User story — Starter Ship Plus Mod

Source mod: test-data/mods/FreeTraits_and_StarterShipPlus/StarterShipPlusMod/ Original mod by: jwebmeister — https://github.com/jwebmeister Mod version: 0.3 (game version 0.12.0.6)

The goal

A modder has played enough Ostranauts to know that the default starter ships are small and burdened with a mortgage. They want a mod that replaces the starter ship selection with high-tier ships — Halberd, Mesa, Ocelot — fully owned, no mortgage, starting near Ok-Leg station with some damage already on the hull (so it doesn't feel like a cheat, just a different premise).

They know what they want in the game. They do not know where character-creation ship selection lives in the data, or how "no mortgage" is expressed.

The journey

Step 1 — Find where character creation hands the player a ship

The modder searches for a ship name they know from character creation — say Halberd. The explorer returns loot:CGEncShipHalberd with strType: ship and aCOs: ["Halberd=1.0x1"].

The incoming refs panel shows lifeevents:CGEncShipHalberdTake referencing it via strShipRewards. That life-event entry has bShipOwned: true and fShipMortgage: 0.0.

Explorer outcome: The modder learns the chain:

A loot/ entry with strType: ship names the ship.
A lifeevents/ entry references that loot via strShipRewards and controls ownership (bShipOwned) and mortgage (fShipMortgage).

Step 2 — Understand the ship encounter structure

From the CGEncShipHalberdTake life event the modder follows outgoing refs and finds the chain:

CGEncShipbreakerShipEvents (loot, strType:lifeevent)
  aCOs → CGEncShipHalberdIntro | CGEncShipMesaIntro | CGEncShipOcelotIntro  [triggers]
  each trigger → CGEncShipXTake  [life event]
  CGEncShipXTake.strShipRewards → CGEncShipX  [loot, strType:ship]
  CGEncShipX.aCOs → Halberd / Mesa / Ocelot  [condowners, strType:ship]

The starting-ship loot table CGEncShipbreakerShipEvents is the entry point. It is referenced by the Shipbreaker career via aEventsShip.

Explorer outcome: The modder can see the full chain without reading raw JSON. They know which entries to override and in which order.

Step 3 — Understand fShipDmgMax and fStartATCRange

On the CGEncShipHalberdTake detail page, the Fields block shows:

fShipDmgMax: 0.6 — the ship starts at up to 60% damage.
fStartATCRange: 7.0 — spawns within 7 units of the start ATC.
strStartATC: "OKLG" — spawns near Ok-Leg station.
bShipOwned: true — no mortgage.
fShipMortgage: 0.0 — mortgage value is zero.

The inline field descriptions explain what each controls.

Explorer outcome: The modder knows the exact fields to tune for starting conditions without reverse-engineering the game's character-creation screen.

Files in the mod's implementation

File	What it does
`data/loot/loot_startershipmod.json`	Overrides `CGEncShipbreakerShipEvents` (the ship-selection loot table) to offer Halberd, Mesa, Ocelot as equal-probability picks. Also defines the `CGEncShipX` ship-loot entries pointing at the ship condowners, plus the trigger stubs (`CGEncShipXIntro/Cont/Take`) with empty interaction payloads that hand off to the life events.
`data/lifeevents/lifeevents.json`	Overrides the `CGEncShipXTake` life events with `bShipOwned: true`, `fShipMortgage: 0.0`, `fShipDmgMax: 0.6`, `fStartATCRange: 7.0`, `strStartATC: "OKLG"`. This is where "no mortgage, starts near Ok-Leg" lives.
`data/interactions/interactions.json`	Overrides the `CGEncShipXIntro/Cont/Take` interaction stubs — these chain the life-event triggers together. The mod versions clear the interaction body so the vanilla encounter dialog doesn't fire.
`mod_info.json`	Loader identification.

What the explorer needs to show for this story to succeed

Searching Halberd (a ship name the modder knows) reaches loot:CGEncShipHalberd and from there the full encounter chain is navigable via the incoming/outgoing refs panels — no manual folder browsing required.
The strType: ship badge on the loot entry signals "this is a ship grant, not an item grant" without requiring the modder to already know the strType dispatch rule.
bShipOwned and fShipMortgage on the life-event detail page have inline descriptions that explain what "owned" vs. "mortgaged" means mechanically.
The strShipRewards field on the life event has an outgoing ref link to the ship loot entry, so the modder can follow the chain forward as well as backward.
The aEventsShip field on the Shipbreaker career links back up to CGEncShipbreakerShipEvents, making the entry point discoverable from the career side too.