Modding language reference
The Modding language reference covers the languages and frameworks a mod is written in. These are not in-universe abstractions — they are constructs in the modder’s editor that exist to control what happens in-game.
When you have a question like:
- “How does a Cue’s lifecycle work?” → look up Cue
- “What attributes can
<order>take in an aiscript?” → look up Order definition - “How do I register a Lua callback for an MD signal?” → look up Globals (RegisterEvent)
- “What’s the schema of
god.xml?” → look up god.xml
You’ll find: schema, attributes, lifecycle, common idioms, gotchas, examples.
For the in-universe entities these languages control — Station, Ship, Sector, Faction — see the Game API instead.
Categories
Section titled “Categories”The high-level event-driven scripting language used for missions, story content, and most mod logic. Cue, Library, Action, Condition (event), Expression, Variable, Namespace.
The lower-level language used to define NPC ship behavior. Order definition, Interrupt, Attention, state-machine patterns.
Player-facing UI written in Lua. Helper API, Globals (RegisterEvent, SetScript), FFI bridge, third-party APIs (SN Mod Support APIs).
XML schemas modders read or diff to add game content. god.xml, parameters.xml, macro.xml, stationgroups.xml, constructionplans.xml, etc.
Why is this separate from Game API?
Section titled “Why is this separate from Game API?”A modder reasoning about what they want to do uses a different mental model than a modder reasoning about how to write it. Mixing the two — Cue under the same heading as Station — buries language constructs in a list of game entities and slows lookup.
The two trees cross-reference freely. The Cue page mentions Station as an example of an object you can manipulate; the Station page mentions which Cue events fire about it.
Prototype status
Section titled “Prototype status”All pages in this section are currently placeholders demonstrating the navigation structure.