The earlier formats

Status: Works. Every one of these formats is loaded in Home > Experiments > Mods. Texture packs and HD texture packs apply on every page; s2u-mod data mods and the model pack apply in the test room only. Each format below has its own status.

Before the v2 pack, the project grew four pack formats, each with its own manifest and its own loader. They are the packs that change what you see in a build today. The v2 format is meant to take their place; until it is applied, these loaders are the ones that run (What a pack is).

All four follow the rules on What a pack is: opt-in, kept in your browser, checked before use, data only. None runs code: each changes only the files, textures or meshes it names. How to load each one, and the overlay you see while a texture pack applies, are on Testing a pack locally.

Bare, or as a Thunderstore packageCopy Anchor Link

Mods reads each format bare (its own files at the root of the zip or folder, or in one top folder) or wrapped in Thunderstore's package format: a zip with the store's root files -- manifest.json (with the store's keys name, version_number, website_url, description, dependencies), icon.png, README.md, optionally CHANGELOG.md -- beside the pack. The store's files are checked against the store's rules and set aside; the pack inside is read as if it were bare (the contract's unwrapThunderstore in packs.ts, called by the viewer's packs/classify.ts). A texture pack's own root manifest.json has none of the store's keys, so it is never taken for the store's. Nothing is fetched from Thunderstore: you download the zip and drop it in.

s2u-mod v1 -- data overridesCopy Anchor Link

Status: Test room only, in every build (the test-room mod loader spec, "Scope"; the MODS screen's "The test room", the viewer's console/adapters/mods.ts).

A mod is a zip or a folder with mod.json at its root (or inside the one folder a zipped directory adds). Each entry of its files list puts one file of the mod in place of a game file -- named by its disc path, or as one member of an archive the game already reads -- or adds a new one. The bytes are substituted; they are never run.

{
  "format": "s2u-mod",
  "formatVersion": 1,
  "id": "example-notes",
  "name": "Example notes",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "author": "You",
  "description": "A made-up example: replaces one text file.",
  "target": "socom2-us-r0001",
  "files": [{ "path": "EXAMPLE/NOTES.TXT", "file": "NOTES.TXT" }]
}

• target is socom2-us-r0001, the only target this format accepts.
• At most 32 files, and mod.json at most 64 KiB.
• Mods lists your mods in order; the lower mod wins a file two mods both change, and the test room's one line names the winner. A change applies when the map loads: the test room's Reload map loads it again.
• Where it applies: the test room, offline and when it joins a server room directly. Refused: a lobby match reached through the game's own menus, and the replay viewer (a replay was recorded without mods).

Texture packs -- one map's texturesCopy Anchor Link

Status: Works: chosen in Mods, applied on every page -- the main game's matches, the Forge and the test room -- on its own map only (the viewer's packs/pagePacks.ts, PackApplier; the texture pack conventions spec, §1).

A texture pack is a set of replacement images, 2 or 4 times the original's size, for some of one map's textures. It replaces only the colour of solid texels: the game's own drawing -- blend, transparency, depth, the pass -- is unchanged. Only opaque textures of the map's world (and, with roles wide, its props) are eligible; characters, weapons, skies and effects never are.

Its manifest, manifest.json, has the format s2u-local-texture-pack version 1, names the map's archive and its hash, and lists each replaced texture with its own payload file (0.rgba, 1.rgba, ...), size and SHA-256. A pack is named by the SHA-256 of its manifest, so a changed byte makes a new pack.

Mods adds a built pack (its manifest.json and payloads). A pack of source images -- a base pack's zip with its PNGs replaced, or export.json folders -- has to be built against its map's own textures, so Mods refuses it ("open the map in the test room to build it"); the test room builds one for the map it has loaded through its agent connection (Connect your agent, solo, in Build). The test room's own "Import pack (.zip)" button is gone. Once added, the pack is the texture pack you choose in Mods; it is drawn only on its own map, and the other maps keep their originals. A map's texture pack and the HD pack are never on at once: the choice is one or the other.

The model pack -- glTF models in place of meshesCopy Anchor Link

Status: Test room only, with modmodels in the page's address (the test-room model pack spec; the viewer's modelPack.ts, MODEL_PACK_PARAM).

A folder, or a zip of one, with models.json at its root: format s2u-model-pack, version 1, and a models list. Each entry names a model the game already draws -- a weapon's name, a prop's model name on the map, or a level piece as world: plus its name -- and the .glb file to draw in its place, with an optional scale, rotation and position.

{
  "format": "s2u-model-pack",
  "version": 1,
  "models": [{ "id": "example_crate", "file": "crate.glb", "scale": 1 }]
}

• At most 128 ids a pack, one .glb at most 500 MiB, the pack at most 500 MiB. A second pack can be loaded beside the first.
• It changes the drawing only: collision stays the game's.
• It is added and switched in Mods, and applied only on the test room's page with modmodels in its address; the launcher's matches, the Forge and the replay viewer never load it.

HD texture packsCopy Anchor Link

Status: Works: dropped into Mods, chosen as the texture pack, applied on every page and every map (the viewer's packs/pagePacks.ts, hdTexturePack.ts; the project's rulings OT.R92 and OT.R110 in MISSION.md).

An HD texture pack replaces the game's textures with high-resolution images: world, props, characters, weapons, effects, HUD and menus, with transparency. Its manifest has the format s2u-hd-texture-pack version 1; a current.json names the pack by the SHA-256 of its manifest, and the manifest lists every payload (a PNG or a DDS file) with its size and hash. The project's generator makes one from a texture pack made for the PCSX2 emulator, and can wrap it as a Thunderstore package.

• Loading it. Drop its zip, or its Thunderstore zip, into Mods; Mods finds experimental-packs/hd/current.json anywhere in the zip. Your browser keeps one HD pack at a time: a new one replaces the old one (the viewer's hdTexturePackStore.ts). Its row gives its size decoded, the size of its images once unpacked.
• Switching it on. Choose it as the texture pack in Mods. It applies at once on every open page, behind the "Applying pack..." overlay, under both pictures, MODERN and PS2; the menus draw their HD art while it is chosen. Choosing Original puts every original back.
• What it may change. What your screen draws, and nothing else. In a match of the main game, and in the test room joined to a server room, a replacement for an image that is opaque in the original is drawn opaque (the fairness guard, opaqueGuard); in the test room offline and in the Forge's editor it is drawn as made.
• What is gone. The "HD (GoE Soul)" picture of VIDEO MODE and the test room's HD switch were removed: choosing the pack in Mods is how HD is turned on.

Every texture is checked against its hash as it is applied. The project does not ship the pack in its builds or its repository: it is someone's art, and players get it as a Thunderstore package. Until the pack is on the store, Mods has a temporary Add test HD texture pack button that downloads the project's test copy (Testing a pack locally).

How the v2 contract reads theseCopy Anchor Link

The v2 contract can read the first three formats as v2 content packs through an adapter: a mod as mod. plus its id, the model pack as model.current, a texture pack as texture. plus its map's name (the pack-framework spec, "The three earlier loaders"). HD texture packs have no adapter. This lets a v2 pack depend on an earlier one by that id; it does not change how the earlier loaders work, and the earlier loaders do not read s2u-pack.json.