Ok so this is me having 0 experience with breakdown. I am going to assume that it works similiarly to the base game (Why the hell wouldn't it?).

Soo you extract the pak, good good.

Couple things.
1)The game uses a soft overwrite process
This means that it first checks for specific files in a specific location, if they are there then the game uses them. If not, it goes after the info in the pak.This is how we 'mod'. We give it these files in these specific location. Thus it loads those and ingnores the one of the same name/location in the pak.

2)You have to preserve the file/folder structure.
So once you extract the pak (Don't do this in your game folder..ever. Do this in a folder on your desktop or somesuch) and you modify the files..you have to put them back VERY exactly. Luckily, when you extract the pak (Hopefully using SODET, it has worked perfectly for me), you can see WHERE.

As an example, let us take the items.xml file (Sorry but I am using the base game here, just to explain). It is found inside the gamedata.pak and the exact PATH to it is libs/class3/items/items.xml

So after editing that file, I now want to put it back and make the game recognize the edits. So in my game folder I create a folder called libs. Then I create class3 folder inside of that, and finally an items folder inside of that one. This is where i finally put my newly modified file....AFTER i convert it of course.

Somewhere out there (Google it) is a program called XML2BMD. You should have noticed while looking through those pak files that there were always 2 files of the same name. One was .xml (This is the one we edit) and one called .win.bmd. The program converts XML to BMD with a simple drag and drop. It is the .bmd file that you need to put in (my example) that newly created items folder.

Once this is done, presto.


Soo what did you do wrong.
1)Dont touch/replace/etc the BreakdownC.pak in the game directory. Leave it alone. If you need a copy to extract to get to the files, make a copy. Case in point. I have a folder on my desktop just for modding stuff. I put my pak's in there before extracting.

1B)Don't repak the pak. See my instructions above. You never need to make the files into a pak again; just a bmd file, and then put it in the right place.




So..as an example. In my game folder (Going back to state of decay for a sec). The gamedata.pak file is still there, always will be. But lets say I created those libs/class3/items folders and put my altered items.bmd (converted from xml format by the nifty program) into that items folder.

What happens? The game loads..looks for the folders FIRST. It seems that Items.bmd file and loads it. Since it doesnt see any of the gobs of other files? Those it loads from the gamedata.pak. This way you are making changes to just the files you need. Hence my early comment of soft overwrite.

Hope this helps. And this makes me realize someone needs to do a guide to modding.

Thanks for the speedy response

I thought you may have hit the nail in the head with the XML2BMD thing (its more or less the only thing you suggested that I hadnt tried in some way). but sadly no. Ive followed exactly as you explained but when I load up the game the changes i made are not there. it seems its simply using the .pak and ignoring my files.

Just to clarify the lib folder is directly in the same folder that the .pak file came from. (the sandbox folder)

Should i maybe be changing the character.xml in the core game folders and not just the sandbox/breakdown one?

Thanks again

I really cant seem to figure why it wont work. Its just ignoring any changes i make, even tiny ones.

The usual issue I've seen is that the breakdown folder structure is class3.1 instead of just class3 which seems to mess people up.

Yeah I just got that response from the UL forums. not just that, i was putting it all in the sandbox folder. Thanks