Airships Fabric Modloader

This is a modloader based on Mindustry Game Provider to load fabric mods for Airships Conquer the skies

How Fabric Loader works

Fabric¹ uses Java bytecode manipulation powered by ASM² to inject the loader and mod's mixin³ code into the game classes as they are loaded.

To do this, fabric has to run code before the game is even loaded. In fact, when launching a game with fabric, the entry class is not one of the game but KnotClient⁴.

Knot⁵ is fabric's game launcher. It is responsible for setting up the injection and calling your game provider before jumping to the game's entry point (e.g.: main function).

The game provider's job is to provide information to fabric and inject initialization hooks that can be used by mods.

For example ModInitializer#onInitialize is made possible by hook that is provided by the game provider.

Files and Folders

• art/xeloboyo/airshipsloader/gameprovider/services This package contains
• art/xeloboyo/airshipsloader/gameprovider/patch This package contains AMS² bytecode patches that are always applied by the loaded.
  The AirshipsEntrypointPatch injects the game initialization hooks.
  The AirshipsBrandingPatch injects some code to show "Modded Fabric" on the main menu.
• META-INF/services/net.fabricmc.loader.impl.game.GameProvider
  This file is used by Knot⁵ to determine the GameProvider class⁶.
  It has to contain exactly one line with the fully-qualified class name.

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. Fabric is a lightweight, experimental modding toolchain for Minecraft. fabricmc.net ↩

2. ASM is an all purpose Java bytecode manipulation and analysis framework. asm.ow2.io ↩ ↩²

3. Mixin is a trait/mixin and bytecode weaving framework for Java using ASM. GitHub ↩

4. KnotClient.java ↩

5. The Fabric game launcher ↩ ↩²

6. Knot.java#L173 ↩