Modding 101

This is a proper guide that teaches you how to mod.

Starting off with cvars

All the blocks in Reassembly are in a Blocks.lua. However after hours of looking you can't find it. The reason why is because you have to spawn it, to do so you need to find your cvars.txt but doing a search on your c drive or where Reassembly is installed. After you open it turn kgenerateblocks and kwriteblocks to 0 and run Reaasembly. After running it turn them back to 1 and search for Blocks.lua. DO NOT mess with that in case you break your game.

Starting off with the mod.

Now that you have access to the blocks.lua go to C:\Users\OFFICE\Saved Games\Reassembly and you should see a folder named mods, go into that. Then make a folder named what you want to name your mod. This is where steam will look when you are publishing yor mods. Make 3 blank text pads and name them Blocks.lua, Regions.lua, and factions.lua. this is where we will put all the coding in.

Faction making

Now a faction should look like this:

8 = { name=_("Terran"), playable=2, start="8_interceptor",
color0=0x113077, color1=0xaaaaaa,
aiflags=FORGIVING|WANDER|DODGES|SOCIAL|TRACTOR_TRANSIENT },

The 8 is the faction number, you should always 20 because steam changes that so it doesnt conflict. However if you want more then 1 faction choose a number between 20 ans 100.

Name is just the name of the faction

Start is the name of the ship you will start with, just leave it alone for now

Playable means if it is playable from the start or if you have to unlock it. 2 is unlocked and 1 means you have to kill a capital ship.

the flags mean:

NONE - no idea
METAMORPHOSIS - presumably the ship can change its design
FLOCKING - presumably the ship tries to flock
RECKLESS - I dunno
CAUTIOUS - no idea
SOCIAL - prefers own kind?
DODGES - actively tries to avoid fire
AGGRESSIVE - more prone to chasing ships??
PEACEFUL - less likely to attack unless provoked??
WANDER - ship moves aimlessly around
FORGIVING - I have absolute no idea what this flag does because I have never seen ships forgive
TRACTOR_TRANSIENT - ships will pull arbitrary debris onto themselves to improve their capabilities and in practice lose all control and spin wildly around
RIPPLE_FIRE - the ship uses the ripple fire method of using its weapons
BAD_AIM - this ship apparently has no idea how to fire at a target
SMART_FIRE - probably only fires when necessary?
NO_PARENT - unsure
GROW_ON_OK - no idea
HATES_PLANTS - will attack plants

Block making

Now that you have a cool new faction, what are you going to do with it? if you try to play it will give you an empty pallete. So first you need a core to be you. A normal core should look like this:

{1, command={faction=20}, name="Core", features=COMMAND|GENERATOR|ASSEMBLER|TRACTOR, group=20, shape=SQUARE, points=10, durability=0.200, blurb="Core", density=0.150, fillColor=0x808080, fillColor1=0x323232, lineColor=0xffffff, powerCapacity=500.000, capacity=100.000, generatorCapacityPerSec=15.000},

Now how a block works is that each block has a number to it, in this case 1, now in the source code it doesn't give a crap about the name, all it cares about it that number. The name is the name that it has in game.The features are what that block can do, here they all are:

ENVIRONMENTAL
ROOT
INTLINES
MELEE
AUTOFIRE
FACTORY
ASSEMBLER
FREERES
REGROWER
SELFFACTORY
TELEPORTER
TELESPAWN
DEACTIVATES
THRUSTER
TORQUER
EXPLODE
GENERATOR
TURRET
CHARGING
PHOTOSYNTH
TRACTOR
SEED
COMMAND
CANNON
CANNON_BOOST
LASER
LAUNCHER
SHIELD

Shape is the shape it has such as a square or octogan or triangle. Here they all are:

Misc:
COMMAND
SENSOR

Thrusters:
THRUSTER
DISH_THRUSTER
THRUSTER_PENT
THRUSTER_RECT

Cannons:
CANNON
CANNON2
RECT_CANNON

Weapon augments:
DISH_WEAPON
RECT_CANNON_BOOST
ISOTRI_25_WEAPON

Launchers:
RECT_LAUNCHER
RECT_LAUNCHER1
GEM_2_LAUNCHER
GEM_3_LAUNCHER
GEM_4_LAUNCHER
SQUARE_LAUNCHER
HEPTAGON_LAUNCHER
MISSILE_LAUNCHER
MISSILE_SHORT

Missiles:
MISSILE
MISSILE_LAUNCHER
MISSILE_SHORT
ISOTRI_25_MISSILE
ISOTRI_13_MISSILE
DISH_MISSILE
SQUARE_MISSILE

Rectangles:
[none]
ADAPTER
SQUARE_HALF
RECT
RECT_LONG
RECT_LONG_NARROW
RECT_QUARTER
RECT_ROOT

Rhombuses:
RHOMBUS_72_108
RHOMBUS_36_144

Triangles:
RIGHT_TRI
TRI
RIGHT_TRI2L
RIGHT_TRI2R
RIGHT_TRI_30L
RIGHT_TRI_30R
RIGHT_TRI_22_5L
RIGHT_TRI_22_5R
ISOTRI_80
ISOTRI_72
ISOTRI_36
ISOTRI_25
ISOTRI_13
ISOTRI_6
ISOTRI_3

Regular Polygons of Five or More Sides:
PENTAGON
HEXAGON
HEPTAGON
OCTAGON
NONAGON

Weird Single Attachment Point Variants:
OCTAGON_1
SQUARE_1

Gems:
GEM_1
GEM_2
GEM_3
GEM_4

Seeds:
SEED_1
SEED_2
SEED_3
SEED_4

Unstable, Never Use:
WING
CUSTOM
Blockshape 23
RECT_V1


Points is the p cost in game.

Density is how heavy it is.

If you have a weapon feature you need to add the special things in the laser={}. One example is:

{3, name="Knife", features=LASER|TURRET, group=20, shape=OCTAGON, scale=1, points=5, durability=0.250, blurb="Basic short range, low power laser", density=0.150, fillColor=0x444444, fillColor1=0x445480, lineColor=0x4270b0, laser={power=5.000, width=5.000, damage=25.000, color=0x7f00b7e9, range=50.000}} ***Which is from my fantasy mod, you guys should try it out.

The turret part allowed it to turn and follow your mouse, without it you would jsut shoot in a line.

Ship making

Now that you have blocks for your faction, you need ships. To do this go into reassembly's sandbox. Press 3 and delete the words on the screen. then type in the box at the top "palettte 20"
and all your blocks should show up, if you press the middle mouse button while something is highlighted, you will make another copy of it. After you made a simple ship select all of it and type in "faction number_Ship name" for example 20_StartShip. Make sure to use every block that you made, if a block is not part of a ship it will not show up in the main game. After you made all your ships go back to to factions.lua and change the startship name to the name of your starter ship. Also make sure that you have a couple of ships with no thrusters that can be stations.

Regions

Now if you play a game with your new faction you will notice only black. That is because the game spawned you in a empty chunk. to fix this and get other ships spawning you need a region.To get a region type this in
{
totalSize = 300000, -- radius of whole map
color = 0x404040,

fleets = { { 3, { { 0, 5000 }, {1, 300} } },
{ 2, { { 0.5, 0}, { 0.51, 3000 }, {1, 500}}},
{ 4, { { 0.5, 0}, {0.7, 2000}, {0.9, 0} } } },

ambient = { 2, 1, 0 },
ident = 2,

subregions ={)
}}

In the subregions area you have to add your faction's home such as:

subregions ={
{
ident = 200, -- unique identifier for this region (goes in generated map save files)
count = 8, -- generate 8 of these subregions
radius = { 0.1, 0.15 }, -- each is 10-15% of the radius of the whole map
position = { 0.1, 1.0 }, -- place between 10-100% of the way to edge of map
fleets = { { 20, { { 0, 10000}, {1, 3000} } } }, -- fill with faction 20 ships, each sector has 10000P at center, 3000P at edge
fleetCount = { { 4, 16 } } -- each sector has 4-16 ships
ambient = { 0 }, -- plant type (0, 1, 2) are (green, blue, pink)
} ***Also from my fantasy mod

you can modify it how you see fit.

Publishing and having fun

Now if you try it you should be able to playas your faction and kick some butt. If you want others to enjoy your hard work, go to the mods screen in reassembly and look at your mod and hit publish. Thats it! You can add pictures if you want, but your mod is out there.
-Good luck noobie modders.

[Fritz]

did you forget to add PALETTE in the features list? i found it on the wiki it seems that it is very important

[Datfatcat10]

i am assuming (idk) that the GROW_ON_OK will make the ai intentionally try to get plants stuck to itself

[TruBlu]

I made armor blocks that are similar to the hull blocks i have but with more durability. but every time i bring up my faction palette, they don't show up

[BlackDeath]

Sorry i forgot the Ripple fire part i forgot to take out no change there.

[BlackDeath]

heres some correction.

NONE - None, obviously
RECKLESS - the attack of enemy ships last longer
CAUTIOUS - will attack less
SOCIAL - Calls help when its being attacked or outnumbered
AGGRESSIVE - Very mean, will attack ships more often
PEACEFUL - .will not attack without being provoked
FORGIVING - Has mercy, spares the enemy
RIPPLE_FIRE - the ship uses the ripple fire method of using its weapons
SMART_FIRE - will spread fire if enemy is expected to dodge
NO_PARENT - will go conquer the universe, explore, not sitting with is maker
GROW_ON_OK - no idea either

Hope you take this as a nice thing, no conflict :).

[ScarletRed]

in the offical modding guide on the homepage of Anisoptera Games there is a list of the faction behaviors:
https://i.imgur.com/dWhd08b.png (cuz the text doesnt fit in here lol)

[ironic Toblerone]

you do not actually have to write the region under subregions, or change the total size, also, changing those can cause bugs

[Sen. Exec. Sean "Ic" M. Issing]

there is no cvars.txt in my reassembly data folder

[YourMom.Com (Sixteen on Discord)]

sorry for the wait. did u make sure that all your blocks are part of the faction 20?

[TheConeezeanEmperor]

that is the thing, i checked the code and when i command palette 20 it says that faction 20 has no blocks. i will check though