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Multiplayer Saves and NPCs

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DooDesch edited this page Jun 21, 2026 · 1 revision

Multiplayer, Saves and NPCs

Saves

A player's tattoos are stored as a list of resource-path strings in the avatar appearance, which the game serialises to JSON (…/Saves/.../Players/<code>/Appearance.json). Custom tattoo paths round-trip through save/load unchanged. As long as the mod + pack are installed, the tattoo re-renders on load; if they are missing, the path is simply skipped (no tattoo, no crash).

Multiplayer

The game networks appearance by sending the whole avatar-settings object - including the tattoo path strings

  • over its FishNet RPCs. So a custom tattoo is transmitted to other players. Whether they see it:

  • A client that has Inkorporated + the same pack/registration at the same path renders it normally.

  • A client without it receives the path but cannot resolve it, so that layer is skipped. No desync, no crash - they just do not see that one tattoo.

Takeaway: for everyone in a co-op session to see each other's custom tattoos, all of them need the mod and the same content. This is the normal caveat for any custom-content mod.

Putting a tattoo on an S1API NPC

Because tattoos register through the game's Resources.Load, the exact path Inkorporated assigns also works in an S1API NPC appearance. Two steps:

  1. Register first (see API Reference). Note the resulting path: Avatar/Layers/Tattoos/custom/<segment>/<Source>_<Id> (segment = Face for face, else the lowercase placement).
  2. Use that path when you build the NPC's appearance, before it is applied:
// after API.RegisterTattoo("ring", "Ring", TattooPlacement.Face, tex, source: "MyMod");
appearance.WithFaceLayer<FaceTattoos>("Avatar/Layers/Tattoos/custom/Face/MyMod_ring", Color.white);
// body placements use WithBodyLayer<ChestTattoos>/<LeftArmTattoos>/<RightArmTattoos>(path, color)

Timing matters: the layer must be registered before the NPC's appearance is built/applied, so do your API.RegisterTattoo(...) call early (e.g. your mod's init), the same as for the player shop.

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