Please note: If you're intending to make just a customized game server (custom rates, etc) and don't want to produce any mods, please
follow this guide (scroll to end).
You can develop mods by using Client or Server, but we suggest to use CryoFall Editor as it including both Client and Server in a single executable (and some other awesome developer features as well)!
If you own the game on Steam you can
download CryoFall Editor from Steam.
You can also download CryoFall Editor from our website and use it independently. To do this, you need to use create an AtomicTorch.com account from your Steam version of the game and press "Link" button in the bottom-right corner of the main menu (Epic version currently doesn't have this feature implemented, please contact us at support@atomictorch.com if you need help with the Epic version). Once you have an atomictorch.com account you need to navigate to
My Games and Items page, log in, press the "Downloads" button, and download CryoFall Editor.
- Install Visual Studio 2022 (Community edition is free). During installation enable ".NET desktop development" and check ".NET 6.0" in the "Individual components" tab.
- If you already have VS2022 installed, please launch Visual Studio Installer -> Modify -> Enable ".NET desktop development" and check ".NET 6.0" in the "Individual components" tab.
- Extract <game folder>/Core/Core.cpk archive file — you can do this by executing a CMD script located in the same folder. If you prefer to extract it manually (it's a simple Zip archive), please delete the original file after extraction and rename the extracted folder to "Core.cpk".
After that, you can open the game solution file (*.sln) with VS2022. It's located in this folder:
<game folder>/Core/Core.cpk/A few important notes:
- The CryoFall custom game engine (called Renkei) supports live reloading of C#code (as well as all the visual and audio assets) so it's not necessary to restart the game to observe the changes! Though if you feel necessary to force reload everything immediately you can press Ctrl+F5 shortcut. This shortcut is especially useful when editing XAML files (UI markup).
- XAML Designer is not supported (though it can work fine in most cases) and it's recommended to disable it (open Visual Studio options -> XAML designer -> uncheck "Enable XAML Designer").
- You can attach to the running game with VS debugger and use breakpoints. Use Debug -> Attach to process -> Input CryoFall to find the game process.
- To use debugging with breakpoints properly, please go to Visual Studio Options, Debugging, uncheck "Require source files to exactly match the original version" (the game has embedded C# compiler which performs some code-generation and so the resulting C# files do not match the original C# files; it's not a problem for step-by-step debugging as the C# code lines kept intact).
If you wish to create a new mod instead of editing the Core, please follow
this community guide in Steam (skip the outdated part about VS2019 as you already have all the prerequisites).
Regards!
