Creating Your First Planetary Annihilation Mod

File:Titans-icon.png Creating your first mod

File:Platinum-rank-icon.png Introduction

Mods can generally be downloaded from the Community Mods manager built into Planetary Annihilation. However, when developing your own mod, you should start with a local copy for development purposes. Once you are happy with the way the mod works, you can upload it to the Community Mods manager so other players can download it.

The first step is to pick a Mod Identifier. Every mod must have a unique identifier.

The required format is lowercase reverse domain name notation.

eg com.palobby.some-mod-name

If you don't have your own domain or prefer to use your forum / game handle then prefix with com.pa.handle.some-mod-name

eg com.pa.mikeyh.some-mod-name

My personal preference is dashes (-) over underscores (_) for readability.

File:Platinum-rank-icon.png File structure

Local mods are located in a special directory inside the Planetary Annihilation Data Directory. If you wish to create Client Mods, make a new subdirectory in the "client_mods" folder. If you want to create Server Mods, create a new subdirectory in the "server_mods" folder. The recommended practise is to use the mod identifier as the name of your new subdirectory.

Inside that new subdirectory, you need to make a new text file called "modinfo.json". This file contains the metadata for your mod, such as your name, the name and type of your mod, and others. The file is formatted in JSON and the fields are described in Mod Structure.

File:Platinum-rank-icon.png Enabling the mod

Start Planetary Annihilation and press the Community Mods button. The go to the Installed tab. Your mod should now be visible there. If it is not, check if the modinfo.json you created is valid JSON and contains all of the mandatory fields and press Reload File System Mods.

Click on your mod and press the Enable button. The orange bar in front of your mod name should now change to green, indicating that the mod is active. This means you are good to go and can start developing the mod.