Modding Terraria 101: Tmodloader

VERY thorough guide to adding mods to Terraria!

A litttle preparation

Yarr! avast, ye vanilla lubbin scallywags!
ok enough of that. im Mini, i love terraria. i wanted to make a more user friendly guide to modding terraria, for friends, foes, and strangers alike; some of whom may be hesitant to trying it because they believe:

• -modding the game means you have to do a bunch of work to play vanilla (unmodded)
  
• -mods could damage or corrupt your game files in any way
  
• -its difficult to do

none of this is true! unless you are really really really bad at computers

this guide is long winded, but detailed, and in the end, simple. this way you wont run into complications - or have to figure out the things they dont mention in the tmodloader installation directions for yourself

also im terrible at spelling so deal with it, and this is for PC, idk how to mac sorry.

now on to the guide!:

Firstly!: create a new folder on the desktop (or wherever you would like, and can access easily) name it what you like (i name mine terrariaSTUFF lol)

ill refer to this as your 'resources' folder were gonna put stuff in it

there are two terraria folders that are important and youll be accessing often, so we are going to add shortcuts to them - in our resources folder.

here are the two folders:

1. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Terraria
i will refer to this folder as 'GAME folder' - remember this
this folder contains the game itself, the 'engine' so to speak. you will see the terraria.exe and a bunch of .dll files and junk.
create a shortcut to this location, and add it to your resources folder, rename the shortcut (the other folder has the same name in a different place so we dont want to get mixed up)
(i name mine 'shortcut-engine') this is where tmodloader will be installed

2. C:\Users\**your name**\Documents\My Games\Terraria
i will refer to this folder as 'FILE folder' - remember that too!
this is where all player files, world files, screenshots.. etc are placed. all in their own folders.
create a shortcut to this location, rename it something like 'shortcut-player-files' or whatever you prefer
***once you are modded, there will be a new folder here called 'ModLoader' inside that you will find an identiclal version of the FILE folder containing player, world, etc folders, but empty, as tmodloader runs off a different location to prevent contamination (more on that later)

you now have your resources folder with two shortcuts, this will make life much easier, we will add a few more things to it soon.
i also keep my player and world backups in this folder(a practice every hard-core player should get used to), and since i create mods and use lots of other tools, its very useful to have everything i need in one place.

Installing tmodloader

alrighty! feel the cleansing power of organization wash over you as we get ready for the next step in our journey

here is a link to the tmodloader files on the official terraria forum:

http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/1-3-tmodloader-a-modding-api.23726/

scroll down to the DOWNLOADS section and click on the steam version (windows obviously)

warning: if you dont know how to unzip files ill just say you have no buisiness modding, but, google it.

youll now have a .zip file containing all the files you need.
go back to your resources folder from step 1 and create a folder called 'TMODLOADER'
unzip everything to that new folder.

now open your new TMODLOADER folder and change the name of the terraria.exe file (i use terrariaMOD.exe so ill be calling it that, but you could name it tmodloader.exe or whatever you want)

i know this seems like a lot but you are 90% done!! and these steps make everything easier in the end

now all you do is simply copy the contents of the tmodloader folder (not the folder itself, all the files inside) and paste them in your GAME folder!! youve just installed tmodloader!

make a shortcut to your newly installed TerrariaMOD.exe (from within the GAME folder NOT the Tmodloader folder), and place in your resources folder (or desktop, or both). this will be how you launch modded terraria. if you run the game via steam, or the regular terraria.exe in your GAME folder, you will be running vanilla, you can make a shortcut to this as well, for playing with unmodded friends etc. you could even run them at the same time if youre feelin crazy

one last step: when you run the modded game for the first time, exit at the main menu before opening any menus, to finalize set-up. after that you can run the game again and start dowloading mods! ill get to that next section. this also creates the 'ModLoader' folder inside your 'GAME folder'

A MAJOR note: as i mentioned in the first step, modded characters and worlds are saved sepparately, this means when you first run modded terraria you will have no worlds or characters. i thought it deleted everything my first time!! (although the thorium and termor mods are so cool i literally didnt care, plus im a pro so i had some backups :)
however, if you want to use your vanilla characters you can simply access your player folder within the FILES folder shortcut and copy and paste the characters or worlds you want into your modded FILES folder (always copy paste never click and drag!!) i dont suggest doing it the other way around lol

Adding mods

eyyyy! so i heard you like mods.

now that you have tmodloader installed, run the modded game .exe
you will see the beautiful IN-GAME modding menus (mods, mod sources, mod browser beta)
'mods' is a list of your downloaded mods (active and inactive)
ignore 'mod sources' thats for creating mods
'mod browser' is where you get your mods

when accessing the mod browser, your game will likely freeze, dont make the nooby mistake of clicking and trying to unfreeze it and making it crash and spazzing out and posting on forums. just let it do its thing, its a lot of info to load. if windows asks, tell it to wait for the program to respond, it will.

check out the mod the list and download what you want! there are filter buttons to organize them better.

after downloading or updating a mod, you will have to go to the 'mods' menu and activate it, then 'reload' all mods (its all very easy if you follow on screen directions) all mods are inactive until activated. you dont have to activate mods you have downloaded you can have a mix of active/inactive.

some other things to note:

90+% of the mods work perfectly well in singleplayer, but not all mods are balanced very well, and even less work well in multiplayer. some mods will conflict with each other, but usually only when they affect the same game mechanic. this is rare-ish as most mods simply add content and thus are highly compatible.
id suggest researching mods beyond the info in the mod browser (click 'view mods website', it links to official terraria forums, if it doesnt have that button its very likely going to be a bad mod, check the comments, downloads, etc.)

another way to get mods is to simply join a friend who has them! one of the beautiful things about tmodloader is when joining a friend you download and activate the same mods automatically. keep in mind a lot of players like to use a ton of mods, and ones that suck, so make sure you are careful. few mods work well in multiplayer, thorium and tremor are the best for this, having more than 4-5 mods is surely asking for lag. (however in singleplayer, load it up!!)

another note, you may find yourself with undesireable mods, the only way to remove them is to physically delete the files, located in a folder simply called 'mods' in the modded FILES folder

Updates!

i bet you think youre like, a modding master now right?

well, updates are a little tricky

for example, terraria is currently at v 1.3.3.2
lets say it updated to 1.4 tomorrow (lol i wish)

fortunately i set you up so its less confusing :) the 'normal' way of installing tmodloader has you replace the vanilla .exe entirely. and a game update will force vanilla to overwrite and basically uninstall tmodloader.

however we renamed our modded .exe so we will still have both, you can run the new updated vanilla game from steam while you wait for tmodloader to update.

you can still run modded, but stuck in 1.3.3.2 with no new content.

now you lurk on the tmodloader forum page like everyone else, waiting for the update. generally best to wait for official game patches like 1.4.0.1 etc, first, as tmodloader devs probably will too.

just dont be one of those many obnoxious people that spams the forum asking when it will be updated.

once it is updated you follow the original steps, unzip new version to your tmodloader folder in your resources folder, replace all files. delete your old modded exe and rename the new modded terraria.exe the same as before. then copy and paste all files to your GAME folder and replace all.
delete and update your new .exe shortcut(s)


also, mods can be updated, there are filter buttons in the mod browser that allow you to show only your downloaded mods that have updates. sometimes, a mod may take forever to update, i would cancle and exit the game and relaunch. sometimes that helps

also keep in mind, when tmodloader updates, some mods have to update too, and some wont be able to right away so they might not work. the good mods are always updated within a few days tho, and some dont have to, so not to worry. just be patient


anyhoo! that should be it! i hope this makes it simple for people to play with the amazing mods out there. i wouldnt promote it if it wasnt truly worth exploring!

may the slimes be ever in your favor, for the night is dark, and full of flying eyeballs.

[tauon gaming]

PROTIP: this works on linux too!!!!

[slimey]

what

[SalamanderYT]

Lol I just kept vinnila .exe and tmodloader .exe separate so I can still get 1.4 content

[Aggressive Opossums]

See I followed the instructions I just have a question there's a problem specifically with calamity I got the mod to work and all but when I enter the game it says there are pieces of the mods missing it says and I quote "not all contents were downloaded in unloading" I don't know what it means but the soundtrack is only one boring song and doesn't change for bosses i need help ;-;

[deafened]

It Just Crashes for me on mac

[Beatrix]

Thank you!! My TmodLoader would just load normal terraria before i tried this! YOU ARE A LIFE SAVER!!!

[KingOCake]

pretty rad, helped me a lot

[matsu 2020 vision]

oh I feel stupid. I commented on a post that was posted 2 years ago

[matsu 2020 vision]

he said it wont damage ur computer unless you are braindead

[not so MLG]

I did everything but it still says it needs dll steamworks