How do people create Starfield mods without the Creation Kit?

[Ruenis]

Been wondering this for a while.

[Kadaeux]

Same way people mod other games which don't have official mod tools. With programming knowledge, modelling and texture skills, and occasionally, the tools to crack open files to work on the contents.

[Mephitic]

Many are texture replacers that don't require plugins. Others rely on the script extender SFSE, still others are game master files (esm) that can be added to a plugins.txt file if it is enabled with another mod. These methods are listed in increasing complexity order.

Some things still can't be done without the CK but that is coming.

[Flippy]

Yep they are using an edit program from Fallout 4 most likely. Its called FO4edit or something close and lists all the entries into the engine basically, then they edit those.

Starfields engine is excellent.

The Creation Kit, or Construction kit is amazing, there are programs to merge mods, then the edit program, then programs to unpack the compression then repack into compression for faster performance and more.

[nordmeyerx]

Originally posted by Kadaeux:

and occasionally, the tools to crack open files to work on the contents.

Great, now I'm in the mood for Crab Legs.

[Flippy]

Performance can be improved if they didnt want to have every item float around and stuff, by ALOT. They call it "precombines" i think. Then it would be more like other engines and the engine can totally do that and maybe updates will do more of that and things, and reduce loading screens.

[Flippy]

Bad modders, or even who ever was making Starfield could have broken "precombines" if they didnt know what they were doing ruining performance as an example.

I just dont mess with precombines but others know what they are doing. But if those making the game were messing with stuff that was already done and broke things could be one reason for bad performance. Or if they didnt use precombines at all performance would be bad as well.

This specific thing happens all the time in modding. Then an update where precombines that the actual game makers made for good performance would be repaired.

[Flippy]

To get back on topic more, yep they are almost certainly using an updated version of FO4edit, which loads alot faster than the CK anyway, and some are really good at it, but its complicated with no visual interface other than alot of text and stuff like that.

[wyodinosaur]

There are various third-party tools available to make mods for Starfield.

First and foremost is xEdit. There is a learning curve for xEdit, but it can make limited mods for the game.

Then there is Blender which works well for mesh editing (geometry). There is a plugin for Blender available on the Nexus site which allows for import and export of Starfield meshes.

Then for simple texture replacement, you can use Photoshop (or equivalent) with the DDS plugin.

The above is simplified as there are various technical aspects which I'm not covering here.

You can learn how to make mods on the discord site for Starfield. And even google searches will bring up some tutorials.