Sandstorms mod- help needed.

[picollo]

Hi Guys,

I wanted to start modding (and learn C# as well)

So I've decided that I would like to add sandstorms, and generally sand which would work similarly to snow.

I.e. You can have event sandstorm- preferably only on desert biome. It would cover all outdoors with sand.
Sand would work like snow does. Covers everything with sand layer, preventing crops from growing, and reducing movespeed.

However sand would not disappear with temperature. you would have to clear it manually, or wait for wind/ rain to clear map from sand.

How should I start such work?

I know it needs to be ddl mod.
I have looked at how snow works (only briefly, and I haven't understood everything so far, but I'd like to some feedback.

Snow is placed on another layer. Should I use snow layer to place sand on it, or can I use snow layer to place sand there as well?

Other than that, I haven't been able to locate function responsible for melting snow with high enough temperature. I'd like to know where is it called, to be able to figure out how do I call function for remove snow.

When I want to override object (for example If I want to add modified function for rainy weather to remove sand), how do I do it? I meant, how much of the code I need to copy to new ddl? Only modified function? Object with function? Even bigger part?