I'm using the mod manager and have downloaded some non-mod-manager files to crack open, too, to see if I can make them work even as listed as non-manager-compatible. That isn't what this is about, though.

I started on this course because I saw a mod that I HAD to try. One that caused the nano-rifle effect to spread like a virus through even gigantic structures without end. Super weapon mod, by Marcelvn. He's posted a few mods here, but not this one, apparently.

There's a video on youtube, though the quality is horrible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltB1EW72DXg

Anybody know where this mod can be found so I can hungrily dissect it? There seems to be some complicated mojo here, but I think this looks like enough fun to tinker with that it might be worth it.

Anybody know if there are any other repositories for RF:G mods that might have different content than Faction Files? A lot of the sources listed here recently seem to be defunct.

Thanks in advance for any resources you can lead me to. I know the community is dated and functional resources are hard to find, so I apologize for coming here to beg.

Unfortunately, most of the other RF:G mod sources have since gone down, as you said. I don't know of any besides us that are still online.

I know FileFront hosted a fair amount of RF:G files - however they've since gone down as well. If you can find someone who saved backups from FileFront, you might have some luck.

Sorry I can't be any more help. The RF:G mod community is pretty much dead, but we're still trying to do what we can by continuing to make the files that were submitted to us available. Whenever I find a file for any game in the RF series that isn't already on FactionFiles, I'll make sure to upload it to make sure it's archived for anyone who searches for it in the future. I encourage you to do the same if you manage to locate any of the files you're searching for.

Do you have any idea how that effect was created? I can't find any way to propogate the effect in the weapon settings, but I didn't expect it to be simple. I kind of suspect the effect of having components dissolve was modified to initiate a new effect to dissolve nearby parts of the structure, but I haven't had a lot of time to grind down these files because, you know, work.

I hope to take a few bites out of them tomorrow or perhaps over the weekend, but it would be good do have a place to start on this one.

The two most important files for this mod are weapons.xtbl & explosions.xtbl these are both packed in the file misc.vpp_pc

The xtbl format is actually Extensible Markup Languge or XML. Notepad++ is a great editor for this:

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

You'll want to disable Autocomplete:
Settings > Preferences > Auto-Completion > Uncheck 'Enable auto-completion on each input' > Close

To enable the Bespin theme:
Settings > Style Configurator > Select Theme: Bespin > 'Save & Close'

In order to more easily read these files I extracted the entire misc.vpp_pc file into a folder, and then renamed all of the .xtbl files to .xml files:

ren *.xtbl *.xml

This allows notepad++ to pull them all up with pretty formatting, so you can easily see where tags start, and stop, and check for syntax errors etc.

Grab the RF3 Packer / Unpacker from here:
https://www.factionfiles.com/ff.php?action=file&id=517001

Grab 7-zip from here (supports LZMA = better than zip / rar, free, and no limit to the length of an AES password you can use):
http://www.7-zip.org/

To change 7-zip to 'own' all archive file extensions:
Start > Type 7zfm > Right Click 'Run As Administrator > Tools > Options > Click both '+' until you see both columns say nothing buy '7-Zip'. Yes I'm a fan.

Unpack misc.vpp_pc:
Copy the file from:

D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Red Faction Guerrilla\build\pc\cache\misc.vpp_pc
(D:\Steam is where I told Steam to install itself)

Unzip the Unpacker with 7-zip (should be able to double click, the first time windows will ask you if you want 7-Zip to 'own' the extension):
volition-r91_b74 (Gibbed).zip\volition-r91_b74 (Gibbed)\bin_rf3\Gibbed.RedFaction3.UnpackVPP.exe

Drag the misc.vpp_pc file that you copied from the 'cache' folder onto the 'Gibbed.RedFaction3.UnpackVPP.exe' file, and it should extract the file into a directory named 'misc'. It will show a black window until it's finished. You can check the 'misc' directory to make sure it isn't stuck.

Go into the 'misc' folder

In Windows Vista+ (7, 8, 8.1, 10) you can type in the box that says 'Search misc':

content: singularity

It will find all files that contain the phrase 'singularity'

Windows 'Advanced Query Syntax'
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa965711%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

You can also use 'findstr' from the command line (cmd.exe), or install grep for windows:
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/grep.htm

Inside the 'misc' folder > hold the shift key > Right click a blank area of the folder > 'Open command window here' > ren *.xtbl *.xml > Enter Key

Here is an example mod:

<Option Name="'Singularity' (No Grav)">
------<Name>remote_charge</Name>
------<_Editor><Category>Entries</Category></_Editor>
------------<Radius>1.8</Radius>
------------<vehicle_damage_max>2147483647</vehicle_damage_max>
------------<vehicle_damage_min>2147483647</vehicle_damage_min>
------------<Impulse>2147483647</Impulse>
------------<Effects>
------------</Effects>
------------<Break_off_pieces>
------------------<Time_between_breaks>1</Time_between_breaks>
------------</Break_off_pieces>
------------<Duration>1800</Duration>
------------<Flags>
------------------<Flag>nano dissolve</Flag>
------------</Flags>
------------<CrumbleRadius>1.8</CrumbleRadius>

These don't have to be on their own lines:
<_Editor><Category>Entries</Category></_Editor>

is the same as:

------<_Editor>
------------<Category>Entries</Category>
------</_Editor>

(I added dashes to keep the tab style formatting, these do have to be removed)

This modifies the 'remote_charge' explosion, which is attached to the Remote Mine (I dunno why they call them 'charges')
1. Damage falls off with distance, Radius controls the distance, and is in meters.
2. Impulse is the force of the blast in Newtons at it's center. Impulse falls off with distance as well.
3. Duration is over how many milliseconds the blast progresses to the size of the sphere defined by 'Radius'.
4. <Flags><Flag>nano dissolve</Flag></Flags>
indicates the effect of the explosion is to dissolve material like the nano rifle. Add this to any explosion, and it will add that effect.
5. <Break_off_pieces><Time_between_breaks>1</Time_between_breaks></Break_off_pieces>
Controls how often pieces are broken off. I believe this is in milliseconds.
6. <CrumbleRadius>1.8</CrumbleRadius>
Controls the distance that structural damage is applied. This allows things like windows to break in the distance, without affecting people, or vehicles.

Typically Radius is 2-10 or so. For his mod it was likely in the hundreds.
Duration is typically under 1 seconds / 1000 milliseconds (200-750 or so). His was likely in the 10's of seconds (10000 to 30000).

7. I believe Impulse will break windows by itself. The '2147483647' number is the maximum that a 32 bit integer will allow (1/2 of ~4 billion, since integers can be negative). It is a huge step up from the standard Remote Mine's Impulse of 24,000, and it will flip vehicles quite a ways.

8. <_Editor><Category>Entries</Category></_Editor> is important. There are two entries for many weapons, and explosions. The actual name may not be 'Entries'. There are a bunch: 'Entries:Guerilla', 'Entries:Turrets, 'Entries:EDF' etc. When building the mod there is a syntax that is important as most weapons / explosions have 2 entries, one under their main Category, and one under 'MP overrides' (Entries:MP Overrides). This allows the weapon to behave differently in multiplayer. Settings for either need to applied separately (or usually the mod will fail):

<Edit File="build\pc\cache\misc.vpp\explosions.xtbl" LIST_ACTION="COMBINE_BY_FIELD:Name,_Editor\Category">

This tells the editor to modify explosions.xtbl while only combining values based on both the Name & _Editor\Category matching, so it won't touch MP overrides, unless you tell it to. The mod itself would go between the open edit tag "<Edit File=...", and the close edit tag "</Edit>". Like so:

<Edit File="build\pc\cache\misc.vpp\explosions.xtbl" LIST_ACTION="COMBINE_BY_FIELD:Name,_Editor\Category">

<Name>remote_charge</Name>
<_Editor><Category>Entries</Category></_Editor>
<Radius>1800</Radius>
<Break_off_pieces><Time_between_breaks>50</Time_between_breaks></Break_off_pieces>
<Duration>12000</Duration>
<Flags>
<Flag>nano dissolve</Flag>
<Flag>incendiary</Flag>
</Flags>
<CrumbleRadius>600</CrumbleRadius>

</Edit>

This will change the blast radius to 1.8 km. The physics engine chokes at a certain point. It doesn't use CUDA / OpenCL, or PhysX, and doesn't appear to be multi-threaded (so it uses only 1 core of the Processor). I was making a cutter charge for instance, and set the depth of the penetration (by using Radius & Cone_Angle), to 1km it took multiple seconds while the game 'froze', and would usually miss actual damage effects, so testing is important.

The above mod should do nanite damage, last 12 seconds, crumble structures up to 600 meters, with a blast that falls off in power (impulse), and damage over 1.8 km. It should also set fire to things (incendiary flag). There are also range limits for human damage, and min / max values for range, and damage. The idea being at the min distance it will do the max damage, and fall off to the minimum damage, at the maximum distance.

All of the .xtbl files have some descriptions of the settings, and tags at the end of the file.

I uploaded the unpacked version of Misc.vpp_pc as misc_xml.zip

Here are relevant snippets from Explosions.xtbl:

<Element>
<Name>Impulse</Name>
<Type>Int</Type>
<Description>Maximum impulse to apply at the center of the explosion in kg * m/s. This is interpolated to 0 at the edge.</Description>
<Default>0</Default>
</Element>
<Element>
<Name>Structural_Damage</Name>
<Type>Int</Type>
<Display_Name>Structural Damage</Display_Name>
<Description>Damage amount to be applied to destroyable objects. Damage to destroyable objects is computed entirely different then normal objects, so this value has little relevence compared to human or vehicle damage.</Description>
<Default>-1</Default>
</Element>
<Element>
<Name>Duration</Name>
<Type>Int</Type>
<Display_Name>Expanding Explosion Duration</Display_Name>
<Description>This is used to control how long (in milliseconds) it takes an expanding explosion to reach the full radius.</Description>
<Required>false</Required>
<Default>500</Default>
<MinValue>0</MinValue>
</Element>
<Element>
<Name>Delay</Name>
<Type>Int</Type>
<Display_Name>Expanding Explosion Delay</Display_Name>
<Description>This controls how long to delay (in milliseconds) before starting to delete pieces, the effect(s) start immediately</Description>
<Required>false</Required>
<Default>0</Default>
<MinValue>0</MinValue>
</Element>

I've made some mods and converted other files on this site for RF:G Because it is one of the best games ever created, best open world game EVER. Ok now that is out of the way, once I get my new gaming PC I will dedicate my time on moding again, I will try to figure out how to remake that mod.