Completely new and trying to add my own npc

[NixCasus]

So I've been following the Stardew wiki tutorials and a few YouTube videos in trying to create and add a dateable npc to Stardew Valley. I have no experience coding but I've got an okay grasp of most of the steps I need to take to get my character into the game, I'm just particularly stuck on the step of WHERE exactly I need to be creating/adding/editing the npc data like NPCdisposition and gift preferences in. I tried looking into the game files Data/NPCDispositions.xnb but I have no idea what I'm looking at when I go to edit it in Notepad++

Thank you in advance for any help or tips!!

 

[Odin]

Just wanted to mention that there's a ton of experienced mod creators over on the Stardew Valley Discord, so if you don't get an answer here, I'd recommend checking out the #making-mods channel there.

 

[Kreeate]

So I've been following the Stardew wiki tutorials and a few YouTube videos in trying to create and add a dateable npc to Stardew Valley. I have no experience coding but I've got an okay grasp of most of the steps I need to take to get my character into the game, I'm just particularly stuck on the step of WHERE exactly I need to be creating/adding/editing the npc data like NPCdisposition and gift preferences in. I tried looking into the game files Data/NPCDispositions.xnb but I have no idea what I'm looking at when I go to edit it in Notepad++

Thank you in advance for any help or tips!!

Odin has probably given you the best possible advice for your request. A lot of experienced modders and contributors are on the Discord.

In the interest of being thorough, are you familiar with XNB files and how to "pack-unpack" them?
If not, there is a really informative Wiki over here. It has information regarding unpacking and repacking XNB files.
It also gives info regarding JSON files and has links to the Content Patcher Wiki.
The XNB application can also be downloaded from there.

Good luck and do post back here with your solution and experience so that other members and gamers may benefit from your newly acquired knowledge!

 

[mouse]

Hey, just to follow up on this after the fact, xnbcli can't handle some of the files added since 1.4, because they are a different type of data file. StardewXnbHack is always up to date (Pathos maintains it), is crossplatform, and unpacks the entire Content folder in one go without the need to move any files to folders and the like.

It is a one-way operation, but (with the exception of some font files) you shouldn't really ever be needing to repack to XNB, since overwriting files in the game's Content folders is strongly discouraged :)

There's an overview of all the files that need to be edited for an NPC on the wiki, and you usually can't go wrong looking at other people's NPC mods to see how they were put together!