A Guide to Modding Stardew Valley in 2024!

A lot of things have changed in the last few years, nexusmod’s UI has changed, the 1.6 update has split mods in two, and I’ve just learned a lot! As such, I thought it’d be fitting to make an update to the modding guide I made two years ago.

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments

Here’s all of the sites I mention in the video:
Nexusmods – https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley
7zip – https://www.7-zip.org/ (I use Winrar, still good, but confuses some people)
Stardrop Mod Organizer – https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/10455
Stardew Wiki Modding Guide – https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Modding:Player_Guide/Getting_Started
SMAPI Subreddit – https://www.reddit.com/r/SMAPI/

Sections:
0:00 – Intro
0:18 – Backing up your files
0:39 – Installing SMAPI
2:47 – Installing mods from Nexusmods
4:37 – Swapping to Version 1.5
5:50 – Filtering mods for 1.6 or 1.5
7:32 – Stardrop Mod Organizer

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Here’s the lofi Stardew Valley music I use a lot:
https://djcutman.bandcamp.com/album/stardew-chill

🕹️ Stream Archives: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfYxeuIkNALOBeSpVEI4ipQ
💜 Twitch – http://www.twitch.tv/salmence100
🕶 Tik Tok – https://www.tiktok.com/@salmence?lang=en
🐦 Twitter – https://twitter.com/Salmence100

9 Comments

  1. I’m currently working on an NPC mod (if you ever see a project called Celestial Vagabond on Nexus- that’ll be me :>) and learning about Stardrop is a game changer for testing mods, thank you so much

  2. Important to note that SMAPI has built-in support for multiple mod profiles!

    In the game's folder, you can create a different folder for each separate set of mods you're interested in having simultaneously.
    Then, you can create as many desktop shortcuts to SMAPI as you have mod folders.
    If you right click on a SMAPI shortcut and left click on "Properties", a little window about that specific shortcut will open. In it, there's an editable field called "Target:".
    You can edit that "Target:" field by adding something to the end of it . If you add '–mods-path "[mod folder name goes here]" ' to it, then click Apply and close the window, each time you use this specific shortcut, SMAPI will automatically target that specific folder to load the mods from.

    For example, in my current setup, I have a mod folder called "HarderValley" in which I put a few mods that make the game harder, like Ferngill Revenue Services (which adds dynamic taxes depending on your income and number of sprinklers). So I created a shortcut on my desktop, and I edited the Target field to read "C:Program Files (x86)SteamsteamappscommonStardew ValleyStardewModdingAPI.exe" –mods-path "HarderValley", then I edited the name of that shortcut to specify which mod folder it is for. Then, rince and repeat for each separate mod folder you have! Right now I have four SV shortcuts on my desktop: the regular steam one, which opens the vanilla game, one which opens a mod folder with a bunch of QoL mods, one for the aforementioned harder difficulty setup, and one for my SVE playthrough 🙂

  3. ModDrop is another option for keeping mods sorted. It's integrated with NexusMods as well, so it'll automatically grab and sort the mods for you. You can even create multiple loadouts with it, if you do multiple different modded runs.

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