NKHook6 Example Mod

An example mod template to use for your Bloons TD 6 mod using NKHook6

Project setup

This Example Mod uses CMake, which may seem scary at first. Most modders are farmiliar with Microsoft's Visual Studio project setup using a .sln file for the solution, or a .csproj for a single project, or both used together.

Using CMake provides some advantages that the traditional setup doesn't allow.

• Faster
• Cleaner
• Freedom in project structure
• Can be used with more IDE's than the alternative
• CMake generates the project around how you use it

Let me elaborate on that last part. That is one huge reason this project uses CMake. With the CMake setup for the standard NKHook6 Implementation, we need the implementation to include the API code. Doing this with the standard setup can be very messy and annoying to work with. With CMake, its a different story, we can simply add the submodule and build the code into the main implementation, while still maintaining the API as a seperate project with its own repository.

Most of you probably won't care about these things either way, but it's important to know what you're working with when using this as an example for your project.

Another interesting this to take note, this project does not touch the game's code directly ever.

Setup

This section is to help you get your build system setup.

This project requires CMake, .Net Framework 4.8 or newer, as well as an IDE. I'd advise Visual Studio Code but almost anything will work. If you still have issues with building, consider installing Visual Studio Community

Now that you have your tools set up, lets get building!

CMake Cache

Before we can do anything, we must set up the CMake Cache. This is for cmake to use to build our project. We only have to do this once, but you may do it as many times as you please. To generate the CMake cache, do the following command in a Terminal or Command Prompt window.

cmake .

Building

Now that the cache is ready, we can build. There are 2 different types of builds that we care about: Debug and Release.

Debug is good for testing your mod to ensure it is working as expected. To build with Debug, use the following command:

cmake --build .

Release is used for when you want to share your mod with the world and have other people use it. To build with Release, use the following command:

cmake --build . --config Release

Project structure

Here's a map of the project, containing a description of what each file is for.

Root
|
README.md - This file
.gitignore - Lets Git know what kinds of files to ignore
CMakeLists.txt - This is the main file for CMake, it has information about project setup and structure.
Entry.cs - The file for where code execution begins.
Events.cs - A seperate class that Entry.cs adds as an event handling class.
|
References - This folder is where libraries for the project are stored.
|   |
|   CMakeLists.txt - This file tells CMake what libraries exist.
|   NKHook6.dll - The NKHook6.dll your project will be using ([UPDATE THIS](https://nkhook.pro/pages/bloons6.html)!!)
|   MelonLoader.dll - The dll for MelonLoader code that your project must include to be loaded into the game.
|
Properties - Where the C# AssemblyInfo.cs is stored.
|   |
|   AssemblyInfo.cs - General info for C#/.Net runtime to use, MelonLoader also uses this for mod details.
|   CMakeLists.txt - This file tells CMake that the AssemblyInfo.cs file is code.

Conclusion

Cool! You should now have a good understanding of this project structure and how to make mods with it. Happy modding!