Do you have a problem with us posting modified .assets files?



I am wondering since those who understand how to get modified files to work can post them, avoiding the current issues with people crashing their games.

Developers have said that they support modding but they at the start they didn't have time / didn't prioritize modding high.



Right now we are basically living that time of game live where there isn't modding tools and where modding is fun (except me to go away when it gets easier)

Well, we could release mods of a sort without official support if we knew for a fact that they were okay with the current method. If they are not, there could be legal repercussions. Aka, you could be charged with copyright infringement. To avoid that level of misunderstanding, I am asking before doing. If they say it is okay, then I can put out a full file with no worries.

Well, we could release mods of a sort without official support if we knew for a fact that they were okay with the current method. If they are not, there could be legal repercussions. Aka, you could be charged with copyright infringement. To avoid that level of misunderstanding, I am asking before doing. If they say it is okay, then I can put out a full file with no worries.

First of all, modding has always been crucial for SpaceTroll and myself, and we had it in mind all along the game development. Modding will not be easy on release (unless you are experienced hackers ), because we have focused a lot on the last content, features, optimizations and tuning. There are also some people dying to get a Mac version, and that is also a big priority and something we set aside to achieve the PC release. Obviously, we want to restart our work on modding after release, and I think there will be several steps.

from the: /#/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/15840-modding-status second paragraph.

But the main first effort we will have to push will be the ability to read these xml files (or their graphical counterparts) outside of the Unity archive. It is not impossible, we just have to rewrite asset reading methods. Actually we use some of this already for some assets which stand outside (user preferences, galaxy generator output). This should not be too hard, but I want to do this right and find the correct architecture. Once this is done, editing game content should be easy for the xml part, a bit more complex for the 3D assets.

also notice this part. Basically they are saying that it's hard now but someone manages to do something they are atleast not angry.

I am aware of the fact they want to support modding, the problem lies in the non-xml part of those files. If it is say, the music (really unlikely considering the size) then distributing them could be considered the same as putting up the music for download somewhere. Whatever it is, if it is copyrightable, but not something they have given a clear go-ahead on, then it could cause issues. My assumption is that if they are cool with distributing the full .assets file then there is nothing problematic in the binary portion.

Hi everyone,



I have received numerous requests to share the first modding experiments. On our side, we will start working now on making the game easier to mod (we were so far busy with bug fixes, optims, and Mac port), I hope to give ouy updates soon.



On your side, it is ok to share mods for other users, but please make sure these mods :

* Do not contain any copyrighted material (images, music)

* Notify the user that the content is not Amplitude's, and that the mod is installed at his own risks. If a modified Galaxy Generator performs unwanted operation on a user's system, we cannot be help accountable for it.

* Are not sold for a fee, this must remain free, unless we decide to move to Steam Workshop or an equivalent.



Thanks,

Thanks for trying to clarify. Unfortunately, we cannot tell what are the contents of the binary files. For the specific file sharedassets17.assets, we cannot tell if it *also* contains images or music. It contains all the xml files, which is what we want to mod. If you can confirm whether this specific file is OK, which we cannot tell, that would be great.

You can always do your mods like patches, with a *.xdiff files without redistributing the base content but only the patch with the modding content... however it would be always hard for beginners... just my 2 cents...

davea wrote:
Thanks for trying to clarify. Unfortunately, we cannot tell what are the contents of the binary files. For the specific file sharedassets17.assets, we cannot tell if it *also* contains images or music. It contains all the xml files, which is what we want to mod. If you can confirm whether this specific file is OK, which we cannot tell, that would be great.

Does it actually even matter? I highly doubt that anyone, except developers, does even now how to extract binary code, contained in sharedassets17.assets, much even less to transform into something useful (like readable code, text, images or music). Anyway, it's also very unlikely that sharedassets17.assets contains any images or music at all, as it contents seems to be xml files exclusively, and binary code for procedures(or whatever that is) to access them. Have you ever seen how much space music or images take, if we take out xml-content of that file, its like 403631 bytes (394KB) of binary content left. Go try to cram in that some music or images. So we can safely assume that sharedassets17.assets contains no images or music. Let's be practical and be done with it already.

//Mods for everyone!!!

As you may know, I have released three mods containing sharedassets17.assets. So I am not waiting for this approval. Still, if the file does contain copyrighted assets, the statement "but they are hard to extract!" will not protect us from any lawyers.

davea wrote:
Still, if the file does contain copyrighted assets, the statement "but they are hard to extract!" will not protect us from any lawyers.

And you can get hit by lightning out of the clear blue sky. Chances are the same.

Tycus wrote:
And you can get hit by lightning out of the clear blue sky. Chances are the same.

Whaa! it's not nice to scare me like that. It was shocking memory :/