Basic SF Modding guide (Gangsona and Beyond)

Basic Guide on how to mod the game to add new characters, textures, and weapons.

Basics of modding

Creating a basic texture replacement mod

Step 1: Grab xnbcli from: https://github.com/LeonBlade/xnbcli/releases (you will need this for most modding) Unpack contents of zip onto desktop to use.

Step 2: Grab texture files (They are .xnb format) from steamapps\common\Star Fetchers Pilot\SF\Content\DTA\CharacterController\SFCrew

Step 3: Drag texture file into packed folder, and run unpack

Step 4: Go into unpacked and there you find .json and .png texture file, here you can edit the texture image to be whatever you desire. If you are making a new texture to avoid overwriting existing files, rename the .png texture and .json file, then edit the .json file (its just a text file but I recommend Notepad++ for editing) and at the bottom change the name of the export texture it points to.

Step 5: Run pack, then go back into the packed folder and drag the file back into where you got it from in the game files or into a new folder for new additions (I would advise making a backup of the OG textures if you do replacements)

Step 6: Profit

To do further customization of a character

I would recommend creating a work space that mimics the file structure of the game so you can just drag and drop to overwrite previous changes.

If you look inside CharacterControllerDefine you will find more .json files for each character. These describe which textures the body parts of a character use, their number of limbs, angle constraints, etc. Luckily the sections are fairly self explanatory. For example if you created a new folder in CharacterController for your new character's textures, make the texture point to YourFolderName//YourTextureName, the existing character files in the game provide a good template to use. These .json files also defines things like the weapons and accessories each character has, and these can be changed easily. I would recommend looking at other character files such as BigBoss (Suburban Satan) and the cultists to see how the weapons work.

To make your character playable, just edit the .json files for Sanyati or Zambezi and replace their contents with yours!.

Big Note: The game is pretty unstable when you add in guns to play with, there are weird crashes when using them to shoot aggro'd cultists, I think it has something to do with their swords in the path of bullets but I am not sure. Plus the game seems to crash when going into the Prison with guns.

Once you get accustomed to how the game is set up you can add in complete new caracters and weapons such as in my Gangsona submission

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv200T9AH6o

To do further customization of a weapon

In the weapons folder you will find the packed .xnb texture files, and the .json config files for each weapon. Creating new textures is as previously described, but editing the .json files is different but luckily also fairly self explanatory. In them you can edit various parameters such as weapon type, magazine size, fire rate, hand placements, etc. This allows you to create entirely new weapons which can be added to characters in their CharacterControllerDefine .json file as described in the previous section. Just edit in the name of your weapon and it should work fine!

Here is an example of a shotgun I made using some config file editing and a custom SPAS-12 texture made by me. The way it works is a bit goofy, but as I do not have access to game source code to fiddle with, it is the best I can do. I would be down to design weps for the official game too as I have had some good fun fiddling with the game hmu LK ;)

https://youtu.be/R8clh5sHp9w

More modifications

The game is built fairly modular and that means that things like level scripts/textures and dialogue are easily changeable too. However I have not gotten into editing those yet, and their complexity is greater than a simple character addition.

I would love to see an official level editor at some point to make things like this even easier, similar to what Hotline Miami 2 did. There have been many amazing full conversion mods for that game, and I am confident the same would work for SF.

[Shig]

bruh its only a pilot and theres already mods.
yall are fast

[⚡Electro Javaboy⚡]

can you make the cloth tutorial?, i cannot stop customizing the cloth physics without fucking it up

[chills]

WOW WHAT?! AWESOME!!!!! Thank you!

[yanntlers]

How to rip sound effects?

[General Jameson]

Thanks for the guide, and good luck with your gangsona!

[xmanr0cks]

I feel like mod support will be in the full game, and I hope there is a boxing guy.

[dentron]

Wisecrack, yeah you can do it in notepad, it is part of the CharacterControllerDefine .json file where it defines the body and limb textures. If you look at the stock game files it should provide an example to how it works.

Thanks for the link poonikins I will take a look at that soon to see if it will let us replace sound files

[Malibu Ken]

this is all i could work up to. https://github.com/Athari/XnaConvert/releases im not really sure how to work it. the read me file (which can also be accessed by notepad) is not very descriptive. but give it a try

[Malibu Ken]

I have found a few xnb converters, even a terreria converters. but they are lost to the public and were taken down. I can try and let you know if i have found any techniques.

[Wisecrack34]

Thanks! one final note is you mentioned that you were to "make the texture point to YourFolderName//YourTextureName" but I am unsure of how to do this. Would I be able to do this with a Notepad edit?