I have some questions regarding Ludeon's license to the game, and specifically how it relates to modding.
I'm trying to add something to all plants that requires fairly extensive modifications to the Plant class. Unfortunately it was not designed to be modified -- lots of the important bits are private, not overrideable, etc. If I want a custom Plant that is similar to the base game's Plant I would have to clone a lot of the game's source into my own mod.
The readme.txt that comes with RimWorld specifically mentions decompiling the game's source using ILSpy, and goes on later to say that we may not share game files. This implies some acceptance of reverse-engineering, but wholesale cloning (and eventual redistribution) of large parts of the game's source seems problematic.
It would be helpful if someone from Ludeon could clarify what is and is not allowed regarding the game's source code. Thanks!
That's a good question. Tynan would be the best one to answer it. In the interest of him not getting flooded with messages, I PM'd him about it. He may or may not respond (being on vacation). My thought is do what you like but keep it private for now. That way you can at least start on it until you hear something official.
Probably you will be interested with this concept:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=13813.msg141731
pps. no matter how this thread is resolved, custom master DLL is bad move, no matter what.
You're welcome to use the existing code in any way you like in the creation of (free) RimWorld mods. Your work will be a derivative work owned by you, as are all RW mods.