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SlyCooperReloadCoded, posted Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:39 am (67973)

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I've been trying to mod the Star Wars Starfighter games and while the BMS script the extract the games' .PAK archives is a good start, I can't really do anything with these files as I can't repack them. Can this script be put into reverse, packing a folder containing the extracted files into a .PAK that has the same strucutre as the original? According to a dev I've been talking with, creating a packer should be "stupidly simple", and considering there's already an unpacker, I was wondering if anyone could take a look at a .PAK file and the extraction script to see if the process could be reversed. The modding community for these games is only me and I don't have the knowledge or skills to do this, and this a community about coding and tools, so I thought I'd ask. Apparently the archive is just a table of contents and then the files and folders inside. There's also a package info file inside each .PAK file, so that might be some help.

BMS Script:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tO94aM ... sp=sharing

Example .PAK archive:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D2WvdB ... sp=sharing

aluigi, posted Mon Dec 06, 2021 7:52 am (67978)

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It's a simple format so I guess the reimport2 feature of quickbms may work well without problems.
Writing a packer/rebuilder with quickbms is not a good idea because it's longer than doing it with a normal programming language.

SlyCooperReloadCoded, posted Thu Dec 09, 2021 5:05 am (68059)

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Well, can reimport 2 add files that weren't originally there or add files that are larger than the originals? This is why I want a custom repacker.

aluigi, posted Thu Dec 09, 2021 8:44 am (68070)

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Ah ok, so yeah the repacker is your only choice.
Just curious, did you try leaving the new files in the game/data folder and check if the game loads them anyway?
Sometimes it works

SlyCooperReloadCoded, posted Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:19 pm (68097)

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No, these games don't. That did cross my mind. Can the BMS script alone give someone enough info to make a repacker or is it just enough to unpack the files, stripping away package info?

aluigi, posted Thu Dec 09, 2021 7:03 pm (68099)

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Sure. Usually the limitation of an extraction-only tool/script is that it doesn't have to cover all the fields.
In this specific case the format is super simple and the are no "holes" in the format and there is no compresssion or crc or encryption or other complicated things. It's very simple.