the VM thing i mentioned will take a while so I can't immediately report on it.
I'll reiterate what has been tried so far.
- I completely removed the RalivDev folder and unpacked game to a separate drive letter (I try to never store stuff on c:\ drive)
- I launched the unmodified game and started a new game, immediately exited as soon as I got in-game control (no alt-f4 or anything)
- patched the DLLs as instructed using linked version of delta-patcher.
- I can now launch the game and "Mods" button appears (also game will hitch just before loading mod menus)
- If I add either modpackassets or modpackmodels (both also fails) from the current release (i have not tried adding previous version assets) - "Mods" button dissappears, game doesn't hitch trying to load non-existent mod-menus.
I'll edit the post once I'll get clean fresh install of windows 11 running in a VM and will try patching and running the game from a clean state.