So, a big issue with this game is that it is incredibly reliant on mods to make it a fun game. Now, I'm not saying that this game is bad without mods, quite the opposite really. My point is that a lot of the people who have bought this game who haven't been around the forums yet don't really know much about mods, and it really isn't even obvious how much more fun mods can make this game. My suggestion is that to improve the quality of the game a mod manager should be patched into the game itself as a menu item in the starting menu. That way people unfamiliar with the game will see that this game supports mods and may go looking for mods to install, which may bring interested parties to the forums to see these mods. Just a bit of critique to the game though. Open discussion is welcome with me on this topic, thanks for listening.

If someone hadn't heard of this game before it reached 1.0, and then bought it and played it, I don't think they would even know this game had mods. There's really no indication within the game, which is the problem. Even on the steam page, there's no mention of the modding community. It would seem to me that touting ways to extend the life of your game would be a priority. Considering the glut of "indie" games, being such an open and easy to modify game would certainly set Cortex Command apart from the play-and-forget mindset that I'm sure afflicts many of these games. IMO, of course.

Does anyone remember the cortexmods.com site when it was up?

That is definitely an issue, something needs to be done either through posting stuff on the steam workshop for this game or some other means. But it definitely should be made more obvious and enticing for creative minded people to want to make mods or be more creative in the way they play this game. For example, while the game itself is fun with its campaign mode and individual scenes that are in the vanilla version of this game, scene mods can only extend upon the existing play style of this game, or can even change the way this game works all together such as WeeGee's Cortex Shock (or most any scene mod made by weegee) or the Zombie Defense mod. Also the actor and object editors could be made more user friendly and easier to navigate (although the last time I checked those parts of CC was way back in build 12 so feel free to disagree with me). Maybe someone should post some mods on the game hub on steam for cortex command, or at least post some good reviews just to help out how the game looks. There are a lot of scathing reviews on steam about this game and I feel as though they are not justified either because the reviewers weren't analyzing the game properly or were expecting a side scrolling shooter when CC is actually more akin to a strategy game with side scrolling shooter elements.

I think many players don't realize that the physics simulation in this game, which is giving them problems with walking or other things behaving unexpectedly, is the real meat of cortex command. It's what keeps us coming back to play more, but it's also the source of many of our complaints. I checked the community hub for CC on steam, and what I don't understand is how many players make comparisons with other games that they expected CC to be like, when most of these were released years after playable builds of DIRT & CC were available.

I wouldn't get your hopes up for an in-game mod downloader, though. It seems to me that Data wanted to get the thing out the door so he could work on something a little less restrictive than decade-old code. I've got high hopes for the next project.

I agree with that but what would it take a modder or someone familiar with programming to make a mod or mod manager that could run mods while the game is running so one wouldn't have to wait for the launcher to read all the script for all the mods that are installed? For example:

1. Launch game
2. Game reads all the vanilla files and scripts, etc.
3. Go to mod manager in the main menu
4. mod manager reads and implements the mod you would want to activate (i.e. crobotech, S.A.W., Apollocalypse)
5. Play mods
6. ???
7. Profit

I see what you're getting at. The problem might be hooking another program into the main executable, and then altering the main menu GUI to accept that input. I don't know whether that would be something where you need the source code or not, but here's another hurdle. After you first launch the game and you see all the files loading on the right pane, I don't know if it is possible to load additional mods besides lua from the console. It's been awhile that I tried modding for CC. I think the best thing to do would have an officially implemented system, because that's the only way you're going to reach everyone. Even with games like Arma and Minecraft that have mod-loading programs (SixUpdater and Magic Launcher), what percentage of people actually find and use those? I'll bet a lot of players wouldn't know how to install one mod regularly for CC.

I have a simpler idea. Data can release mods as DLC which will auto install with no hassle. This is a great chance to implement DLC, especially now that it's on Steam (which I'm still excited about). If nothing else, have the forum developers go over a couple of the best faction mods to polish them up to vanilla quality (really not a lot of work at all) and balance them against the vanilla factions. I can guarantee you most mod authors would allow their work to be used for free.

Yea... I'm one of those 1.0 guys. I Became a pc gamer because of mods, but I still don't know anything about them. I tried installing some modes on 1.0 with some succes but there are some that give me a
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RTE Aborted! (x_x)
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Failed to load datafile object with following path and name:

Coalition.rte/Actors/Medic Drone/HealEffect

The last frame has been dumped to 'abortscreen.bmp'

You can copy this message with Ctrl+C
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OK
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I really want to use the mods but Idk how to fix this

When you get an error, CC takes a screenshot of the loading pane (text on right during load) to hint you as to where your problem is. Go to your CC root folder (the game executable will be here) and look for "abortscreen.bmp". Open it and look in the loading pane: what is the last file being loaded? It should be the .ini on the bottom, but if there's no ".ini", go up one line and use that (etc). This .ini will be where your error is coming from. Now, your error also tells you the exact line in this .ini that is wrong:

With the .ini open, search for "Coalition.rte/Actors/Medic Drone/HealEffect.bmp" and make a note of its location. We are going to need to find the correct path for HealEffect.bmp. The first thing you should do is to look in Coalition.rte/Actors to see anything resembling "Medic Drone", but you won't find anything there. In this case, the medic drone has actually been moved from Coalition.rte to Base.rte (Data changes things like this on a build to build basis, it's infuriating to modders, but it's a relatively easy fix). Go to Base.rte/Actors/Medic Drone and you'll find HealEffect.bmp. We're almost done! Remember noting the location of the error path? Replace it ("Coalition.rte/Actors/Medic Drone/HealEffect.bmp") with the correct path ("Base.rte/Actors/Medic Drone/HealEffect.bmp"). This method will solve this singular error, but there will probably be more depending on the build and complexity of the old mod you're trying to use; simply do the same thing I've outlined for any additional errors. Most of the time, something has been moved to or moved from Base.rte.

I hope this helped. If you're still having problems, PM me your mod in a .rar or .zip, or better yet, just tell me the mod you're having trouble with. I've converted many old mods for my own use, and I might have one already working.

YES PLEASE!