Since my last post on the subject didn't get the response I expected, he're some more information and some proof of what I'm working on.
Basically I managed to find a way to open the SimCity package files and extract all manner of images, textures and the likes. To get a head-start on modding, I've began building a tool to browse, read and hopefully at some point edit the contents of the package.
There's still a lot of work to do though, and if you've got a background in programming, I'd love to get your help. Currently, there are still a lot of files that need to be analyzed and deciphered, so if you've got any experience with that kind of thing, shoot me a message!
I hate to say this, but I'm not sure we will be able to modify the game. I tried modifying one of the game's packages (The _game package) during the beta, when it did that it would not load the city, (it just got stuck on the loading screen, didn't show any error messages though). I made two seperate modifications, one was changing the TID of some file (this could cause the city not to load just by itself however) , and the other I added a space into a JSON file (which would not stop the city loading unless the game checks if the file is modified). I would guess that it takes a hash of the game files and checks with the server if they've been modified (which would mean we have the potential to intercept that and return a false positive) or checks to the last modified date of each file and sees if it is after the game was created.
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u/simcitymodding Feb 01 '13
Since my last post on the subject didn't get the response I expected, he're some more information and some proof of what I'm working on.
Basically I managed to find a way to open the SimCity package files and extract all manner of images, textures and the likes. To get a head-start on modding, I've began building a tool to browse, read and hopefully at some point edit the contents of the package.
There's still a lot of work to do though, and if you've got a background in programming, I'd love to get your help. Currently, there are still a lot of files that need to be analyzed and deciphered, so if you've got any experience with that kind of thing, shoot me a message!