Hello! The I think it may be in your best interest to join the Discord server where we have an active modding community that may be able to help guide you, they may need more insight on whats been done in your attempt so far https://discord.gg/eHy4Ze5sS

I tried to go there but there wasn't anything there about modding?

Hello jhkreiter,

they exist in the heads of modders. Problems are normal.

DONE BY YOU : Find the local mod directory of your Sins2-Installation.

Mine would be C:\Users\<user_id>\AppData\Local\sins2\mods 

DONE BY YOU : Put your Mod-Folder there

/<my_mod_name>

DONE BY YOU : Put a ".mod_meta_data" -File there, that contains valid JSON

Like

{

    "compatibility_version": 2,

    "display_version": "0.0.2",

    "display_name": "<Name of your Mod>",

    "short_description": "<Description of your Mod>",

    "logos": {

        "large_logo": "<Large Icon>.png",

        "small_logo": "icon_120x60.png"

    }

}

DONE BY YOU : Sins of a solar empire shows your mod

You start the game, find "Modding" and pick the Tab other than "MOD.IO".
A shuttle selection appears and shows your mod on the left.

Do I have to have everything in the list?

I don't have logos

I tried it and it says it is not compatible, but I have the not compatible mods set to true.

Here is my file

{
    "compatibility_version": 2,
	"display_version": "0.0.2",
	"display_name": "<Vasari Mod>",
	"short_description": "<Testing Mod>"
}

Hey, could it be, that your .mod_meta_data is saved as .txt?
Make sure, that you save it as .mod_meta_data and not .txt
What's your tag over discord? Ping zabik there, and I'll take a look at your mod

Nope it is saved like you said. 

My user name is my email [email protected]

Dear jhkreiter,

do you develop on a Windows operating system?
Then it is possible, that your .mod_meta_data is  secretly a .mod_meta_data.txt file.

Please open the DOS terminal and type following commands

cd <directory of your mod>

dir

Do you see something like following?

...

11.06.2026  23:40               140 .mod_meta_data

               1 Datei(en),            140 Bytes

...

This is what it looks like.

C:\Users\kritt\AppData\Local\sins2\mods\Vasari Mod>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is ACE1-4B86

 Directory of C:\Users\kritt\AppData\Local\sins2\mods\Vasari Mod

06/04/2026  09:22 AM    <DIR>          .
06/04/2026  09:22 AM    <DIR>          ..
06/04/2026  09:09 AM               143 .mod_meta_data
05/01/2026  10:47 AM    <DIR>          entities
               1 File(s)            143 bytes
               3 Dir(s)  1,749,811,240,960 bytes free

Wow, 

as soon i made a /vasarimod folder inside of my mod folder

 and placed your data in a .mod_meta_fata file in this folder

the game instantly showed a new mod to me.

At least i know now, that you use Windows.

Please load one mod from mod.io to make sure, that the folder is free of problems.

After loading a mod.io mod, there should be a mod.io sub folder in your mod folder.

Best of luck. I press the thumbs.

I finally got the mod to work, kind of, but I can not get the starting assets to change.

I use the normal start but it doesn't change them and I tried to do it in the player file but that did not work either.

I know my mod is working because it changes other thing in it.  Also I seem to have the same problem with adding research.

Any Ideas?

Hello jhkreiter
Start conditions are set in /entities/*.start_mode files.
These have to listed without file extension in the files

/entities/start_mode.entity_manifest

/uniforms/start_mode.uniforms

Best of luck and success.

Yes I tried that, if I mod the normal start mode nothing happens.

However if I change the name of the original to old normal start mode then it reads the one in the mod, if I don't change the name of the original it looks like the original over writes the mod.  I find that it only occurs with the start mode files.

On another question, how can I get all of the research done in the start mode file?

I tried it but when I put the level up to 5 it crashes.

Hello jhkreiter,

to my best knowledge the research tiers are counted from 0(zero) to 4(four) by the game.

If you did not change the *.player files to contain more than 5 research tiers,
then you setting it to 5(five) is trying to call in a research tier,
that does not yet exist for the game.

You already know the settings  

"faction_configurations": [

....

"starting_research":
{
"starting_civilian_tier": x,
"starting_military_tier": y,
"starting_research_subjects": [ 

                "trader_autocannon_weapon_damage_0",

                "trader_autocannon_weapon_damage_1",

...

]

At ...  in "starting_research_subjects" has to be each and every research topic, that you want to be unlocked.
In your case, this is each and every research subject in the *.player file of the faction you want to change.

Best of success