Moding Guide

A modding guide to the wonderful world of Sunless Sea modding! Fortunately and unfortunately, there's fairly few mods presentedly released. On one hand, that makes learning a bit more challenging than modding, say, an Elder Scrolls game. However, it also means you could be the first to strike gold and create a beloved mod for the community for years to come!

First of all: Due to the risk of potentially cause irreparable damage to your game's files, it is highly advised that you create a backup copy of the Sunless Sea folder on your computer All modable files are located in C/users/(username)/Appdata/Locallow/Failbetter games/sunless sea

Modifying a Ship's Stats
For example, let's edit the cargo value for the Phorcyd-class Corvette
 * 1) Open
 * 2) Make copies of the   and   files
 * 3) Create an entities folder in the addon folder; move both of these copies into this new entities folder
 * 4) All edits are to be made on the copies you just made and not on the original files found outside of the addons folder.
 * 5) Make sure any edits you make on one file, you make to its "_import" counterpart. So here, any changes you make in   also need to be made to
 * 6) This is to be done whenever you mod anything in Sunless Sea.
 * 7) Search "102031" using ctrl+f
 * 8) Scroll down to find the line which states the ID for the ship's value you're editing; for our example, we're looking for the Phorcyd's ID, which is "109807"
 * 9) Once you know which ship you're editing, scroll up until you find the "Level" variable above the stat ID'd "102031" (which is cargo space)
 * 10) Edit that value to whatever it is you'd like; it should be 40 on the Corvette initially.
 * 11) Save both files, make sure they're in the addons folder, and you're done. Congratulations! You just made your first Sunless Sea mod!

Adding Profile Avatars
For example, let's create a new profile picture from avatar_other7.png


 * 1) Open
 * 2) Make a copy of
 * 3) Edit this photo in the image editor of your choice
 * 4) Save this newly edited image back to the same icons folder under a new name being sure to keep the avatar_ prefix, say   (If you attempt to replace an existing file in this folder it will be overwritten next time the game runs)

Once you have completed the steps above the avatar will show up on character creation.

If you want to apply this avatar to an existing save you can do the following:


 * 1) Open your current save at
 * 2) Make a copy of this file so you don't lose your saves if something breaks.
 * 3) Search for "AvatarImage" using ctrl+f
 * 4) Replace the filename following it to be your filename, in our case we picked avatar_other7 initially and will change it to say avatar_custom
 * 5) Save this file, from now on this save and the future ones you make with this captain will have your custom profile photo.

Modifying an Item's Stats
Any experienced modders are welcome to explain how they did this!

Modifying a Shop
Any experienced modders are welcome to explain how they did this!

Modifying a Story
Any experienced modders are welcome to explain how they did this!

Creating a Ship
Any experienced modders are welcome to explain how they did this!

Creating an Item
Any experienced modders are welcome to explain how they did this!

Creating a Shop
Any experienced modders are welcome to explain how they did this!

Creating a Story
Any experienced modders are welcome to explain how they did this!