coletonodonnell/lcmodmanager

A centralized mod manager for Lethal Company that manages plugins via a remote server and syncs them with a client, as well as install BepInEx.

lcmodmanager

A centralized mod manager for Lethal Company that manages plugins via a remote server and syncs them with a client, as well as install BepInEx.

Rationale

There exists already many mod managers that support Lethal Company. This mod manager is definitely inferior to these alternatives, but it does serve a centralized source. The goal for this mod manager is to support the following:

• Linux clients that might use interesting/non-default path setups.
• Modified plugins or plugins that have configurations that need to be shared by all clients.
• Allows a tech savvy person in a friend group to act as a centralized mod/plugin distributor.

In addition to these features, I also did this as a Rust teaching experience and a project I can continually improve.

Client Usage

Note: using lcmodmanager will (most likely) delete your current mods installed. If you'd like to make sure your current mods are safe, back them up.

To use, just run the lcmodmanager executable. It will for a default install just run perfectly! If you do have a nonstandard configuration, though, please look at the commands below:

Long Command	Short Command	Description
--windows	-w	Use Windows paths.
--linux	-l	Use Linux paths.
--flatpak	-f	Use Flatpak paths
--wipe	-i	Wipe the plugins directory.
--lethal-company-path	N/A	Specify a Lethal Company path encapsulated by strings to utilize.
--steam-path	N/A	Specify the path to the steam executable encapsulated by strings.
--help	-h	Print the help message.

Server Usage

The general idea of lcmodmanager is that there exists a server with mods that exist as tarballs. Here is an example layout for such a folder setup that you would host:

/path/to/
├── BepInEx.tar.gz
├── LateCompany.tar.gz
├── MoreCompany.tar.gz
├── plugins.json
└── plugins.sha256

In this example, two plugins are in this path, as well as BepInEx.tar.gz for BepInEx installs. The plugins.json specifies specific details about these plugins for the client. Here is the plugins.json

[
  {
    "identifier": "AdditionalSuits",
    "sha256": "4541a331b05b9e0cb55ce71ea1618b3facab40fc44f6c32560a9f290b6474c48",
    "version": "1.1.3",
    "tar_name": "AdditionalSuits.tar.gz",
    "files": ["AdditionalSuits.dll"],
    "folders": ["resAdditionalSuits"],
    "root": false
  },
  {
    "identifier": "HookGenPatcher",
    "sha256": "b3a6c36d3beafdc5c2c3537d12fc95d4b73662f69cee89080847ed5803a0e04b",
    "version": "0.0.5",
    "tar_name": "HookGenPatcher.tar.gz",
    "files": ["config/HookGenPatcher.cfg"],
    "folders": ["patchers/BepInEx.MonoMod.HookGenPatcher"],
    "root": true
  }
]

Here we see the things that must be specified:

• identifier: The name of the plugin that will be downloaded.
• sha256: This is the lowercase checksum for the tar archive. You can get this with sha256sum.
• version: The current version of the mod/plugin.
• tar_name: The name of the tar archive.
• files: An array of files that the plugins use in the parent directory, this could be anything from DLL files to configs. Can be null.
• folders: An array of folders within the tar archive, in the event that there is no folders (which is common) just set this to null.
• root: When true, install to BepInEx/, when false, install to BepInEx/plugins. Note: whenever you are using the root option, ensure that you are using full paths to files that are commonly shared with BepInEx. In the example above HookGenPatcher installs to BepInEx/config and BepInEx/patchers, which are both common (e.g. installed with BepInEx.) This could mean that, whenever being removed, if you just declared config and patchers, lcmodmanager would delete these. Ensure you are using full paths as described above whenever this is the case.

Finally, plugins.sha256 is the checksum of the plugins.json. Whenever the client grabs plugins.json, they will verify that the checksums match before proceeding. The idea behind this is that there is now a low risk for possible transfer issues.

Distribution

If you are interested in distributing your own instance of this mod manager, the process is pretty simple.

1. Edit the .env to your liking. LCDOWNLOAD is the link to the folder containing the files outlined in Server Usage. For example, https://example.com/lc. BEPINEXDOWNLOAD points specifically to the BepInEx tar archive you're using for clients. For example, https://example.com/lc/BepInEx.tar.gz.
2. Run cargo build --release.
3. Distribute the executables to your friends, or, if they are paranoid (rightfully so) send them this source code with your modified .env for them to compile on their system.