As my username suggests, I'm new to modding Unity (PC games), but I've been a programmer for many years.

I'm trying to mod a favourite steam game of mine that's built in Unity 2017.3, and I was wondering...

I've managed to change lots of behaviours and functionality just from within all the game scripts / classes... however I'd like to be able to add 'buttons' to an in game object, as well as remove other knobs and lights from a different in-game object and move them onto a different one.

I don't know of any 3rd party freeware / pay ware that can edit a unity pc game when you don't have all the source code / original project / assets... so is there a way to 'get' these objects in code, and dismantle and rewire them in new ways programatically?

Or does all this kind of stuff (prefabs is it?) HAVE to be done in the visual editor?

Any advice, suggestions or pointers to where I can find this info out would really be appreciated. Thanks.