itch.io

Hopefully I'll "quickly" check if some locale emulators can be used as workaround and update this post, but thanks for listening to non-US "complaints".

EDIT:

First - I checked some regional formats and some work and some don't. As I checked, Albanian, Hungarian and Russian regional formats break the mod, while Japanese, Spanish and Turkish regional formats will work with the mod. I haven't checked sub-types of those formats, only the "most expected" ones based on their name.

Second - Locale Emulator (from Github, for example, latest version 2.5.0.1) works as a workaround. I'll write down below how to use it "as portable as it can be":

1. Unpack downloaded LE (Locale Emulator) and launch LEGUI and close it.

1a. If LEGUI doesn't launch normal window - launch LEInstaller and it will prepare the environment - and immediately close it (alt-f4 is sufficient) - now relaunch LEGUI to make sure it loads as in step 1.

2. Drag modded game executable onto LEGUI exe and click "Create Shortcut" - if nothing else was modified - then LEGUI will create(update) specific config/shortcut for the game and immediately launch the game with parameters set, namely Japanese locale (that works with the mod).

3. Now the game can run with all the mod's features working (assets and models included).

Now for the testing if some regional formats will break the mod - in step 2 change the location to something that doesn't work, i.e. Hungarian (Hungary) - and game will behave exactly as I described earlier in this comment thread.

Sorry for the delay - I had to reinstall the VM a couple of times, managing to brick it during 3D initialization (Win11 and HDDs...).
Turns out it is "locale" related - namely regional formatting - if my format is being applied then I cannot use assets and models as they simply will fail to load (and I will have the exact same behaviour as before - some buttons not working at all). 

If I switch to US formatting - mod fully works, models load and no issues are being observed. Except one - my values from previous save are completely out of whack - if I supplied (via slider) value like 6,8786845 (comma being the decimal point) - now it reads without the comma and goes "through the roof".

I am still looking to see what exact regional formatting option causes mod to stop operating normally (I tried reading the log file game creates but no luck so far) - so I have to do some trial and error until I find the specific option that causes the mod to break. Will post an update hopefully soon.

EDIT: ugh, it's a bit difficult to test - basically any "available" mangling with English US (or other English) regional formatting doesn't really cause the modded game to fail loading assets/models data.

But changing to any "comma as decimal point" regional formatting (so far I tried Albanian and Hungarian) - will "break" the mod from loading.

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.

I went over the entire installation with someone willing to help. I started from clean slate - standalone version of the game and patched the DLLs - that works.

As soon as I add assets or model folders into the game data - Mods breaks.

I tested this both on main PC with Win10 and Win11 laptop that never ran the game. And I did patching and clean slate install on both systems just to be sure (I guess I haven't looked into cleaning the windows registry). I presume something is off with my install but my "usual" suspect of locale (similar to how japanese games want to be run) or non-english letters in paths - none of that helped so far.

EDIT: for the sake of completeness (and maybe even win11 laptop has some unknown "taint") - I'll try clean Win11 VM just to be sure.

About V10 installation - Asset installation bricks the mod for me - "Mods" button disappears and some of original buttons cease to work (save and exit while in a loaded save), including "Finished" button on character creation in a "New Game" option.

I walked through the installation couple of times (including help from other people) and if I remove the assets - Mod goes back into working order.
Additionally - protogen headmodel never worked for me since 9.1 version.