Uploading your own mod to the Steam Workshop

This guide covers uploading your mods to the Steam Workshop.

Uploading

You can upload any number of mods you've made to the Steam Workshop one by one to share with others.

Preparation

Make sure the mod folder contains none of the following :

• Files that you don't want anyone other than yourself to have access to.
• Assets or code that belong to another modder who didn't authorize you to use them in your own mod. This can get your mod banned. More info (Valve official link)

That's because the whole folder with all its content will be uploaded.

Info

You can have your mod require another modder's mod via Steam's built-in workshop feature, without asking for permission.
You can also modify the content of a mod you don't own via Actions in your own mod if both are installed together. This is the right way to 'integrate' another mod's content when copy/use permission was not given by the author. Even when using this approach, cooperation with the author makes it easier.

Steps

Next, to go to the MODS menu and find your mod. Right-click → Upload to Steam Workshop. This will open the upload menu.

Here you can see:

• The path to the mod folder.
• The name and description that will be given to your mod in the Workshop.
• The preview (thumbnail) image, that will be visible on the mod page, and the one you will see on the search page.
• The visibility setting (public / private).

You can change any option except the path.

Info

Any special formatting used in the description will not work on the mod page in the Workshop.
Supported syntax can be found on this Steam page.

Info

You can pick the more higher resolution image as a preview image, if available.
By default, the logo image from the mod folder will be used.

Warning

Changing the thumbnail afterwards is complicated. It's better to be satisfied with the first one.

Once you hit Start Upload, the mod will be uploaded to the Workshop. Once complete, a page with your newly uploaded mod will open.

This also creates a .workshop file in the mod folder. This file contains the ID of the mod in the Steam Workshop.

Making changes

Uploading the updated mod is easier than publishing it for the first time, except for changing the preview image.

All you have to do (after making your changes) is go to the MODS menu, find your mod, Right-click → Upload to Steam Workshop.

Info

If you deleted your mod after uploading it, this action will prompt you to upload it again instead of updating it.

To fix this, firstly, you need to place your mod folder in the mods folder. If you happen to not have a backup, you can get your mod from the Workshop and then copy it over to the mods folder.

All mods downloaded through the Workshop can be found in the Workshop content folder within your Steam install — usually here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\799600.
The 799600 number is the actual ID of the Cosmoteer Game on Steam. It's a little tricky to look for the specific mods within the folder, since the sub-folders are all based on Steam IDs, but you can look the URL for the mod's Steam page in order to match the ID.

Once you find your mod, simply copy it over to the mods folder.

After that, go into the folder and add a .workshop file. Open it with a text editor and write the Workhop ID of the mod. It's the same ID you were using to search for it the the content folder.

Once complete, the Upload to Steam Workshop button will prompt the mod update instead of a new upload.

This will prompt you to add change notes for the Changelog in the mod's workshop page. Here you can also see the path to the mod folder and a button to view the mod in the Workshop.

Once you hit Start Upload, the upload will begin. When complete, the mod page will open.

Any change notes you added will be displayed in the Change Notes section of the mod page.

Warning

Currently, the logo is not updated automatically, like everything else in your mod.

Steam Workshop, for some reason, also doesn't allow you to change the thumbnail image on the mod page.

So, the only way to do it for now is to do it manually, using a special Valve developer tool. You can read more on it below, in the Changing the thumbnail section.

Changing the thumbnail

Currently, the thumbnail of an uploaded mod cannot be changed neither through the Workshop itself nor the game (this feature is in development). We must use a special tool made by Valve to do this (based on this guide).

The first thing you must do is download SteamCMD from the Valve developer website and extract the zip file somewhere on your computer. You should see something like this once extracted:

Image

Run the steamcmd.exe application file, located in the extracted files. It should open a command prompt window and start downloading a bunch of files for first time setup.

Once completed, you should end up with a command line that starts with Steam>.

The next step is to log into Steam using the console you have opened. Enter the following command, replacing USERNAME, PASSWORD, and STEAMGUARD with your account credentials:

login USERNAME PASSWORD STEAMGUARD

Info

If you do not have Steam Guard enabled on your account, use the command without adding anything after PASSWORD.

If everything was successful, you are now logged into the steam developer console! You should see something like this:

Image

Now we must create a VDF file to upload to the Steam servers. This file will contain information about the mod and the image, along with a changelog message.

To do this, create a text file inside the folder where the SteamCMD has been unpacked to. The file can have any name, but must end with .vdf extension (instead of .txt extension that the text file was created with).

Then, open the file and copy inside the text below. Make the necessary changes based on the description below.

"workshopitem"
{
    "appid" "799600"
    "publishedfileid" "Your Workshop Project's ID Number"
    "previewfile" "Your Thumbnail Image File Path"
    "changenote" "Added thumbnail."
}

• appidis the Cosmoteer Steam ID and remains unchanged.
• publishedfileid is the ID of your mod in the Workshop. You can get it by going onto the mod page and copying the page URL. It will look like this:

  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=XXXXXXXXX
  

  where XXXXXXXXX is your mod ID.
• previewfile is the path to a new thumbnail image file. You can put it anywhere. If you have unpacked the SteamCMD to the desktop and put the thumbnail image in there, then the path to the thumbnail could look something like this:

  C:\Users\<username>\Desktop\steamcmd\image.png
  

  Or, if the thumbnail is in your mod folder, then the path to it could look like this:

  C:\Users\<username>\Saved Games\Cosmoteer\<SteamID>\Mods\<mod name>\logo.png
  

• changenote contains the change note that will appear in the Change Notes section of the mod page, once the thumbnail is uploaded.

Once you have done editing, save the file and go to the SteamCMD console. Then, type this command, replacing FILENAME with the filename you have chosen previously:

workshop_build_item FILENAME.vdf

This will start the upload, replacing the mod's Workshop thumbnail image with the image you specified earlier.

Warning

Uploading an image larger than 500 KB might result in the rate limit exceeded error.
If encountered, try to reduce the image size by shrinking it or compressing, until its size becomes less than 500 KB.

After the upload, it could take a minute to actually update the mod thumbnail, so be patient.

SteamCMD can be closed with the command below (recommended) or by just closing it.

quit