Modding for ACC - Is it possible ?

[assettocorsamods]

Assetto Corsa Competizione uses the Unreal Engine 4 ..engine. So modding (generally speaking) is definitely possible. I can only imagine the possibilities with the tools available (e.g. here). However, at this point not much public information is available on the how-to side. What we do know, it Kunos's official position :

"Assetto Corsa’s structure was designed from the beginning to be moddable. Being developed with UE4, AC Competizione processes data and assets through a completely different structure and file format. Therefore, the game will not be compatible with mod contents created for Assetto Corsa. Also, our team does not have enough experience with UE4 to tackle both the development a brand-new game and the challenges of supporting an open platform in the time frame available for this project.

We are fully aware of the importance of modding and its contribution to the success of Assetto Corsa. It’s a great way for new talents to emerge, for the community to “suggest” new directions and/or simply to make a product richer. It is not a coincidence that some of the best community members are now contributing with us to the evolution of the software.

However, for ACC this element will have to be put in stand-by mode for a series of reasons. The most important one is that we have given ourselves an enormous task of rebuilding, once again our software from (almost) scratch. In a world where pretty much, every product you see on the market in simracing is an evolution of games that have been on the market 10-15 years ago, our approach is to get a big axe and reset things to (almost) zero before starting with a new project. ACC is no exception.

In this case the task is rendered more complex by the fact that we are using, for the first time a third party engine that we did not design ourselves and the truth is, given the amount of time we have available to deliver ACC to the public, we have more than enough on our hands trying to figure out how to use the engine effectively to also think about how to make the platform moddable.

As you can imagine, this has been source of endless discussions in the last year and half as every decision comes with pros and cons, there is going to be pain no matter what your final call will be. It goes without saying that we believe we made the right call even if that means losing the huge benefits of a moddable platform."

TL;DR: "We will not be supporting modding for ACC. That being said, if someone figures how to do it, we will not be stopping it."

So there it is. I guess the big question is also this: Is it worth it ?

ACC might be just a passage product, laying the ground for the real AC2.0, when modding will be fully open again (hopefully?). However, we are only in Early Access with ACC, so it might be a long wait. Let's hope people will get bored and start putting the "hive mind" to work .

PS: Kegetys, are you reading this ? WE NEED YOU !

PPS: by modding, I do not mean skins, ofc

 

[Chris Smith]

I have been using UE for quite some time as well as Unity and Stingray while it existed. This is not a hard set of software to do things with, but what I want to know is, by them saying that if someone smart figures out how to mod ACC, they wont stop them, does that mean if lets say, I figured out how to crack their encryption on the .pak files as well as the other few things that need to be done to just import the current ACC into something that can be recompiled with UE. That they will not go after me legally if I then post how to do it and how to actually get mods working? Because the biggest problem with modding ACC is once the base is modded, you wont have the security of there not being people cheating unless it is done by one person or group and then everyone else used that specific version of the then remade game. I hope that my english is understandable. But if there was more clarification on that matter, I am more then positive that you would be seeing the modding platform being shown off and the progess that has been made in the breaking into the software. I am meaning to say that I dont think anyone would want to openly admit to hacking software especially with the possibility of going to prisons and fines. Especially with how much the community loves Kunos for what they have given us. I am hoping what I am asking/saying is make sense. Thank You

 

[luchian]

[..]if someone smart figures out how to mod ACC, they wont stop them[..]

That is indeed all they (n.b. Kunos) said about it. And the way I understood it, is that it refers to the case when somebody would figure how to inject new content without interferring with the original Kunos content. Much like how modding with AC worked.

I am not experienced with UE but I know that some games using the engine are moddable. I think I've made some tests with Bus Simulator(? iirc) more than 1 year back. It needed some specific script to add stuff, but I did not see it as unpacking the whole game and then putting stuff back - which seems to be the case in your hypothetical scenario ?

So, bottom line (my personal view/understanding):

- if one figures a way to inject content without modifying original content, that's the way to do it and Kunos will not actively oppose it;

- if one figures a way to inject content but by fully hacking ACC, Kunos will not be happy about it; and still probably not do more than a respectfull request to stop if it creates confusion and damages the title;
- furthermore, if this opens a can of worms regarding "official versions" vs "hacked versions" with all the implications (online cheating) that it brings then.. with or without Kunos active involvment it's a sensitive subject that should be handled with great care.

Did I understand correctly your question ?

 

[Chris Smith]

Ok, so here is an AES key - 0x25E7F2758E70CCB3B5753577230E8048EA38563963B18BE15B5DEA222B427846 - that might help as a start. Thanks for responding, yes you answered my question perfectly, for me to understand better. Thank you again and hopefully some other people can start getting into the Unreal Engine, it will be hard to have content that feels 100% correct, in my opinion anyways. Do you think that Kunos will be doing a second title that is moddable, or. Is Assetto Corsa that is already out, the end of them doing something like this?

 

[luchian]

Kunos, as a studio, struggled quite some years. I remember Stefano saying how disappointed he was when they released netKar years back, and the next day a crack was released..

With AC they've hit it big, with ACC also (even if on a different level), so I think there is no reason for them to stop. Wether it's AC2, or ACC extension or some other title. I am 100% sure that racing simulations from Kunos will be around for many years ahead .

 

[Chris Smith]

I have gotten all the way to getting new stuff into the title, but im not that good with the designing part. I can put instructions to getting new content into a Unreal Engine game, it works for pretty much any of the games made with this engine. If you are interested in that information I can post it here, and then if you want to make a new thing for it I dont care, I just dont want to have to do much more then just share what I know to work for me currently, but with the information being released there is always the possibility that things will be changed and the instructions then not work right. But yeah, I have that currently being typed up in a document so I can condense it as much as possible, this is the good news, it is no harder for UE4 then it is for the original AC, its just a different way, but not any harder, in my opinion. Thanks again for the conversation, - Chris

 

[luchian]

I think it would be very interesting to experiment and see where things lead. I, for one, would be very curious to try. So, yes. If you have the time & pleasure to share, then please do .

Will monitor this thread closely in case there will be something to correct along the way.
cc @Johnr777

 

[Johnr777]

I think it would be very interesting to experiment and see where things lead. I, for one, would be very curious to try. So, yes. If you have the time & pleasure to share, then please do .

Will monitor this thread closely in case there will be something to correct along the way.
cc @Johnr777

I agree! Looking forward to what can be done