake of keeping memory useage down. Else, I would totally suggest you to do it.