Mod Cross-Compatibility

Development Modding ARK: Survival Evolved
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1

I just discovered a bit of mod cross compatibility by chance so figured I’d share it. Not really sure what all could be done yet other than the example’s I am about to give.

For your own mods:
Just add the item from mod A to a spawnable/craftable inventory of some type such as a storage box from mod B. I’m guessing (have not tested) it may also work with crafting too. IE: Use resource from mod A to craft item in mod B.
Mod A & B both need to be running in game or you will only get items from running mod if running mod is one with inventory references.

**For another mod: **
Open your steam/mods folder, get the path & name of an item from another mod, recreate the folder/s in your devkit (open “mod.info” for mod’s main folder name), make a primal item named the same as the other mod and add it to an inventory like a storage box. As long as the other mod is running, when you spawn in or craft that box, it should have the other mod item in your box.
I can spawn a box in-game that has items from 4 different mods. 3 are my mods, 1 is FancyFlannel’s Epic Sickle mod. Only issue is that when you remove items from the box it makes the slots go negative. But that just means you can store that much more in it.
***I would very highly recommend, make that demand that you contact the mod author and get permission if you plan to include references to someone else’s items in your mod. ***

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3

You sure can!

5

Hi

What happens if the mod I wish to include the item from is not installed? Will the client or server handle this by silently ignoring the item or will it crash something?

6

It looks like it just ignores it. I have not seen any issues with a standard inventory. If you did this with a supply drop and the drop went to put one of the non-existent items into a crate on spawn, the crate itself will not spawn. You’ll only get the beam and it will stay there until a server reboot.
In my storage box I just don’t see the items for non active mods.
If the missing “Mod A” item is a crafting resource, that would probably cause issues with “Mod B”.

7

this has been known a long time, as long as the item you create is in the proper location in your dev kit and not in the directory your mod is in it will cook referencing that item in the other mod folder in your dev kit and when it loads in the game it will take the other mods version of the item because the one you have in the dev kit wasn’t cooked with your mod since its in another directory structure. so if your mod is mod/somemod and thiers is mod/thiermod and you make a new mod folder in your mods folder called theirmod and copy the directory structer and naming completely identical you can cook it for use in game.