Starting off with this section may seem counter-intuitive to some, however it is one of the easiest steps, and provides the setup needed for when you actually come to download mods.

The first step is making a folder for the mods to go. To start off with, you either right click on the game, or click the gear icon on the game page, then go to the "Manage" tab, then "Browse local files".

This will open up a file explorer (or your OS's equivalent) at the location of the game's executable and .pck files. Here, you will want to create a new folder, and name it mods (The name is very sensitive, any added characters will invalidate it, and any capitalisation or other non-lowercase ASCII characters will invalidate it).

From here, this is the folder where you'll be placing the .zip files of the mods you want to install.


Similar to accessing the executable's folder, you'll want to either right click or press the gear icon, and this time go to the properties section.

From here, you'll want to select the launch options, and put --enable-mods. While this is in the launch options (as long as there's no typo), mods will load and you will no longer be able to earn achievements or leaderboards, however achievement progress won't be blocked internally and can be granted after disabling mods.

Once this has been enabled, mods will load. If you want to stop loading a mod, you can change the file extension (appending .disabled is my personal preference), move it to a different folder, or if you want to stop loading all mods, you can remove the --enable-mods flag.

This section will be for anyone who wants to launch the game with mods without Steam. This can cover both people who'd rather not use Steam to launch the game, or who use another launcher and don't know how to add launch options with them.

This will be done through a batch file, which as far as I know is a Windows only system. I do not know how it would be done on other OS's.

To start off, open a text editor of choice. I will be using Notepad++, however any will work, including Notepad provided with Windows.

You'll want to put in two lines. The first one will be to set the current folder. This is done with the command cd <folder path of the game's executable>. (e.g. the command to do it to the Steam folder when Steam is located on the C: drive: cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dV Rings of Saturn\"). It may differ based on where your executable is located, but within the folder you provided, the game's .exe file should be there.

The second line is what actually runs the game. This one will be more consistent, and it involves running the application and providing any command line arguments alongside it.
It should look like this: Delta-V.exe --enable-mods
You can also add other command lines, such as --verbose or --debug-console, however you'll only need the one above provided to run mods.

The batch file should look something like this:

Save it, and make sure the file extension is .bat, and you can double-click it to run the game.

Mods will be distributed through a multitude of ways. Most have their own Github or Gitlab repository, many have threads on the ΔV Discord's workshop board, and a handful are available on the Nexusmods page for ΔV[www.nexusmods.com]. If you want an easy way to look over available mods, a list is maintained on the wiki[delta-v.kodera.pl] or on my own Github repository[github.com] containing every known mod for the game, including redundant or currently broken mods.

Most mods have a Github release, and depending on how they're set up, will have different ways of downloading them.
The first and most common way to download a mod is through the releases tab of the mod. The releases section is on the right-hand-side of the page. Clicking on the Releases text shows all releases, with the most recent release being displayed directly below it. I'm using my own mod as an example, as many mods follow a similar scheme.

From here, you will want to go to the release of choice. Clicking on the latest release is usually the best way, but some may have several releases for different mods, especially those with multiple mods in the same repository (such as Bootleg Industries[github.com]). In this case, there is one mod release to check, being the latest, and you'll want to download the pre-compiled zip. Some mods may have several pre-compiled zips, where you can choose specific mod versions to your liking.


Some mods (such as for this example, K-Tech Industrial of Mars[github.com]) have the pre-compiled zips stored within the repository itself. There are a few ways to download these. The first is to download the entire repository using either the download zip from the code button, or the download source button from the releases tab. From there, you can open the zip, go through the folders and extract the zip files you want.




The second way is to download each zip individually. For this, navigate through the repository's folder structure, open the desired zip, and press the download button. This method is considerably slower, and only a good idea if you only want one or two of the mods offered through this method.


Several mods are provided on the repository, but don't have either a release or compiled zip elsewhere. These are more difficult as you have to manually zip each mod yourself. First you'll want to do similar to the last section with downloading the repository's files (see above). After this, you'll want to extract the entire folder to an accessible folder (the downloads folder is usually a reliable choice). Next, you'll decide which mod you want to download. For this example, I'll be using Bootleg Industries's TurnNBurn mod, which unlike the PDT laser and ERM420 mods from that collection, lacks a release.
The first step is to find the mod's ModMain.gd file. This file is the core to where the game loads the mod, and if it's not in the right place, it will fail to load.

Once you have found the ModMain.gd file, you go to the previous folder above it, and compress the folder that the ModMain is contained in. On Windows 11, this can be done by right clicking the folder, then clicking 'Compress to...", then clicking "ZIP File". On Windows 10, this can be done by right clicking the folder, then "Send to", then "compressed folder" (no screenshot for the latter as I don't have a Win10 device on hand while writing this).

This should produce a zip that can be loaded by the game.

This step is rather straightforward. Each mod on Nexus has a manual download button, which should show you the steps needed to download the zip just fine. Just follow through with the free options and you should have it downloaded in seconds.


Most of the old mods (pre-Za'Krin era mods) were hosted on the modding Gitlab[gitlab.com]. Most of these mods are very old, and are not guaranteed to work, however you can always ask for an updated version on the Discord in case you want a patch made.

Once you have chosen the mod you want, most will provide a link to a CI artefacts link, where a large and obvious download button is provided for the zip.



This guide has gone over most of the hosting sites used for mods, however some may be downloaded from elsewhere. Most others you'll find will be on the Discord, which is rather easy and intuitive to download from and will work out of the box. Other sites may be used in future, after this guide was written, and if they become common enough, may get a section of their own.

The Mod Menu is a standalone mod that aides in the maintenance of mods, especially in the event that a large number are installed.

Outside of listing the installed mods, it provides access to a GUI for a mod's config file, and also will check for any updates, conflicts and missing dependencies, assuming that the mod has them set up.

A few other quality of life features for mod users were added alongside the mod menu features, such as installed DLC and mods being displayed in the pause menus, and quadrupling the number of usable saves, however they are complimentary to the mod's purpose.


(note: these screenshots are out of date, as they use the older and now defunct mod menu)

A download can be found on the mod's Github releases page.[github.com]

Thank you for taking the time to look at this guide, and I hope you enjoy modding ΔV.

I'll leave a few reference links for easy access for anyone looking for them but may have been lost somewhere in the guide. I would highly recommend joining the Discord, even if you don't want to do so for modding, as many people are willing to offer advice and tips, as well as answer questions about the game as a whole.

• ΔV Discord[discord.gg] (Workshop Postboard[discord.com], Mod Dev Discussion/Help thread[discord.com]
  
• Wiki mod list[delta-v.kodera.pl], Github mod list[github.com]
  
• ΔV Nexusmods[www.nexusmods.com]
  
• ΔV Gitlab[gitlab.com]

Special thanks goes to Za'Krin for helping spark the recent surge in mods for this game (including the small handful of mods I've written), as well as providing the backbone for most mods produced starting from the mod Industries of Enceladus a few months back.