Hello! The I think it may be in your best interest to join the Discord server where we have an active modding community that may be able to help guide you, they may need more insight on whats been done in your attempt so far https://discord.gg/eHy4Ze5sS

I tried to go there but there wasn't anything there about modding?

Hello jhkreiter,

they exist in the heads of modders. Problems are normal.

DONE BY YOU : Find the local mod directory of your Sins2-Installation.

Mine would be C:\Users\<user_id>\AppData\Local\sins2\mods 

DONE BY YOU : Put your Mod-Folder there

/<my_mod_name>

DONE BY YOU : Put a ".mod_meta_data" -File there, that contains valid JSON

Like

{

    "compatibility_version": 2,

    "display_version": "0.0.2",

    "display_name": "<Name of your Mod>",

    "short_description": "<Description of your Mod>",

    "logos": {

        "large_logo": "<Large Icon>.png",

        "small_logo": "icon_120x60.png"

    }

}

DONE BY YOU : Sins of a solar empire shows your mod

You start the game, find "Modding" and pick the Tab other than "MOD.IO".
A shuttle selection appears and shows your mod on the left.

Do I have to have everything in the list?

I don't have logos

I tried it and it says it is not compatible, but I have the not compatible mods set to true.

Here is my file

{
    "compatibility_version": 2,
	"display_version": "0.0.2",
	"display_name": "<Vasari Mod>",
	"short_description": "<Testing Mod>"
}

Hey, could it be, that your .mod_meta_data is saved as .txt?
Make sure, that you save it as .mod_meta_data and not .txt
What's your tag over discord? Ping zabik there, and I'll take a look at your mod

Nope it is saved like you said. 

My user name is my email kritter7@frontier.com

Dear jhkreiter,

do you develop on a Windows operating system?
Then it is possible, that your .mod_meta_data is  secretly a .mod_meta_data.txt file.

Please open the DOS terminal and type following commands

cd <directory of your mod>

dir

Do you see something like following?

...

11.06.2026  23:40               140 .mod_meta_data

               1 Datei(en),            140 Bytes

...

This is what it looks like.

C:\Users\kritt\AppData\Local\sins2\mods\Vasari Mod>dir
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is ACE1-4B86

 Directory of C:\Users\kritt\AppData\Local\sins2\mods\Vasari Mod

06/04/2026  09:22 AM    <DIR>          .
06/04/2026  09:22 AM    <DIR>          ..
06/04/2026  09:09 AM               143 .mod_meta_data
05/01/2026  10:47 AM    <DIR>          entities
               1 File(s)            143 bytes
               3 Dir(s)  1,749,811,240,960 bytes free