[Question] Is it possible to modify game files directly?

Corbent · Guest

Greetings everyone.

This is my story.

I play CnC:RA3 casually with my brother and with friends sometimes.

We use a minor mod that disables ultimate weapons (mass destruction ones only, not the support ones). However there are other nice mods out there and since only one mod can be active at a time, it becomes a problem.

I have basic experience modding, I have the tools, and I have followed some tutorials so that's covered. However I have explored the data folder in the game and the same "mod procedure" can't be applied to the base game in order to effectively get two mods running (A modified base folder, plus a loaded mod). When browsing the BIG files, XML files if they are even there, seem to be hidden inside other archives, maybe the BIN ones.

So question is... "Is is possible to find editable files in the base game folder, so I can run the game with minor modifications and load a mod on top of that?" or "Is there any way to stack mods?"

While looking through the game files, I had the idea of putting the mod BIG file into the base game data folder with the core BIG files and editted "RA3_english_1.12.SKUDEFS" to load it, and it works, the game runs as if the mod was loaded with the Control Center. But if I try to load a mod with the control center on top of that, game crashes. So mod stacking this way was unsuccesful.

Thanks for reading.

ApolloTD · Commander **Joined**: 19 Nov 2003

Short answer is NO, more complete answer to that is pretty much that unlike games before C&C3 anything after that works by so called stream data method which do not store the xml coding in normal way but its rather compiled so not anymore as plain text so editing it is not quite an option unless feel free trying hex edit without much any guide what so ever.

BIN files do indeed contain the compiled XMLs but not like originals and bin file is also refpack compressed and basicly the whole deal of modding in this engine is that you can only override things with the coding and thus disable, conventional delete is not an thing that works here exactly and trying put two mods on top of each other will conflict in the changes and game engine can't probably determine which one is supposed to override ultimately given both are mod stream and crashes are unavoidable.

Only way to combine mods in manner desired would require source files in assets and xml files from original mod creators and then those xmls blended and compiled as individual mod and no, you can't de-compile existing mod files fully yourself back to original thus why EA provided mod sdk with the source XMLs.

Corbent · Guest

Yes, pretty much what I assumed. However I had hope since I have found decompilers and clever tricks for other games in the past, and also I have been succesful in some Frankenstein-style experiments merging stuff.

Anyways, thanks for the answer, I hope that if another Red Alert game appears, it is more mod friendly. But I doubt it.

Ju-Jin · Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:08 am Post subject:

ApolloTD wrote:

BIN files do indeed contain the compiled XMLs but not like originals and bin file is also refpack compressed

BIN, IMP, and RELO are needed for storing the information and the MANIFEST to give them structure.

ApolloTD wrote:

and basicly the whole deal of modding in this engine is that you can only override things with the coding and thus disable, conventional delete is not an thing that works here exactly and trying put two mods on top of each other will conflict in the changes and game engine can't probably determine which one is supposed to override ultimately given both are mod stream and crashes are unavoidable.

No, you can "delete" things from being loaded, the map streams does that. And you can delete directly when you edit the original files. (For example I did a small "mod" for TW that contains only files that are needed for the game, so the game wont load anything else (like faction units), start much faster, and is quite nice for modding (basically a clean slate))

ApolloTD wrote:

Only way to combine mods in manner desired would require source files in assets and xml files from original mod creators and then those xmls blended and compiled as individual mod and no, you can't de-compile existing mod files fully yourself back to original thus why EA provided mod sdk with the source XMLs.

Wrong, WrathEd shows you can de-compile stuff (even much much earier work from other people shows that), thus with the right tools you could combine it. It's just no one created these tools yet.

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ApolloTD · Commander **Joined**: 19 Nov 2003

I meant conventional deleting in the sense that direct file delete is not an option as system is notably linked and thus need to sever the links in actual bin etc files or game engine may act in bizarre fashion and direct file replace (not usual mod sdk compiling) like for sounds ends up bad given the bin file for example seems to define some audio specific information which gave me some funny playback... Of course with enough knowhow it is doable but no usual person can even try.

Anyhow while all that precise information is nice and all, point still is, presently can't do it all yet and may not be so much point in making such a tool with shrinking community in mind given EA already abandoned SAGE/RNA anyway which was long overdue anyway.