1

I am making sandbox game and:

  1. All items have ScriptableObject template
  2. All player-world interactions are ScriptableObjects

I would like them not to be added to one resource file like unity does but I would like them to persist in separate folder after build for potential modder to edit and I also would like to do it so modders can add new items. I read about exporting SOs to Json files but I don’t know how that would handle textures loading in case od modded items. How should I handle this SOs loading and persisting after build considering textures references? Documentation is not very helpful explaining AssetBundles etc.

2

Serialize your data to text files (json is probably just fine) and put them into Application.persistentDataPath folder.
This, for example, is how you may go about reading texture files:

string mod = "Vanilla";
string subFolder = "Textures";
string fileName = "mod_me_if_you_dare.png";//make sure this file exists (project)/Assets/StreamingAssets/Vanilla/Textures/here
string path = System.IO.Path.Combine(
	Application.persistentDataPath ,
	mod , subFolder ,
	fileName
);

byte[] bytes = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(path);
Texture2D texture = new Texture2D( 1 , 1 );
texture.LoadImage( bytes );
texture.Apply( true , true );

relatedMaterial = texture;

Building on this you can read fileName from that json you mentioned - where given asset would be described (or all of them).