Installing mods in Docking Station/Creatures 3

Where to find modded content, and a breakdown of folders and filetypes.

Introduction

So you just downloaded Docking Station for the first time, or you're returning after a decade or more, and the space is starting to feel cramped, or you saw some wonderful screenshots of colourful norns, and you want to add them to your game.


(Primavera norn hybrids, art by Mairenn)

Docking Station is easily moddable, almost everything in game can be replaced, tweaked or added to. We have rooms and new breeds. Lots of animals, plants and toys. There are teleporters, movable elevators, utilities of all sorts to mess with norns, such as biochemistry graphs and random egg splicers, and finally for the more experienced users: UI mods, and scripts that heavily modify your game (such as enabling breeding between species or same-sex creatures).

A brief history

The Creatures community has history of modding that's just as old as the Elder Scrolls series (Creatures 1 and Daggerfall were both released in 1996!). The distribution of these mods however was never really organised in a Nexus or single forum, but spread out over many personal websites. After the disappearance of Geocities, and the slow exodus of community members as no new games were coming out, folks became concerned with how easily we could lose access to important mods, and started downloading them en-masse, burning them to CDs, even sharing them as P2P "dumps" of hundreds of mod files.

Where to find mods

"Oh no, that sounds like a mess", I hear you say. Well, luckily the situation has improved these days. We have multiple archives and repositories even as we wonder if Workshop integration will ever be possible.

EemFoo's Archive[eemfoo.org]

This is the ultimate archive, every mod that has not been lost is here in some form. There is a search function and tags.
Eem Foo also has the latest and most comprehensive breedlist[eemfoo.org].

Creatures Caves[creaturescaves.com]

This was the last surviving forum for most of the 2010's, until the discords and subreddit picked up. Along with the now mostly dormant forum boards, it has archives for mods, norn adoptions, art and game guides. The link will take you to the download page where you can pick a category and start browsing. Lately the site tends to have broken pages.

Creatures Wiki[creatures.wiki]

The wiki is a good way to search for a specific mod author to see what else they have done, and look at their original instructions and information (usually through an web.archive.org link, but many modders are still active.)
Just make sure you're using Creatures.wiki and not the Creatures.fandom that will come up in google searches: it's an outdated, broken wiki.

Steam Nexus[www.nexusmods.com]

Yeah, we actually have one of these now too. It's fairly empty, but it's a good option if you actually want to make a mod and upload it somewhere!

Community sites

If you want some direct help, check the Creatures Discord or the subreddit at r/CreaturesGames.

Installing mods

Mods can come with a variety of files, but most downloads will consist of a single Agent file to put in My Agents. Always read the enclosed readme to check for other instructions.

I would suggest placing mods in the Docking Station folder, unless otherwise specified in the readme (for example if patching a creatures 3 file.) Check the "Creatures 3 Standalone" section at the end of the guide if you want more information.

You can find your game folder by right clicking the game in your steam library, and going to "properties - local files - browse". This will open your Steamapps folder to the location of Docking Station and Creatures 3.

Quick reference guide

Here's the file types and the folder they go into.

• .ds.creature | My Creatures (DS only)
  
• .creature | My Creatures
  
• .agents | My Agents
  
• .c16 | Images
  
• .wav | Sounds
  
• .att | Body Data
  
• .gen and .gno | Genetics
  
• .catalogue | Catalogue
  
• .cos | Bootstrap/ (check readme)

File extensions rundown

In case something's gone awry or needs patching, I'll do a rundown of all the file extensions you're likely to encounter, so you know how to handle any possible conflicts.

My Creatures

.ds.creature files go here. They contain a single creature that has been exported from a world (here is where norns disappear to when you hit "export" in the top-right panel and they vanish in a puff of sci-fi blue) They can be exchanged with other users or imported to a different world. An imported creature disappears from the folder, but if you want to back up a creature you can safely make copies of it, the game handles clones just fine.

Note that since DS is actually an update to C3, norns that were exported from DS can no longer be imported to C3 standalone!

My Agents

Agents, and use a .agents extension are interactables from plants to food to extra sidebar doodads. If you're a returning player, you might remember that in Creatures 1 and 2 these were called "COBs" for "Creatures OBjects".


Agent agent agent agent... (ft. the Norn Statistics and Medical Monitor by Emmental)

Most mods you download, even whole metarooms and breeds, will come as one Agent file: plop it in My Agents and you're done! In game, you will need to inject instances of them with this:

C3 has it's own injector, but the DS one is better

Agent files can come "packed" for convenience, containing their own sprites, sounds, etc. and extracting those automatically to the right folders the first time they're injected. Breeds can come as packed .agents too.
This can be problematic when removing mods (you have to remove more files than you added, hence why Workshop compatibility is dubious), plus .agents files won't extract again and overwrite any files that are already there, so if you change your mind and want to replace a breed you'll have to first pull out the images one by one! Check a breed list (see Eem Foo link above) and make sure you don't pick breeds that overlap the same slot.

Images

Sprite files, .c16, go here. This folder contains the images for items, UI and norns as spritesheets. Note a lot of images following a specific naming scheme, such as "a10b.c16": these are your creatures' various body parts. The wiki has specifics[creatures.wiki].

Sounds

Sound files use .wav. The ingame music as well, in a specific format called .mng that contains sample sounds and a script that plays them in dynamic intervals. Yup, it's *procedurally generated!*
Note that playing Docking Station without having C3 means you don't have sounds for ettins and grendels, which may cause errors if you adopt one of those creatures from some other user and import it in your world (the sprites instead will happily default to norns sprites). You can get grendel sounds by installing the free breeds DLC which includes Banshee grendels!

Body Data

Attachment files, .att , go here: these are only present in breeds but they are essential to them looking right. If you're installing a breed that is not packed into a single agent, it'll have a bunch of these: they're sets of coordinates that say where the foot sprite connects to the shin sprite, and so on. Strange things happen when your .att files don't match the sprites. o_o (image by KaizarNike)

Some modders, especially back in the day, neglected to add .att files because the default ones worked just fine for them-some modders (and the official breed packs!) mistakenly added extra ones for other breed slots. If you download many breeds, you'll sooner or later find something broken. There might be patches for it, ask! Some breeds will never crossbreed nicely: Creatures 1 converted breeds for example will look hunchbacked when crossed with standard breeds. Avoid breeding them, or try to enjoy the derp.

Genetics

In summary, when you download a breed, you will usually have a .agents file, many .c16 and .att files to put in images and Body Data respectively, and finally a .gen and .gno file, containing the creature's genetics. Those go here.
Some breeds come with new images but just basic "Chichi genomes", chichis are the basic purple Docking Station norns, so this means those breeds will act as vanilla norns do. Others might have genetic modifications to match their looks, for example, Magma norns love heat. Sometimes they are so different as to be incompatible: Toxic norns take damage from healthy food, so crossbreeds might be incompatible with life.
Some breeds called "genetic breeds" have no new images but just come as agents and gene files, eg. the many variants of peaceful grendels that can coexist with your norns.
Nowadays experienced players use a variety of updated fan genomes, such as the CFE [creatures.wiki], CFF or TWB[creatures.wiki] norns. These come as genome replacers or as downloads of single creatures, it's advisable to stick to one type: Vanilla, CFE or TWB, as interbreeding them may create some really broken creatures. My personal advice to newbies is to stick to vanilla while learning: the other genomes are created to be more interesting and realistic, not necessarily more robust.

Catalogue

.catalogue files can be read via Notepad. Many are ingame help/info files you can view ingame with the Agent Help. Some agents use .catalogue files for text-based functions, most notably Amaikokonut's Protective Tub autonamer[creatures.wiki] allows you to add your own words to a creature name generator by listing them in a file.

Bootstrap

This is the one you should take the most care with. Mods cited so far are things you can add and remove from within the game, but .cos files are scripts that are loaded every time you start a new world. This means they're the likeliest culprit if you've broken your game. Patches and UI modifications usually come as .cos files, and the included help file will specify where in the subfolders to put your .cos file.

Add these one at a time so you can see if something breaks, really: other mods you can safely binge on because you will see the specific one break, diagnosing .cos file errors is harder.

If you're replacing something, backup your old .cos *outside* the bootstrap folder, as the game might keep reading it even if you try to plop it in a dummy folder as long as it's still in Bootstrap.

Some modification present in many community guides are now included with the Steam version, so you don't need those patches anymore. For example, you don't need a Login Disabler, or the Umbilical Fix, so make sure to read the Steam patch notes before downloading random patches.

Injecting .cos files

.cos files won't automatically be added to an *existing* world. So, if you add a new patch and want to retroactively add it to a new world, or if some ingame element breaks, you can peek in this folder (usually Bootstrap/010 Docking Station) open ctrl-shift-c for the command line and type
ject "filenamehere.cos" 7. For example if your doors bugged out and vanished, type ject "doors.cos" 7, and they should reappear.

Other

Backgrounds will contain .blk files for map backgrounds, My Worlds contains your worlds (they can be backed up and renamed from here) and inside those worlds you can see your creatures' genetics files to play with. There's a few other folders but nothing that I've ever had to touch.

Creatures 3 standalone injection

Creatures 3 is a bit more "gamified" than DS and requires Bioenergy to inject agents. the Injector is in the engineering section, to the right of the bridge, and might need some powerups to be collected to work properly. The Creatures 3 injector does not have a full panel, just a forwards and back button to scroll through the whole Agent list, so I'd suggest not adding too many agents.

Remember also that C3 came earlier than DS and many DS agents won't be compatible, others will have distinct versions, make sure to pick the correct one. Drop agents meant for C3 in the Creatures 3 folder, I'm fairly sure it won't be able to read any files from Docking Station. This also goes for norns, as I've mentioned in passing, DS norns are entirely incompatible with C3 standalone.

In general, I'd suggest playing Creatures 3 standalone only for the nostalgia and the fun of discovering it's various secrets and playing with the ecology. If you want to do some heavy modding, use the improved DS engine to load a "docked" world with both the Capillata and the Shee ark linked to have the best of both worlds.

Advanced injection

There are a few mods that modify the way you add other mods. This guide isn't meant to be a modlist but I'd feel remiss not to mention at least some of these. Many of these are made by Amaikokonut/Aiko and available on Naturing :: Nurturing[naturingnurturing.blogspot.com].

The Advanced Muco mod adds a button to the Docking Station hatchery "Muco", which provides it with a panel to see multiple breeds at once, rather than having to click through them one by one, simply an essential mod once you have dozens of different breeds to choose from!


Seru is a "RNG" hatchery that mixes many random genomes and creates weird mutants. it comes in a couple different flavors, from the original to the automated Drop Point.

The Garden Box[creatures.wiki] is an ecology injector which many different users have made items for: it allows you to customize your world by adding background decorations, respawning animals and plants, especially the "patch plants", which can grow food steadily for your creatures- a must have for more crowded worlds.

The Autoinject script [ccsf2021.tumblr.com]came out as I was writing this guide. It allows you to make a list of the agents you always want to add when you start a new world, so you can inject them in one click for convenience. Check the Readme for instructions, if you've been paying attention to this guide, you should be able to get it working :)

The Agent Room[creatures.wiki] is a little empty room you'll need to inject C3 exclusive agents if you haven't bought C3, or you're playing an undocked world. You'd normally get a "position invalid" error, since the agent is trying to appear in front of the Creatures 3 injectior but the map is void. This agent creates space for those C3 agents to appear.

Happy modding!

If you want a quicklist of things to try out, check Mad_Doodles' list of reccomended fixes and addons[creatures.wiki]- just skip down to the addons as the complex installation guide and most patches are no longer needed for the Steam version (wohoo!)

[Solutad]

As a tip with the newer Autoinject script: when it asks you for the names of the agents, it's referring to the names shown in the injector window, not the file name. It's also capable of injecting agents for the C3 injector (assuming you've also had it inject the Agent Room first...) not just the DS injector.

Also, I've found there's a couple times where the agent will have such a long name that part of it is cut off on the injector screen and you have to guess at what it says. But I've never had any I couldn't figure out eventually.

I also have to recommend pretty much the entire Magic Words suite of agents, while we're talking about Amaikokonut agents. Being able to clone items on the fly with a speechbubble command alone is worth it, let alone any of the more indepth modules like Hand-Teaching or the Auras.

[[AG] Fiangrey]

I also can suggest to add link to this tiny pack of agents: https://www.creaturescaves.com/downloads.php?section=COBs&view=1979
It has Autopsy Report that will greatly help new players to understand what happened to their creature when it died