The latest updates for rain adapted cars show a common trend, teams related info mixed with car textures and graphical objects mixed in a single mas file, instead of having team related info in a separate mas file as was done before named for instance Team_mas. This makes replacing existing skins by ours much more difficult, I already reported this fact with the first batch of cars, now FISI 2012 is released and the same happens. Is it done on purpose, is there a sound reason for doing this? Will it help with the new UI to be released? If there is no sound reason, it is very annoying, and a step back in an already very unfriendly user interface. Thanks for an official S397 answer, if you have no idea, please refrain form posting. Cheers.
That's the way we package now, and it should not make any difference. Can you explain why it's more difficult. Thanks
If you have a separate team mas, it very simple to repack, just replacing the mas file by the edited team mas or a completely new. When you have in a single mas file where team info (*.veh, various skins.dds, various icon files) is mixed with graphical elements you have to sort them by hand (error prone process, alphabetical order in the mas won't help) before extracting them from the mas. If you don't extract existing team info, and add your own separate additional team.mas existing skins will remain (some may be unwanted). This manual sort and extraction can be done, but it will have to be repeated the next time S397 makes a new version of the car. With the previous way of packaging cars, with a separate team mas file, using Noels Hibbard tools, it took me no more than five minutes mn to replace the default teams by the teams I wanted (just clicking on the mft, substitute team mas file by mine (new or existing edited), change version number and repack). They are many mas files available for download (for instance the popular C6R, Nissan GT1, and BT20 community packs) used by many to replace and enhance the default skins. Due to the number of skins packs available, I am not the only one doing that. Yes I know repacking a mod, is a little complex, causes on line mismatch (off line players don't care, I don't care), and should not be required to change non performance related aspects of a car (as was the case in RF1). While we wait for a new friendly UI that would ease these basics operations, why change the way of packaging cars mixing required files with optional? I very much appreciate the fact you took time to answer my post. Cheers.
I agree. From a modding perspective too, when making different versions of skins for different seasons it's easier to have it in a separate location. I usually have four split folders: MAIN, GMT(maps), SOUNDS and TEAMS. That setup seems to work well. Can I ask why it has been changed? Is there a performance benefit when it's all packed in one place?
