Scenarios on mod portal

A place to talk about the official Factorio mod portal (https://mods.factorio.com)
Post Reply
User avatar
Aprillion
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Apr 16, 2017 10:43 am
Contact:

Scenarios on mod portal

Post by Aprillion »

Thanks to the latest FFF "Level designer needed" message, I am now thinking about creating a scenario to improve my Lua during upcoming holiday season.

I wanted to review code of some popular scenarios, but found conflicting info about publishing scenarios:
* https://wiki.factorio.com/Scenario_system suggests "scenarios cannot be uploaded to the official mod portal" and should be published on random places
* but https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... io_portal/ provides a workaround how to package scenarios inside a normal mod
* in https://mods.factorio.com/?q=scenario it looks like people either don't use the mod portal for publishing scenarios or don't create scenarios
* search.php?keywords=scenario&fid%5B0%5D=36 suggests there are more scenarios published elsewhere and linked from the forum

I understand that non-mod-scenarios can be installed on a server without installing on a client, but IMHO that is a smaller use case than using the standard Mod Portal for distribution. The portal provides nice in-game integration, popularity statistics, version compatibility checking, place for discussion/reporting of problems, ...

Are there other reasons why the Mod Portal is not officially recommended for publishing scenarios? Could we add a category on the portal for mods that include a scenario/campaign?

So I can review code of scenarios that are shipped with the game, but which others are popular / well written?

User avatar
Klonan
Factorio Staff
Factorio Staff
Posts: 5148
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 2:09 pm
Contact:

Re: Scenarios on mod portal

Post by Klonan »

Putting scenarios in mods isn't a workaround, its a pretty good way of doing it, and I would recommend it

Otherwise we are just duplicating a bunch of code about info.jsons, descriptions, mod locale etc. when having scenarios like this doesn't really make them work better

User avatar
Aprillion
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Apr 16, 2017 10:43 am
Contact:

Re: Scenarios on mod portal

Post by Aprillion »

Klonan wrote:its a pretty good way of doing it, and I would recommend it
Thanks! Not sure if stuff on reddit gets deleted, but FTR: just put the files inside /scenarios or /campaigns subtree inside the mod.

User avatar
Deadly-Bagel
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 1498
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2016 10:12 am
Contact:

Re: Scenarios on mod portal

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Bump for getting Scenarios added as a tag to the portal - the sooner this happens, the fewer scenarios end up on the General tag.
Money might be the root of all evil, but ignorance is the heart.

User avatar
kizrak
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 75
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2018 1:27 am
Contact:

Re: Scenarios on mod portal

Post by kizrak »

Aprillion wrote:
Tue Dec 12, 2017 1:07 pm
Thanks! Not sure if stuff on reddit gets deleted, but FTR: just put the files inside /scenarios or /campaigns subtree inside the mod.
So I was able to create a mod containing the /scenarios/<name>/control.lua which would show up in the games "Mod Scenarios" under new game. I tried using a similar structure for campaigns but was unable to get anything to show up under "Start Campaign". Can mods (that are uploaded/downloaded via mod portal) add campaigns? or are they limited to scenarios?

User avatar
Klonan
Factorio Staff
Factorio Staff
Posts: 5148
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 2:09 pm
Contact:

Re: Scenarios on mod portal

Post by Klonan »

kizrak wrote:
Sat Aug 24, 2019 11:22 pm
I tried using a similar structure for campaigns but was unable to get anything to show up under "Start Campaign". Can mods (that are uploaded/downloaded via mod portal) add campaigns? or are they limited to scenarios?
Yes, mods can add campaigns, be sure to include a description.json in the campaign folder

User avatar
kizrak
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 75
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2018 1:27 am
Contact:

Re: Scenarios on mod portal

Post by kizrak »

Klonan wrote:
Sun Aug 25, 2019 8:19 am
Yes, mods can add campaigns, be sure to include a description.json in the campaign folder
Thanks a million!

For anyone else reading this later, you also must have an image.png or the game crashes...
The \Steam\steamapps\common\Factorio\data\base\campaigns\npe folder can be used as a rough example (it is the simplest of the base campaigns).

Post Reply

Return to “Mod portal Discussion”