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Custom Inventory Items: Overview

This feature is valid for Expeditions only.

NOTE: In the current version of Expeditions, there is an issue that saving a custom inventory item may not work when the item is created for the first time. As the result of this issue, you will see the "Can’t open file: ..." message. This issue occurs because the Media\Mods folder is not created automatically. The temporary solution for this is to create this folder manually. Or, as an alternative, create and pack any map. This issue is known and will be fixed in the next versions of the Editor.

What is an Inventory Item?

Inventory items are various tools, equipment and other items that can be either stored in the truck's Inventory or are available from the Radial menu. You can transfer inventory items from other zones or trucks to the Inventory.

Some of these items are directly usable – i.e., the player can press a button to "use" them from the Inventory. By doing this, the player will execute a certain predefined game logic with the parameters that can be tuned. For example, you can "use" such items as a Drone or an Anchor and, during modding, you can tune their parameters.

Other items are not directly "used", but are used in objectives. For example, you can set up an objectConstruction stage to deliver a Camera Trap item to some zone and, upon its delivery, change the _objective model on the scene using Model Building Settings to show the deployed camera. Or, you can set up a task to simply deliver some inventory item to a certain zone, without any visual changes.

The list of possible custom inventory items includes custom Drones, Binoculars, Anchors, Quest Items, Treasure Items, and so on.

WARNING: The creation of custom Drone, Echo Sounder, and Binoculars items is currently not supported. Please do not create the mods of these items since currently they lead to errors. This issue is known and these items will be supported for sure in the future releases of the game.

Limit on Number of Enabled "canTakeInHq" Mods

In the current version of the game, there are 16 slots for inventory items and 16 slots for sideboard items available in Headquarters. Players can take various items from these slots when preparing for the Expedition.

Some of these slots are used for the in-game (pre-built) items, and some slots can be used for the custom items, created in the Editor. Thus, there are limits on the number of simultaneously enabled mods of items that are available in Headquarters (i.e., on mods that have the canTakeInHq option enabled).

The limits on simultaneously enabled mods with canTakeInHq = true are the following:

  • For inventory items: 4 simultaneously enabled mods.
  • For sideboard items: 4 enabled mods.

These limits are for the total number of such mods, i.e. – for both:

  • local mods that are available from local .pak files;
  • published mods that have been downloaded from mod.io and enabled after that.

For example, if you have 2 enabled mods of items that are available in Headquarters from mod.io and 2 local mods of the similar items, creating one more local mod with canTakeInHq = true or enabling one more such mod from mod.io will break this limit. If the limit is broken and the total amount of simultaneously enabled mods of this type exceeds it, some of these mods will not be displayed in lists of inventory items in HQ.

To fit in this limit, you can either disable some of such mods in Mod Browser, or, if you are intensively working with local mods of such items, delete their generated .pak files after local testing.

Categories of Inventory Items

NOTE: Some categories below are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Items with Abilities

Inventory items can provide the player a certain ability, when they are used. For example, DRONE ability type allows the player to use the drone and provides corresponding UI and game logic for that, JACKSCREW ability type does the same for the jack screw, etc.

There always must be a particular set of internal game components that support the ability in the gameplay. That's why the list of abilities is fixed. Your custom inventory items can only be based on one of the abilites that already exist in the game. However, you can modify their parameters as you like.

NOTE: Items with Abilities need to be created as instances of the corresponding child-class of InventoryItemDesc. For example, if you are creating a custom Anchor, you select InventoryItemDescAnchor as the value of InventoryItemDesc field when creating it. See Creation of Custom Inventory Item for details.

WARNING: The creation of custom Drone, Echo Sounder, and Binoculars items is currently not supported. Please do not create the mods of these items since currently they lead to errors. This issue is known and these items will be supported for sure in the future releases of the game.

Quest Items

Some inventory items do not provide any ability to the player and are only used in certain objectives, as quest items.

For example, you can set up such item as "Treasure Island Map" with an icon and description, but without any other visuals. Then, set up some zone to contain this item. Then, set up a quest to find this zone and deliver this map to some other zone. And, upon the accomplishment of this quest, using the Blocker Objectives lists in subsequent objectives, unlock for a player a set of further assignments related to this map.

NOTE: Actually, the Camera Trap item mentioned above also acts as a quest item. Its has no actual properties except name, description, and icon – the visuals of actual deploying the Camera Trap are provided by the _objective model mentioned in Model Building Settings. The only difference of Camera Trap from regular quest items is in the fact that regular quest items are typically unique and used within one level only, but the Camera Trap can be "used" multiple times and on many levels, if they contain appropriately set up objectives. The same is true for some other items, even the "heavy" ones, e.g., for Radio station, or for Hydro-Monitoring System.

Treasure Items

Treasure Items are inventory items that are considered "valuable" and can be sold at the end of the Expedition. Their price at this moment is affected by the passive abilities of some Specialists.

These items have isTreasure option enabled in their properties.

NOTE: Treasure Items can not be available in HQ. Enabling both isTreasure and canTakeInHq options in the properties of an Inventory Item will lead to an error (crash).

Craftable and Recyclable Items

Some of the inventory items can be crafted from Repair parts and/or recycled to Repair parts in the Workshop FOB module.

Particularly, in general properties of an item, the recycleRepairsCost (Recycle Price), craftRepairsCost (Craft Price), craftUseCount (the number of "charges" of in crafted item) parameters are responsible for these mechanics. The special -1 value in recycleRepairsCost or craftRepairsCost fields disables recycling or crafting correspondingly.

NOTE: Parameters of crafting and recycling work independently. I.e., you can create items that can be crafted, but can not be recycled, and vice versa.

Heavy Inventory Items

Heavy Inventory Items are items that are considered "heavy" and can be added to the sideboard of the truck only.

These items have isHeavyItem option enabled in their properties.

In the current version of the game, all explicitly usable items (with enabled isUsable option) can be used from Inventory or Radial menu only. They cannot be used if they are "heavy" and are stored in the sideboard of the truck. I.e., currently, the isUsable and isHeavyItem options should be treated as mutually exclusive. However, this may be changed in the future versions of the game. And, this rule does not apply to heavy items that are not directly used, but are used in objectives – like Radio station or Hydro-Monitoring System, etc.

For details on setting up the truck's Cargo Slots for Heavy Inventory Items, see Cargo Slots.

Note on Fuel, Repair Parts, and Spare Wheels

But what about Fuel, Repair parts, and Spare wheels? Are they Inventory Items?

No, they are not. You can add some fixed amounts of Fuel, Repair parts, and Spare wheels to Cargo Slots, it is true. But these items are predefined and you cannot create a custom inventory item (heavy or not) with the "Fuel", "Repair parts", or "Spare wheel" ability.

Please note that this does not mean that you can not create custom "Fuel", "Repair parts", or "Spare wheel" entities. For sure, you can. You should just create them as Consumables. I.e., they should be created as special addons to the truck that have some visual mesh in a FBX and all XML files of the addon, require some another addon for installation, and are installed to a certain Socket on the truck. See Addon Changes and Consumables for details.

Availability

Custom inventory items can be obtained by the player:

  • In HEADQUARTERS, when the player is preparing for the Expedition.

    NOTE: The canTakeInHq option in the properties of the inventory item specifies whether or not it can be obtained in HEADQUARTERS.

  • On the particular level, from the ZonePropertyInventoryStorage zones.

  • For craftable items: On the particular level, in the Workshop FOB module, after crafting them.

Usage

Inventory items can be used:

  • as usable items from Inventory or Radial menu – This usage will be enabled only if the isUsable option is turned on for these items. For example, the player can "use" an item to execute its ability (e.g., Drone).
  • as items that need to be delivered to some zone – I.e., specified as inventory within the objectConstruction stage.
  • as items required for the particular ability that, in its turn, is required for the particular minigame – I.e., during the setup of the ZonePropertyMinigame zone.

Type

Every inventory item has a type, specified as type in its properties. For example, Anchor and Removable Anchor are different inventory items, with different identifiers, but have the same type.

The type of the inventory item works as its category (or tag). And, inventory items are frequently referenced in other settings by their type instead of their identifier. For example, you can specify only the necessary type of the inventory item to be dropped in ZonePropertyInventoryStorage zones and omit the particular identifier of the item (itemName) there, if necessary.

The set of possible values of type is predefined. I.e., you can select there only one of the item types that are already available in the game. However, the creation of new types is not necessary, since the behaivior of the inventory item is mainly affected by other fields. The large number of types visible within the type drop-down should not daunt you, since most of theses types correspond to various quest items used by the objectives of the original game.

NOTE: Inventory item's type does not directly affect the behavior of this ivenentory item. However, the objective and zone settings frequently refer to it instead of the identifier of the item and this should be taken into account. For example, if you are setting up a delivery of the inventory item in the objectConstruction stage, you should be aware that any item with the specified type may be delivered to accomplish this stage.

Pipeline for Creating Inventory Items

See Creation of a Custom Inventory Item.