chaudloader

chaudloader is a mod loader for Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection.

For users

1. If you are on Windows, run install.exe. If you are on Steam Deck, run install.desktop from Desktop Mode.

2. Start the game. Mods in the mods folder will be activated in alphabetical order.

For modders

Mods consists of the following files in a directory inside the mods folder:

• info.toml: Metadata about your mod. It should look something like this:

  title = "my cool mod"
  version = "0.0.1"
  authors = ["my cool name"]
  unsafe = false  # set to true if you want to use scary unsafe functions
  url = "https://mycoolmod.com"
  requires_loader_version = "*"  # or any semver requirement string
  requires_exe_crc32 = [0x11111111, 0x22222222]  # list of CRC32s to match against, can be unset if not required
  requires_game = ["Vol1", "Vol2"]  # list of game volumes this mod applies to

• init.lua: The Lua script to run on mod load. Please consult API.md for the API documentation.

Developer mode

chaudloader has some development options which can be enabled to aid with mod development. These options have to be manually set in chaudloader.toml. Having developer mode enabled also enables a debug console while the game is running.

These options are purely for development purposes. For users it is strongly recommended not to enable them.

• developer_mode (type: boolean, default: false): Enables developer mode. Required to be true in order to use any of the other development options.
• enable_hook_guards (type: boolean, default: false): Enables hook guards.
• stage0_commands (type: string array, default: []): List of shell commands to run during stage0 before the game's entry point. If any of the commands returns a nonzero exit code, loading is aborted. The following variables can be used in commands:
  • %PID%: Replaced by the game's process ID.

For developers

First time

1. Install Rust from https://rustup.rs/

2. Install Visual Studio 2022 with the Desktop development with C++ workload.

3. Build Lua 5.4 using powershell -executionpolicy bypass .\download_and_build_lua.ps1 from a VS x64 command prompt. You only need to do this one time, and it will produce a dynamically linkable Lua library in build\lua54, as well as headers in build\lua54\include.

Every time

1. Build the binary with cargo build --release.

2. Run cargo install --release to build and install chaudloader into the BNLC exe folders.