Where two mods change one of the game's assets in ways that cannot both be
in the game (a resource or chunk changed differently, an EBX whose changes
cannot be combined, different assets added under one name), the one lower
in the load order is left out whole, so neither loads half its changes.
The merge used to keep the higher copy of each asset and lose the rest of
the lower mod's change silently, which broke Skaterize beside deckorate.
A check before the merge (find_conflicts) reads only the bundles two or
more mods ship and applies the merge's rule: about 2 s for 296 mods, on
several threads, each mod's copy of a bundle by itself. When it finds
conflicts nothing is built, the catalog leaves the losing mods out and
merges once. The merge keeps its own check behind it, tracking per asset
the last change a mod made itself, so a change carried through other mods'
copies is still caught. A conflict is remembered in .reskate-excluded.json
with the mod it lost to, and stays out while both are unchanged and the
winner still loads above it.
The launcher says "Checking the mods" and "Checking the mods for
conflicts" during those steps. Its mod problems screen says MOD CONFLICT
when that is all there is, and the Mod Manager shows a CONFLICT badge, an
N CONFLICTS banner, a Conflicts filter and, on the mod, which mod it lost
to and how to load it instead.
The merge measures each custom map's own meshes, every level of detail of every MeshSet in its
level bundles, into Mods/.reskate/reskate-map-meshes.json. A custom map's mesh streaming pool is
the game's 520 MB and half as much again as those meshes, at most half the video memory free (as
before): most maps have 25 to 70 MB of meshes and reserved 1 to 2 GB for them. When the map needs
more than the card has room for, Mesh.GlobalLodScale goes from the quality preset's 1.25 or 1.5
to 1, so coarser levels take over nearer; the game's value comes back for the next map that fits.
A map's world textures (texture group Worlds_*) flagged to stream that keep every mip with the
bundle, as an older Studio built them (404 MB of PQS Cordoba's), are made to stream as the game's
own do: the bundle keeps the mip tail from a 64 KB block, both first-mip fields of the header and
the chunk record say so, and the sharper mips stream from the chunk the map's TOC lists in full.
Only in a map's own level bundles (Studio keeps cosmetics whole; changing those left a load at
Starting server), and only for chunks whose guid marks them compressed (the streamer reads any
other as raw pixels and copied past what it read).
A mod's item (or one of the game's own a mod changes) keeps three empty description lines, so
the game's item card, which grows upward from a fixed bottom edge, always has room in the same
place; the overlay draws the mod there: its icon (decoded off the render thread into a fourth
texture slot, the last 32 kept), a MOD or CHANGED BY MOD tag, its name, author, version and how
many items it has. The card is placed as the game places its own, measured at many window sizes:
by the smaller of its scales, a 21:9 frame centred on wider screens (the search bar follows it
too). The warning sign the game's focus script gives any description is taken off that notice
each tick while it shows the reserved lines.
The merge's item list records each mod's version and folder (an older list falls back to the mods
loaded at launch). The item grids now run every client tick instead of at the 500 ms
customization pace, follow the highlight between their 40 ms passes, and let go of a grid as soon
as its screen closes, so the card, the search bar and favorites keep up with the player.
The merge keeps the items the store-copy check reads in every mod and writes them to
Mods/.reskate/reskate-items.json (highest priority first, so an item two mods ship is the one
whose copy the game uses); a live merge keeps the entries of the mods it did not read again, and a
patch built before the file existed is built again once. The game reads it when it builds its
item catalogue: an item a mod adds says "From: <mod> by <author>" under its name, one of the
game's own that a mod changes "Changed by <mod>", unless it has a description of its own.
combine() recorded every source's copy of every EBX and resource asset, so that conflicting edits could be combined later. Map mods carry near-complete copies of the game's root-level bundles, so most of those copies are the game's own bytes. A mod's copy equal to the game's first copy of the asset, the copy edits are combined onto, is no longer recorded; the game's copy, recorded first, stands for it. A contribution points at its source's folder instead of copying the path. The merge report counts the copies left out.
A mod archive numbered 65534 or 65535 is placed under a free index, so no real placement is read as a placeholder. carry() records every payload in one list (settle() still writes each once per install chunk) and keeps one archive index, as write() does.
A carried asset was written again for every superbundle that carried it: 1.4 GB of 2.2 GB with 96 mods, which left no room for a live apply. Each one is now written once per install chunk, when its first superbundle settles.
Votes: a vote is decided by the votes cast, not by everyone on the server. It
passes when yes is its percentage of them, at the end of its time, or sooner
once the players still to vote could not change it. A kick still needs two
yes. The card's bar is yes in green from the left and no in red from the
right, with a mark where yes has to reach. No protocol change.
Map versions: a map installed at another version than the host's is no longer
loaded as it is. The download card offers the host's version (MAP VERSION,
UPDATE), which replaces the installed one and is applied while the game runs.
For that the live merge keeps each mod's fingerprint with where its archives
were placed, and places a mod again when its files have changed since: before,
a mod replaced while the game ran was read where the old one lay. When the
host's version is gone from Thunderstore, or the old one's files are in use,
the player is told and leaves the session.
Dedicated server: "maps reload" reads the Mods folder again, so a map copied
in while the server runs can be switched to at once. The server window reads a
copy of the map list.
Map names: a custom map's level is dingolevel_reskate_<map>, and "reskate" was
left in its name ("/map reskate badlands"). The map's own name is shown and
typed now; the old spelling still finds it.
as a level unloads, the game takes each mesh variation out of its registry by the
entry's mesh and reads it unchecked, and this map's meshes unload before
their databases. A guard on that one function has the read of a mesh that is
gone go on with the next entry, and logs how many were passed over.
Map downloader
- A host or dedicated server now tells joiners which Thunderstore package
its map comes from (the Mods folder name plus manifest.json).
- A player without the map gets a card: icon, name, author, version and
description, with DOWNLOAD and CANCEL. It works with mouse, keyboard and
controller.
- Only packages listed as Maps in the ReSkate community are offered, and
never deprecated, rejected or NSFW ones.
- On yes the package is downloaded, installed into Mods and applied as a
live mod, then the session loads the map. A small card on the right
shows the progress, so the player can keep skating.
- The player stays connected while it downloads: the host gives a player
who says they are fetching the map up to 45 minutes instead of the
usual load time.
- When the server changes map with the player in it, the card says so.
- Protocol version 47: map package on map_offer and world_state, and a
"fetching the map" flag on map_request and world_ready.
Joining
- The pause-menu server browser shows a CONNECTING card over the page
while a join is under way, and a COULDN'T CONNECT card with the reason
when it does not get in.
- The session and voice tabs no longer show before the player is in.
- Leaving without the map (declined or cancelled download) no longer
counts towards the failed-join limit, on servers and player hosts.
Input
- A card that asks something holds the game's input until the buttons
are released.
- Steam's overlay hooks XInput in front of ReSkate and answers the game
itself, so a controller reached the game behind menus. ReSkate now
hooks that hook as well.
Mod merging
- Mods are read on several threads, at launch and for live merges. A live
merge runs below the game's priority.
- The paid-cosmetics check reads the game's files and the mods on several
threads.
- A live merge reuses the paid-cosmetics verdicts it already has and
reports its progress and timings.
Launcher
- NSFW mods and their categories are not shown in the mod browser.
With many mods the launcher kept showing "Linking <last mod>" while the
material grid, a live merge's load screens and the asset overrides ran,
since none of them reported a step (#138). Each now does, and the total
is counted again once the superbundles are known: a disabled map that
ships the root level has it merged too, and the first count left it out.
The merge also notes how long each step took. The note is added after
the stamp is written, so a reused patch does not report the times of the
merge that built it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VNYF3aYa2q3MkFXc5xYnDd
Each disabled mod was added to the merge fingerprint after a newline, so
the stamp held the fingerprint across several lines and previous_merge,
which reads the stamp a line at a time, compared only the first of them
with the whole fingerprint. They never matched, and every launch with a
mod disabled merged every mod again. A space keeps the fingerprint on one
line.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5
The launch merge truncated cas_65537 to archive 1 while a live apply rejected it, and any misnamed archive stopped the whole merge instead of just that mod.
- Mods that add copies of store items under new names are no longer
loaded. The launcher, mod manager and game say why.
- A chat line passed on by the host only shows a Dev/Creator/Homie
badge when the player's own copy of it arrives too, so a host
can't put one on a line that player never wrote.
Maps ship their own copy of game bundles such as
bam_levelroot/bam_coregameassets, and that copy loads instead of the game's
on their levels. Changes an asset mod makes to the game's EBX already
propagate into those copies; assets it adds did not. A mod that appends a new
song to the master music playlist therefore left the playlist naming a song
the map's copy never contained, so the song was missing on custom maps.
collect_asset_overrides now also records what an asset mod adds to a game
bundle, and combine inserts it into other mods' copies of the same bundle,
after their own assets, unless the copy already has that name:
- an added EBX is carried only when one of the mod's recorded changes imports
it, or another carried addition does (the playlist names the song, the song
imports its wave), so an addition never travels without the change that
needs it;
- a resource the mod adds under the same name as a carried EBX goes with it
(a wave's sound-bank resource registers the wave; without it the game
crashes instantiating the wave);
- TOC chunks the mod adds that its carried EBX name are listed in each
superbundle those assets go into, pointing at where the mod's archive
landed (a map's superbundle resolves chunks from its own TOC).
A copy in the TOC the adding mod ships its own bundle in (cosmetic mods share one)
merges with that mod's bundle and already has the asset, so only copies in other
superbundles, i.e. maps' level TOCs, receive additions.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Mod archives (Engine/Vfs/mod_merge*)
- A free archive index no longer has to sit at or below the highest index
the layout already declares. The engine keeps archives in a table keyed
by layer, install chunk and a 16-bit index, with no range to stay
inside; what it cannot survive is a reference to an archive the layout
never declared. Indices are taken lowest first, per package directory.
- So a mod that collides takes an index of its own and its file is hard
linked rather than concatenated, and no two mods share one archive's
4 GB of addressable bytes. Sharing is left for a mod added while the
game runs, which has no declared index to take, and for a directory
with no index left.
- A placement addresses its payload with a 32-bit offset, so both append
paths now refuse to cross 4 GB instead of wrapping round and pointing
the game at some other payload: CasStore::write fails with the archive
that is full, and the live-apply path checks archive 1's size plus the
mod's before appending and asks for a restart, which gives the mod an
archive of its own anyway.
Injection through a hooked LoadLibraryW (Engine/Core/Platform)
- A player could not launch at all: "Child LoadLibraryW entry bytes match
neither Windows' kernel32 file nor this process". Anti-virus and
overlays hook the entry with a jump to a per-process trampoline, so the
bytes differ in the launcher and in the child and neither comparison
could match. The guard already allowed the same hook when both
processes carried it identically, so it refused on an accident of how
the hook was written rather than on intent.
- inline_jump_length recognises the forms a hooking engine writes (rel32
jmp or call, push/ret, jmp [rip], mov rax/jmp rax, short jmp). When one
is present and every byte after it still matches the clean kernel32
file, the launch goes ahead: the body is Windows' own, and the provider
image already matched on timestamp, checksum and size. A wholesale
replacement is still refused, and now says so.
- The failure names the modules loaded into Skate that came from neither
Windows nor the game folder, instead of guessing at "security
software". An accepted hook is logged as a warning with the same list.
Launching (Launcher/launch.cpp)
- Exporting loose scripts is a convenience, and a folder that would not
take it was failing the whole launch: fs::create_directories threw and
nothing caught it. The export is skipped, RESKATE_LOOSE_FILES goes to
0 so the runtime does not look for files that are not there, and Skate
starts. Someone whose install is under Program Files can play; only
editing loose scripts is lost.
Failures worth reading (Launcher/problem.h)
- A hooked LoadLibraryW, a refused write and ERROR_ELEVATION_REQUIRED
each explain themselves now. Windows reports the last two in the user's
own language -- "Zugriff verweigert", "La operación solicitada requiere
elevación" -- so the rules key on the operation names and the error
number, which are never translated.
Saved skaters (Extension/Customization, Extension/Profile)
- Outfits stopped saving and every slot showed the standard skater. The
load hook marks a preset blocked on entry and clears it only on a full
success, so a load refused for a catalog that was not ready yet left
the preset blocked for the session and every later save was refused as
previous_load_rejected. The game asks once per level load and does not
ask again, so one lost race cost a skater until a restart. Logs show
the catalog arriving three seconds after the refused load, at startup
and again on a map switch 17 minutes later.
- The record is remembered in CosmeticRuntime::pending_loads and applied
by retry_pending_cosmetic_loads from the customization pump, which
already waits for refresh_cosmetic_catalog. The preset stays blocked
until a load really succeeds, so nothing is written over the outfit on
disk.
- Those records belong to the loadout manager's array, which can be
replaced in between, so each pointer is checked against the live array
exactly as a save checks one -- manager current, begin/end sane, 0x48
stride, at most 10 records, in range and aligned. A record that no
longer belongs is dropped as retry_record_moved rather than written
through.
AyeZeeBB