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rpm - LEGO Racers package manager


le717
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This is an experiment I've been slowly working on since 15 December, 2015 and finally have it in a state I'm happy with for everyone to try out and give feedback. I call it rpm ([LEGO] Racers Package Manager).

 

Heavily influenced by the simplicity of cli tools in the web development world (npm, yarn, pip, etc), rpm is a package (read: mod) "manager" for LEGO Racers. It provides a bare-bones yet simple way to distribute and install Racers mods. Produced packages are fully human-editable for use without the app.

 

To say this is a manager is a bit of a stretch. It currently does not produce finished packages, keep track of installed packages, or uninstall packages. I would like to implement the first two while I've not found a suitable way to handle the third. The "manager" part is somewhat of a leftover from a more expanded initial plan that was cut (my plan was the aforementioned features and to be more like the cli tools in that packages would be externally hosted and downloaded from the Web but infrastructure is intensive, yo).

 

To use rpm, just open a cmd.exe/PowerShell window and type `rpm.exe help` for all available commands. Invoking the command's help will provide more information (example: `rpm.exe help init`). I've tried to write some helpful explanations. Anything can be revised for clarify if feedback is given.

 

rpm does take care of a few things for you, however. Upon setting your Racers game path, it attempts to determine your game version and handles JAM extraction/rebuilding automatically, per direct integration of the JAM Extractor. This is supported for both 1999 and 2001 releases, so unless you have an unidentified version (let me know if that happens), you should only have the JAM extracted once and not have to rebuild.

 

I do not have any prepackaged mods. You will need to try it on your own unless/until packages are uploaded to support this.

 

Note: this software is considered an experiment. There are missing features, bugs, as well as cases where it could fail spectacularly due to unhandled errors. It may or may not go anywhere from here. I am publishing this simply to launch the experiment and get feedback on the last 2.5 years of work.

 

Currently known issues

  • JAM extraction for a 2001 copy requires am empty JAM archive not included in the release. Please download the JAM from GitHub and place it in  %AppData%/rpm before attempting to run `rpm.exe settings`.
  • init command will fail if attempting to write to a location without proper permissions (like Program Files)
  • Lots of places where things could fail with no explanation

 

 

Change log

v1.0.0-alpha.3

  • Add new `package` command to create a package
  • Various user message improvements
  • Increased likelihood that things will break™
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