Long War for Mac OS/X - pointers / advice?

[thither]

[EDIT: During the course of this thread, I laughed, I cried, I listened to what Anderkent was saying, and I wrote a Long War installer for OS/X which you can currently download from the "files" tab of the main Long War page. The documentation for the installer, and its source code, can be found on github.]

 

Hi all. I don't have any experience with modding X-Com, but I do have a compiler, some time, and some interest in getting the Long War mod working for OS/X, so I'd like to give it a shot. If nothing else, maybe I can produce some informative notes for the wiki that would help somebody else to eventually get it working.

 

There seems to be enough stuff on the wiki to get me started, and I've compiled wghost81's upkutils for my Mac with no problems.

 

My main problem now if that I can't figure out where to get the actual source files that Long War is composed of (since everything is wrapped up in a Windows .exe installer). Can somebody point me in the right direction, or alternately advise me how to get the files out of there? (I can boot up into Windows if I need to.) Also, is the literal source code to the installer part available anywhere, so I can see what it does?

 

Any other tips about how to go about getting the mod to work for OS/X would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks!

Edited September 6, 2014 by thither

[johnnylump]

It's on my list of things to do -- to upload them all in a zip file and include manual install instructions. We're asking that others not post mod files without our permission.

[thither]

It's on my list of things to do -- to upload them all in a zip file and include manual install instructions. We're asking that others not post mod files without our permission.

 

Great. Please let me know when you have something posted. I won't post anything without permission. (If it's easier for you just to throw some stuff up on dropbox and PM me the link instead of doing a more official release or whatnot that's fine with me too.) Thanks!

[Anderkent]

I tried installing LW as-is on a mac, with miserable results I'm afraid: the game starts, but the main menu doesn't have any buttons.

Here's what I did:

 

 

1. Download LW Beta 13 .exe installer
2. Unpack it using innoextract (brew install innoextract)
3. read detailed install debugging to figure out what it's doing
4. Patch <your steam library>/steamapps/common/XCom-Enemy-Unknown/XCOM Enemy Unknown.app/Contents/MacOS/XCOM Enemy Within:

• 58 00 00 00 43 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00 6D 00 00 00 47 00 00 00 61 00 00 00 6D 00 00 00 65 00 00 00 5C 00 00 00 43 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00 6E 00 00 00 66 00 00 00 69 00 00 00 67 00 00 00 5C 00 00 00 44 00 00 00 65 00 00 00 66 00 00 00 61 00 00 00 75 00 00 00 6C 00 00 00 74 00 00 00 47 00 00 00 61 00 00 00 6D 00 00 00 65 00 00 00 43 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00 72 00 00 00 65 00 00 00 2E 00 00 00 69 00 00 00 6E 00 00 00 69 00 00 00
  (that's XCOMGame\Config\DefaultGameCore.ini in utf32le)
  (this should be at offset 0x1f62084) -> replace 58 with 57 (X -> W)
• 57 00 00 00 43 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00 6D 00 00 00 47 00 00 00 61 00 00 00 6D 00 00 00 65 00 00 00 5C 00 00 00 43 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00 6E 00 00 00 66 00 00 00 69 00 00 00 67 00 00 00 5C 00 00 00 44 00 00 00 65 00 00 00 66 00 00 00 61 00 00 00 75 00 00 00 6C 00 00 00 74 00 00 00 4C 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00 61 00 00 00 64 00 00 00 6F 00 00 00 75 00 00 00 74 00 00 00 73 00 00 00 2E 00 00 00 69 00 00 00 6E 00 00 00 69 00 00 00

  (Same, now for DefaultLoadouts.ini)

5. Copy over files from Config/ Localization/ and CookedPCConsole/

6. Remove XCom{,Strategy}Game.upk.uncompressed_size

7. Block phoning home using hosts file

 

 

Alas, nothing useful shows up in logs when you start the game.

 

If anyone has ideas for how to check whether the patching of the executable worked (are the config files being read?), or if I missed a step that the installer takes (pretty sure I didn't), or any other ideas at all, I'm happy to test and report on progress.

 

edit: I also tried editing the Hashes.sha file simply by changing the filenames: xcomgame.upk -> ccomgame.upk etc. No joy)

Edited July 30, 2014 by Anderkent

[johnnylump]

You might revert the three two UICollection_* files to vanilla versions and see if you get the buttons back.

 

(EDIT: Right, two. We're modding a third one for the next Beta)

Edited July 30, 2014 by johnnylump

[Anderkent]

Ha. Of course these two turn out to be the two files I failed to back up. BRB, verifying local files via steam...

 

ETA: It seems that even after verifying local cache the game menu fails to appear. Trying a full reinstall - I didn't actually check if the game works before starting the mod, that'd be awkward if it doesn't.

 

If it does, I'll test on every step and report back later.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Anderkent

[Anderkent]

Woohoo! It works.

 

My mistakes were:

 

1. It seems the game has to phone home at least once. Start it before blocking via /etc/hosts

2. I was editing XCOM:EU files, not EW. I missed the /XEW at the end of {app} in description, so everything I was doing wasn't actually applying to EW. Derp.

 

Happy to advise if others are having issues getting it to work! Seems to be running smoothly so far.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Anderkent

[thither]

That's great news, thanks! I will try it myself tonight to see if I can replicate your success. I wasn't even aware of the existence of innoextract!

[johnnylump]

Congrats! If it's all right with you, I'll pick up your instructions when I finally distribute the mod files outside the installer. Anything you can do to make them idiot-proof would be appreciated.

[thither]

Ok, so following Anderken's instructions above, I was able to seemingly install the mod successfully. However, I am noticing some odd things which make me suspect I've missed a step somewhere.

 

1. When I launch the game I'll occasionally get a crash (stack trace seems to indicate a double free()). Relaunching it always seems to be successful.

 

2. I have a "long war" button on the bottom of the screen, but the options look like vanilla EW ones. I don't see the options for "cinematic mode" or "not so long war" for example, and the normal difficulty options are in place, including Beginner.

 

3. I've seen a graphical glitch a few times now where a red, green, or blue overlay seems to get detached from the main screen. It's a little hard to describe but it makes the game pretty unplayable. Screenshot here:

 

http://imgur.com/lILg9qN

 

I found by accident that toggling fullscreen on and off seems to resolve this, at least for a while.

 

4. In my first mission, my soldiers are wielding "EXALT Assault rifles."

 

5. I'm seeing a few messages "NOT USED ANYMORE: so-and-so has entered close combat" during combat (during the enemy turn). Not sure if that's just a beta 13 thing. I was last playing on Windows in beta 12.