UFO:Afterlight can be extensively modified through modding, and ready made modifications can be packaged in mod and used without technical knowledge.
Mods
Most UFO:Afterlight mods can be found on Strategy Core's mod section. This wiki's information are based on the core game, without any mods.
To use a mod, extract all vfs files in the mod and put them under the game's root directory.
The root directory is decided during installation, and defaults to
C:\Program Files (x86)\CENEGA\UFO Afterlight\ or C:\Program Files\CENEGA\UFO Afterlight\.
It should contains the game's main file UFO.exe.
If the folder or file does not exist, you need to find out where the game is installed to; creating new folders would not help.
Note that some mods are designed for earlier game versions, and may not work with latest patch. UFO:Afterlight is relatively well designed, and is fun even without any mods.
Modding
A kind spirit ShadowWarrior has created a step by step modding guide for Afterlight's predecessor, Aftershock. Since both games use the same engine, most of the information including steps, files, and tools are all applicable to modding Afterlight.
Modding UFO:Afterlight can be done in five simple steps.
- Extract game data from gamedata.vfs (other files may not be moddable.) Many data on this wiki comes this way.
- Modify, add, or removes the numbers / data / texture / model etc.
- Create an empty vfs using vfs tools, whose name must starts or ends with "mod", e.g. "mod_imbalance.vfs"
- Add the changed files into the new vfs, using same file structure as game data.
- Put the mod vfs at game's root folder. Launch the game.
Please refer to your tools' documentation or tutorial for how to extract, create, and stuff vfs files. The official modding guide on Strategy Core explains many important data structures.
Forums
The modders used to discuss mods and moddings on ALTAR Games' official forum.
After ALTER's acquisition by Bohemia Interactive [1][2], the forum is down since 2012 March [3].