Modding

Mods for Conan Exiles

The mod devkit is a work in progress and there are many rough edges still. (This also goes for the documentation!) Some things to be aware of:

• You have to restart it when you want to work on a new mod. (This might not get fixed any time soon, since flushing/reloading assets seems problematic.)
• Renaming mods is not trivial, so choose good unique names.
• Building the mod for distribution (cooking) takes a long time.
• The feedback for users when joining a server that has mods is very bare bones right now. It currently requires people to look for the mods manually, but this will be improved.

We will be focusing on fixing these issues and generally improving the modding experience over the coming weeks. Thanks for your patience!

Mods – Short Version

A mod in Conan Exiles is a single .pak (archive) file containing modified versions of game assets, and optionally new assets.

To create mods, get the devkit from the Epic Games Launcher, do your changes and build the mod to generate a mod file. You can either distribute the mod through the Steam Workshop by uploading it from the DevKit, or simply share the file with your friends directly.

Installing Mods

The easiest way to install mods is to subscribe to them on the Steam Workshop. Once they are downloaded you can find them in the "Mods" menu from the Main Menu in game. You can also use mods that you get outside of the Steam Workshop - put the mod .pak file in "<SteamLibrary>\steamapps\common\Conan Exiles\ConanSandbox\Mods" and it will be available in the in-game mods menu.

Note: You have to restart the game before changes to the selected mod list has any effect. The ingame gui doesn't make this very clear right now.

Installing mods on a dedicated server

Note: The process for running mods outside single player is very crude and manual right now. We are working on making this more user friendly.

Client side: To join a server with mods, you must first have the same mods the server is running, with the same load order. When joining a server, you will get a message box telling you which mods you are missing. You cannot connect to the server unless you have those mods installed and activated.

Server side: To start a server with mods you put the mod files (<mod name>.pak) in "<dedicated server folder>/ConanSandbox/Mods/" and add a text file with the file names of those .pak files, one per line like this:

Instead of creating modlist.txt manually you can also select the mods you want in your game client, then copy the file from "<game folder>/ConanSandbox/Mods/modlist.txt" to "<dedicated server folder>/ConanSandbox/Mods/modlist.txt". When clients try to connect to the server, the game will first check to make sure the clients have the same mods as the server selected. If they don't they won't be able to connect.

DevKit

Download and run the DevKit from the Epic Games Launcher (https://www.unrealengine.com/download), under the "Modding" tab. The DevKit is a modified version of the Unreal Engine editor and will let you do (almost) everything the developers can do except C++ code changes.

NOTE: You should install the DevKit with the shortest path possible. The build process will fail if the paths are too long. So to prevent this error, you should install under C:/ConanExilesDevKit, rather than C:/Program Files (x86)/MyStuff/Games/ConanExiles/ConanExilesDevKit.

Discord

Community members have set up a discord for exiles modding: https://discord.gg/66jB9dN. Please read #rules when you join!

Usage

The first time you launch the DevKit it will open with a default mod selected. You can use this to play around and see how things work, but before you start working on something you want to use or distribute to other people you should create a new mod with a unique name. See the section "Dreamworld DevKit menu" --> "Create new mod" below for more details.

Note: The folders in "<devkit folder>/Games/ConanSandbox/Mods/" are used by the DevKit to edit the mod, so deleting a folder here means you can no longer edit that mod. These are the folders you want to have backups of!

Editing existing game assets: Modify assets normally. Note that you can't rename, move or delete existing game assets.

To create new assets: New assets can only be added in "Content/Mods/<mod name>".

Use "Play in current viewport" to test with the mod content loaded.

Sharing mods

When you have a mod you want to share with others, you must first Build the mod. Then you can either upload the mod to the Steam Workshop or share the generated .pak file directly with your friends.

Dreamworld DevKit menu

• Select active mod: Switch which mod you are currently editing. This will restart the editor!
• Create new mod: Use this to .. create a new mod.
  • The name you enter here will be used to create a folder (<devkit folder>/Games/ConanSandbox/Content/Mods/<mod name>).
  • Any assets you add will end up here, so make sure you choose a unique name to avoid conflicts with other mods. (Especially until we figure out a safe way to rename mods >.<)
  • You can change the display name of the mod to something more user friendly before building/uploading to Steam.

DevKit window

• Name: Name of mod as it appears in the in-game mod menu and in the Steam Workshop.
  • The name can't be empty and must be less than 128 characters long.
• Steam file ID: The Steam Workshop item ID used to identify the mod in the Workshop.
  • This is automatically managed when uploading to Steam.
  • Open workshop page: Opens a browser window with the Workshop page of the current mod. It might take a few seconds before the page is updated after uploading.
• Steam visibility: Visibility of the mod in the Steam Workshop.
  • Public: Visible to everyone.
  • Friends-only: Visible to you, your friends and admins.
  • Hidden: Visible to you, admins and users marked as creator.
• Author: Name shown as author in the in-game mod menu.
• Author URL: Shown in the in-game mod menu.
• Version major, minor, build: Show in the in-game mod menu.
• Description: Shown in the in-game mod menu and on the Steam Workshop.
  • Max length is 8000 characters.
• Change notes: Shown in Change Notes on the Steam Workshop page.
• Preview image: A .png image that must be less than 1MB. Used on the Steam Workshop page.
• Upload to Steam button: Uploads the current mod to Steam. You must Build the mod first.
• Build mod: This will cook the mod and package it so it can be used/uploaded to Steam.
  • The build can take a while (up to an hour).
• The generated .pak file is the only file needed to load the mod. You can share this both with and without Steam.
• Open mod in explorer: Opens the local folder of the active mod that the DevKit uses when editing the mod.

Steam

You can upload a mod to Steam through the DevKit so others can subscribe to the mod. Note that changes made to the mod on the Steam Workshop website will NOT be reflected in the DevKit. This means that changes to name, description, visibility or preview image will be overridden the next time you upload your mod from the DevKit, so make sure you update these field only through the DevKit. Changes to the other fields will not be affected.

Creating an example mod

1. Open the DevKit and go to the DevKit drop down menu.

   

   Create new mod

2. Click "Create new mod"

   

   Create new mod

3. Enter a name and click "Create". Once the editor has restarted you can begin creating the mod.
4. In the content folder go to Items/Weapons/Axe and open BP_Axe.

   

   Edit Items/Weapons/BP_Axe

5. Select the 'StaticWeaponMesh' in the Components window.

   

   Select StaticWeaponMesh

6. Change the values of the Scale property of the Transform in the Details window.

   

   Change the scale properties

7. Hit 'Compile' and 'Save'. Repeat for other items (like 'Items/Weapons/Torch', 'Items/Weapons/RepairHammer', 'Items/Weapons/Pickaxe').
8. To test your mod you can use 'Play' from the main window.

   

   Use 'Play in selected viewport'

9. Once you are done with your mod, go to the DevKit panel.

   

   Go to DevKit panel

10. Enter the details and select a preview image (NOTE: The preview image isn't displayed properly yet, it will just show a white square even after you select an image. But the image will be properly uploaded to Steam).

    

    Enter modinfo details

11. Build the mod with the 'Build mod' button. This process can take a while, so be patient.

    

    Build the mod

12. Once the build is done, you can either click "Upload mod to Steam" or go to the 'Built mod folder' and share the 'YourModName.pak' file directly.

    

    Upload the mod to Steam or share it directly