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CMSF v0.2.0 - skins that add instead of overwrite

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@dataterminals dataterminals released this 22 Jul 16:56
· 18 commits to master since this release
v0.2.0
7c46f18

Adds new character skins to The Forever Winter's select screen alongside the ones the game ships with, instead of overwriting them. New entry, its own name, description and portrait — nothing replaced, no slot taken, and two CMSF skins can never break each other.

It's worth installing before you have a single skin mod: the game ships base skins it never lets you select, and normally picking a DLC skin strands you on it until you die in a raid and get randomly reassigned. CMSF unlocks the selector.

Downloads
CMSF-v0.2.0.zip Players. The framework + CMSFUnlock. This is the one you want.
CMSF-author-v0.2.0.zip Skin authors. cmsf-author.exe builds a skin into a pak.

Installing (players)

Copy the Windows folder from the archive into your game folder so it merges with the one already there:

...\steamapps\common\The Forever Winter\

Launch, pick a character, open the skin menu.

Mod Organizer 2 users: don't copy anything into the game folder — install the archive as an ordinary MO2 mod. MO2 virtualises both target directories, so hand-copied files aren't what the game sees.

Requirements

  • UE4SS — tested against 3.0.1-894-g2172883 (take the build without the zDEV- prefix)
  • Signature Bypass — required for any content pak mod, not just this one

Note for skin authors: your antivirus may flag cmsf-author.exe

It's a self-contained, single-file, unsigned .NET build — a shape that trips heuristic scanners routinely, and the reason this bundle is hosted here rather than on Nexus. Nothing is obfuscated: the tool is ~700 lines of C# in this repo and you can build it yourself with dotnet publish tools/cmsf-author -c Release. Windows SmartScreen will also say "unknown publisher" once — More info → Run anyway.

The bundle ships retoc.exe (MIT, © Truman Kilen and Archengius) and no game data. You supply your own .usmap, dumped from your own copy — CMSF can't ship one without redistributing part of the game. Drag the bundled example-skin folder onto the exe to check your setup before building anything of your own.

What's tested, and what isn't

Validated in-game across all six characters against the full 192-slot framework: every menu populates and prunes, and an author's claim renders with its own name, portrait and mesh.

Not tested: multiplayer, and behaviour across a game patch. The framework has to be rebuilt from each new cook; author paks should survive untouched, since slot paths are append-only, but that hasn't been exercised against a real update yet.

Things that aren't bugs

  • A skin can be missing for about a second when the menu first opens, then appear. The game reuses tile widgets across four panels, so the first pass reads a stale image. It corrects itself.
  • Empty slots don't show. The framework provisions 32 per character; you only ever see ones a skin actually claimed.

If a skin you installed isn't showing, it's almost always load order — skin paks must load after the framework. Open the console and type cmsfnoprune to reveal every slot. If yours reads CMSF SLOT NN UNCLAIMED, the pak isn't loading, or is loading before the framework.

Authoring guide: docs/07-authoring-v2.md · Slot registry: docs/slots.md

MIT licensed.

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