Welcome to the Intravenous modding guide!

In this guide I will cover the basics of setting up a mod folder, in order to get the mod to load.

Making mods for Intravenous will require some basic Lua scripting knowledge to set-up config files, and maybe write some scripts.
If you do not know how to write code, I suggest you read through the Lua scripting tutorial[www.tutorialspoint.com], especially if you're not familiar with Lua - it's better to read a boring tutorial for a couple of hours, than try to mod Intravenous for tens of hours with no Lua experience, and wonder why the hell nothing you do works.

You will need some kind of text editor with syntax highlighting, and I can personally recommend the following:

Notepad++[notepad-plus-plus.org] - good editor with simple syntax highlighting and indentation.
Sublime Text[www.sublimetext.com] - a really neat editor with more bells and whistles than Notepad++.

I don't think you'll need anything fancier.

You'll need to have a base point when it comes to modding new weapons in.
For that reason, you should download the example AS VAL weapon mod.[www.dropbox.com]

It showcases the following:
1. spritesheet loading
2. new ammo type registration
3. registration of a new magazine type in order for the weapon to support the magazine system
4. new weapon registration
5. addition of the new weapon to the existing base game campaign
6. localization of text to a different language
7. registration of new sounds for use in the game

You should also download the base game weapon config file and weapon code.[www.dropbox.com]
This is a good resource to have, since you can see how different weapon are configured.
For example, a fully-automatic assault rifle is the base weapon, meaning all other weapons derive functionality from this weapon type.
Then, pump-action shotguns and pistols use two different reloading mechanics, so they use a different weapon base, which derives from the assault rifle base.
Lastly, gadgets like the flashbang, grenade, taser, etc. all have specialized functionality which is exclusive to said weapons only.

You can find the code for all the object classes in game by clicking here.[www.dropbox.com]

This is going to be super useful to you if you intend to try and make your own object with some kind of special functionality.

If you're looking for more info on how to register sound effects, clicking here will download the sound registration script files.[www.dropbox.com]

This is useful if you're trying to register a sound with very specific volume/etc.

In order to publish a mod to Workshop, you will need to create a folder in the mods_staging folder, located in the game's root folder:


Inside that folder, you will need to have a sub-folder, called 'files'. Any image you place in the mod's root folder will be used for selecting the image to upload.


The 'files' folder itself should have the main.lua file, which is the entry point for every mod. If this file is not present, then the mod will not load. Luckily, the example mod present in 'mods_staging' that now comes with the game, has everything ready, so you can use that as the base for all your mods! Be sure to take a look at the main.lua file of the example mod, as it has very important information.

Lastly, if you're still unsure on how a mod folder should be laid out, you should, once again, refer to the example AS VAL weapon mod.[www.dropbox.com]

Usually, it looks like this:


As mentioned before, the 'main.lua' file is the main entry point of the mod. Without it, the mod will not be loaded. The example mod main.lua file looks like this (click to enlarge!):

Setting up a weapon config is the most important part to adding a new weapon.
I will not be listing the variables here.

If you're serious about modding, simply open up the AS VAL example mod's[www.dropbox.com] main.lua file and take a look at the comments there.
If you can't find where to download the AS VAL example mod[www.dropbox.com], then you haven't been reading this guide attentively enough.

The variable names, along with the comments, should be enough guidance for people with Lua scripting knowledge to get the ball rolling.

If you do not know how to write code, I suggest you read through the Lua scripting tutorial[www.tutorialspoint.com], especially if you're not familiar with Lua - it's better to read a boring tutorial for a couple of hours, than try to mod Intravenous for tens of hours with no Lua experience, and wonder why the hell nothing you do works.
There's no other way I can put this: you need to learn Lua if you wish to make mods for Intravenous.

Finally, if you're trying to set up a new weapon config and have a question that neither this guide, nor the weapon config files have the answer for, then feel free to ask a question here in the comments. You should also consider doing that on the game's official Discord server[discord.gg] - there might be people that will have an answer to your question!

If you wish to edit the weapon characteristics of existing weapons, instead of adding new ones, then you will simply need to grab the weapon data, and edit it's variables as if you were preparing a weapon config to register a new weapon altogether.

Here's an example:

You must edit the same variables as they are in the AS VAL example mod and in the base game weapon config files.

If you wish to do a quick'n'dirty reduction of noise made by all weapons, you could simply do something like this:


OK... so this is not the best way of doing this... How would we go about editing noise levels of a bunch of weapons at once without copy-pasting code?
Well, you'd need to use a loop again, except this time it'd act as a map:


In the example above we've successfully modified the noise values of 3 weapons: MK23, M4 MOD, and AN-94. You'll notice some of the weapon IDs differ from their names in-game.

If this seems confusing, or you don't understand how to write code, then you should read through the Lua scripting tutorial[www.tutorialspoint.com].
There's no other way I can put this: you need to learn Lua if you wish to make mods for Intravenous.

Let's say you want weapons to deal even MORE damage. To edit weapon damage, you'd need to modify these two stats:


Simple! Now apply the same principle from the loops seen above, and you get the idea...
If you wish to grab a bunch of these example mod scripts, then click here![www.dropbox.com]

Adding a new portrait is simple.
First, you'll need to pack a spritesheet containing the new portraits with this tool[github.com] - the sprite names used when packing the spritesheet will be the new portrait sprites.

Second, your mod will need to load the spritesheets you've just packed. You can do this like so:

Third, you would want to add your new portraits to the list of available portraits, if you intend to use them when setting up dialogues in the map editor.

Once you've parsed the spritesheet containing the sprites - you're good to go!
In Intravenous any sprite that is loaded in the game can be used as a portrait.

Adding a new character name requires you to call a single Lua method.

If you wish to add new actor animations (ie. weapon reload sounds, etc.), then your first step would be to download the "Slow M4 Reload" mod[www.dropbox.com]. This mod makes Steve incompetent with the M4, and showcases how to adjust existing weapon configs, register new actor animations, as well as how to load actor spritesheets properly.

Another important thing worth downloading are the base game animation setup files for the player and enemies. You can download the player animations setup[www.dropbox.com] and the goon animations setup[www.dropbox.com] file archives. They should serve as pretty good examples alongside the "Slow M4 Reload" mod.

New animation registration can be done with two methods.

The first - is actor.genericRegisterActorAnimation()
It allows you to register an actor animation without a frame range. Here's an example - IMPORTANT! the following code is taken from the "Slow M4 Reload" mod provided above. Download it and look at the code to follow along. You'll need to add new spritebatches if you wish to add new custom actor animations.


This just scratches the surface.
You might be wondering, "I can see this uses a custom spritebatch, how do I add one in a mod?". The answer to that is the "Slow M4 Reload" mod code. Download and look through the code.

The second method for registering actor animations is - actor.registerActorAnimationSpriteRange.

This method allows you to setup actor animations with sprite ranges This means it will setup animation frames not from a linear range (x-y), but from multiple ranges. Here's an example:


There you can see the following ranges: {1, 2}, {11, 26}, {32, 36}. This registers the frames 1 to 2, 11 to 26, and 32 to 36. That means there are 23 frames in this animation in total.


You'll need to access the animation setup utility in-game. To do this start the game with the command line "--debug", and then press F9 in the main menu. From there you'll be able to select any of the registered actor animations and adjust their offsets. Once done, simply copy the offsets and override the ones that you have as a placeholder in your custom animation.


This is pretty straight-forward.




Done! Now the spritesheet texture you've just registered (in this case it's the "textures/bs_player_m4_green_animations.png") can be properly used for new actor animations.

Finally, a quick reminder to download the "Slow M4 Reload" mod[www.dropbox.com]. It has a lot of important info which you'll need to know if you're serious about making mods for Intravenous.

In order to publish a map to workshop, you will need to start the game, click on the "Modding" button in the main menu, select "Steam Workshop", and click on the "Publish" button.
The mod submission guide in the game should guide you through the rest!

You will notice a list of tags to use for the mod you're about to submit. Choose the tags you believe are most fitting for your addon!

The general idea of what I personally would pick for a mod for Intravenous are...
Gameplay - the mod changes some of the gameplay mechanics or adds new ones, which alters the gameplay.
Weapons - the mod changes or adds new weapons.
Levels - the mod adds one or more levels.
Graphics - the mod adds new graphical features, be it shader effects, particle effects, or anything else.
Objects - the mod adds new objects that are present in the game world, and impact the gameplay in some way.
Audio - the mod adds/replaces/tweaks audio effects.
Miscellaneous - anything that doesn't match any of the other categories should be marked with this tag.

This guide is still a work-in-progress, expect it to be filled with new information over time, as it reaches completion.

If you wanted to mod Intravenous, but found it requires you to learn a scripting language, then I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.
Intravenous is highly moddable, but requires you to know Lua.
If you arm yourself with enough patience and willingness to learn, then you will be able to make all sorts of crazy mods for Intravenous.

The game is very moddable, in fact almost everything can be modded. All it needs is some documentation - something that depends on how active the modding community is going to be in general.

As time goes by and if the game's modding scene gets bigger, I will provide more examples and more code samples for modders to make use of. Speaking of code examples/samples - if you're wondering on how to get something done, simply ask here in the comments, and I'll update the guide with examples!

I want the modding scene of Intravenous to grow, as I believe it has great potential for mod variety, but my experience with mods of my previous game, Game Dev Studio, is not that good.
Ultimately documenting everything was a waste of time, so with Intravenous we'll start small and, hopefully, grow big.