Modding (CPK Files) (NoIntro and Canvas)

[Aetherion]

I made a guide how modding can be done.
Sadly I cannot distribute what I did easily as testing and failsafing the script takes too much time.

Maybe if there was a way to use local files instead of having to repack them ...?

Guide is here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1605279891]Modding (CPK Files) (NoIntro and Canvas)

[DoomyDoom]

Oh yes, the prospect of repacking a 23 GB cpk makes me shudder alright. I've just spent 2 months changing stuff around in VC1, and over that time I've changed things in various files sometimes a couple dozen times per testing session. If cripack can do replacements on the rebuilt base, that's at least something. Does it have the old size = new size limitations or somesuch btw?

[Aetherion]

The .pak and the replaced files itself have different sizes, and it appears to work. If that's the question?

[DoomyDoom]

I meant whether vl_cvr.htx that you injected without redoing the whole thing was different size from the original. And specifically, I'm interested in inserting files of larger than original size, because changing names/descriptions for stuff like potentials and orders will make some files bigger, and it's very easy to make mistakes initally until I learn hard character limits for all in-game fields.

[Aetherion]

Ok, I can now confirm, rebuilding with YACpkTool makes the CPK replacable with CriPakTools.
Both don't seem to care about sizes of injected files and rebuild the offset correctly. If rebuilt compressed or uncompressed also doesn't seem to matter.

One interesting thing I see using the -L switch, maybe this affects CriPakTools:
Before the rebuild the cpk lists all files with property Grps.: "/(none)"
After the rebuild the cpk lists all files with property Grps.: ""

[DoomyDoom]

Nice, so at least the worst case scenarios are out. Still sad that I probably won't be able to hotswap stuff like maps without restarting the game like I do in VC1, but oh well. Or maybe it will only read relevant parts of the archive, who knows.

[Aetherion]

So best would be injecting without having to do a full repack.

I think YACpkTool.exe (specifically CpkMaker.dll) has issues working in a folder path with spaces in it, giving me: Unable to locate the specified file to inject. Removing Spaces from the path helped that.

And there is likely something with the CPK not having Sub Folders. The closest I can get is with an "/":
YACpkTool.exe -i "BASE.cpk" -R "/dummy.txt" "dummy.txt" -o "BASE_NEW.CPK"

Which sadly produces a System.NullReferenceException in YACpkTool.Program.Main(String[] args) and a corrupted CPK file.

Someone should ask him: https://github.com/Brolijah/YACpkTool/issues

[Murasaki]

Can you mod camera in character viewer (remove this stupid censorship/limitation on some characters)? I was trying to do this, using similar tool but can't find what's the file that works with camera there...

[Young Erusean Officer]

I wish SEGA of Japan would see the platform for strategy games is PC but Japan has been lagging behind the rest of the industry since the PS3 days.

[DPK[???_????]]

Good to hear game could be modded.......... I'm a tank buff, found my United of ***** Sherman Hafen tank this powerful and only costs me one CP to move, really want to play more tank involved games in a more challenging mod.

[Aetherion]

Originally posted by Tango:

edit those .dds images to remove the canvas?

I don't know if this really correct, but I opened 01.dds, 03.dds, 04.dds, 05.dds, 06.dds in GIMP, selected and deleted everything from the layer and saved it again with Compression: BC3 / DXT5 and Mipmaps.