Alright, I worked on this written tut for the last few hours. So please, thank for my effort! Even though the videos are only a few mins long, it takes a while to describe and write this stuff out


Take note I changed the first section about unpacking the patch (different from video). I figure this way it will help people understand whats happening better.

Also Gendjisan feel free to put this in the OP. Although a mention that I wrote it up would be nice








1. Create a folder called "pack" on your desktop and place offzip.exe and packzip.exe into this folder.
2. Open up command prompt. Type in the following:

    cd desktop /pack

3. Get yourself a unmodified patch_mp.ff file and place it into the same folder as offzip.exe and packzip.exe.
4. Inside this same folder (the "pack" folder) make another folder named "stuff".
5. Go back to command prompt and type the following:

    offzip.exe -a -z -15 patch_mp.ff stuff 0

Hit enter.

6. You will now see 22 files in the folder "stuff". The patch is decompressed.









1. Goto your stuff folder, and open up the file "0000b4a0.dat" in HxD.
2. Hit CTRL + E, now enter these numbers for the start and end offsets.

Start: 903F
End: C31E

Hit Ok.

3. Copy the selected area. (CTRL + C)
4. Press CTRL + N to open up a new HxD file. Then press CTRL + C to paste into that file.
5. Go ahead and save this file as "_utility_compressed.gsc" (without the quotes of course). And make sure to save it into the "stuff" folder.
6. Close HxD









1. Go back to your command prompt and type the following:

    offzip.exe -a -z -15 stuff/_utility_compressed.gsc stuff 0

Hit enter.

2. You will now see a file in the "stuff" folder named "00000002.dat". Open this up in notepad.
3. Delete the following:

    /*

saveModel()

{

	info["model"] = self.model;

	info["viewmodel"] = self getViewModel();

	attachSize = self getAttachSize();

	info["attach"] = [];

	

	assert(info["viewmodel"] != ""); // No viewmodel was associated with the player's model

	

	for(i = 0; i < attachSize; i++)

	{

		info["attach"][i]["model"] = self getAttachModelName(i);

		info["attach"][i]["tag"] = self getAttachTagName(i);

		info["attach"][i]["ignoreCollision"] = self getAttachIgnoreCollision(i);

	}

	

	return info;

}



loadModel(info)

{

	self detachAll();

	self setModel(info["model"]);

	self setViewModel(info["viewmodel"]);



	attachInfo = info["attach"];

	attachSize = attachInfo.size;

    

	for(i = 0; i < attachSize; i++)

		self attach(attachInfo[i]["model"], attachInfo[i]["tag"], attachInfo[i]["ignoreCollision"]);

}

*/



/* 

============= 

///ScriptDocBegin

"Name: delayThread( <delay>, <function>, <arg1>, <arg2>, <arg3>, <arg4> )"

"Summary: Delaythread is cool! It saves you from having to write extra script for once off commands. Note you don’t have 



to thread it off. Delaythread is that smart!"

"Module: Utility"

"MandatoryArg: <delay> : The delay before the function occurs"

"MandatoryArg: <delay> : The function to run."

"OptionalArg: <arg1> : parameter 1 to pass to the process"

"OptionalArg: <arg2> : parameter 2 to pass to the process"

"OptionalArg: <arg3> : parameter 3 to pass to the process"

"OptionalArg: <arg4> : parameter 4 to pass to the process"

"OptionalArg: <arg5> : parameter 5 to pass to the process"

"Example: delayThread( 3, ::flag_set, "player_can_rappel" );

"SPMP: both"

///ScriptDocEnd

============= 

*/ 

4. Save the now modded file (CTRL + S) and close notepad.
5. In your "stuff" folder, create a new text document named "_utility_recomp_mod.gsc"
6. Go back to your command prompt and type the following:

    packzip.exe -o 0x00000002 -w -15 stuff/00000002.dat stuff/_utility_recomp_mod.gsc 

Press enter.

7. Open up "_utility_compressed.gsc" and "_utility_recomp_mod.gsc" into HxD
8. Goto the "_utility_recomp_mod.gsc" tab in HxD and enter the following at the begining of the file

78 DA

Go ahead and overwrite the two 00 00 that are there.

9. Scroll to the bottom of the "_utility_recomp_mod.gsc" file. Take note of where the last entry is (the last offset).

To figure this out simply click your mouse to the right of the last Hex entry. Then look at the bottom left of HxD. It will tell you what the offset is on the area you have clicked.

10. Once you find the offset, click on the "_utility_compressed.gsc" tab in Hxd. Now goto the top menu and click "search" then click "Goto". This is where you enter the offset you found on the "_utility_recomp_mod.gsc" file.

11. Click search and it will bring your cursor to the right place. Now highlight everything after that point (all the way down the file). Then copy it (CTRL + C)

12. Go back to the "_utility_recomp_mod.gsc" and scroll down the the bottom. After the last entry you paste all the data you just copied. You will see the additions are red in color.

13. Now go ahead and highlight all the red stuff you just pasted. But leave the four "FF FF FF FF" at the bottom (don't highlight that, just all the red above it).

14. After you have highlighted that stuff, goto the HxD menu click "Edit" then find the "Fill Selection" option. Click on it. Then hit Ok. This will fill the highlighted area in with 00's. Now go ahead and save this.

15. Close all the HxD tabs.









1. Open up the files "_utility_recomp_mod.gsc" and "0000b4a0.dat" into HxD.
2. Goto the "0000b4a0.dat"tab in Hxd and hit CTRL + E. Tye in the following for start and end offsets.

Start: 903f
End: c31e

Hit Ok

3. Now goto the "_utility_recomp_mod.gsc" tab and press CTRL + A to select all. Then hit CTRL + C to copy.
4. Go back to the "0000b4a0.dat" tab and click "Edit" in the menu bar then click "Paste Write"
5. Now you will see all the red from what you just pasted. Scroll to the top of all the red stuff. if you look just a few rows up from the red, you will see a line of "FF FF FF FF". Just to the left of these FF's are 4 letters/numbers (which is next to a 00 00).

6. Minimize HxD and goto your "stuff" folder. Right click on the "00000002.dat" file and hit "Properties". You are looking for a number, which is the "Size" number (just above "Size on disk"). Go ahead and copy this, or write down the number
.
7. Head on over to google and type the following

     XXXXX to hexadecimal

Where the XXXXX is, replace with the number you found for the size of the file. So for example, if the file size was 60,273 bytes you would type "60273 to hexadecimal" on google. Once you get the number which will look similar to this 0xEB71, write it down or remember this number (ignore the 0x part).

8. Go back to HxD. The 4 letters to the left of the "FF FF FF FF" is where you are going to enter the hexadecimal you converted on google. Just go ahead and overwrite the 4 letters/numbers that are there. The difference will be marked in red. Once you do this, go ahead and save the file and close HxD.

9. Goto your command prompt and type in the following:

{code]packzip.exe -o 0x0000b4a0 -w -15 stuff/0000b4a0.dat patch_mp.ff{/code]

Hit enter.

10. Now open up your newly packed patch_mp.ff file in HxD. Goto offset 1E (this is just a few rows down from the top).

You will see three sets of numbers/letters. For example mine is 03 8C 7A. Now scroll to the bottom if the file, at the very bottom you will see a 00 followed by a 01 (the last 4 offsets in the file). Click to the left of the 00 offset.

Now this offset should match the numbers above that you found.

For example my offset for the 00 is 38C7A which is what is located at the top of the file (mine was 03 8C 7A). Make sure this matches. If not, then change the letters/numbers at offset 1E to make it match.





That's it, if done correctly you should have a modded patch. :y:

Seriously even fixing all the syntax i'm getting a ''Script compile error, bad syntax''

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Nice work!

Can you please post a detailled tut?

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So do i. sometimes. i mainly get it when i am trying to do a patch that has the missions split on 2 .dat files
that usually gives me a bad syntax error

This is how I am doing my patches, with the split mission.gsc between the b4a0 and 14f51 files.

It's easy to get them back into those two files as long as you do it properly.

For example, in the b4a0 file the mission.gsc starts at 0000D7D2 and ends at the end of the file. This also happens to be 0000282E in length. In the 14F51 file, the mission.gsc file starts at 00000000 and ends at 00000629 in length (this is the second part of the missions.gsc ).


Basically all you do is get these two chunks of files, merge them together in HxD (I call this mission_final_comp.gsc), then decompress with offzip. After this you will have a full missions.gsc file that you can edit in notepad.

Then to re-compile, just reverse the process. Get your uncompressed mission.gsc file, compress it back into the mission_final_comp.gsc file, then open up the b4a0, 14f52 files and the mission_final_comp.gsc file in HxD.

Then put the pieces of the puzzle back together. The first part of the mission_final_comp.gsc file that goes back into the b4a0 file, and is exactly 282E in length. Then the second part of the mission_final_comp.gsc file goes into the 14f51 file, and is 629 in length. As long as you put it back together in the same way you took it out, it will work. Also don't forget those checksums! It always needs to match the size of the decompressed missions.gsc file.

Another quick tip is to make sure your editable mission file does not exceed the size it was previously. So if you extracted it and it was 60,000 bytes, makes sure it is 60,000 bytes or less when you compress it back into the mission_final_comp.gsc file. (also don't forget to use the 0x00000002 offset in packzip when re-compressing the missions file).

P.S. For some reason this method doesn't work on a clean patch. You need to use the b4a0 and 14f51 files from mossy's patch.

This is how I am doing my patches, with the split mission.gsc between the b4a0 and 14f51 files.

It's easy to get them back into those two files as long as you do it properly.

For example, in the b4a0 file the mission.gsc starts at 0000D7D2 and ends at the end of the file. This also happens to be 0000282E in length. In the 14F51 file, the mission.gsc file starts at 00000000 and ends at 00000629 in length (this is the second part of the missions.gsc ).


Basically all you do is get these two chunks of files, merge them together in HxD (I call this mission_final_comp.gsc), then decompress with offzip. After this you will have a full missions.gsc file that you can edit in notepad.

Then to re-compile, just reverse the process. Get your uncompressed mission.gsc file, compress it back into the mission_final_comp.gsc file, then open up the b4a0, 14f52 files and the mission_final_comp.gsc file in HxD.

Then put the pieces of the puzzle back together. The first part of the mission_final_comp.gsc file that goes back into the b4a0 file, and is exactly 282E in length. Then the second part of the mission_final_comp.gsc file goes into the 14f51 file, and is 629 in length. As long as you put it back together in the same way you took it out, it will work. Also don't forget those checksums! It always needs to match the size of the decompressed missions.gsc file.

Another quick tip is to make sure your editable mission file does not exceed the size it was previously. So if you extracted it and it was 60,000 bytes, makes sure it is 60,000 bytes or less when you compress it back into the mission_final_comp.gsc file. (also don't forget to use the 0x00000002 offset in packzip when re-compressing the missions file).

P.S. For some reason this method doesn't work on a clean patch. You need to use the b4a0 and 14f51 files from mossy's patch.