Milestone 3 Mini Update 4 - Working On First Modding Application

[thearchivalone]

Hey, y'all. This update is not related to the bone dissection work I've been doing. That's not being stopped altogether; instead, it's being paused briefly while I work on feedback given by one of the members of the community from a few weeks back. I was asked about whether or not the game could be repacked after using my extraction scripts. I finally got around to testing that out. This post will primarily be related to that.

About Repacking

Without doing quite a bit of a rewrite of the extraction script, it currently doesn't work for repacking game archives in reverse using quickbms's -r (reinject flag). I will not be updating it or any of the processes that are a part of it for the time being due to the possibility of breaking functionality. Instead, I'm working on writing my first standalone BRS modding application or 2 in native C++.

Why Not Just Make Another QuickBMS Script

There's a few reasons why but I'll try to keep them brief:

• distribution and convenience - writing in C++ helps make it self-contained and portable, allowing for support on Windows, Mac, Linux, the BSDs, etc, without needing to have a third party application installed to run it
• reusage of codebase - primarily for projects outside of Black Rock Shooter; QuickBMS works well and is convenient but I don't want to fully lock myself into that ecosystem where its scripting capabilities are either not needed, it's not the correct tool, or using it becomes a bottleneck. It's not being replaced and will remain the main tool for the extraction process for this project.
• performance - QuickBMS is quick enough for extracting the entire game or sets of game archives and files; for modding purposes, you'll be less likely to want to extract everything but instead from specific archives while also being able to repackage them and run them in game. Where optimizations are needed, C++ will give more control.
• C++ is more commonly used in the industry; I don't want to not have the ability to get hired in a real world scenario where knowing how to work with binary data in C++ would give me an edge up

Other Information

I don't know how many modding tools I'll release; much of that will heavily depend on how much time making them will take out of working on the other tasks I'm focusing on. It also will depend on whether or not the community uses them. This first one (not ready to disclose exactly what all it's for yet) is partially a test run for getting an idea of time frame and difficulty for release.

So far, extracting and repacking seem pretty viable and compiling with Clang (cross-platform C compiler) is a breeze. I don't have an estimated timeframe on release yet but at least getting a tangible, testable tool to y'all is definitely one of my priorities. Here's the information I'm comfortable disclosing:

• everything in this repository will remain open-source like it has been but custom modding tools will not on a per tool basis; open source is a double-edged sword: 1) makes it easier to get support, fixes and improvements into the software from a larger group of people 2) I lose the ability to get future work with companies if they can use my tools themselves, cutting out any need for me to be directly involved. Making money is not my main driving force but getting paid does allow more time and resources to be available if I'm ever in a bind
• the current one will be released as Pay What You Want donationware with the only requirement to obtain it being having an account through the service/services I distribute through; this doesn't mean a paywall (will be free to download and use) but instead allows anyone that wants to help support me the option to do so and keeps opportunities for me flexible from a professional standpoint
• feedback will be obtained through this discussion board as a way to document things and keep things as self-contained as possible
• I plan to make the option available for anyone that wants to create their own tool that is open source, well an option; the file format, research and documentation for making tools will keep being a part of this repository but making closed source custom tools off of them feels like it'd be a nice compromise between maintaining software in the real world and being as open as possible without being slimy or exploitative of the community

Thank y'all for reading and have a wonderful night. After the holidays are done, I'll be more active again. Feedback is also very welcomed.

[thearchivalone]

Initial build released here: https://thearchivalone.itch.io/black-rock-shooter-the-game-enemy-encounter-tools