Project Setup

Start the Wwise launcher that you installed earlier and update the launcher if prompted. Make sure you have signed in to the launcher. It can give ambiguous error messages when trying to integrate Wwise if you aren’t signed in.

Next, open the Unreal Engine tab in the left sidebar. Do not click any of the update buttons on the Unreal Engine Wwise tab. Satisfactory requires a specific version of Wwise to work, and updating can prevent your mod from working correctly.

Click on the Open other button next to the "RECENT UNREAL ENGINE PROJECTS" header and select the FactoryGame.uproject file contained in your Starter Project folder. Your project should now appear in the Wwise launcher. In case you have multiple projects listed, click the triangle button to expand the details and ensure the "Unreal Engine project path" matches the path to your project.

Click on the Integrate Wwise in Project…​ button.

Change the "Integration Version" drop-down from Latest to All otherwise Wwise will not show the version you care about. Then use the "Major" and "Version" dropdowns to select the same version you installed earlier (likely 2023.1.3.8471). The version number may have additional numbers on the end of it e.g. 2023.1.3.8471.2970 but as long as it starts with 2023.1.3.8471 it should work.

If version 2023.1.3.8471 does not appear even after you have selected All, edit the .uproject file in a text editor to be sure that EngineAssociation is set to 5.3.2-CSS.

If this version still doesn’t show up, contact us for help on the Discord.

If you missed a required component as part of the Wwise installation, it may show a yellow warning box indicating what’s missing as well as a button to "Modify" the installation. Go ahead and follow what it says for this step only. If Wwise warns you that it could not find an installation in a red warning box, that means you have not selected the correct version as stated above. If you see a blue box offering both "Modify" and "Add Plug-in", that means it’s configured correctly, so continue to the next step.

Under "Wwise Project" header, click the little triangle dropdown on the right and choose New project to clear the path.

If everything worked according to plan, you should now be able to click on the blue Integrate button. Do so, and agree to the terms to start the process.

That’s it! If Wwise shows "Operation completed successfully," you have integrated Wwise into your project.

Note: the below video demo may select a version that does not match what is written above. Please use the version mentioned in the text above.

Next, we will use Wwise to generate some empty data to avoid the Unreal Engine editor crashing later on.

Integrating Wwise with the project has produced a new subfolder in the Starter Project directory. Assuming your project folder was called SatisfactoryModLoader, the new folder will be called SatisfactoryModLoader_WwiseProject.

Inside the subfolder, find the similarly-named SatisfactoryModLoader_WwiseProject.wproj file and open it which will launch the Wwise editor application.

Find the "Project Explorer" tab in the Wwise editor (left sidebar) and select the SoundBanks sub-tab. Right click on the top level folder and click Generate Soundbank(s) for all platforms.

A pop-up should open stating "Completed with message(s)". Click the Close button in the bottom right.

Finally, close the Wwise editor and Wwise Launcher applications as they are no longer needed for completing project setup.

If you are prompted to choose an engine version when generating project files, or the generation command fails, it’s possible that you have a corrupted engine install left behind from previous modding or Unreal Engine endeavors.

The correct engine version should appear in the picker as 5.3.2-CSS and should not be considered a binary build. To remove a listing for a corrupted engine install, use the Windows registry editor to edit the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Epic Games\Unreal Engine\Builds and remove the key pointing to your "Unreal Engine - CSS" install location.

You can add the correct items to this registry key by either reinstalling the engine or running the SetupScripts\Register.bat script in the engine’s install folder.

You’ll be presented with a few notices upon opening the solution for the first time. We’ll go through each of these below, as some of them can safely be ignored, while others could break your install if you take the wrong action.

Once Visual Studio loads, you should see a folder tree in the Solution Explorer containing entries for Engine, Games, Programs, and more. Expand the Games folder to reveal multiple projects, such as FactoryGame and FactoryGameEGS.

Some of these projects are "real", and some of them exist only for structure purposes. When it’s time to compile your mods, you only need to compile the FactoryGame project (in the Games/ folder). As such, we do NOT want to use the generic 'Build Solution' operation that Visual Studio provides. Doing so will try to run the build one time for each project item in the solution, wasting some time trying to build targets that won’t succeed, and, if there are any error messages, duplicating them many times over!

In preparation for compiling our project, first select the Development Editor Solution Configuration and Win64 Solution Platform in the top bar. It’s near the undo/redo buttons and the play button menu items.

Selecting "Development Editor" means compiling the Unreal Editor program that you’ll be using to make mods.

To start the actual compile process find the FactoryGame project item in the Games/FactoryGame solution explorer tree, right click on it, and select Build.

While you’re there, also click on Set as Startup Project which will make the C‍+‍+ debugger easier to use later, if you need it. You only have to do this once, unless you change the Startup Project.

Compilation will take some time; go pet some lizard doggos as you wait. See below if you run into any issues. You’ll know it’s done when the little box-with-cubes-piling-into-it icon in the colored bar at the bottom of Visual Studio goes away. You can monitor its progress from the Output pane (View > Output) if desired.

Now that you’ve built the binaries, your Unreal Editor should open without any issues.

Almost all warnings, and occasionally some errors, reported by the editor can be safely ignored during the build process. This section will help you decide how to proceed if you encounter errors while building.

Opening the editor for the first time may present you with a few pop-up messages to address.

Click on the Alpakit Dev button in the Main Toolbar of the Unreal editor to open its panel. It looks like an alpaca peeking out of a cardboard box.

You can also bring it up via File > Alpakit Dev from the Menu Bar.

Next, open the alpakit-specific log window by clicking the three-dots button next the icon and selecting "Alpakit Log", or using File > Alpakit Log. This information is also present in the UE Output Log (Window > Output Log), albeit mixed with other editor messages.

Both the Alpakit Dev window and Log window can be dragged by their top tabs and docked as new tabs or panes in the editor for easy access later. We suggest docking the Alpakit Log in the same panel as the Viewport and Alpakit Dev in the same panel as Details.

If you’re wondering what something in an Alpakit window does, hover over it - most elements have expanatory tooltips.

Once you’ve opened the Alpakit Dev window, head over to the "Dev Packaging Settings" heading. For now, the only target we need to modify is Windows (the game client), but later you can use the other options to build for dedicated servers.

In order to get started building mods, you’ll have to tell Alpakit where your game install directory is located so it can copy mod files there for you.

In the Windows subheading, check the Enabled box to enable packaging for that target, check the box next to Copy to Game Path to enable copying built mods, then click on the 3 dots to the right to open a directory picker. Select your root Satisfactory game installation folder. It will be something like C:\Program Files\EpicGames\SatisfactoryEarlyAccess\. Follow the directions on the FAQ to easily determine this location.

Finally, check the box next to Launch Game Type and choose the entry that corresponds to the game install path you provided. This will automatically start the game for you after all packaging and copying tasks are complete.

Below the "Dev Packaging Settings" heading are the mod list and packaging controls.

Right now you should see two items in a searchable list - Example Mod (ExampleMod) and Satisfactory Mod Loader (SML). This is the list of all mods present in your project. They are listed first by friendly name and then by Mod Reference in parentheses. Once you have created a mod, it will appear in the list automatically.

To package a single mod for testing, simply press the "Alpakit!" button next to its name in the list. Alpakit will compile and package your mod for you, then take actions based off of the options you selected in the Dev Packaging Settings.

If you want to package multiple mods at a time, check the boxes to the left of their "Alpakit!" buttons and use the "Alpakit Selected (Development)" button. This will first package all mods, wait for all packaging tasks for complete, then execute any Launch Game tasks you have enabled.

Upon starting an Alpakit task, a popup will appear informing you that the mod is being packaged and the Alpakit Log window will reflect the packaging results.

The Alpakit Release and Release Targets fields can be safely ignored for now as they will be explained later in the guide.

Alpakit will automatically install the mods it packages for you when you have the 'Copy to Game Path' option enabled. The Satisfactory Mod Manager will try to avoid interferring with mods that you have packaged with Alpakit and will not "see" that you have them installed in its own mods list.

If you ever need to uninstall one of the mods you’ve packaged, simply go to your installation’s Mods folder and delete the folder named with the Mod Reference of the mod you wish to uninstall.