Modding Timberborn - officially!
Until now, modding the game has been possible thanks to our awesome community’s efforts. Our players have been sharing their mods and custom maps on Timberborn’s hub on Mod.io (and earlier - on Thunderstore and TimberbornMaps). Mod.io is not going anywhere so players outside of Steam can continue to access mods that way. But if you’re on Steam, the Workshop will eliminate some of the manual labor involved. Update 6 also makes life easier for modders and map creators - more on that below.
Starting with Update 6, to add mods and custom maps to the game, you will simply need to browse Timberborn Workshop and subscribe to whatever interests you. The maps you download populate the new Custom maps category in the map browser. The mods pop up in a built-in mod manager that allows you to turn them on and off, and rearrange their launch order.
Let’s see how these things work.
Downloading maps
Let’s say you seek a new challenge on a custom map made by a fellow player. What do you do?
In Update 6, the map browser looks different and features a separate Custom Maps tab. Open it and click the Download Maps button to go to the Maps section of Timberborn Workshop. Check out what’s available and simply subscribe to whatever you like.
Steam will download the map, and it will go into the Custom Maps tab. The map's description and thumbnail are viewable directly in the game. And yes, completing a wonder on the custom map unlocks the flexible start for it and grants you a faction badge, just like for the built-in maps.
Please note that if you obtain a custom map outside of Steam Workshop - for example via Mod.io or from one of the players on our Discord - you can still add it manually. As before, you will just need to copy the file to the Maps folder on your drive.
Downloading mods
The main menu now features the Mods button - use it, click Download mods, and you’ll land in the Mods section of Timberborn Workshop. See what fits your fancy and subscribe to the interesting mod. If the mod’s creator set it up correctly, that’s all you need to do - even if it depends on other mods to work, the whole package should be downloaded automatically. Just remember that the usual caveats still apply - go ham on the mods, and you’ll break the game. Here’s the mod page for Shanty Speaker, a sample mod we have prepared that you’ll find in the Workshop on day 1. This mod adds a new Iron Teeth building that plays "Shores of Beaver Bay" - the shanty song arranged by Zofia Domaradzka and recorded by Timberborn's players and developers in 2022. It also showcases Timberborn's custom 3D model format, Timbermesh.
After you restart the game, you will be greeted with a new screen, listing currently detected mods. This window pops up before Timberborn actually starts, which means that if your freshly installed mods crash the game, you’ll have a chance to disable them or rearrange the launch order, hopefully preventing further conflicts and crashes.
There we go! Click OK, and the game will launch with the mods installed.
And again, similar to the maps, you can install mods the old-fashioned way by moving some files around on your drive.
Easier map sharing
Adding the Steam Workshop support is not just a matter of flipping some switch in Steam’s backend. For the past few months, we’ve been working on making it much easier to mod Timberborn and share custom maps without the unnecessary hurdles. Let’s start with the maps.
The map editor now features a tool that lets you upload your creations directly to Steam without leaving the game. This feature integrates the thumbnails and descriptions you know from Update 5 with Workshop’s functionality.
As your map evolves, you can upload its new versions and add changelogs to let your players know what you modified. You can also choose the map’s visibility, making it private, public, unlisted, or available only to your friends.
Easier modding
We recognize that modding is about changing the unchangeable and we cannot predict all the crazy things that modders may want to do with the game. However, with Update 6, we strive to make the most common modding tasks easier to accomplish, less prone to errors, less prone to compatibility issues, and overall, make the game more fun to experiment with.
For example, to add a new in-game resource under the new system, you would only need to put a simple .json file in the correct folder. There’s no need for code and DLLs that need to be kept up to date! Or, if you wanted to translate the game into a new language, it’s a matter of localizing a CSV file and creating a tiny manifest file - no programming tools involved. Also, with less reliance on external tools and API, we expect fewer modding-related game crashes.
If you are a modder and would like to learn more about the new modding system, its features, the file structure etc., check out the GitHub repository we just published, which includes a few sample mods and tools:
GitHub repository
You can find the new documentation that will help you prepare your first mods on Timberborn Wiki:Documentation on Timberborn Wiki
Oh, and it is now also possible to upload and update mods from within the game - just like the custom maps. After you click the Upload button in the built-in mod manager, you may select any of the mods from the Mods folder and add a description and a thumbnail. If it’s an update for your existing mod, you may also post a changelog.
We hope opening Timberborn to easier modding and launching the Workshop will lead to even more amazing mods and custom maps. If you would like us to make another specific part of the game easier to modify, please let us know in the comments or on our Discord channel.
