Introduction
The Temporary Escape game has been built with modding in mind. The game is so easily moddable that you only need a text editor to start with. No compiler, no SDK, no complex IDE required.
What can be done with modding?
Almost anything! Almost all gameplay elements are moddable. Only the shaders and some the rendering pipeline is locked.
The following this can be added as new or entirely modified:
- Textures
- Ship blocks
- Models
- Factions (ships, AI behavior, spawns, etc.)
- Sector types (what should the sector contain, etc.)
- Missions
- Items
- Sounds
- Ship turrets
What kind of data is there?
Most of the modding is done via Lua scripts. The Lua scripts are used to initialize and process the game database. The game engine uses the database to store persistent data, and also to populate the galaxy, such as setting up the factions. See more in the Lua page.
Some of the data is stored in YAML files. These represent some of the assets such as ship blocks. These files are always needed even when you connect to a server. The Lua is used only on the server.
The rest of the data are textures, models, sounds, and audio.
What is fixed and cannot be modded?
- Shaders, because the game engine is not flexible enough.
- Fonts, because that would mess up the text sizes (don't ask why), because of again, the engine is not flexible enough.
- Anything to do with the rendering pipeline. You can not modify how the objects are displayed on the screen.
Recommended tools
Any kind of text editor that supports syntax highlighting and deals with \n correctly (not a Windows notepad!)
I highly recommend Visual Studio Code or Notepad++ (both are free) for Lua or YAML files modding.
I highly recommend Blender if you want to make new models (such as asteroids).
I highly recommend Krita or Gimp if you want to make new textures.
Getting started
Please, first read the Manifest page.
Then continue in this recommended order (it's not required to understand it all):