Integrated Aether Ridge
So, Aether Ridge was one of my favorite region mods from back in the day before downpour. When I saw it in the screenshots for the Watcher DLC I was super excited to finally have a port of this legendary region for modern versions of rain world!
Unfortunately the version of Aether Ridge that we got in the DLC is lacking in many regards (in my opinion)! The entire region, which was notorious for being enormous, has now been sliced up into 5 separate small regions that do not connect to each other in the way they were originally meant to. All of the lore pearls, echos, and gate connections are gone as well. Personally, I think this is a BAD way to experience Aether Ridge. but sadly this is now the first time experience for many players.
Ok, enough of the tirade, what is this mod?
This is an attempt to restore Aether Ridge to the way it was prior to the Watcher (or at least as close as I can manage). That means re-adding gates to Sky Islands and Subterranean, lore pearls, and most importantly reconnecting all the subregions so that our beloved desalination rig can be whole once more!
One concession though: since the subregions were moved into their own region prefixes, moving all the rooms back into a single region would require renaming every single room file. Since I do not have the know-how to automate that or the free time to do it manually, I will compromise and add gates where the subregions used to connect. It’s not a perfectly faithful fix, but this is the only way I can maintain my sanity while doing this.
This mod is intended to be used while playing as vanilla slugcats. Having gates for Watcher would allow them to access sky islands and sub, which is not intended and would probably cause progression issues, if not game breaking bugs! So, consider only using this mod while playing as Monk, Survivor, or Hunter!
I will not be making any new content in this mod. Everything will either be pulled from the Watcher’s version of AR or from the old version on RainDB!
It would be really funny if it turns out the original creator is planning to upload a direct port of AR to the workshop, which would make all this obsolete… But as much as I hope and pray that we get an official port, I feel like AR’s inclusion in this condition in a paid DLC is kinda the nail in the coffin for that hope.
Currently implemented:
– Sky Islands gate + rooms leading up to the gate
– Subterranean gate + rooms leading up to the gate
– Gates connecting all AR subregions together* as they did prior to Watcher
*Mostly. Since there can’t be more than two gates between the same two regions there are two connections between "Aether Ridge" and "Heat Ducts" that are no longer with us. I tried to keep the connections that seemed the most impactful.
– Restored the old versions of rooms WARE_I01x, WARG_G06, AND WARG_G22
– Removed the blue lizard in WARF_A01
– Disconnected rooms leading to Tundra Fault (massive dead-end) and Fallen Tramway (Saint version of Arial Tramway)
Planned:
– Re-add lore pearls
– Re-add echo
– Re-add gate to Coral Caves
– Re-add region art
– Re-add arena unlocks
– Remove cosmetic rifts from rooms that have portals for Watcher
– Make inter-region gates (not SI and SB gates) usable multiple times per cycle
– Maybe re-add gate to Gilded Sanctuary?
– Maybe restore old color palette in Cold Storage?
– Maybe make unique gates instead of copying the same one?
– Add a proper thumbnail and images to this mod page lol
Let me know if I missed any connections or if it’s broken or anything else important! Have a nice day!
