Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:32 am Post subject:
PPM is officially supporting C&C Rivals modding!
Subject description: It's time to mod mobile games!
Hello everyone! We'd like to apologize for the silence of 3 months. I believe some of you might have noticed that I've barely posted any news during this time here and I am not proud of it at all. But sometimes, great things demands greater sacrifices. And, with the user of some hacking skills, we are glad to announce that we can now mod C&C: Rivals.
Now, some of you must be wondering... how would that work if most of the game is processed on EA's end? Well... we had to mirror it on our own side, understand the mechanics and write our own server. And that's what we are going to share with you in the next hours!
With the PPM Rivals server, you'll be able to host your own lunatic version of the game and play it as you desire. Bring the units that you want, customize their costs, firepower, hit points, etc... and you can also play with the whole monetization of the game and create new maps. There are, however, many limitations, including new factions, map sizes and among other design choices of the Rivals developers.
And, to get things started, we have created forums where you'll be able to discuss and get your modding issues sorted, since I do not expect official support into that. In fact, the least the "official support", the better in this case.
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 2:37 am Post subject:
I understand that Rivals section here might not be very popular, since not everyone can afford to host an online server that handles that game. However, we need to try new paths at PPM since the possibility of new games being moddable will just get more tough. QUICK_EDIT
However there *ARE* mods of mobile apps with their own server (hacked to allow infinite "gold", etc.) - I just don't see much point in doing it with Rivals. _________________
Also Known As: banshee_revora (Steam) Joined: 15 Aug 2002 Location: Brazil
Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 1:16 pm Post subject:
Yes, this is an obvious april fools joke.
I do no have the skills or the will to write my own server code for it. I've also downloaded the apk from the game from a random source to understand how assets are coded. It is very easy to open it, since all you need to do is to rename it as zip file and open it.
Most of the files are encrypted/encoded including XML files. I couldn't decompile LUA files with luadec or other known decompilers. The decompile and disassemble process always failed. Models uses a sb3d file format, which I haven't found a program to decode it. Textures uses an sba format, which I've found one program who tries some sort of a brute force to decode it, but it is target to NFS No Limits. I haven't tried it yet with Rivals textures. If these .json files in assets/published/data/minimap are the whole map description (which seems to have enough data to describe the whole map, to be honest), then this is the easiest file type there to understand.
Asset extraction may be one thing but creating our own version seems far off yet. And is there anyone even interested? Its clear EA will try to shut down any clone. _________________
I do no have the skills or the will to write my own server code for it. I've also downloaded the apk from the game from a random source to understand how assets are coded. It is very easy to open it, since all you need to do is to rename it as zip file and open it.
Most of the files are encrypted/encoded including XML files. I couldn't decompile LUA files with luadec or other known decompilers. The decompile and disassemble process always failed. Models uses a sb3d file format, which I haven't found a program to decode it. Textures uses an sba format, which I've found one program who tries some sort of a brute force to decode it, but it is target to NFS No Limits. I haven't tried it yet with Rivals textures. If these .json files in assets/published/data/minimap are the whole map description (which seems to have enough data to describe the whole map, to be honest), then this is the easiest file type there to understand.
And that's all, folks.
Can you provide me with any more info on where to find the decoding tool for the sba file type? QUICK_EDIT
This is great news! I always wanted to be able to mod the things I am not going to get from the lootboxes, outstanding, this game is way better than the android emulations of RA2 and TS, way better!
In any case someone should look at those emulations, I have seen some facebook posts where they claim they can play ra2 in the phone, must be cancer to control though. _________________
I could play RA2 on my Surface Book 2 without any problems, aside from a bit of a learning curve on how to play efficiently without using any hotkeys and using only pen&touch as input.
Playing on the phone would be a similar challenge, tho unlike the SB2's 13", phones barely reach 8".
Nevermind, you're right, it'd be cancer.
The older C&Cs would be much easier since they emphasize mouse/touch-input anyway. _________________ One and only developer of the Command & Conquer Dune "C&C D" mod.
m7 wrote:
I tend to release things I create so that assets are never lost to hard drive problems, accidental deletion, or me having to pretend to care about rippers taking things from my project when it is done.
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