Writing a Code Mod

Work In Progress

This documentation is a work in progress. Help out by submitting a pull request to the docs repository

Linking against StationeersLaunchPad

Linking against StationeersLaunchPad (using any class in the StationeersLaunchPad namespace or nested namespaces) is unsupported. These classes are not a stable API, and will change without notice. The code is MIT licensed so you are free to copy any utilities you want to use into your own mod. LaunchPadBooster also contains utilities with a stable API that can be used by mods. If there is something you need that only StationeersLaunchPad has, reach out on github or discord and it can be added as an injected parameter to the Default Entrypoint.

StationeersLaunchPad will load any dll files in an enabled mod folder and search them for supported mod entrypoints. These entrypoints will be initialized on the splash screen before the primary game scene is loaded, so care must be taken to avoid accessing parts of the game that have not been properly loaded yet.

Default Entrypoint (preferred)

Any class extending MonoBehaviour that contains an OnLoaded method with at least one supported injected parameter will be treated as a mod entrypoint. It will be added as a component to a global mod GameObject and the OnLoaded method will be called with the injected parameters.

Injected Parameters

The OnLoaded method of the entrypoint class must have at least one injected parameter, and only injected parameters. These injected parameters are found by an exact match on the type (not the parameter name). If you do not need any data injected from StationeersLaunchPad, just include a List<GameObject> prefabs parameter so the entrypoint can be identified.

List<GameObject> prefabs

StationeersLaunchPad automatically loads .asset files in enabled mods. This parameter will contain the list of GameObjects that were loaded from these asset files.

These asset files will be loaded in regardless of whether an entrypoint is receiving them, so including this parameter does not change the loading behavior, only the data that your entrypoint receives.

ConfigFile config

When this parameter is present, StationeersLaunchPad will create a BepInEx config file using the ModID specified in the About.xml as the name (falling back to the fully qualified class name of the entrypoint class when ModID is not specified). Configurations registered to this config file will be visible in the StationeersLaunchPad configuration UI in the startup menu and the main menu workshop page.

List<Assembly> assemblies

StationeersLaunchPad loads all *.dll files inside the mod folder, even if no entrypoints were found in them. This parameter receives a list of all the assemblies that were loaded as part of this mod.

ModData mod

This parameter receives an instance of the object used by the game code to represent a mod. It will be an instance of either LocalModData or WorkshopModData depending on how the mod is installed. This can be used to get the path that the mod is installed at (ModData.DirectoryPath), as well as the parsed About.xml file (ModData.GetAboutData).

Note

The ModAbout instance returned from ModData.GetAboutData only includes the information supported by the base game, and does not include StationeersLaunchPad extensions such as ModID, dependencies, and ordering constraints.

This list will be expanded over time as new features are added. Each parameter is optional, so existing entrypoints will continue to be valid as more injected parameters are added.

Example

using BepInEx.Configuration;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class MyMod : MonoBehaviour
{
  // Must contain OnLoaded instance method with one or more injected parameters
  // The method visibility, parameter names, and parameter order don't matter
  void OnLoaded(List<GameObject> prefabs);
  void OnLoaded(ConfigFile config);
  void OnLoaded(List<GameObject> prefabs, ConfigFile config);
  void OnLoaded(ConfigFile config, List<GameObject> prefabs);
  void OnLoaded(
    List<GameObject> prefabs,
    ConfigFile config,
    List<Assembly> assemblies,
    ModData mod
  );
}

LaunchPadBooster

LaunchPadBooster is a library bundled with StationeersLaunchPad that contains utilities for common tasks in mods.

Other Entrypoints

Support for other entrypoint types is included for compatibility with existing mods.

BepInEx

Classes extending the BepInEx BaseUnityPlugin class will be loaded as mod entrypoints. These are not loaded in by the BepInEx ChainLoader and as a result they will not respect BepInEx dependency and incompatibility annotations.

StationeersMods

Classes extending the StationeersMods ModBehaviour class will be loaded as entrypoints. This framework is deprecated, but StationeersLaunchPad includes a compatibilty shim so mods written targeting this framework can still be used.