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FVModSync v0.1.2beta
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@pboxx pboxx released this 15 Dec 14:23
· 63 commits to develop since this release
v0.1.2beta
6dc445f

A tool to install game mods for Life is Feudal: Forest Village. FVModSync enables users to organise their mods in a separate folder and copy them over automatically, rather than having to edit files in the game folder by hand. This ought to make it easier for players to use various different mods in parallel, at least until an official tool for this purpose is released. Also, it allows modders to include only the relevant data (i.e. content they have actually changed) in their mods, which improves compatibility between different mods.

v0.1.2beta, for game version 0.9.6005 (2016-12-09) and tentatively also 0.9.6008 (2016-12-15)

Changelog

v0.1.2beta:

  • Change target to .NET 3.5
  • Fix DictHandler to skip empty lines in CSV
  • Sort file list internally after parsing modded files (predictable overriding; last one wins)
  • Copy only those CSV that are actually modded

v0.1.1beta:

  • Fixed bugs in DictHandler.cs (stream not closing; extra CRLF and duplicate headers in CSV)

Features

  • Copy content from multiple CSV snippets in modded files to a single target file in the game folder
  • Copy modded files other than CSV (scripts, images ...) as they are, keeping the directory structure intact

Requirements

  1. .NET Framework 3.5 or later is required for this version
  2. You need to create a Mods folder in your game files manually (ought to be Program Files/Steam/steamapps/common/Life is Feudal Forest Village), top level. The actual name of that folder is irrelevant, it's only referred to as "Mods folder" here for sake of simplicity.
  3. You need to download and unzip quickbms in your Mods folder, top level. The "life_is_feudal.bms" script also needs to be in the quickbms folder. [1]
  4. Mods that you want to manage with FVModSync need to be installed in Mods Folder/mods, and maintain the same directory structure and filenames that the game is using. For example, if I want to include a snippet of /cfg/normal/houses.csv with my mod, it needs to be in (Mods folder)/mods/pbox_nicemod/cfg/normal/houses.csv. [2]

[1] quickbms is needed to export the unmodded CSV data from the game .pak files, to "fill in the blanks" so to speak (i.e. when you have mods that only modify three lines of a CSV, this unmodified data is copied over for the rest so we don't end up with incomplete files).

[2] I believe it's good practice to include author names in uploads, so that one can reliably distinguish between files from different creators. Downloaders can rename the top level folder, e.g. from pbox_nicemod to ugly-mod-by-random-person, but need to leave the rest of the directory structure intact.

Installation

Download the zip (Releases, scroll down) and unzip its contents to your Mods folder, top level. This is what your Mods folder should look like:

Mods

  • mods
    • thismod
    • thatmod
    • ..
  • quickbms
    • life_is_feudal.bms
    • quickbms.exe
  • FVModSync.cfg
  • FVModSync.exe
  • FVModSync.exe.config
  • FVModSync_exportedCSV (will be created by FVModSync)
  • readme.md (optional)

How to use

  1. Double click on the exe.

It will put up a console window and tell you what it's doing; that window will remain open until you hit Enter (it'll tell you that as well).

Known Issues / Notes

  • CSV exceptions: Right now this does not handle the following files:
    • \cfg\dress.csv
    • \cfg\LOD.csv
    • \cfg\names.csv
    • \cfg\tips.csv

This is because those have multiple entries with identical "names" (fields in the first column), we can't tell how the game distinguishes them, and we don't want to guess. So if you have or create mods that edit those files, you will need to move/copy them manually.

  • FVModSync will create a folder named "fvmodsync_exported" in your game files, which contains various files exported from cfg.pak (one of the game packages). You can delete it if it bothers you, but it'll reappear next time you run the program. If you empty it (but leave the folder intact), FVModSync will currently get a bit stuck, so don't do that.
  • When you patch the game, delete the fvmodsync_exported folder and let FVModSync regenerate it from the patched game files. Forgetting to do so may lead to missing strings and the like, since it will continue to use those (now outdated) files.

Troubleshooting / Feedback

  • You can post in Issues or in the [Feedback thread](Forest Village modding group on Steam).
  • If you run into issues, the text from the console window may be helpful to figure out the problem: you can copy it with Edit > Select All; Edit > Copy via the context menu (rightclick) on the title bar. The game dumps a log in (Game Folder)/Log.log that is also often quite helpful.
  • FVModSync creates a backup of CSV files that already exist in the game folder when it attempts to copy over a modded file (e.g. cfg/Localization.csv.backup). Those are simply renamed, so in order to revert them, just remove the ".backup" suffix.
  • If you have all your mods installed with FVModSync, and then something goes wrong, reinstalling them should be quite simple: remove all the cfg/script/etc folders (those that have the same name as a .pak) from your game files, and then run FVModSync.exe for a fresh install of all mods from /Mods. Of course if you have made additional manual edits, you need to re-do those.

To Do / Wishlist

Warranty / Copyleft

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License v3 for more details.

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