Adding and Editing Maps

A map combines several project sources which are built and loaded separately:

Source	Owns
Level Editor entry	The map’s area, engine name, and shape, hit, texture, and script resources.
Map Editor file	Map geometry and marker data, saved under $mod/map/save/.
Map patch	The map overlay’s scripts, native functions, and other local data under $mod/map/patch/.
Map imports	Reusable overlay structures under $mod/map/import/.

Changing the geometry does not change the overlay, and changing a script does not replace the geometry. A complete new map normally needs both an editor file and a patch containing its MainScript.

Add a New Map

1. Open Level Editor and select the area which should own the map.
2. Click Add New Map. Give it an engine name of at most eight characters and enable the Script Data, Shape Data, and Hit Data it will use.
3. Save the level table. The entry is written to $mod/map/MapTable.xml.
4. Select the new map and click Create beside its missing map file. Start from the template or copy a mechanically similar map.
5. Open it in Map Editor, make the initial changes, and save it under $mod/map/save/.
6. Click Create beside the missing map patch. Add the map’s MainScript and other overlay data to the new .mpat file under $mod/map/patch/.
7. Build the mod and enter the map from a known working exit while testing.

Use the Friendly Name for your own organization and the Engine Name for scripts and table lookup. Shape and Hit may be deliberately shared or omitted; do not create dummy assets for a resource you did not intend to enable.

Edit a Map

For a vanilla map, open its source under $mod/map/src/ through Level Editor or Map Editor and save the working version. Star Rod looks under map/save/ first and falls back to map/src/ when no saved version exists.

Map Editor’s Map menu can build Geometry and Collision explicitly. Automatically Build Map Assets is enabled by default, so compilation also rebuilds missing or out-of-date shape and hit assets for maps found under map/save/.

Script changes belong in the map’s .mpat file under $mod/map/patch/. Reusable structures shared by several maps belong under $mod/map/import/.

See Map Render Modes when choosing how a model is drawn, and Patch Expressions for references to map markers, models, colliders, zones, entries, and paths.

Battle Stages

Battle stages use the same Map Editor representation for their geometry, but they are not entries in the world map table. Level Editor maintains them in a separate stage list. Use Add New Stage when the geometry belongs to a battle rather than a world map, then connect it through the applicable battle-section data.