Mod:Modding/Total Conversion

Introduction
These are the most powerful form of new content, and they are listed in the "Total Conversions" section of the main menu, because each Total Conversion is effectively a new game. When you cook a Total Conversion, you need to create an empty sub directory in the Mods folder for the Total Conversion to cook properly. You are allowed to alter ANY OF THE ASSETS YOU WANT, DIRECTLY! Literally, anything you can edit, you are welcome to edit. That includes PrimalGlobals, PrimalGameData, all of the artwork and blueprints directly, even replacing our main menus, startup Movie images and Ogg music files. You basically get to recook ARK the game and add or change anything. You can Cook as many Maps as you'd like with it as well, or just modify TheIsland and recook that (in which case, be sure to specify TheIsland). Total Conversion use a "diffing" check against the shipped game media to only package up assets that you have altered from our originals, this keeps the upload/download size REASONABLY small. Total Conversions also use separate matchmaking per Total Conversion, so you can't see any non-TC multiplayer sessions when you're within a TC (currently the core game will list TC sessions, and ask the user to autodownload the TC and relaunch if they try to join it).

Note: When cooking a TC, you should at least specify TheIsland as a Map to Cook, because various assets are only referenced within that map (Dinos, etc.). Even if you haven't made any changes to TheIsland itself, this will ensure that all assets get "checked" for recooking in the TC. That should do it for you

Maps & Mods in TC
Any maps that you cook with your Total Conversion will be listed in the Maps list when you are playing your Total Conversion. Total Conversions, of course, can not Stack with each other, and while you can technically use Mods with Total Conversions, it can be dangerous if not explicitly designed to work together -- however it will most likely be fine as long as you don't rename your Total Conversion's PrimalGameData (since so all mods inherit from PrimalGameData assuming that original asset name). New Mods and Maps can also be explicitly designed to work with a Total Conversion if you were to upload your Total Conversion source assets somewhere, which you're welcome to do (such as what we've done with SotF). Think of a Total Conversion as a complete alternate set of media & assets for the game, because that's basically what it is! We recommend that Total Conversion creators name their content with "Total Conversion:" at the beginning of its name on Steam Workshop, as that will display best within the in-game Total Conversion list and make it clear to users where they will find this new content listed within the game. Total Conversions have the downside of requiring an application restart to switch them, but they provide the most power to remake the game as you see fit.

Note: There is a new button called "Reset GUID" near the upload section. This resets the "network version" on your Content, forcing players to update if they want to reconnect to a server. Use this if your Content has changed dramatically that might affect network gameplay (i.e. new objects, networking logic, or architectural changes) and you want to enforce a version mismatch multiplayer disconnection with older Content. If you do want to change the GUID, then you actually need to click that button BEFORE you COOK (or cook again after you change it . We'll move that button soon to the "Cook" section of the menu to make that clearer.

Updating the dev kit & keeping track of new content
Before updating the dev kit, you should backup your TC content. A Dev kit update will almost never break the content of your mod. If you want to update your content with the latest update, you should run a diff. (with win-merge for example), that is the best way to update your TC with the vanilla game content at the moment.