Hello folks, due to recent changes in my personal life, my mods will not be maintained anymore. Feel free to use my luas/paks the way you want ! Happy modding :)
I tried to combine two mods but i couldn't do it. i wanted to ask if u can combine two mods for me. i have tested them separatly and they work independently, but not together. If u can help me i will write domn the names of the mods. tks.
Hey I just wanted to stop by and thank you again. Short of mods that involve original assets, I can essentially create any mod I need for personal use without ever even browsing the Nexus anymore. I've already merged in like 8 mods that I made myself that were outside the scope of things I found on the Nexus, or were mods that were 3+ years out of date that I recreated from scratch.
It's 100% exclusively thanks to you that I was able to jumpstart my understanding of how modding this game works. After spending weeks making my own mods I've realized that you left out basically no important info at all. Everything we need for manual modding is included in your tutorial. You rock!
An idea for a future guide: I already figured it out on my own (in part thanks to your tutorial), but you can actually download old versions of MBINCompiler to manually cross reference outdated files and make updated versions of mods that look like they are hopelessly outdated. It's also a lot easier than people would think. All the hard work is already done if you're updating a mod and not making it from scratch.
Hey, thanks for stopping by and for your kind words :) I'm glad you could have actualised older mods, and your idea for the guide is interesting indeed, if you need help don't hesitate ! And thanks for pointing out the fact that it's not that difficult, it might encourage other to do so, and to customize their own NMS experience, which is the best :)
Excuse me but I still don't understand what I have to change or how I should change it...
I get the same lines in both files, highlighted in yellow. Ok, so far so perfect... and now what? I think that's what your guide lacks, explaining more about what to do near the end, most importantly, which is changing both files
EDIT: Forget it, sorry for my comment, I've already done it, I was able to merge the two mods I wanted, thank you very much! ^^
I'm happy to know this helped you ! If you still think some step need more clarification don't hesitate to tell, I could make more pictures to illustrate the text for instance, if need be ^^
Followed your guide, and now gonna test if i succeeded! I will ask something if i succeed :P
Edit: Thanks it worked.
My question is, do you have a google excel or something to know which file to open to get original file? I want to update some old mods to the new version.
I found on reddit, but it was 3 years ago. So was just thinking as u do know how it works, you might have what pak file cointains what?
Nvm, i found on nexus xD https://www.nexusmods.com/nomanssky/mods/645
I'm glad it worked ! I do not have an excel sheet for that since I usually unpack the whole game, you can see here if you want to do so : https://www.nexusmods.com/nomanssky/mods/1478 As for the excel sheet you're pointing it seems a bit outdated, I hope It'll be of use to you, but if you have problems don't hesitate to ask for help :)
so far so good, even though i have some doubts that a lot of people will get this done by your how-to-description. you descibed it more for people who already done such things a few times. but anyway... there is was something else i had in mind: what about those entries with the seemingly offsets in the *.exml files? sure, some of those can be guessed about their meanings, but a lot of those have no contextual information which would let you decide which to change or not (e.g. <Property name="UnknownInt0x14" value="20000" /> instead of <Property name="UnknownInt0x14" value="0" /> ). likely i would find out what it means if i would go poking around the game files, but in that case, i could just go write my own mod too... and yes i know that i could ask the modder about it too but in then, but it's more likely to never get any response from this side or at least not very soon. so far, i do the try&error method, often seeing no differens at all - which might be totally normal, random or just because i didn't even triggeres anyting that would make the different noticeable. what i'm getting at is that the lack of references in the exml files makes your way a bit of a struggle at times - still, it's a way to do things and i appreciate it. oh, one last thing: how come the *.pak files are often much smaler after repacking? i didn't any compression rate option in the arc-tool, but it's noticable... edit: on this, i guess the psarc compressor you suggested is fixed to a compress value. i used the psarc plugin for my total commander file manager (mostly, because your suggested psarc tool seems to be unable to compress multiple files - at least i could not get it to do this...) and i saw there are several other compress rates optional.
Concerning your first point, I do hope people can actually do it by the how-to-description, it is the point of this tutorial, and I have discussed with a member who successfully made a merge thanks to this, I hope more people will find the help they need here. About the unreferenced values, this tutorial is about merging, not creating mods. Which means the changes are already done : you just have to read what has been changed by comparing two conflicting files and add these changes, therefore there is no need for poking around, if not for your own wish of curiosity. As for the compression, psarc tool is definitely able to compress multiple files since I do it quite often, you can look here if you want to adapt my cmd to a linux batch if you wish : https://www.nexusmods.com/nomanssky/mods/1478 You will notice that MBINCompiler also makes a very good job at compressing when going from exml to mbin :)
those unreferenced values might be of consequence (or not) though - at least they often show different values when comparing two mods, sadly often in no context to what they represent. since i never created a mod for this game, i can't be sure if the where done by the mod creators or during compiling itself (not sure if the whole file of configurations are written by the mod creators, but they look too standatized in form for me to belive this). so far, when merging and either ignore the values, write them over or even changing them into anything else did not prevent the merged mod from running as it (likely) was intended... but ofc, some nagging feeling still lingers ^^) oh, and about people not being able to do the merging from the description, i don't really thing that those who can't figure out the finer points would even think of doing this in the first place... a bit of trial and error is always a good thing to do since even mistakes help with the learning ^^ ah and i found out why the multifile-use with the arctool did not work for me: i'm not using the windows explorer to handle file operations but the total commander which suits my need far far better than the crap microsoft did to their manager... due to my configuration of it though, i can't simply drag and drop a batch of files onto an executeable to provide them as arguments - i can do it by command line either via console or the total commanders own command line though. i just tested it with the windows explorer and it worked well, but since i have a arc-plugin already in the total commander, i guess i'll use it instead since it worked so far without any problems (only thing is that i have to manually rename the archive extension from *.psarc to *.pak ^^)
Thank you so much, this is exactly the kind of help I was looking for right now. It's nice to see that "20 April 2020" post date because it means I'm not relying on ancient info that might be outdated. I like to work my way through things and make sure stuff is getting done correctly, so this method seems a lot better than relying on AMUMSS.
I am glad to hear that, this is precisely why I did this tutorial, I too prefer to be sure of what a mod does and how it will modify my experience ! Also, the satisfaction of customizing the fine settings to your wishes is quite enjoyable. And indeed you can trust that I will update this tutorial if need be :)
I use AMUMSS in which I just take the lua from one mod, combine it from the pack with the other, is this correct? It seems to be working for me so far. Just thought I'd ask the difference between this way of merging and my way?
I guess it does the same through automation but I don't use it personnaly so I could'nt say if there is a difference. I generally try to avoid automation actually, that's why I went with this solution instead. Also, this tutorial works for any mod, not only those who have a lua file ready, which is a plus.
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Feel free to use my luas/paks the way you want !
Happy modding :)
Le souci, c'est le "presque". :D
I tried to combine two mods but i couldn't do it. i wanted to ask if u can combine two mods for me. i have tested them separatly and they work independently, but not together. If u can help me i will write domn the names of the mods. tks.
Endorsed!
It's 100% exclusively thanks to you that I was able to jumpstart my understanding of how modding this game works. After spending weeks making my own mods I've realized that you left out basically no important info at all. Everything we need for manual modding is included in your tutorial. You rock!
An idea for a future guide: I already figured it out on my own (in part thanks to your tutorial), but you can actually download old versions of MBINCompiler to manually cross reference outdated files and make updated versions of mods that look like they are hopelessly outdated. It's also a lot easier than people would think. All the hard work is already done if you're updating a mod and not making it from scratch.
And thanks for pointing out the fact that it's not that difficult, it might encourage other to do so, and to customize their own NMS experience, which is the best :)
I get the same lines in both files, highlighted in yellow. Ok, so far so perfect... and now what? I think that's what your guide lacks, explaining more about what to do near the end, most importantly, which is changing both files
EDIT: Forget it, sorry for my comment, I've already done it, I was able to merge the two mods I wanted, thank you very much! ^^
If you still think some step need more clarification don't hesitate to tell, I could make more pictures to illustrate the text for instance, if need be ^^
Can't wait to see what you'll think to mod !
Edit: Thanks it worked.
My question is, do you have a google excel or something to know which file to open to get original file? I want to update some old mods to the new version.
I found on reddit, but it was 3 years ago. So was just thinking as u do know how it works, you might have what pak file cointains what?
Nvm, i found on nexus xD https://www.nexusmods.com/nomanssky/mods/645
https://www.nexusmods.com/nomanssky/mods/1478
As for the excel sheet you're pointing it seems a bit outdated, I hope It'll be of use to you, but if you have problems don't hesitate to ask for help :)
but anyway...
there is was something else i had in mind:
what about those entries with the seemingly offsets in the *.exml files? sure, some of those can be guessed about their meanings, but a lot of those have no contextual information which would let you decide which to change or not (e.g. <Property name="UnknownInt0x14" value="20000" /> instead of <Property name="UnknownInt0x14" value="0" /> ). likely i would find out what it means if i would go poking around the game files, but in that case, i could just go write my own mod too... and yes i know that i could ask the modder about it too but in then, but it's more likely to never get any response from this side or at least not very soon. so far, i do the try&error method, often seeing no differens at all - which might be totally normal, random or just because i didn't even triggeres anyting that would make the different noticeable.
what i'm getting at is that the lack of references in the exml files makes your way a bit of a struggle at times - still, it's a way to do things and i appreciate it.
oh, one last thing: how come the *.pak files are often much smaler after repacking? i didn't any compression rate option in the arc-tool, but it's noticable...
edit: on this, i guess the psarc compressor you suggested is fixed to a compress value. i used the psarc plugin for my total commander file manager (mostly, because your suggested psarc tool seems to be unable to compress multiple files - at least i could not get it to do this...) and i saw there are several other compress rates optional.
About the unreferenced values, this tutorial is about merging, not creating mods. Which means the changes are already done : you just have to read what has been changed by comparing two conflicting files and add these changes, therefore there is no need for poking around, if not for your own wish of curiosity.
As for the compression, psarc tool is definitely able to compress multiple files since I do it quite often, you can look here if you want to adapt my cmd to a linux batch if you wish : https://www.nexusmods.com/nomanssky/mods/1478
You will notice that MBINCompiler also makes a very good job at compressing when going from exml to mbin :)
oh, and about people not being able to do the merging from the description, i don't really thing that those who can't figure out the finer points would even think of doing this in the first place... a bit of trial and error is always a good thing to do since even mistakes help with the learning ^^
ah and i found out why the multifile-use with the arctool did not work for me: i'm not using the windows explorer to handle file operations but the total commander which suits my need far far better than the crap microsoft did to their manager... due to my configuration of it though, i can't simply drag and drop a batch of files onto an executeable to provide them as arguments - i can do it by command line either via console or the total commanders own command line though. i just tested it with the windows explorer and it worked well, but since i have a arc-plugin already in the total commander, i guess i'll use it instead since it worked so far without any problems (only thing is that i have to manually rename the archive extension from *.psarc to *.pak ^^)
Also, the satisfaction of customizing the fine settings to your wishes is quite enjoyable.
And indeed you can trust that I will update this tutorial if need be :)
Also, this tutorial works for any mod, not only those who have a lua file ready, which is a plus.