Manual Installation Process for SML, Bootstrapper, and Mods

We highly suggest you follow the directions here to use mods and SML instead, since it vastly simplifies the process of installing, testing, and using mods.

If you’re a mod developer, you should still strongly consider using the launcher. You need to change Configs to development to handle installing SML and the bootstrapper for you.

Installing Mods

If you don’t want to use the Launcher for some reason, or you are a mod maker and want to test your mod without it, continue reading below for instructions.

Installing Bootstrapper

Visit SMR/bootstrap-versions to find the bootstrapper version you want to use and download it.

After that you just need to copy the xinput1_3.dll and the msdia140.dll to <game root>/FactoryGame/Binaries/Win64/

Installing SML

Now that you have installed bootstrapper you need to download a version of SML compatible with that bootstrapper version and with your game from SMR.

After you have downloaded it, you need to place the file into <game root>/loaders.

If the folder doesn’t exist, just create it or start the game with the installed bootstrapper version once.

Installing Your Mod of Choice

On SMR, navigate to your desired mod’s page, click on versions in the upper right left corner and then click download on your desired version. Usually this will be the top version in the list.

Always check to make sure that the SML Version column for the version you choose matches the version of SML you have installed. You can attempt to install the mod with mismatched versions, but most of the time, it won’t work.

Now just copy the downloaded .smod/.zip file into <game root>/mods.

If the folder doesn’t exist, just create it or start the game with bootstrapper and SML installed once.

Installing "Raw" or WIP mods

If you don’t have a .smod/.zip of the mod and the proper data.json file you still can use them.

Just place the .pak, .dll and .pdb files if you need them into the mods folder and start the game with the SML config setting developmentMode enabled.

SML wont be able to handle dependencies!

That means if your mod has other mods as dependencies, we can’t be sure it will be loaded after the dependencies. This is another reason to use the launcher instead. But you can try to name your files so its name comes after the name of the dependencies if the mod list is sorted after names.

If you need to know how to enable developmentMode, please refer to the SML Configuration Page.