Rusted Warfare – RTS: Modding Guide

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Do You Want To Learn How To Mod Rusted Warfare?

It is surprisingly easy, really. In this guide I will be providing a surface, and occasionally indepth guide on how to create a total overhaul mod for Rusted Warfare. It can be rather complicated, or simple. I will provide, or show you where to go, for tools and basics when it comes to making your own mod.

 

Basics: File Access

We start by finding the folder where your mods will be located. Steam mods are automatically installed into this area.

Starting notes:
.rwmod is the same as a .zip or .winrar file, just with the end tag renamed to .rwmod instead of .zip or whatever method of file compression was used. By continuing on inside this guide you will discover how to change a .txt to a .template. The same logic applies to changing a .zip to a .rwmod.






Welcome to units, this is where mods are kept. If your mod isnt in here, you cant play with it in Rusted Warfare. This is also how you can install mods from outside sources, in the following part of the basics section, I will go over how to change file extensions so you can handle .rwmod easier. Dont worry though, open folders work just as well as .rwmod!

Basics: Mod Creation, Core.

Here you are, hopefully in the units folder in Rusted Warfare.

Create a new folder.

In this folder, we want to create a few documents, and possibly other folders.

There are three file types we will be using regularly, one of which is mostly optional.
.txt
.ini
.template

Txt extensions are pretty basic

Create the following:

– Two .txt Documents

Right click the open space in the folder, move to new, select create .txt.

Click your created .txt file, and Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.

You have two txt files!

Rename one of them to mod-info.txt

Open this file and copy and paste the following into it:

[mod]
title: Sample Mod!
description: Sample Mod!

thumbnail: thumbnail.png

[music]
sourceFolder:music
whenUsingUnitsFromThisMod_playExclusively: true

This info is what will display in the Rusted Warfare Mod Manager Ingame

By that, I mean the title, and description. The thumbnail is what appears upon being uploaded to the workshop.

Ok, now that other txt file we made?

We need to turn it into a template file.

In files go to View>Show>File name extensions

Click onto the txt document, dont enter it. Normally you single click the name, or double click the name, or long click the name, then you can change the name of the document/folder/file. In this case, we can also change the file type. Change it into a .template.

Then rename it to all-units.template.

This is required for creating your own unique resources, status effects, etc. Sometimes you can find a creative way to create these things without resorting to the all-units.template

Now I will layout some things you may want in this file.

First off: Graphics

[graphics]
showEnergyBar: false
showTransportBar:false

Paste this in, change the value of: false, to true, if you want to see an energy bar, or transport bar on your units in this mod ingame.

Do you want to create cool graphical effects? Use all-units.template as a source file for them. Basically, all-units.template is a file that will tell your effects how they should perform, for how long, if they should cause damage, what direction they should face, how far off the ground they should be… you get the idea. I will go over this later.

Lets say you want your own special resource… Iron. You need iron to make tanks? Sure.

[global_resource_sampleIron]
displayName: sampleIron
displayNameShort: Iron
displayName_en:Iron
displayName_es:Hierro
displayColor: #808080
displayRoundedDown:true

Change sampleIron to just Iron, or maybe Bullets, or perhaps… Construction Supplies?

displayName: What people see
displayName_en: English people see
displayName_es: Espanol la gente ve

displayName_InsertLanguageHere: Is what people will see depending on language settings.

Mod accessibility for all!

We will go over how to make resources meaningful ingame later. This is the core setup.

Okay, we got that done. Lets make more files. Go back a bit and create a few files.


Create a folder for: music, sprites, sounds, effects, and template files.

Basics: Music

We all love music, it fills a void of sorts. Gives battles tension, sadness, excitement, anticipation… I will now show you how to add custom music.

First off, ensure you have a mod-info.txt file inside of your mod folder. Now ensure the following code is inside of it:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
[music]
sourceFolder:music
whenUsingUnitsFromThisMod_playExclusively: true
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
This will force the game to play THIS music when units from THIS mod folder are being used.

Ingame you can, instead of playing exclusively, go into settings and select the Next Track, option under audio for music. This will play the next track, that next track may be yours.

Or just force the game to play YOUR music and YOURS alone.

Your choice.

Okay, we got that down, now… music? We have a folder for music now. Or we should, if you read the previous section.

Now Rusted Warfare is peculiar about it’s music… .wav or .ogg is the way to go. These are file extensions for the music.

You can use a website online, or an app on your device to modify a file into a .ogg or .wav, sometimes you can just manually change the file extension by clicking the file and renaming it like I showed you earlier.

This doesnt always work. And can sometimes cause issues. But it does SOMETIMES work. And yes, it is dumb.

So if you want quality, use an app or website for .ogg/.wav conversions.

Personally, I use .ogg, as I could never get .wav to work. Other people do it though, I think.

Put the .ogg/.wav file into this folder, and walla. Mission accomplished- you have made a custom music for Rusted Warfare!

Basics: Spriting

If you want to make a mod that doesnt just handle unit stats or music, you need to read this.

You can make sprites using any number of apps, I will proceed to tell you what a sprite is, and how to make one… easily…ish.

Clicking this hyperlink should take you to a website called paint.net, this is what I use for creating sprites.[www.getpaint.net]

This should take you to a tutorial for the basics of paint.net. Alternatively, find your own tutorial on youtube or other sites. For my part, I will give you some basics.

The pencil tool will let you place individual pixels, which all sprites (images) ingame rely upon to render themselves. Paintbrush will let you blend, things together, Layers will let you line up different parts. And the color picker in the bottom left will give you a hexidecimal for the color you picked, which if you were paying attention earlier- allows you to change the text color for resources.

Make sure the background is transparent, elsewise the unit will be surrounded by whiteness, or whatever your background is, ingame.

Basics: Core Code

Welcome to the meat of this Guide. Here I will be giving a brief guide on what is what and how you should use it.

Go to your mod folder. Make a new folder, lets call it “units”

Enter this folder, make a folder called tank, then make a txt file… lets call it tank.

Download and drop the below images in this folder, or follow along.



*

Change the txt file, tank, into an ini. Ex: tank.txt > tank.ini

But before we go further, download these three images, and place them into the sprites folder.

Next copy and paste this code segment into your all-units.template file.

[effect_trailM]
createWhenZoomedOut: false

image: ROOT:\sprites\trail.png
spawnChance: 0.5
life: 10
priority: verylow
fadeOut: true
attachedToUnit: false
scaleFrom: 0.5
scaleTo: 0.1
alpha: 1
drawUnderUnits:false

[effect_trailT]
createWhenZoomedOut: false

image: ROOT:\sprites\trail.png
spawnChance: 0.8
life: 12
priority: verylow
fadeOut: true
attachedToUnit: false
scaleFrom: 0.6
scaleTo: 0.1
alpha: 1
drawUnderUnits:false

With that finished, copy and paste the following code into your tank.ini

[core]
name: sst1
displayText: Super Sample Tank
displayDescription: -Two Guns!

energyMax: 1
energyRegen: 0.01
energyNeedsToRechargeToFull: true
armour:50

class: CustomUnitMetadata
price: 5000
maxHp: 3000
mass:5000

tags:medium, tank,

showActionsWithMixedSelectionIfOtherUnitsHaveTag: true

techLevel: 1
buildSpeed: 20s
radius: 20
isBio: false
isBug: false
isBuilder: false

numBitsOnDeath: 10
softCollisionOnAll: 14
selfRegenRate:0.01

[graphics]
image: TankBaseT1.png
image_wreak: none
image_turret: none

dustEffect: true

imageScale:0.9
turretImageScale:0.9

[attack]
canAttack: true
canAttackFlyingUnits: false
canAttackLandUnits: true
canAttackUnderwaterUnits: false
isFixedFiring:false
turretMultiTargeting: true

turretSize: 20
turretTurnSpeed: 1.5

maxAttackRange: 500
shootDelay: 8s

[turret_cannon]
#
x: 0
y: -6

barrelX:5
barrelY:28

canShoot: true
image:TurretT1.png
projectile: shell

limitingMinRange:15

turnSpeedAcceleration: 0.05

shoot_flame: smoke, large

energyUsage: 0

recoilOffset: -2
recoilOutTime: 8
recoilReturnTime: 16

[turret_mg]
#
x: 1
y: -12

barrelX:3
barrelY:15

canShoot: true

image:TurretT2.png
attachedTo: cannon
projectile: mg

limitingRange: 300
limitingMinRange:30
limitingAngle: 270
delay: 0.3s

NOTE: limitingMinRange is the minimum range, got a really big gun? Kinda unrealistic to shoot a target that is meleeing you. Minimum range makes it so this turret cant shoot a unit that is closer than the value.

turnSpeedAcceleration: 0.1

shoot_flame: smoke, small,

energyUsage: 0

recoilOffset: 0
recoilOutTime: 0
recoilReturnTime: 0

[turret_Melee]
#
x: 0
y: 10

NOTE:Where turret center is located. Refer to the main body png and place the turret appropriately

barrelY:0
barrelX:0

NOTE:Where it shoots from, look at the png and measure the pixels from the center to decide where this should be.

limitingAngle: 100

NOTE:100 degrees facing forwards. Turret cannot hit turrets behind itself. 360 will allow it to. You can remove limitingAngle entirely so turret will have full rotation.

projectile: melee

NOTE:Put the projectile name you want here.

turnSpeedAcceleration: 0

delay:1.0s
limitingRange:40

NOTE:These hijack the main turret fire delay and range. Basically, delay is how long it takes to fire another shot. limitingRange limits this turret to 40 instead of what it says far above.

canOnlyAttackUnitsWithTags: small, medium

NOTE:Self explanatory, you can only target units with THESE tags

canShoot: true

NOTE:Special, making this false willl prevent it from shooting. This is useful for making autospawners and map renderers, etc. Healing, special actions…

energyUsage: 0

NOTE:How much energy this costs to fire once.

recoilOffset: 0
recoilOutTime: 0
recoilReturnTime: 0

[projectile_melee]
targetGround: false
targetGroundSpread: 0
areaRadius: 20
directDamage: 0
areaDamage: 50
life: 60
speed: 15
frame: 1
drawSize: 0.0
image: none
explodeEffect: NONE
armourIgnoreAmount: 40

areaHitAirAndLandAtSameTime: false

NOTE:Want your explosion to hit air and ground units, like flak? Use this. Set it to true.

mutator1_ifUnitWithTags:small
mutator1_areaDamageMultiplier: 2

mutator2_ifUnitWithTags:medium
mutator2_areaDamageMultiplier:0.5

buildingDamageMultiplier: 0.5

[projectile_mg]
targetGround: true
targetGroundSpread: 5.0
directDamage: 0
areaRadius: 5
areaDamage: 50
life: 70

NOTE:how long the bullet will last before it reaches target. Low llife means it wont reach.

speed: 15

NOTE:Speed

frame: 1
drawSize: 0.5
image: ROOT:\sprites\tankmachinegunshot.png

friendlyFire: true

targetGround_includeTargetHeight:true
explodeEffect: none
armourIgnoreAmount: 10

NOTE:Ignores this much armor.

pushForce: 0

NOTE: Will push enemy units with this much force, enemy MASS: willl play a role. Refer to further up for mass.

mutator1_ifUnitWithTags:infantry, light
mutator1_areaDamageMultiplier:1.5

trailEffect:CUSTOM:trailM
trailEffectRate:1

[projectile_shell]
targetGround: true

NOTE: This makes it target the ground around the enemy unit, then it rolls a die, fires in area of five around the enemy. It may directly hit, it may not. make targetGround: false in order to remove rng. GroundSpread is what indicates the width of the rng. areaRadius says how large the damage area will be. Use this if you want AOE. You need this if you use targetGround. directDamage will only really function if you dont use targetGround

targetGroundSpread: 5
areaRadius: 35
directDamage: 0
areaDamage: 350
life: 180
speed: 15
frame: 1

NOTE:frame is the amount of frames, take a png with three bullet models, single frame will render alll of them, frame 2 will render the second and not the first. THis relies on even spacing. This is also fairly advanced, so keep it singlle frame.

drawSize: 0.8
image: ROOT:\sprites\tankshot.png
explodeEffect: large, smoke,
hitSound: true

NOTE: Firstly, I did no custom explode effects, but I couldve, doing CUSTOM:smokesmple*1 is done in the same way I did the traileffect. Take a png, add some data, mess with the alll-units.template file, and walla. Custom smoke will waft from the barrel upon firing. Elsewise look at the already present unit inis and data for pre-made effects.

mutator1_ifUnitWithTags:none
mutator1_areaDamageMultiplier:1

trailEffect:CUSTOM:trailT
trailEffectRate:1

NOTE: mutator1/2/3/4/etc_ifUnitWithTags or ifUnitWithoutTags: medium, small, tank, etc. Add any tag you want to a unit, any word. And if this turret shoots that unit with that tag, adding a value multiplier of 1=100% damage, aka: normal damage. 0.5=50% damage to the enemy unit. 2=200%, and so on.
NOTE: Traileffect stems from all-units.template, the custom effect we added earlier.

[movement]
movementType: LAND
moveSpeed: 0.50
moveAccelerationSpeed: 0.02
moveDecelerationSpeed: 0.2
maxTurnSpeed: 0.2
turnAcceleration: 0.15
moveSlidingMode :false
moveIgnoringBody:false
reverseSpeedPercentage:0.1

[ai]
buildPriority: 0.05

This should create a fully functional mod, albeit

Note: if you want to add sounds, add this into each Turret you want to play a sound when it shoots, or hits something.

shoot_sound:ROOT:\sounds\sample.ogg
shoot_sound_vol:0.1.

Elsewise, I intentionally left it blank due to the fact that I cannot add sound files onto here.

Basics: Core Code Continued

Advanced: Code Segments

I will be dropping code segments here, scroll through and see what interests you.

mod-info.txt:

[mod]
title: Sample Mod!
description: Sample Mod!

thumbnail: thumbnail.png

Music: (Also goes in mod-info)

[music]
sourceFolder:music
whenUsingUnitsFromThisMod_playExclusively: true

Some samples from all-units.template

Change false to true and vice versa if you want.

[graphics]
showEnergyBar: false
showTransportBar:false

[global_resource_sampleIron]
displayName: sampleIron
displayNameShort: Iron
displayName_en:Iron
displayName_es:Hierro
displayColor: #808080
displayRoundedDown:true

Construction Unit: make a txt file, then click the title and change it into an ini file.

[core]

name:constructor1
displayText: Constructor
displayDescription: -Builds Stuff

class: CustomUnitMetadata
price: 100
maxHp: 100
mass: 100
armour:0
selfRegenRate:0
generation_resources: 0

tags: infantry, tank, vehicle, sample

techLevel: 1
experimental: false
buildSpeed: 10s
radius: 10

isBio: false
isBug: false
isBuilder: true

canRepairBuildings: true
canRepairUnits : true
autoRepair:True
canReclaimResources: false
nanoRangeForReclaim:100
nanoRangeForReclaimIsMelee:true

energyMax: 15
energyRegen: 0.1
energyNeedsToRechargeToFull: true

softCollisionOnAll: 10
dieOnConstruct: false
hideScorchMark: true
transportSlotsNeeded:100

canBuild_2_name: repair, reclaim
canBuild_2_pos: 1

[canBuild_Sample]
name:Sample

[canBuild_Sample]
isVisible: if not self.isControlledByAI
name:Sample

[canBuild_Sample]
isVisible: if self.isControlledByAI
name:Sample

[action_convertunitinto]
convertTo: tank (putting in constructor1 will turn this into itself, but it will take your money! Also gives full hp and stats)
price: 100
text: Converts into something else, like a tank, or building
displayType: upgrade
buildSpeed: 10s
whenBuilding_cannotMove: 1
spawnUnits: Somewhat repeptitive, constructor1, tank, etc. Use or dont. Do constructor1*2 to make two new constructors and change this unit into something else.(alwayStartDirAtZero=true)
deleteSelf:true (basically, this unit turns itself into a something else, and if you use the previous function, you will spawn a new unit, creating an illusion of sorts.) (idleDir relegates what direction the render renders in, rule of the thumb, always ALWAYS use 180 for buildings.)
pos: 1

[action_overhaul]
isVisible: if (numberOfUnitsInTeam(withTag=’factory’, withinRange=200, greaterThan=0) or self.numberOfUnitsInAllyNotOwnTeam(withTag=’factory’, withinRange=200, greaterThan=0))
ai_isHighPriority:false
unitShownInUI:constructor2.0
convertTo:constructor2.0
addResources: hp=550
displayType: upgrade
price: 100000000
text: Super Constructor
description:Mad science
descriptionAddUnitStats:constructor2.0
buildSpeed: 1000s
whenBuilding_cannotMove:true
pos:1

[effect_dirt]
alpha:2
attachedToUnit: false
life: 75
physics: true
scaleFrom:0.7
scaleTo: 0.7
#physics: true
xSpeedRelativeRandom: 0.8
ySpeedRelative: 2
hSpeedRandom: 3
hOffsetRandom:2
image: dirt.png
priority: high
dirOffsetRandom:360
dirSpeed:3

[effect_smoke]

attachedToUnit: false
life: 120
alpha: 0.5
scaleFrom:0.8
scaleTo: 2
#physics: true
xSpeedRelativeRandom: 0.3
ySpeedRelativeRandom: 0.3
hSpeed: 0.1
image: smoke.png
priority: high
drawUnderUnits:false
atmospheric:true

[graphics]
total_frames: 2

repairEffect:CUSTOM:dirt*2
repairEffectAtTarget:CUSTOM:smoke*2
repairEffectRate:50

reclaimEffectAtTarget: CUSTOM:smoke*1
reclaimEffectRate:50

image: Sample.png
image_wreak: Samplepng
image_turret: NONE

image_shadow: SHADOW:ROOT:\sprites\shadow.png
shadowOffsetX:1
shadowOffsetY:1
showTransportBar:false

animation_moving_start: 1
animation_moving_end: 1
animation_moving_speed: 0.2

dustEffect: false

lock_body_rotation_with_main_turret: true

imageScale:1

[attack]
canAttack: false
canAttackFlyingUnits: false
canAttackLandUnits: false
canAttackUnderwaterUnits: false
isMelee: false

canOnlyAttackUnitsWithoutTags:none

turretSize: 20
turretTurnSpeed: 2

maxAttackRange: 0
shootDelay: 0s

isFixedFiring: true

[movement]
movementType: LAND
moveSpeed: 0.45
moveAccelerationSpeed: 0.07
moveDecelerationSpeed: 0.12
maxTurnSpeed: 8.5
turnAcceleration: 0.5
moveSlidingMode :false
moveIgnoringBody:false
moveSlidingDir: 180 (use this for buildings, elsewise you can remove safely)
reverseSpeedPercentage:0

joinsGroupFormations:true

[ai]
buildPriority: 0.7

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