Overview
A quick guide on how to find Workshop mods, move them so that the Forgotten Construction Set (FCS) will recognize them, and the basics of editing them.
Finding Workshop Mods
Workshop mods do not appear in the FCS’s mods list, meaning you are unable to edit them. To fix this (on Windows), you need to find Kenshi’s numbered Workshop folder using Explorer. This folder will always be numbered “233860“, which is Kenshi’s Steam ID. You can find this at the end of Kenshi’s URL in its storepage, and this should hold true across all games with Workshop support. The filepath should be “/Steam/steamapps/workshop/content/233860“, and, if you don’t know where your Steam folder itself is, it’s most ikely in C:/Program Files.
Next, you have to find the numbered folder of the mod you wish to edit. For this example we’ll use my “Global Setting Tweaks” mod. Looking up the URL in Steam or a browser shows the numerical ID at the end to be “1596588773“. So that’s the folder it’s in. Huzzah!
Now we copy the folder, then paste it to “Steam/steamapps/common/Kenshi/mods“.
Then open it and copy the name of the .mod file inside (if you don’t have filetype suffixes showing, it’s just the one without punctuation at the beginning) so we have it exactly, then rename the numbered Mod folder to that by pasting. The mod folder name has to match the name of the mod within.
Editing Mods
Now we open the FCS by launching Kenshi from Steam and selecting “Launch Game Editor“.
If for some reason you don’t get this pop-up, or just prefer it, you can also find the file “forgotten construction set.exe” in your Steam/steamapps/common/Kenshi folder and open it from there.
Select our newly-visible mod file (if it’s not in the list, double-check that the folder name is the same as the mod file name), making sure it’s the active mod – for safety, for now, it’s best to deselect any other mods in the bottom window. “gamedata”, “Newworld”, “Dialogue”, and “rebirth” in the upper window are the base game’s files. They need to be checked to have all the things available to edit, but generally should not be edited directly.
Okay, now we’ve got our mod open. Now, to see all the things it edits, click the handy-dandy “Changes” button in the toolbar at the top.
This should bring up a list of all the things the mod, well… changes. Click the little + sign to expand sections. Newly-created things are in green, modified things are in blue. For this mod, all it’s done is edit global settings (which we can easily do ourselves by just clicking “Global game settings” in that same toolbar [but there’s already a guide for that, No-hive]).
So, say we hate logic and so want to revert how this mod sensibly changes robot wear rate because we’re a crazy person, just as an outlandish, ridiculous example. Right-click “robot wear rate” and click “Revert” and voila! We’ve made skeletons made out of aluminium again.
The mod no longer edits this value, so the vanilla setting will prevail – unless another mod edits it. This is also useful, for example, if we have another mod that edits this setting and another, and we like how this mod changes squad size better, but like the other mod’s robot wear rate better. So we want this mod lower in the load order so its squad size settings take priority, but by reverting its wear rate setting, the mod higher in the load order’s changes will apply instead.
Now, we also really want to feel like we’re being swarmed by hordes of zombies, so we wanna up this mod’s attack slots value. Double-click the “max num attack slots” setting (or, any of these, they all go to the same window in this case, but it’s a good habit to be in), find that in the list, and change it to 5 or whatever you like.
Now, for the key step. Do not forget it. For the love of Ruroninuyasha. SAVE.
Close the FCS, unsubscribe from the original mod, so that the original and the edited version don’t conflict (after making sure to rate the mod), launch the game, and you should be set. Happy swording!
