Struggling with my JSON patch mod, SUPER NOOB

[happyone]

hi, I'm trying to patch the game using the impactDamageMul property to set most of the naturally generating blocks that have the UnstableFalling behavior deal no damage to the player with their fallingblock entity. I've had success doing it with all the blocks except for honestly the most important to me, soil! when I run ModMaker 3000 it says: \AppData\Roaming\Vintagestory\assets\survival\blocktypes\soil\soil.json is not a valid JSON file! Will not patch. I'm guessing that this has something to do with it being variable depending on the world creation settings and having the loadfromproperties behaviors to have variations within the blocks? I'd love any help with this! I am super new to self-modding so thank god this game has such a dedicated repository and community lol.

Edited November 30, 2025 by happyone

[happyone]

nvm I think I found the solution! there's a separate directory for falling blocks in assets/survival/patches for the alternative fallingblock behavior! 

[happyone]

I lied, that's just for applying the behavior under certain conditions but doesn't include the properties. then I tried manually formatting the edits myself using another mod that edits soil properties but even then it doesn't apply with sideways soil gravity. making me feel like I'm losing my mindddd (Greg Hefley movie reference) still might need help lmao

[happyone]

this is everything so far, simple stuff but bruh

nodamagefromlightweightfallingblocks.zip

[happyone]

at this point I'm losing my damn mind, this thread is cursed but I genuinely cannot get the sandgravelsoil dirt to not cause damage. atp I feel like I've tried everything to the scope of what I can find online or think of, would super mega appreciate some more experienced help  this is the latest version now where I've sort of just thrown everything at the wall but it won't stick 

nodamagefromlightweightfallingblocks.zip

[The Insanity God]

I can't help but notice the following:

1. Your patch is a text file and not a json file.
2. It's also missing comma's in between the different patches.
3. The index is wrong on some of them (soil would be index 1 I believe not 0), you'd also have to ensure it runs after the base game patch (not sure if that's even a thing for patches but you could try dependson in the patches)

I'll be honest though... this kinda thing is a lot easier and less prone to break with game updates and other mods when done from code.

Edited December 1, 2025 by The Insanity God

[happyone]

omg woopssss, thank you so much!! lol you can tell when my intelligence started really degrading from the effort it was taking to learn stuff for the first time... yeah I really need to learn a language that works with this game. thank you for giving me some more modding wiki search terms as well, I just figured out that the game's source code is on github before I was too tired to continue last night. this helps me a lot with figuring out the error I got while running the new patches too. thank you again!!!!!!

Edited December 1, 2025 by happyone
spelling

[happyone]

3 hours ago, The Insanity God said:

3. The index is wrong on some of them (soil would be index 1 I believe not 0), you'd also have to ensure it runs after the base game patch (not sure if that's even a thing for patches but you could try dependson in the patches)

where exactly do you find the index value for items, entities, blocks, etc?

[The Insanity God]

1 hour ago, happyone said:

where exactly do you find the index value for items, entities, blocks, etc?

I normally just check the actual game files, but in this case it's a bit hard because the thing you are trying to patch is a value that's patched in.

The `%appdata%\Vintagestory\assets\survival\blocktypes\soil\soil.json` file already contains 1 behavior (index 0, because the language is 0 indexed) and then a patch later adds the unstable behavior so I would assume it's at least index 1. 

[happyone]

13 minutes ago, The Insanity God said:

I normally just check the actual game files, but in this case it's a bit hard because the thing you are trying to patch is a value that's patched in.

The `%appdata%\Vintagestory\assets\survival\blocktypes\soil\soil.json` file already contains 1 behavior (index 0, because the language is 0 indexed) and then a patch later adds the unstable behavior so I would assume it's at least index 1. 

thank you sm!!! I was thinking it worked something like this, ofc I accidentally picked something overcomplicated to learn off of lol