Learning to Mod — A Rimworld Story

I decided to take a crack at developing a mod or two after spending so much time troubleshooting the 300+ mods I’ve downloaded for this game. There’s a lot of features and add-ons I’d still like to see, Naruto/ninja villages, Mutants and Masterminds, more hi-tech buildings, playable quadrapeds, more intelligent combat, etc.

Some of those items on my wish-list require significant C# programming…a weakness in my skillset that probably won’t get better over time (I’m a bit dyslexic and so inverting numbers and keys is common). Plus, my math skills aren’t super-strong and I remembered that was my stopping point when developing for iOS.

However, there’s a lot of areas in the Rimworld application that only requires minor tweaks for new features, such as adding in new creatures, weapons, and building. Basically, anything cosmetic is fairly easy and takes more time in Photoshop than actually coding anything. The items that touch the actual rules and mechanics are a bit tricker.

So, I downloaded VisualStudio 2019 again (I tried this last year) and installed the Rimworld dev-environment in C#. I am using Sublime Text for my general editor as it’s lightweight and has a lot of contextual correction and intelligence. Finally, I have the full Adobe suite for managing the graphics, animations, and sounds.

Now, to start small. Like a single animal or race: perhaps Skittermanders (from Starfinder/Paizo)?