Plus Porter (1.1.0.1)

Was poking in to see how the progress is on this, and -

also, i was able to at least port the mod jenkas nightmare the other night, but then again plus porter has its limits. the only 95 maps limit i assume, this mod had 125 maps with the first map having a null value, so i wouldn't be able to play the port. with so much going on with this mod, it just brought a shitstorm when i returned to the title screen.

While some mods have more than 95 maps, I doubt you'll ever find one that needs them all. If I've heard correctly, Booster's Lab helps you delete unnecessary maps and automatically adjusts all of the <TRAs for you.

I hate to break it to you, but Jenka's Nightmare does in fact use all 126 of the maps inside it. Every single one is used (no joke). (Map 0 isn't literally 'null', it's used to load credits, and for Quote walking in place like a dweeb)

The real limit to maps is 127 or something, I think, but I gather they gimped that limit to the specific number of maps used by Cave Story? Or does Plus Porter itself only do the first 95?

 

The real limit to maps is 127 or something, I think, but I gather they gimped that limit to the specific number of maps used by Cave Story? Or does Plus Porter itself only do the first 95?

Yeah, the freeware version can do up to 128, but Cave Story+ can't handle any more than 95. If you try to <TRA to a map higher than number 094, then the game will crash. If you manually construct your own list of maps in Plus Porter, then it will stop you from breaking the limit. If you load the map data from the exe of a mod that breaks this limit, then it will load all the maps, but a warning will be displayed letting the user know that not all maps will be accessible in the port.

Even if all maps are used, you can still try to merge cutscene-exclusive maps (or ones where the map system is not available) with one another and use some tileset editing tricks to accommodate the different NPC spritesheet needs for different areas, as well as large-scale <CMP scripting to change the landscaping for different scenarios. Although I admit trying to do that for a mod with 126 maps would require you to get pretty creative, assuming it's even possible.

 

I couldn't give you a "best I could do" number if I were to cut down on maps by merging some, but I'd imagine it would be over 100, at least.

Is there no way to mod or patch CS+'s executable to bypass this limit?

 

Is there no way to mod or patch CS+'s executable to bypass this limit?

I have no doubt that there is, it's just that nobody has figured out how to do it yet.

 

I reckon it would be straightforward to do even, but..
patching CS+ is not exactly an ideal solution. There are different versions of the game (Humble store, Steam, Linux port, Mac) that would make it more work to maintain, and if the games update then it would have to be redone.
On top of it, asking the user to install the mod is one thing, but patching their game may be more involved than just copying some files.

Best to avoid it if possible

 

Couldn't we just ask Tyrone to remove the limitation? Of course that means that there will still be old copies of CS+ in circulation that won't play JN properly, but whatever.

 

Couldn't we just ask Tyrone to remove the limitation?

Are you suggesting that sending Tyrone a message asking him to make a release of CS+ that better accommodates mods would actually be an effective use of time? Based on what I know about their track record, NICALiS doesn't seem to be on the ball when it comes to receiving feedback and fixing bugs based on it. If it were that easy, then there are numerous things I would request to be changed.

 

for example the broken achievement that would take literally 2 minutes to fix :/

 

The downloads to some of the ports don't work aka mediafire sucks.

 

I'm loving it

I've ported "Enemy Rush" mod and I think is very fantastic

 

I'm loving it
I've ported "Enemy Rush" mod and I think is very fantastic

That's great! I'm glad that you decided to try it out and that it's working for you! Any chance you'd be willing to share this port with us?

The downloads to some of the ports don't work aka mediafire sucks.

Sorry, forgot to reply to this. I just tried all the downloads to the ports and they all seem to work. Not sure why they weren't working for you.

 

That's great! I'm glad that you decided to try it out and that it's working for you! Any chance you'd be willing to share this port with us?

As you wish

Enemy Rush
I hope it will works in everyone's CS+

 

As you wish

Enemy Rush
I hope it will works in everyone's CS+

Pretty nifty, it worked for my installation. One thing I noticed was that we see equal signs in the place of those circle characters for representing items in message boxes, which looks kind of weird in CS+. Do you think that I should add an option in the auto-port wizard to automatically remove those from all of the TSC scripts?

 

Pretty nifty, it worked for my installation. One thing I noticed was that we see equal signs in the place of those circle characters for representing items in message boxes, which looks kind of weird in CS+. Do you think that I should add an option in the auto-port wizard to automatically remove those from all of the TSC scripts?

Hard to say ...
You can test the auto-port version (by porting some mods) with removing TSC scripts (I do not even know what they are TSC scripts)
If will be positive - you can add it. If no - don't add it.
But everything is up to you

 

Yes, but make it toggleable.

 

Um... So there's this problem that there is nothing opening when I click "Open CS+ Directory" (or just put in ctrl+shift+o), nothing pops up. I am now about to go into Sand Zone and I have 1 Save File. I want to mod it to have the 4Endings mod on it. The only thing that I can do is create a new port for some reason... Do I have to delete my save file before modding anything? Another issue I have is that when I go to prefrences and click "Browse" for Cave Story + directory, nothing pops up. I am just so confused. Thanks in advance to the person that responds to this.
(P.S, I use Windows 7)

 

Yes, but make it toggleable.

All right then, the feature has been implemented. It will be available in the next release.

Um... So there's this problem that there is nothing opening when I click "Open CS+ Directory" (or just put in ctrl+shift+o), nothing pops up. I am now about to go into Sand Zone and I have 1 Save File. I want to mod it to have the 4Endings mod on it. The only thing that I can do is create a new port for some reason... Do I have to delete my save file before modding anything? Another issue I have is that when I go to prefrences and click "Browse" for Cave Story + directory, nothing pops up. I am just so confused. Thanks in advance to the person that responds to this.
(P.S, I use Windows 7)

This is becoming very frustrating. There are numerous people who have reported that bug, and when I try to have them run it with the console window open to find out what's wrong, it mysteriously starts working. First, just open up Plus Porter and try again. If that still doesn't work, then create a new text document, and in it, put the text: "java -jar PlusPorter.exe", and then change the file extension from .txt to .bat. Then run the batch file, and see if there's any useful information the console window can give me. More likely than not, though, it'll just fix it, which I guess in your case is good.

One thing I don't quite understand is how you managed to get the new port option to work even though that's not supposed to be accessible until you have opened a CS+ directory. Were you somehow able to do it, or did you modify the prefs file?

Also, the status of your Cave Story+ installation shouldn't have any effect on whether or not you can browse for a directory, unless you actually browsed for one but were specifically told that that installation was invalid.

 

One thing I don't quite understand is how you managed to get the new port option to work even though that's not supposed to be accessible until you have opened a CS+ directory. Were you somehow able to do it, or did you modify the prefs file?

Also, the status of your Cave Story+ installation shouldn't have any effect on whether or not you can browse for a directory, unless you actually browsed for one but were specifically told that that installation was invalid.

Yes, I did change the prefs line.
Yes, I do have a valid copy of CS+ on Steam.
Thanks for the help!

 

Aaaaaaaaand the next version is out! You may either download it from the original post, or here: Plus Porter v1.0.5.0

Changes in this new version:

Spoiler

-Made the auto-port wizard judge whether or not global scripts in a mod should be replaced based on comparing them with those in the base directory of the Cave Story+ installation, rather than the freeware installation.
-Gave the auto-port wizard a progress bar.
-Added an option in the auto-port wizard to remove the equal signs from all text in message boxes
-Made the program automatically re-route event #200 on map 13 to the start point specified in the mod if it's different from the default game.
-Modified the algorithm for comparing files to be more efficient so that the process of replacing the mod's stage folder completes much faster

I am officially declaring this program out of beta phase. This probably isn't the final version, but I'd say we're definitely at the home stretch. I've also cancelled plans for a hex patcher in this program since, after thinking about what Noxid said, having this program tamper with the exe may not be the best idea due to all the various versions of CS+ that are out there. So yeah, I also probably will never do the things listed in the "Changes I might make some day" spoiler, but I'll just leave that there for the heck of it.

I would like to thank everyone who's supported this project, it's much appreciated. I'll soon be making a tutorial for porting mods, so that there will be some more user-friendly documentation on this program than just the readme.

 

Give us a Linux version already!