How far can mods go?

[Ramm]

I heard someone say we can't make mods ever because the game uses denuvo.

But is this true? Wont we ever be able to mod our own guests in? Or change textures or effects? Or maybe add new building pieces?

Now I supported denuvo so the game can't be pirated. So lets not discuss pirating as this is not allowed here!

But one thing that does bother me is that we aren't able to mod if this is true.

So lets talk about modding and what we can and can't do.

 

[Vampiro]

I heard someone say we can't make mods ever because the game uses denuvo.

But is this true? Wont we ever be able to mod our own guests in? Or change textures or effects? Or maybe add new building pieces?

Now I supported denuvo so the game can't be pirated. So lets not discuss pirating as this is not allowed here!

But one thing that does bother me is that we aren't able to mod if this is true.

So lets talk about modding and what we can and can't do.

I don't know a lot about game mechanics and stuff, so don't shoot me if im wrong [wink]
As far as i understood there are 2 ways of "modding". One version is the real mechanics modding, adding or changing gamecode so you can add or alter aspects of the game, even add screens or options.
The other is just adding content without adding or changing gamecode.

As far as i know 1 is not possible, the game comes as it is, and we will not be able to change screens or add other elements.

2 will be possible. Johnny Watts stated in an interview that adding content will be possible in the future. This will probably mean just scenery, but thats not confirmed.

 

[Ramm]

I don't know a lot about game mechanics and stuff, so don't shoot me if im wrong [wink]
As far as i understood there are 2 ways of "modding". One version is the real mechanics modding, adding or changing gamecode so you can add or alter aspects of the game, even add screens or options.
The other is just adding content without adding or changing gamecode.

As far as i know 1 is not possible, the game comes as it is, and we will not be able to change screens or add other elements.

2 will be possible. Johnny Watts stated in an interview that adding content will be possible in the future. This will probably mean just scenery, but thats not confirmed.

hmm well i hope we can edit existing stuff too like increase the maximum speeds etc

its part of the fun

 

[AndyC1]

I heard someone say we can't make mods ever because the game uses denuvo.

As I've said in many other places, this simply isn't true. It means you can't modify the games executable, but this isn't how modern game mods work. They work by modifying the game assets. Which will still work fine.

Cheers

Andy

 

[xyphic]

I heard someone say we can't make mods ever because the game uses denuvo.

But is this true? Wont we ever be able to mod our own guests in? Or change textures or effects? Or maybe add new building pieces?

Now I supported denuvo so the game can't be pirated. So lets not discuss pirating as this is not allowed here!

But one thing that does bother me is that we aren't able to mod if this is true.

So lets talk about modding and what we can and can't do.

If you can't modify the game executable, there'll always be a limit to what you can and can't mod. Where this limit lies depends on what Frontier build into the executable and what they class as assets. The executable is somewhere in the region of 80 MB, which for a modern game is quite small. This strongly implies that the majority of assets (models, audio, etc.) are kept outside of the executable, which you can see is true if you go looking around the game files. Now, with a protected executable, Frontier *could* also lock these assets down by including a hash of the file in the executable and erroring out upon a hash mismatch, but given Andy's response above we can rule this out.

The likelihood is that the majority of assets could at least be *replaced* (i.e. changing textures, models, audio) but I'd be stunned if Frontier hadn't built the game in such a way as to allow new assets to be easily *added* through the same mechanism, even for their own convenience. You don't want your artists to have to rebuild the game every time they add a new building piece or guest model.

What we don't yet know is how much other than assets are kept outside of the executable. Game logic? Flat ride programming? Shaders (e.g. for potentially adding new VFX pieces)? Guest AI? Scenarios? Biome types? Time will tell, because these are the things that the modding community will want to change up.

 

[Ramm]

As I've said in many other places, this simply isn't true. It means you can't modify the games executable, but this isn't how modern game mods work. They work by modifying the game assets. Which will still work fine.

Cheers

Andy

Thats great news! Thanks alot. I honestly cant wait to see what kind of mods we have in the future.

Would it be possible to create a mod where you can pick up a guest and maybe also remove it? Like the good old rct games? I mean technically if thats possible.

If you can't modify the game executable, there'll always be a limit to what you can and can't mod. Where this limit lies depends on what Frontier build into the executable and what they class as assets. The executable is somewhere in the region of 80 MB, which for a modern game is quite small. This strongly implies that the majority of assets (models, audio, etc.) are kept outside of the executable, which you can see is true if you go looking around the game files. Now, with a protected executable, Frontier *could* also lock these assets down by including a hash of the file in the executable and erroring out upon a hash mismatch, but given Andy's response above we can rule this out.

The likelihood is that the majority of assets could at least be *replaced* (i.e. changing textures, models, audio) but I'd be stunned if Frontier hadn't built the game in such a way as to allow new assets to be easily *added* through the same mechanism, even for their own convenience. You don't want your artists to have to rebuild the game every time they add a new building piece or guest model.

What we don't yet know is how much other than assets are kept outside of the executable. Game logic? Flat ride programming? Shaders (e.g. for potentially adding new VFX pieces)? Guest AI? Scenarios? Biome types? Time will tell, because these are the things that the modding community will want to change up.

This is also very informative. That seems like good news I guess.

 

[MaxInfinity1]

im sure eventually you will be able to create your own scenery. whether its by design from frontier or by a 3rd party importer. Im sure frontier will eventually support this feature so there wont be any need for 3rd party importers. This is pretty much what jon will and belgabor did with the rct3 importer, it added assets, it never changed the executable code. Changing executable code is not only against copyright, it can seriously mess things up. Im sure if executable code needs to be changed for any reason frontier will do it themselves.

 

[FinalMantasyX]

Would it be possible to create a mod where you can pick up a guest and maybe also remove it? Like the good old rct games? I mean technically if thats possible.

We can't make any mods of any kind yet. Frontier hasn't told us a thing about doing it, whether or not there will be official tools to do it, and nboody has really dug into it. The file types are also obscure because the last game that used them, Frontier Dangerous, has a community that was told not to mess with them...and they didn't.

 

[Robert K]

How was it possible to mod RCT3 to death but not PC? It would be a bummer if we had to depend on Frontier for more scenery and rides. RCTW allows the importation of custom scenery and Parkitect has mods and the ability to import custom scenery. Even RCT2 and original RCT had mods like trainers, and custom scenery and rides in RCT2. I think No Limits 2 and Theme Park Studio allow modding, too.

 

[FinalMantasyX]

That mod support is not built into Planet Coaster is a big negative against it and I'm surprised so few reviews even mention it. Mod support is literally the lifeblood of games like this.

 

[Ramm]

So are there mods out yet? Since the game is released?

I haven't really followed it but I keep hearing on other internet sites: "No mods possible because Denuvo" but here Frontier says that mods are possible so i'm kinda interested in the proof now [big grin]

I especially hope for coaster crash mods that will turn the fireworks into explosions for example

 

[AndyC1]

How was it possible to mod RCT3 to death but not PC?

So, RCT3 mods worked by modifying assets using 3rd party (and unsupported at that) importers. Planet Coaster modding could work exactly the same way - it just relies on someone reverse engineering our resource format in the same way they did for RCT3. If anyone has any questions about the resource format they can post here and we'll do our best to answer the questions.

Of course, this isn't very helpful. As we've said before, we'll have more to say about modding "soon". Adding mod support to a game is very, very complicated. Especially so given how Planet Coaster has to be written in order to remain performant. It's also worth pointing out how much more complicated the authoring process is in Planet Coaster compared to RCT3. So, we're working on it - give us some time and we'll be able to tell you more.

Cheers

Andy

 

[TemmV2]

Whelp, we don't have the folder to put our super cool l33t noscoped hax0r modding stuff so rip modding for now

 

[Ramm]

So, RCT3 mods worked by modifying assets using 3rd party (and unsupported at that) importers. Planet Coaster modding could work exactly the same way - it just relies on someone reverse engineering our resource format in the same way they did for RCT3. If anyone has any questions about the resource format they can post here and we'll do our best to answer the questions.

Of course, this isn't very helpful. As we've said before, we'll have more to say about modding "soon". Adding mod support to a game is very, very complicated. Especially so given how Planet Coaster has to be written in order to remain performant. It's also worth pointing out how much more complicated the authoring process is in Planet Coaster compared to RCT3. So, we're working on it - give us some time and we'll be able to tell you more.

Cheers

Andy

thanks for giving us the info and caring about modding. Some game devs dont want mods anymore in their game and they block everything or even try to ban people who try to mod (EA, Rockstar etc) but it's good to know Frontier still cares about mods.

I cant wait to hear more!

 

[Vampiro]

thanks for giving us the info and caring about modding. Some game devs dont want mods anymore in their game and they block everything or even try to ban people who try to mod (EA, Rockstar etc) but it's good to know Frontier still cares about mods.

I cant wait to hear more!

I think just look at what modding has done to RCT3.
It's partially the reason why RCT3 is being played to this day...

Im pretty sure i can do the same thing for PC on the long run.

 

[Ramm]

I think just look at what modding has done to RCT3.
It's partially the reason why RCT3 is being played to this day...

Im pretty sure i can do the same thing for PC on the long run.

I hope so.

But i'm still wondering: are there any mods out yet? Where would one find them?

Or how do I even start modding? Maybe someone can point me in the right direction, I guess i can switch over files or edit scripts or something as long as it's not real programming. But I would like to know how to open planet coaster files, what kind of software you need etc. Like the .ovl or .ovs files for example. Or the .prk files

 

[coolraver]

Or how do I even start modding? Maybe someone can point me in the right direction, I guess i can switch over files or edit scripts or something as long as it's not real programming. But I would like to know how to open planet coaster files, what kind of software you need etc. Like the .ovl or .ovs files for example. Or the .prk files

I don't think you're supposed/allowed to do that. PC's game files are 1) encrypted and 2) are Frontier's property and attempting to reverse-engineer it in any form may put you in legal trouble with them, unless you are an experienced mod developer/programmer and is hired by them to make such.

 

[FinalMantasyX]

As we've said before, we'll have more to say about modding "soon".

A real timeframe other than "Soon" would be a nice start. You said soon over a month ago. I usually consider "Soon" to be a timeframe less than a month, personally.

RCTW launching with mod support isn't doing much for the "Adding mod support is hard" stuff, either. I'm sure it's hard, I'm not saying it's not, but a game with a negative budget by 3 separate incompetent developer studios released with user generated content as a selling point, and big fancy high budget overpriced-early-versions-selling-well-into-the-thousands-of-copies-months-before-launch Planet Coaster didn't? It's just weird. What does Atari's fourth party dev studio with a 5 dollar budget have in terms of resources to get that into the base game that PC doesn't? From the outside, it's very weird to see. [haha]

 

[Ramm]

I don't think you're supposed/allowed to do that. PC's game files are 1) encrypted and 2) are Frontier's property and attempting to reverse-engineer it in any form may put you in legal trouble with them, unless you are an experienced mod developer/programmer and is hired by them to make such.

Oh, i didnt know that

I used to make "mods" for games a few years ago but it was mainly swapping a 512x512pixel .png to a different 512x512px .png file etc. So I thought I could do something similar with Planet Coaster. For example change the coaster crash fireworks and overwrite it with the regular explosion effect. I think this is a form of "modding" so i'm wondering how I would do this with Planet Coaster?

 

[FinalMantasyX]

Mods are not at risk of legal issues. That's a myth that people like to spread around for some reason. You can modify whatever you want.