To start this, I accept that, according to the Frontier Mod Policy, modding in any kind for Planet Coaster 2 is prohibited. I also acknowledge that multiple previous Frontier games have active modding communities, and even some features of Planet Coaster 2 seem to be inspired by mods made for Planet Coaster.
Frontier games traditionally have been modded quite a lot. Planet Zoo and the JWE franchise have notably active modding communities, with new species / scenery part mods popping up regularly. And if you've been paying attention to any unofficial community servers you might've seen that Planet Coaster 2 is no different, both custom coaster types and scenery parts have been successfully added to the game through mods so far.
However, there is a large issue that is exclusively facing Planet Coaster 2; the combination of both PC and Console workshops.
In previous Frontier games, the workshop has been the Steam workshop, with console players using the Frontier workshop. This has kept modded parks and blueprints out of access for console players which in my opinion is the best of both worlds - PC players get the freedom to modify and use the game as they see fit and console players stick to the intended way of playing. However, with Planet Coaster 2, the combination of both PC and Consoles using the same workshop has left the game particularly vulnerable to opening parks or blueprints that utilize local modifications uploaded from PC.
The "Complex" tag already helps prevent console players from loading PC parks that might be too taxing on the hardware, so there is precedent for items on the workshop being platform dependent. And Frontier is already detecting when local modifications exist on a players instance of Planet Coaster 2.
There is also a certain ambiguity around uploading modded items to the Frontier Workshop as well. Are we allowed to? Are we not? If not, is there any other way for us to share our modded creations with the rest of the community? I don't think people who use mods want to cause issues with people who do not use them, but I think an individual should be able to use mods if they want.
I think the best way forward would be for Frontier to automatically apply a "Modded" or similar tag to workshop items that use modded coaster types or scenery pieces. This tag could be restricted on console and maybe a warning could be displayed on PC?
I'm curious to know the communities thoughts on this topic as well.
Frontier games traditionally have been modded quite a lot. Planet Zoo and the JWE franchise have notably active modding communities, with new species / scenery part mods popping up regularly. And if you've been paying attention to any unofficial community servers you might've seen that Planet Coaster 2 is no different, both custom coaster types and scenery parts have been successfully added to the game through mods so far.
However, there is a large issue that is exclusively facing Planet Coaster 2; the combination of both PC and Console workshops.
In previous Frontier games, the workshop has been the Steam workshop, with console players using the Frontier workshop. This has kept modded parks and blueprints out of access for console players which in my opinion is the best of both worlds - PC players get the freedom to modify and use the game as they see fit and console players stick to the intended way of playing. However, with Planet Coaster 2, the combination of both PC and Consoles using the same workshop has left the game particularly vulnerable to opening parks or blueprints that utilize local modifications uploaded from PC.
The "Complex" tag already helps prevent console players from loading PC parks that might be too taxing on the hardware, so there is precedent for items on the workshop being platform dependent. And Frontier is already detecting when local modifications exist on a players instance of Planet Coaster 2.
There is also a certain ambiguity around uploading modded items to the Frontier Workshop as well. Are we allowed to? Are we not? If not, is there any other way for us to share our modded creations with the rest of the community? I don't think people who use mods want to cause issues with people who do not use them, but I think an individual should be able to use mods if they want.
I think the best way forward would be for Frontier to automatically apply a "Modded" or similar tag to workshop items that use modded coaster types or scenery pieces. This tag could be restricted on console and maybe a warning could be displayed on PC?
I'm curious to know the communities thoughts on this topic as well.
