Dev Environment

This page will guide you through setting up the development environment for Star Wars Genesis. It will also cover mistakes people make, even including mistakes seasoned modders from other Bethesda games have made. Please make sure you read through this thoroughly, as failing to do so means it is unlikely your work is officially added to Genesis.

Initial Setup

1. Open Steam and install Creation Kit into the Starfield folder. If done correctly, Starfield.exe and CreationKit.exe are in the same folder.
2. Navigate to \steamapps\common\Starfield\Tools
3. Right click ContentResources.zip and select Extract All. You will be extracting into \steamapps\common\Starfield\Data
   
4. Download CreationKitCustom.ini and throw it into your \steamapps\common\Starfield folder (NOT the Data folder)
5. To launch Creation Kit, either do it through Steam or through the Starfield folder itself.

Warning: You are NOT launching Creation Kit from Mod Organizer 2. If you do so, you will corrupt your plugin.

ESPs and ESMs

An esp is the workable version of your mod. Consider it the raw file. It is important you make backups of your esp every now and then, just incase you make a change that breaks anything. Trust me on this, as people have lost 100+ hours of work in the past because they didn’t make any backups.

I usually just setup a folder for each mod I’m working on and number the backup with any relevant comments. If you’re advanced, you can even setup a Git workflow or something. It’s up to you.

The playable version of your mod is an esm. You can create an esm of your mod in the Creation Kit by clicking File>Convert Active File to…> Full Master. This does not replace your esp, but rather creates a duplicate esm with the same name.

Important: DO NOT EVER convert your plugin into a small/medium master. Even misclicking by accident permanently alters the esp, so there’s no going back unless you have a backup.

Intro Tutorials

Here a few useful tutorials to learn the basics of Creation Kit (loading plugins, placing objects, etc). It’s important to practice a bit (like 1-2 hrs) before jumping straight into a mod. These tutorials are timestamped at the proper time and skip useless/wrong information.

Masters

Master plugins are mods that your mod may depend on to reference assets or locations from it. For example, if you want to place a follower on Tatooine, then you will need to make Tatooine.esm and moseisley__.esm a master when loading your esp. If you want to place down Star Wars assets and props, you would make CoruscantCity.esm a master (that is our resource mod).

In order to be able to load a mod as a master, you must throw the mod’s plugin and assets into the Data folder. Assets are stored in the .ba2 archives. You can extract ba2 archives by using BAE.

In general, you want to avoid adding unnecessary masters, as in you should not just throw all 170 Genesis plugins in the Data folder.

Constraints for Genesis Development

• If you are creating a location/follower and want to give your NPCs armor, leave that Deity to patch. Simply note down the armor that each NPC should use. This prevents asset bloat and unnecessary masters.
• When making a new worldspace, save and restart CK before placing anything down (this helps avoid a bug where placed objects are no longer visible in CK but visible ingame)
• If you plan on making multiple locations, it should all be done in a single plugin to keep things simple. I suggest you name your single plugin accordingly (like DeityLocations.esm, rather than RebelBase24.esm)
• Avoid creating and spamming packins, as they take up too many references
• If you are porting assets, make sure you organize your files in the following way (don’t forget to internalize geometries) :
  • Textures/yourName
  • Materials/yourName
  • Meshes/yourName

Ready to Begin?

We have a list of mod projects available to developers here, ranging from easy to advanced. If you want to pursue something not on this list, go for it! Just keep in mind the following limitations. If you’re unsure, just ask 😀

• Makes relative sense with the Galactic Civil War era we’re in:
  • Bad Example: An alive Revan
  • Good Example: A force ghost of Revan who briefly speaks to you when interacting with x tomb on x planet
• No conflict of interest with another project being worked on:
  • Bad Example: A quest where you kill Thrawn
  • Good Example: A quest not involving Thrawn at all as he is already being utilized for 2 questlines
• No shoehorning of named characters in an uneventful way
  • Bad Example: Luke Skywalker sitting on the side of the road in Coruscant
  • Good Example: A quest that spawns Luke Skywalker on x planet fighting Stormtroopers depending on what phase of the galaxy the player is in.
  • Good Example 2: A quest involving an obscure Legends character

Advanced Tutorials

You do need any of these tutorials. They are simply what I’ve used in the past with success for certain functionality.