Overview
The guide to editing the code within your game of Stormworks. The scope, to help you change your game up! (Note: Some info here may be outdated or just not supported for your platform. I am using Win 10, not mac, but the code is usually the same, you’ll just have to figure out the file paths yourselves but theoretically the file names are the same.)
Getting started
So, to get started you will need an editor (can be notepad, notepad ++, etc.) and a non modified copy of the game.
To get started you will have to go here:
This is the main directory of your game. There is another directory of your game which is like your “options” directory. Essentially the files telling the game what configuration you have. eg: what your keybinds are. The file locations for this place is
Another thing worth mentioning is that it looks like all the properties of game files are mainly in XML, apart from language packs where those were made to be easily understood, therefore in xlsx files.
Since most of this guide is based upon XML files, it is better if you’d have a small understanding of the HTML syntax, so that you can navigate yourself around the code easily
Checking for a non modified copy of the game is easy, in your Steam library, right-click
(Do note that this cannot do a perfect scan of the game. You might want to uninstall and reinstall the game if issues show up)
I used “notepad ++” for this process but this is not necessary, any text editor fit for editing/making webpages is good, for mac, I usually use “BBedit” (Found on the Appstore), the basic features for it are all you need. With all of this out of the way, it is time we edited some code.
Editing the build zone size (Editing the Build Area – Part 1)
To start, we just need to clarify some things. The code/properties for all the islands is under
I’ll be focusing on “island_15.xml”, aka the creative island, specifically the dock area.
So the edit area is usually found at line 675ish, under the tag “<edit_areas>”. Since I am working on the dock I’ll be heading to it’s code. Which starts with the tag “<edit_area>”. To make sure I am dealing with the right code, on the same line where it says “<edit_area>”, there is a property called “id”. That is to distinguish it from the other edit_area, the one I am looking at is
So under the “<edit_area>” tag there is another tag called “<size>”, this is the property governing the size for your build area (An important thing to note is that the axis are switched, X is X, Y is Z and Z is Y, this is compared to in-game size and measurements. And every change by 1 = 4 blocks or a meter). Change as much as you want just remember that as of august of 2018, 255 seems to be the max limit.
Anything that spawns into a mesh will crash your game (usually).
Patching your edits to the build area (Editing the Build Area – Part 2)
So there are a few things we must patch before any of this can work. First up is the
property of the <edit_area> tag, again, found on the same line, this is like the “backup” size, to make sure your mods apply, set the “grid_size” to 0. The second thing to patch, is that editing the size edits both ways, so you will have to edit the “<transform>” tag, this amongst other properties also stores the location (the property values for the location are: 30 which is X, 31 which is Y and 32 which is Z. These are the axis for location), the code in the default state should look a bit like this:
Remember: change whatever location property by half the changed amount in the “<size>”.
Premade modded islands
If ur too lazy and want a premade thing. @Aero has a good editted set of islands. Here is the link to the “guide” explaining what his modified code does and where to get it.
Making new blocks (Making mods for Stormworks – Part 1)
So, after my time on Stormworks and investigation in the game’s code turns out that it looks like the devs don’t really make the geometry of individual blocks easy to read. But, their properties are always in XML files, and this makes it easy for us to modify them! The file location for all the blocks’ properties is under
In the files of each of the blocks, you can find many properties. This is how many mods that add a new block are made!
This page is currently being updated/developed
Update Notes/Statements
Code is either referred to as “code” or as
Locations are referred to as “a location”, and whereas if there is <location/folder> in that location statement, that is a folder/location up to you to find out
<2/28/2020> Polished my guide and “paved” the way for more info.