Exocolonist Workshop Guide

Developer guide for modding I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

Installing Workshop Mods

Always back up your savegames before using mods! (eg C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Exocolonist on Windows)

Official Steam Workshop support has been added in version 6516 to make installing mods for I Was a Teenage Exocolonist a little easier. Visit the workshop here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1148760/workshop/

To install a mod, first subscribe to it from the workshop. Then restart the game and a new mods button should appear on the main menu.



Enable the mod in the game by clicking its name to see an X mark beside it, then restart the game again for the changes to take effect.

To remove a mod, unsubscribe from the workshop or disable it from the game's mod menu.

If you install multiple mods that both override the same file, the topmost one will be used. Reorder mods using the + and - buttons on the right.

Creating Workshop Mods

The workshop and built-in mod support only works with simple mods that replace the files in the Data and Stories folders in:

Steam\steamapps\common\Exocolonist\Exocolonist_Data\StreamingAssets

To modify images or make deeper changes to the game, see other community Unity modding tools. I'm afraid these can't be installed using the steam workshop or built in mods menu.

To make a local mod, create a folder named Mods beside the Savegames folder in Documents\Exocolonist (eg on Windows: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\Exocolonist\Mods). Any folder under that will be loaded as a local mod when the game starts. You still need to enable it in the mods menu then restart the game for it to take effect.


The contents of your mod should match the contents of the StreamingAssets folder. Any file in your mod will completely replace the default file in StreamingAssets with the same name. So to mod a file, copy it to your new mods folder, open it in a text editor, and make changes to it.

File Formats

The easiest way to modify TSV (tap-separated values) files is to load them into Google Sheets, modify the cells, then export again to TSV format.

After editing EXO (Exoscript) files, you can check for malformed exoscript by loading your mod in the game then enabling the debug menu (ctrl+tilde) and checking the logs in the debug menu (ctrl+q). There is some documentation for exoscript in Stories/example.exo, and here:
https://github.com/sarahnorthway/Exoscript

Compiled EXOC files are not necessary for mods, but make the game load faster if present. The raw EXO files will be used instead if there is no EXOC available. When the game starts, it will create EXOC files for any EXO files in StreamingAssets\Stories that don't have one, so to create EXOC files for your mods you'll need to temporarily replace the actual game files in StreamingAssets with your mod, start the game, then copy the compiled EXOC files into your mod.

Any extra files like the LICENSE or README.md in the image above will be packaged with the mod but ignored by the game. Only files like Data/Exocolonist - localization.tsv or Stories/chara_anemone.exo will be loaded.

Uploading Workshop Mods

To upload your tested local mod to the Steam Workshop, you must use a tool like nihilocrat's SteamWorkshopUploader or Steam's command-line SteamCMD.

Using SteamWorkshopUploader

Download SteamWorkshopUploader:
https://github.com/nihilocrat/SteamWorkshopUploader

Edit "steam_appid.txt" to be 1148760

Paste your mod into the WorkshopContent folder and create a .workshop.json for it following the example mod format. The publishedfileid in the json file should be blank before the first upload, then will be automatically filled with your mod's ID. Leave tags blank or use "Language" or whatever's appropriate to your mod.

Run SteamWorkshopUploader.exe and select your mod.

Hit Submit once to create the workshop item on Steam. This will fill in publishedfileid in the json file but will not upload the files yet.

Hit Submit a second time to upload your files and image.




You can now view your mod in the Steam workshop (Click "Your Workshop Files"):
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1148760/workshop/

You can edit name/description/tags/visibility/contributors on the steam workshop page, but to update the mod files you need to use SteamWorkshopUploader again.

Using SteamCMD

Download SteamCMD:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD

Create a mod.vdf file like:

"workshopitem"
{
"appid" "1148760"
"contentfolder" "C:\\Users\\USERNAME\\Documents\\Exocolonist\\Mods\\My Local Mod"
"previewfile" "C:\\Users\\USERNAME\\Documents\\preview.png"
"visibility" "0"
"title" "My Local Mod"
"description" "What this mod does"
}

Open Command Prompt in your SteamCMD folder and run:

steamcmd +login yoursteamname +workshop_build_item mod.vdf +quit

Steam will upload the mod and modify mod.vdf to include the ID of your new mod. Re-running the command updates the same mod.

Happy modding!
- Sarah

[Yuyu]

Thankyou for this guide!! 💚💚

[Syfritis]

Thanks for the great guide (♡μ_μ)