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This is a draft for the revised Community Recommended Fixes and Addons Guide

Introduction[edit]

Hello, and welcome to the Community Recommendations for Docking Station guide! As some may be aware, this is a revised version of the Creatures 3 & Docking Station Community Recommended Fixes and Addons guide I wrote back in 2019. Whilst that guide was fully intended to be a "living" document that would be updated as time went on, after a few years and some great feedback I figured it was time to take this back to the drawing board and give it a good ol' polish.


An Important Note on Game Versions![edit]

Since the beginning of this project, a significant development has occurred; Creatures 3/Docking Station has been released on Steam! Not only that, but it was released with a slew of fixes, and is still receiving updates every so often, as of the time of writing this. For this reason, this guide will be strongly recommending that you simply buy the Steam version of the game. I will still include the other version install instructions for posterity however the assumption will be made that you are using the Steam version.

This guide will also be assuming you are running a Windows copy of the game. However I intend to explore the options available to Linux users at a future point in time, most likely in the form of settings required to run the program in Proton.


So what exactly is this guide about then? This is intended to be a resource for everyone, from brand new and returning players to veterans of the series wanting the best that the community can offer. To this end, the guide will be broken into several sections for ease of use:

  • Installation
    • Steam Install
    • GOG Install
    • Humble Store Install
    • Docking Station Standalone Install
    • Linux 16-bit Colour Depth Fix
    • EemFoo's Warp
  • Recommended Addons
    • Undocked Worlds
      • This section will further be broken down into categories, both for types of modifications and agents, but also into what is considered "bare essential" and what is just recommended.
    • Docked Worlds
      • Similar to the previous section, but building off the Undocked Worlds section as a foundation.

If you would like (or need) a quick overview of the various file types you may encounter in this guide, this drop-down should help you. All folders listed below are in the Docking Station install directory "Creatures\Docking Station".

Files
.agents A complete Agent, packaged together with their scripts and any files those scripts rely on. This is the file type you are likely to see the most of. These are placed in "\My Agents".
.c16 & .s16 Image files; these contain the sprites that an agent (or indeed Creature) needs to display and animate in the world. These are placed in "\Images", and very occasionally "\Overlay Data".
.cos Scripts that everything in the game needs to run! From the humble Ball to complex Critters, everything starts off as a .cos file. These are (usually) placed in "\Bootstrap\010 Docking Station".
.catalogue These files can store data about an agent and are commonly used to give Agent Help. These are placed in "\Catalogue".
.wav & .mng Sound files, these let you hear things. Magic! These are placed in "\Sounds",
.DS_Store These crop up in quite a few downloads and indicate that the agent creator made the file on a Mac. You can safely ignore these files (despite really looking like they have something to do with the game!).

Ready to step into the warp and see where it takes us? Let's go!

Installation[edit]

Before anything else, we obviously need to install the game! Unfortunately, that can be a bit... unintuitive, or downright broken in the case of the GOG install. Never fear though, we'll help you get this game up and running quicker than an Ettin with that very specific gadget you really needed good GRIEF COME BACK WITH THAT-

Steam Install (Recommended)[edit]

The Steam install is incredibly simple, especially compared to the other options below. If you don't even have a Steam account, all you need to do is download steam from here, install it to your system, make an account when prompted, and then from the store page add the game to your library. You can then select the game in your library, and install it.

That's it! Unless something outside of the scope of his guide as gone awry, you can just play! If you wish to add the Ark to your install, you can simply return to the store page, add the "DLC" to the cart, and once you have purchased it, Creatures 3 will be automatically downloaded, ready for making docked worlds.

(Note: you don't need to run Steam to play Creatures! If you make a shortcut to Engine.exe in the Docking Station folder, you can bypass Steam and get straight into the game that way.)

GOG Install[edit]

This section will walk you through installing the particularly problematic GOG install. Luckily thanks to the work of Lisdude, this process is relatively simple these days.

Note: This can safely be installed over an existing Standalone installation.

Downloads[edit]

Before we start, we need to download a few files. I suggest downloading them all to a single folder to get to them all nice and quick.

  • You will need to download Creatures Exodus as a standalone installed, not through GOG Galaxy. To do this, simply log into GOG, and hover over your username at the top of the page.
01 - Select Games.png
  • Then search for Creatures Exodus.
02 - Search.png
  • Select "View Downloads", then click on "Creatures Exodus" at the bottom of the page.
03 - Download.png
  • Once that has been downloaded, go download the Creatures Remastered Patch, over at AmberCreatures.
  • Finally, head over to Lisdude's GitHub page, and download the files there (just click the green "Code" button and "Download ZIP". Once you have those, extract them to a folder of their own within the folder you've downloaded everything else to, like this:
04 - Files Downloaded.png

And that's that, time to install!

Installation[edit]

Now that we have our files downloaded, we can actually install the thing!

  • Start the installer, click "Options", and make sure you are installing "Creatures" '(not "Creatures Exodus!")' to your "Documents" folder
    • Your "Documents" folder may be elsewhere. I have mine on a separate drive (D:\) and so my install location would be D:\Documents\Creatures, however the default Documents location is C:\Users\[User]\Documents.
05 - Install Location.png
  • Once the install has finished, exit the installer. Do not launch the game!
  • Now we need to run the FixRegistry.cmd file. Simply right-click on the file, and run as administrator.
    • This will fix the installed registries that the GOG installer breaks, removing an extra space from the game directory in the registry files. If this is not done, Docking Station simply won't run correctly. This also unlocks DPI options, which can be invaluable if you are running on a very high resolution.
    • The CMD window will pop up very briefly, this is perfectly normal.
06 - Fix Registry.png
  • Now we need to run the Remastered Patch. You do not need to install the "My Documents" fix.
07 - Remastered Patch.png
  • Now try to run Docking Station! If everything has been installed correctly, you should be able to pick between an Undocked and Docked world. When you have enabled offline play and/or Albian Warp, we can test this further with Amaikokonut's Catalogue Tester.

Humble Store Install[edit]

This section will deal with the Humble Store version of the installer.

Note: This can safely be installed over an existing Standalone installation.

Downloads[edit]

There isn't a lot to download with this install, so this should be relatively brief.

And that's it!

Installation[edit]

This process is a relatively simple install, but will require running the installer in Compatability Mode.

  • Extract the contents of the .zip file.
  • Right click on the the installer, setup.exe with the Creatures Adventures icon for... some reason, and click properties. Then go to Compatability, and tick the "Run this mode in compatability mode for:" checkbox and select Windows 95.
Compatability.png
  • Run the installer and make sure you have set your install directory to Documents\Creatures\Docking Station.
    • Your "Documents" folder may be elsewhere. I have mine on a separate drive (D:\) and so my install location would be D:\Documents\Creatures, however the default Documents location is C:\Users\[User]\Documents.
Install.png

Standalone Docking Station Install[edit]

The standalone install, as well as being free, is very simple to install.

Downloads[edit]

There isn't a lot to download with this install, so this should be relatively brief.

And that's it!

Installation[edit]

Being one of the original installers from back in the day, this is a simple install.

  • Run the installer, and make sure you have set your install directory to Documents\Creatures\Docking Station. You will need to make the Creatures folder before you attempt to install it to that location.
    • Your "Documents" folder may be elsewhere. I have mine on a separate drive (D:\) and so my install location would be D:\Documents\Creatures, however the default Documents location is C:\Users\[User]\Documents.
01 - Directory.png
  • Now we need to run the Remastered Patch. You do not need to install the "My Documents" fix.
07 - Remastered Patch.png
  • Now try to run Docking Station! The game should load in a window, at which point you can close it and enable offline play and/or Albian Warp. We can then double-check this install with Amaikokonut's Catalogue Tester.
  • When running the game you will need to ensure you are running engine.exe directly. If you try to run through the default shortcut it will attempt to run InstallBlast.exe, which will prompt you to update the game. If you do start the game this way, do not attempt to update.

Linux 16-bit Colour Depth Fix[edit]

If you are running a Linux operating system, you will likely need to install this fix to run the game. (Thanks to 20kdc for coming up with this fix!)

Downloads[edit]

Installation[edit]

  • Backup your engine.exe file, located in /Creatures/Docking Station
  • Open up release.zip
  • Extract colour-depth-fix
  • Run ddrhk.exe, and find and select your original engine.exe file
  • Copy ddrhk.dll to your Docking Station directory

Natsue Warp[edit]

The Warp might officially be down, but there is now an alternative! Previously this would have been Albian Warp however a newer development has been made in the form of Natsue Warp, created by 20kdc. The process for this is actually really simple, you don't even need to download anything. We will go over installation, registration, and how to use the handy new System bot!

Installation[edit]

  • First, you will need to find the login disabler cos file in "/Bootstrap/010 Docking Station Patches/", and either backup and delete it, or simply add .bak to the end of the file name.
    • These steps can be ignored if you are not running the Steam version of the game, however ensure you have no other login disabler installed.
  • Next, create a new text file in the root directory (the one with engine.exe) and add these two lines to it:
    • "Override Port" 49152
    • "Override Server" eemfoo.org
  • Save this file as "server.cfg"

And that's it, you're done!

A Note on Albian Warp[edit]

If you have used Albian Warp in the past and still have it installed, you will need to remove the Albian Warp Bootstrap folder.

Registration[edit]

Registration is also simple, when you create a new world you will be asked for a username and password. What you enter here will be your account for Natsue Warp, so make sure you remember what you typed here! Once you're in the game, just click the little red button in the top left of the screen and you will be online.

System Bot[edit]

Natsue Warp has a handy bot to help you out if you need it. It currently knows several commands, which you can access by chatting with the !System Bot as if it were another player (by accessing the Docking Station Chat in the Comms Room). Commands are case-sensitive, so be sure to type them as you see here.

  • who
    • Allows you to see everyone who is currently connected.
  • contact <Name>
    • Adds a user to your contacts list.
  • changepw <newPW>
    • Allows you to change your password once you have logged in. When you next loading a world after changing your password, you will need to log in again.
  • allownbnorns, denynbnorns
    • Allows your world to accept or reject Nornbinary creatures, set to deny by default due to autokill errors if a user has not installed the update.

Initial Setup (Only Required for Non-Steam versions)[edit]

There are a couple of things we'll want to do to prepare for future worlds. These specific steps only need to be done once, as it's largely about making sure certain files are present.

  • I would recommend going to Creatures 3\My Agents, and removing BruinBengalCivetEggs.agents.
    • This will stop Muco displaying the basic, non-expressive versions of those breeds. It's a small thing, but fewer duplicates to click through is always nice.
  • Create a world, and inject the Grendel Upgrade DS from the workshop.
    • This might be less important since we're not planning on keeping this world, but it's good to be safe.
  • Having done that, set your Total Population and Breeding Limits to 0, and inject every single breed you have available. This will ensure that all files related to those breeds are extracted into the game.
    • The population limit is just to keep you from being inundated with new Creatures during this process.

And that should be it! You can now leave and safely delete this world. You can keep it if you wish, but some of the fixes later only inject on the creation of a new world, meaning if you want to apply them to an existing world you will need to use CAOS commands (see JECT) to do so.

Recommended Addons[edit]

Addons! Whether they're Agents, Breeds or something else entirely, they can add a whole new dimension to the game, fix annoying issues, and generally be great additions to your worlds. With so many developed over such a long time, it can be hard to know where to start. Hopefully, that's what this part of the guide should help with!


The vast majority of these addons are simply personal preference, and are listed here as suggestions. Feel free to use as many or as few as you like. As such addons will mostly be organised by Docked and Undocked, and then into categories, some however may be marked as advanced, either because they are complex to use or because they can make significant changes to your world.

There will also be a separate section for everything True Warmblood Creatures related.

A Note On Cos Files[edit]

As mentioned earlier in the guide, cos files generally go into "\Bootstrap\010 Docking Station", however, it is entirely possible to create new folders within the Bootstrap Folder. If you look inside the Bootstrap you will see that the fixes for this edition of the game are in a brand new folder called "010 Docking Station Patches", which is a fine example of this in practice. It is important to keep in mind however that cos files load in alphabetical and numerical order, which is why a lot have "zzz" or some variation of that at the start of their name. So if a patch is overriding a previous cos file, you will want to make sure it loads AFTER the original.

Critical Fixes[edit]

Thanks to the hard work put into the Steam edition of the game, there is only one fix that might be considered "critical", and even that is fixing a feature that was largely intended to be unused.

  • Wasteland Glitch Fix - This fixes an issue where if two Geats look at each other, all of the rooms (the sections that make up a Metaroom will be converted to atmosphere, breaking a lot of things. This fix works by classifying all Geats as machinery, which does mean that existing Geats not made with this in mind will not be able to breed on their own due to looking for "something".