I am a programmer and amateur gamedev that wants to look into creating mods for Ark. I have an idea to create a fantasy conversion for Ark. With that said, I would like to know what is possible.
1.) Can you add new creatures to the game, or only edit existing creatures?
2.) Can you add new functionality to the game? I.E. could I create an item that shoots fire, or teleports you?
3.) Can you add new engrams to the game? (It appears that you can, just confirming)
4.) Can you lock engrams with a negative requirement? IE, can you say “Requires X engram, must NOT have Y engram” so that you can lock certain choices on the engram tree and create “talent trees” in this way?
5.) What else would be useful to know in creating a mod like this?
Yes… to a limited extent. Devs have not exposed all parts of the game and code… you are limited to visual scripting events based on dino/item/character blueprints. They are slowly opening up more.
Yes.
No.
The biggest limitation is that you are effectively manipulating blueprints only, with a small degree of event-driven variable manipulation. The devs haven’t exposed any of the code (especially AI) or allow you to change any core mechanics of the game… so things like smarter AI, interactive NPCs, merchants, scripts/dynamic events (or changing event mechanics), mission/quests are not possible currently.
That all said, in terms of overhauling models, colors, visualizations, items, weapons, armor… you can actually achieve a lot. I would say definitely give it a go… by the time you get the base modding done you’ll probably be able to do a lot more below the hood and totally transform the game mechanics.