Lego Rock Raiders Mod Manager Beta

[Masterchief]

So finally it's here.

After 3 months of developement I present you the official beta of the Lego Rock Raiders Mod Manager.

The purpose of this tool is to give you the opportunity to share the mods you created with the whole RRU Community.

A lot of people here are creating mods wheter CFG Mods or Overhaul Mods or just custom maps, with this tool you can share your mods quickly and easily with the community and you get always the most recent version of the mod. Browse through the Library and find the mod you would like to play.

 

Features:

• Add your Mod to the Mod Library
• Download Mods through the Mod Library
• Search the Mod Library for Mods
• Create Backups and Restore Lego Rock Raiders (no need to reinstall the game anymore)
• Download, Install, Start Game with One Click
• Add Vista/Win7 Fix with a single Click (no need to search the web for the missing .DLL file)

 

Installation:

1. Unpack the Archive to your Rock Raiders Directory. (You don't have to but it would be better for the performance)

2. Start it! (You may encounter UAC Problems with Win Vista/7 as this tool needs administrative rights to perform correctly)

Special Thanks to Cyrem and addictgamer who helped to improve the tool and gave me excellent feedback!

Please consider that this tool is still in beta phase and if you encount any kind of bug or you may have a suggestion feel free to post it here.

Cheers,

Masterchief

 

Edit: Updated Version Download Here!

http://oresome.rockraidersunited.com/download/14 (Latest)

[Addictgamer]

Great to see it finally here!

Good job Masterchief!

[Cirevam]

YAY IT'S HERE

But how should we zip our mods so the manager can install them correctly? Do we put just the files in or do we put in folders leading to their locations, i.e. ZIP\LegoRR0\Vehicles\LargeCat\LargeCat.ae but with the .ae file being the only file in the ZIP?

[Masterchief]

Good Question.

In case it's a overhaul mod you should pack them without a path, even better compile them as WADs.

To avoid abuse with the FTP Server the only File type LRR Mod Manager accepts is WAD. If you can you should compile your mod as a WAD and pack it with the tool in a zip archive.

If it is a small CFG mod you should also consider providing the whole WAD (in this case the LegoRR1.wad).

In a future version I consider to include a way to provide mods without WAD files.

[Anonymouse]

What'd be really awesome is if we could "include" further CFG files. That is, make separate cfg files for different mods.

[TheDoctor]

ADMIN RIGHTS? PFFFFFFFFFFF!!!

Whatever....

Anyways, looks awesome.

[sciguy]

cool, combine this with my cfg editor (once it is completed), the wad tool and the map editor, and you'll have the LRR modding suite!

[Matt]

Looks good from what I can see and read, but since I cannot download from Uploading.com (my Dad's firewall ), can I request that you mirror it on the RRU Downloader?

Thanks.

P.S It would seem from the screenshot that you've made a spelling error. Step one says "Open the LRR Direcory", which should be "Directory".

[Masterchief]

Thanks for the advice;) Will be fixed with a lot of other stuff in the next version. I will try to mirror it here as a Zip file, as I am not allowed to upload rar-Archives.

[TheDoctor]

can I request that you mirror it on the RRU Downloader?

I second the motion. Uploading.com = rapidshare.com IMO. RRU uploader please.

[Anonymouse]

because nobody else seemed to be bothered...

You could've done that yourself.

[Masterchief]

I am sorry Anonymouse. Just checked that I wasn't allowed to add files to the mod tools section in the Download Manager. I am currently in a hurry (writing final exams etc.) and wasn't online since the last 3 days. Please forgive me

Cheers!

PS: I am working on the CFG Idea but @TheDoctor what do you mean with Admin rights?

If you mean the App itself I have to admit that Win Vista and Win7 don´t allow file access without Admin rights so I am forced to force them on your PC otherwise I can't do any file operations.

[Anonymouse]

I am sorry Anonymouse. Just checked that I wasn´t allowed to add files to the mod tools section in the Download Manager. I am currently in a hurry (writing final exams etc.) and wasn´t online since the last 3 days. Please forgive me

No, I meant thedoctor or matt

Rather than posting to complain they could've mirrored it themselves.

Anyway - open-source?

[Masterchief]

Yes.

[Anonymouse]

Ya-a-a-ay!

Post the source too then please :P

[TheDoctor]

I don't have access go admin rights is what a mean. And mouse, I was going to let him have a chance to upload it himself first.

[Masterchief]

So finally we cleared things up;)

I will post the source as soon as I can, planned to do so but was convinced by a friend to try something else first.

The new Idea is to make use of a mysql database instead of an FTP Server. This would allow the user to Upload his Modification in categories (CFG Mod, Graphic Mod, Overhaul Mod, Else etc.) furthermore the server could work with versioning so you can update your mod and the user will get notified about the update, otherwise you can choose from a varity of options like (Instand update of all mods), select a mod to start the game with by default, create your own mod etc.

As it looks to me this is a bunch of new features and as I know from my experience with the released version there will be a lot of more headaches and a lot of more coffe will be needed to get these features working, also new movies to help me to calm down after I failed to identify a nasty bug;)

So this is the deal:

If I fail for any reasons to get this working I will release the source to the community so they will be able to modify everything, except the server login routine as this is part of Cyrems FTP server and we need to keep it save to avoid abuse, but everything else will be free to modify.

If I have success I may consider to release it or not;)

But before this work I will enjoy my vacation so see you in two weeks, to play again with some code;)

Cheers!

[Anonymouse]

Maybe make it generate patches, rather than uploading the whole wad. Possibly best if it extracted the WADs to Data then moved them somewhere safe? Then the edits could be carried out in an internal editor which uploads just the changes rather than the whole data. That way it's also less likely that you/we will get in trouble for hosting original content...

Major changes though, maybe not really viable. *considering programming something like this myself*

[Cirevam]

^ This would be an extremely beneficial... thing to the Manager. Considering that the LegoRR0 WAD is 70-80 megs, possibly larger with mods, it would be excessively irritating to have to download all of that just for a few changes. Perhaps people could pack only the changes into a WAD, upload that, then you'd have to manually extract the files and merge the new folder with the old folder. Modders shouldn't have to offer WAD and Data versions of their mod, as you basically plop the LegoRR# folders into Data from what I can remember. This also prevents people who don't know about the WAD Tool from nicking the files off the server and doing whatever with them, but hope that the WAD Tool is in a safe location away from the hackers.

[TheDoctor]

Perhaps we just don't put the wad tool up. Have it here at RRU in a members only location.

[Masterchief]

Hell , a lot of suggestions and bad thing about it: each one is great and I don´t have a clue how to archive this without getting a terrible headacke;)

So let´s sum up what I would like to do:

• 
  
  
• Categorical Upload (Graphic Mod, Overhaul Modm CFG Mod etc.)
  
• Mod Page (With Description, Pictures, Video <- restricted to 15mb and 240*360 resolution
  
• Patch System - notifing the User, Release Track with Changelog
  
• Patch Creator - Getting User data, packing etc.
  
• Upload Manager - Uploads encrypted content to the mod page (Preview Pictures and Videos)
  
• Store Safe - Converting packed data into encrypted binary data with MD5 hash
  
• Internal MD5 hash tracker to avoid abuse, if you don´t have the hash you can´t download, if the mod doesn´t have the hash it can´t be downloaded etc. So we can keep control over the expanding database
  
• Logical Patch Packer- Just packing changed files not original ones to keep track of filesize
  
• Bandwith Locker- Avoids bandwith exceeding so not to much traffic is caused and every one has access to the Database
  

As you might see this is a bunch of things and more of them show me that I really don´t have a clue about them and the only way to realise them is to drink a lot of coffe, eat some donuts and read a bunch of books;)

Cheers,

Masterchief

[Anonymouse]

• Internal MD5 hash tracker to avoid abuse, if you don´t have the hash you can´t download, if the mod doesn´t have the hash it can´t be downloaded etc. So we can keep control over the expanding database

what would that be for?

And also, considering the size of our community, I don't think server traffic should be an issue.

[Masterchief]

The Internal MD5 hash tracker would be (if I can get it working) a security check.

It checks which data is on our server and which data you got after you downloaded if anyone else modified the data through your download the Tracker detects it and warns you as this is a new way to distribute viruses and worms. Actually just a check that the data is the same as on the server.

So once you installed the Mod Manager (Next version will come with installer and registry entries) it generates and MD5 hash and sends it to the server.

You download a mod which was uploaded by another user and scanned by the server antivir routine, if it goes through the scan without warning the Server gives it an MD5 hash (Windows and Linux internal), after you download the Manager reads out the MD5 hash of the file and sends it to the server if the server detects that the MD5 hash is different then it simply tells you something like: "You should better scan the downloaded files with a virus scanner because we detected a modification of the file" nothing more;)

If you don´t want this then fine, a lot less to code;)

I just mentioned it because I thought we wanted to stay on the safe side;)

[Anonymouse]

Aaah, ok. Considering that these are data files which won't be executed, I don't really think that should be an issue.

[Masterchief]

Agreed. I may give it a try for educational purposes but it won´t be included;)

By the way: You don´t need to execute a file to get a virus or worm, it´s enough when you downloaded it and it get´s scanned through an antivir tool, a defragmentor or anything else once that happend: BAM you got infected;)