Red Faction: Guerrilla - ModManager v1.01

(C) 2009 Hazard

- DOWNLOAD the RF:G ModManager HERE !

Description

This Tools manages RFG Mods for you. No need to fiddle around with the games' datafiles anymore! Just click on "Activate Mods" and the ModManager will do all the modification work!
Mods for the ModManager do only contain those values that were actually changed by the mod, which allows the parallel use of different mods, without them blocking each other.

Mods need to be in a special format to be supported by the ModManager. The included mods are good examples on how mods should be built up. More infos for mod creators will come soon.

The modmanager is based in the Volition tools written by Gibbed (blog.gib.me). It wouldn't exist without those tools, thus give lots of credits to him!

This archive also contains the following mods:
- Explosive Pistol Bullets (based on tutorial from obliviousonion)
- Free Upgrades
- Freeroam Mode (no story missions, all zones and safehouses unlocked at start)
- God Mode
- Increased Reconstructor Range
- No Startup Logo
- Player Character Settings
- Safehouse Vehicle Selector
- Singleplayer Reconstructor (by Gibbed)
- SP Building Collapse
- Stronger Remote Charges
- Unlimited Ammo
- Wrecking Crew Maps for Multiplayer (by NBtX)

IMPROTANT NOTE: DO NOT install a game patch for RFG while mods are activated! This could seriously mess up your game installation and might require a reinstallation of the game to fix. Click on "Restore Original Files" in the ModManager prior to installing any game patches!

Disclaimer

This software is provided 'as-is', without any explicit or implied warranty. The author(s) cannot be held accountable for any damage that might be caused by this software or any of it's components.

Requirements

Required to run this modification are:

- a valid and UNMODIFIED installation of Red Faction: Guerrilla
- the Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 installed on your machine

I've included download links below. Install those if the application crashes or behaves in an unwanted manner.

- .Net Framework 3.5 - DOWNLOAD

Installation

First make sure that you remove all mods you've installed previously without the ModManager! This is very important because the Modmanager will backup the wrong files if you do not restore the original ones first!

Now extract the ModManager.exe and Gibbed.Volition.dll files to one directory of your choice. You can put them into your RFG installation folder if you wish to. Wherever you put those files, the "mods" subdircetory HAS to be extracted to your RFG installation folder.

Mod installation

Put mods into the "mods" subfolder of your RFG installation directory. If no "mods" subfolder exist, create a new folder and name it "mods".
You can enable and disable mods contained in the "mods" subfolder with the modmanager afterwards.

Changelog

Version 1.01:
- Contents of the archive zonescript_terr01.vpp_pc can be edited now
- ScriptX files can be edited now using the < Edit > tag in modinfo.xml
- Added the following mods:
* Freeroam Mode (no story missions, all zones and safehouses unlocked at start)
* God Mode
* Increased Reconstructor Range
* No Startup Logo
* Player Character Settings
* SP Building Collapse
* Stronger Remote Charges
* Unlimited Ammo

Version 1.0:
- First Public Release

Infos for Webmasters

Feel free to add this mod as a download to your site as long as you give proper credit. However, as long as it is technically possible, please DON'T upload it to other webservers. Best way would be to link to a official release thread or at least direct-link my download from your page to assure that people always get the latest version!

Screenshot

Information for Mod Creators

Before we start: This is not a tutorial on how to mod in general. You should learn how to mod prior to making ModManager-compatible mods. obliviousonion's Weapon Modding Tutorial is the right place to do so.

While reading this you should always keep the included mods at hand and look at them as a reference. Seeing stuff "in action" will always ease the learning processs alot.

Each mod comes in its own folder, containing a modinfo.xml file. In case you want to start a new mod it is usually the best to copy an existing one and then modify it to your needs.
The general structure of the modinfo.xml file looks like this:

< Mod Name="My Mod Name" >
  < Author >My Name< /Author >
  < Description >A description text about my mod.< /Description >
  < WebLink Name="Name of my Homepage" >http://www.myhomepage.com< /WebLink >
  < Changes >
     ...
  < /Changes >
< /Mod >

IMPORTANT: The spaces before and after the < and > symbols seen here are required by the forum software and DO NOT belong into the file!

Change Mod Name, Author and Description to whatever you wish. You can also change the WebLink tag in case you want to link to your homepage or a forum thread, or delete it if you do not want a link. All those tags are just shown in ModManger and do not have any influence on the game.

The < Changes > tag is where all the magic happens. It is a list of actions that the ModManager should perform on activating the mod. There are two types of change actions available right now: Replace and Edit.

Replace

Example:
< Replace File="build\pc\cache\items.vpp\repair_tool.str2_pc" NewFile="repair_tool.str2_pc" / >

Replace is the most simple change action available. It will take a file from your mod folder with the same name as defined in the "NewFile" attribute and uses it to replace the original game file defined in the "File" attribute. The "File" path can even describe a file contained in a game archive. In the above example the ModManager automatically understands that "items.vpp" describes the unpacked version of the archive "items.vpp_pc". Thus it will first unpack the archive "items.vpp_pc" to "items.vpp" and replace the contained file "repair_tool.str2_pc" with the file from your mod directory. Afterwards it will pack the archive "items.vpp_pc" up again.

DO NOT use Replace to exchange XTBL files! It will work, BUT your mod will override all changes made by other mods to this file! Those mods are considered "unclean", because they can easily override, disable or break other mods. Use the Edit change action for XTBL files instead!

Edit

Example:

    < Edit File="build\pc\cache\misc.vpp\weapons.xtbl" LIST_ACTION="COMBINE_BY_FIELD:Name,_Editor\Category" >
      < Weapon >
        < Name >edf_pistol< /Name >
        < _Editor >< Category >Entries:EDF< /Category >< /_Editor >
        < Max_Rounds >9999< /Max_Rounds >
      < /Weapon >
    < /Edit >

IMPORTANT: The spaces before and after the < and > symbols seen here are required by the forum software and DO NOT belong into the file!

Edit is used to modify XTBL ans ScriptX files (experimental ASM file support is included too). XTBL files usually contain thousands of different settings. Replacing the whole file just to edit one of those settings is very blunt and ugly and also prevents two mods from editing the same file, as they would just overwrite each other.
With edit you can now define which setting you want to modify, WITHOUT touching all the other values. The "File" attribute defines the file you wish to modify.

The XML structure inside the Edit tag is the same as in the XTBL file (without the outer < root > and < Table > tags since those are obvious). All content inside the Edit tags will be merged into the given file 1:1 . Content of tags with the same name will be replaced with the new content.

Only exception for this rule are lists. List in XML are tags that have multiple children with identical names. In this case the ModManager cannot know how to merge them and you have to give him a hint on how to behave. This is what the LIST_ACTION attribute is used for.
LIST_ACTION="ADD" will add the new children tags to the list, without touching the existing ones.
LIST_ACTION="REPLACE" will delete all existing tags in the list and replace them with the new ones.
LIST_ACTION="COMBINE_BY_FIELD:****" iterates through all children of the list in search for a child that has equal values. If such a child is found, the content of the tags will be merged. If no child with equal values is found, the tag will be added as a new one.

In most cases "COMBINE_BY_FIELD:name" will be used, to merge all children with the same "name" value.
This may sound complicated at first, but you'll get used to it really fast. You can observe the use of LIST_ACTION in all bundled mods.