The Forts community has always been full of creative minds building everything from crazy new weapons to full blown gameplay overhauls.
These creators shape how we all continue to experience the game, and they often do it out of passion.
As a team, we've come to recognize how that passion can come with its challenges. We've heard the feedback, we understand the frustration, and we want to make sure our modding scene feels supported, appreciated and celebrated for what it brings to Forts.
With that in mind, we are introducing the Forts Modder Showcase:
A Monthly Steam Spotlight that highlights one community mod and its creator, sharing what makes their work special and how it came to be;
A Modder Wall of Fame, on the Official Forts Discord, where we'll archive spotlights and provide all the necessary links to keep supporting your favorite modders.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2970318195
It's not every day a mod completely changes how you play Forts, but Landcruisers does exactly that.
Instead of your run of the mill base-building, you're now building rolling, roaring machines of war. Using a mix of suspensions, engines, transmissions, and controllers, Landcruisers lets you take your fort on the move and rethink what "base defense" even means.
(I see you out there, jousting your artillery heavy forts | cr: georgiy15r)
Greetings, my name is DeltaWing and I spend a large portion of my free time, in some capacity, writing code and modding. If there isn’t an official API, I’ll make one! My programming journey began back in high school - around 2017, I picked up Scratch and was immediately hooked. I had been playing Minecraft on and off since 2011, and even before that,I was always tinkering with construction toys or taking things apart just to see how they worked. Nowadays, I’m still assembling and disassembling, but in code blocks rather than toy blocks.
Q: What inspired you to start working on Landcruisers, in the first place?
It’s hard to say. At the time, I was very into tanks. I had made a few stationary maps at that point that had resembled tanks, but they lacked a key element; movement! I can’t take credit for the concept, as the idea of Forts moving along the ground had been kicking around the community for a while; although the exact implementation details were up to me to figure out.
(Early Landcruisers prototype)
Q: How long has the project been in development, and what was the biggest technical hurdle?
About two and a half years at this point. I’m still updating it when I feel the need to change or add a new feature. The largest hurdle was and is technical debt. That is to say decisions early on in the project actively make it harder to develop as time goes on. Landcruisers was my first step into collision detection math, and there are definitely things I’d do differently now.
Q: If you could go back and give yourself, or a budding modder, one piece of advice at the start of this project, what would it be?
I’d tell myself or them to look at existing solutions before starting and understanding the problem fully before trying to solve it. When I started, I had no idea what spring dampening was, for instance. In a lot of ways, Landcruisers was reinventing the wheel (pun intended); all of the problems I was attempting to solve at the start had already been solved in many ways prior in many different places.
Q: The Forts Community can be pretty passionate, what kind of feedback has meant the most to you personally?
I love to hear thoughtful and constructive feedback! It also really makes my day when I hear about how people are playing with the mod.
Q: How do you balance listening to community feedback with staying true to your own vision for the mod?
For the most part, I’ve been able to implement things to my vision without trodding on anyone’s toes. For example, the materials, I always envisioned some kind of material that is less cost effective as protection than bracing but offers greater structural strength. When I implemented structural beams, most were pretty happy with it conceptually. There was feedback around things like health, cost etc, but I’m happy enough to balance those values and I’m still able to fulfill my vision.
Q: Are there any features or experimental ideas you’ve been itching to try?
Something I’ve been wanting to do for ages is implementing a proper traction system. Currently the wheels don’t actually spin, it’s just an illusion. Such a change would require rewriting the entire mod from the ground up though.
Q: Landcruisers briefly disappeared from the Workshop last month, and it sparked a lot of conversation. Now that it’s back in all of its glory, how are you feeling about returning to it and the community’s response?
Essentially, I felt like I had lost control of my own project. I was starting to feel frustrated with the community. There was a trend of me only getting feedback when things were broken or people didn’t like changes. I wasn’t hearing about what I had done well. For instance, I had just implemented a brand new HUD. Pretty much spent 8 hours straight editing and tweaking it and creating new systems until it was in a place I liked and I hoped the community liked, but I didn’t hear any feedback on it whatsoever. Additionally, I felt torn between feedback as some peoples’ opinions directly conflicted with each other. And at the end of the day, I’m just doing this for free in my own spare time.
Q: What helped motivate you to bring Landcruisers back?
I definitely wanted to bring it back in some capacity. For the most part, I felt like the time was right to return it to the community. Moreover, I understood that a lot of people had built their fun in their free time exclusively around the mod. There were also many maps and mods that had Landcrusiers as a dependency that failed to function properly once it was gone.
Q: Where can people find you?
I sporadically post videos to my YouTube channel. This is mostly gaming footage, usually of things I’ve made. If you wish to support me, I can be found on Buy Me A Coffee. I haven’t set up any rewards… yet. The source code of most of my projects and mods can be found on Github if you wish to do your own tinkering! If you want to chat with me, the contributors and others that enjoy and play with the mod, you can join the Official Landcruisers DIscord Server here.
Our modders create and maintain their projects in their spare time, purely out of love for the game. If you enjoy what they've built, consider supporting them directly through a kind comment, commending their mod on the workshop or contributing to their Patreon/Ko-Fi/Support Page.
You can find more community creations, or share your own, on the {LINK REMOVED}.
(Check out the new #mod-wall-of-fame channel, under the 'Announcements' category, where we'll archive each feature and prominent Forts Modders.)
To be featured in the Forts Modder Showcase you need to:
Have been awarded the Modder Medal
Answer a Q&A and collaborate in good-faith
Provide gifs/clips or images that best showcase your creations
To start things off, we're featuring a few selected mods that have made a big impact on the community. In the future, we'll open the floor for modders to reach out and put their creations forward!
(Disclaimer: While the Forts Modder Showcase is a monthly feature, releases may shift depending on game updates, End of Season announcements, or FPL coverage. We’ll always aim to spotlight creators as regularly as possible!)
Earlier last month, Landcruisers was briefly removed from the Workshop before being reinstated. We're grateful to Delta for his willingness to bring it back, and we understand that moments like this are a reminder of how much passion and personal effort go into community projects. Our goal moving forward is to make sure creators like Delta feel supported, heard, and celebrated for the work they do.
The modding scene is one of the best parts of this community. Every map, every mechanic, every idea adds something new to Forts, and we're beyond grateful for the passion you all bring to the game. For that reason, we urge you all to help us celebrate every small victory so that we can all benefit from our shared passion for Forts for many more years to come!
Cheers,
EWG
Join us for in-game this weekend and for future events, which run every other Saturday at 19:00 UCT+1. You can sign-up for events, get notified of new events and discuss the changes with the team at 
