Which way you should make a mod depends on entirely what you want the mod to do. Do you want to just replace some graphics or game configuration files? Or does the mod need to contain code that does something? And then finally does that code need to interact with the existing code in Thrive?
C# needs to be compiled before it can run, that’s why the damage numbers mod has C# project files that specify how the source code for the mod is compiled.
I’m always extremely busy with an endless list of things to do for Thrive, so I’ve been hoping that other people would write in depth modding tutorials.