Balamod (Modloader/Injector/Decompiler)

[gray mulch]

With Balamod gone, does this disable my ability to get achievements since at one point I had it moded? I never actually loaded any mods

[jolly forge]

Nah it doesn't

Once u delete the exe and reverify the game ur back to vanilla anyways, but also balamod doesn't disable achievements by default

[gray mulch]

Ah alright, thanks!

[jolly forge]

Only steamodded disables achievements by default, but you can renable them easily with a mod btw

[jolly forge]

Check the awesome Balatro GitHub page and you'll see it 🙂

[shadow rune]

so this is tested and working with paths outside of %AppData%/Balatro?

[noble summit]

That causes lots of issues for MacOs and some Linux os due to permissions

https://github.com/UwUDev/balamod/pull/25

People had issues on Fedora, I don't think love2d can manage things outside love.filesystem

[shadow rune]

yeah, afaik that aps is artificially limited to just appdata and the balatro game directory.

I implemented module injection to get nativefs available for use specifically for that reason

I can shoot you more info later, I'm not at my PC atm

[tall hawk]

how do i install balamod

i cant seem to open the file with the powershell thing

[uncut granite]

@dull spoke did you get this resolved? I'm having the same issue

[dull spoke]

Nope, im using steammoded for now. Im waiting for balamod to be resolved

[noble summit]

https://github.com/UwUDev/balamod/releases/tag/v0.1.11

@dull spoke it should works now

[dull spoke]

Yay, downloading mods from balamod does not crash the game anymore :D

@noble summit I found a new problem, I downloaded and enabled 4 mods (Collection Fix, ShamJoker, Community Joker and Gay) and those enabled mods did nothing. After I quit the game, and open it again, only Gay is available to enable (the rest of the 3 mods I have to download it again). Luckily, Gay mod works when enabled, but idk why I have to download Collection Fix, ShamJoker and Community Joker again, and still do nothing when I enable them.

[random flume]

Hi hi, thought I'd mention I tried to install this on my mac running sonoma 14.4 and encountered a very similar issue citing the lack of openssl@1.1 which wasn't install for me instead i had version 1 and 3. After using brew to install version 1.1 it finally worked! And it appears the mod marketplace is also workign now! If this becomes a common issue would changing it to use the openssl version 1 or 3 maybe work as from my very limited understanding they are the versions required by most things?

[noble summit]

I think the issue is the mods themselves :/

[noble summit]

I'll change the faq if ossl 3 is the issue ty

[random flume]

also to add, worked very reliably to edit the mods i wanted that were made for steammodded just by putting the code of the mod inside of the tables.insert function just in case you weren't aware

[raw canyon]

how do i install this?

@noble summit

[noble summit]

Read the readme please ;-;

[raw canyon]

i have

didnt really understand

[noble summit]

I can't help right now, I'm in class

I'll help you later sorry :/

[raw canyon]

its alr

[raw canyon]

@noble summit got some time?

[jolly forge]

@raw canyon send me a DM I gotcha, @noble summit has to take care of the actual coding stuff and has IRL stuff to deal with like classes haha, so I'll take care of the easier installation help/troubleshooting 😆

[raw canyon]

alr

[jolly forge]

Wait the modstore is working in Mac now too?! This has been fixed?! Ayo @sharp cedar I think the issue might have been solved!

[sharp cedar]

Don't have my mac with me to test rn but I saw some commits on github last week that should fix it for everyone

[noble summit]

Yup

[jolly forge]

Its okay commander UWU I gotchu 🫡 figured I'd help save u some time haha

[noble summit]

Ty

[jolly forge]

NICE! thats huge

[teal hearth]

is it supposed to place downloaded mods into folders next to the real mod folders with a letter removed?

[craggy quest]

I'm on a fresh macbook air m3, and following the guide I get this error after running the auto inject.

can I just brew install libssl to get the dependent files, or is the error elsewhere?

[craggy quest]

@noble summit

[noble summit]

Whaaaat

How 😭

[noble summit]

Bip boop https://balamod.github.io/docs/user-guide/faq

[craggy quest]

fhankks

[noble summit]

@teal hearth you're on 0.1.11 ?

[teal hearth]

should be, i just downloaded balamod

[noble summit]

This issue has been fixed in 0.1.9 wtf

[noble summit]

What os are you using and try to find the version

[teal hearth]

windows 10, balamod 0.1.11

[noble summit]

;-;

What mod did you downloaded?

[teal hearth]

communitymod and shampack

[noble summit]

Try with stable mods like gay

Or French translation but it will annoy you I think

[teal hearth]

ok gay worked

[noble summit]

Ok I was about to dye

I don't know if the two mods you download are stable and updated tbh :/

[teal hearth]

huh, makes sense.

[craggy quest]

hmm, ok so it was already installed, i reinstalled openssl, restartede my pc and i'm getting the same error still ._.

[noble summit]

What's your os ?

[craggy quest]

Sonoma 14.3

macOS

[noble summit]

Type openssl --version

[craggy quest]

OpenSSL 3.2.1 30 Jan 2024 (Library: OpenSSL 3.2.1 30 Jan 2024)

[noble summit]

Huuuuuh

Wait

Try with openssl@1.1

Or @1

[craggy quest]

on it

[craggy quest]

success!

[noble summit]

He he

I don't know how your Mac didn't already have ossl 1 xD

[craggy quest]

when I installed it, brew did complain that 1.1 was deprecated, so I'm guessing that they just don't ship it anymore

[fringe iris]

it should come with ossl 1.1, I thought the lua lib needed ossl3 actually

[noble summit]

It needs both I guess

[fringe iris]

it's a bit finnicky, and I can't find a better fix than say "yeah, get openssl cause it doesn't work without"

[noble summit]

We should add a prompt on post install to ask users if they need ossl 1.1 and 3

And just run a basic sh file

[fringe iris]

maybe I can try bundling ossl's dylib directly

[left siren]

I dont understand the initial step in installation. I downloaded the latest release, navigated to that folder in cmd, then typed in the command line but it doesnt recognize it. I don't even see the named file within the release folder. it names an "exe" file but there are no programs in the folder

[craggy quest]

I want to get started making a mod for keyboard bindings, something like, "qwert" corresponding to the first 5 cards, and "asdfg" being the next five, adding that the Shift/Control modifier adds an additional 10 to the card index offset, to help high card count hands, cuz I mostly play on a laptop with a touchpad, and playing without a mouse isn't great, but I'd just want to ask for either tips on how to do it, or if there already exists one such mod, I'd love to have a look at it before trying to recreate something that is built

[jolly forge]

Feel free to DM me, I'll help ya out

[jolly forge]

This is actually already made for steamodded by @left lagoon . The mods name is Milck QOL, you can find it on the awesome Balatro GitHub https://github.com/jie65535/awesome-balatro

[jolly forge]

You could use milcks mod as reference and implement it into balamod 😉

[craggy quest]

I will definitely have a look at it, thank you very much!

[jolly forge]

Np! Here's the link to the post on this discord too, you can ask there for any help id think https://discord.com/channels/1116389027176787968/1212796137325465651

[noble summit]

Type balamod when you're in the right folder in the CMD and then press tab

[noble summit]

You should hook on the key pressed event (check the readme) and check in the code source for highlight or simulating a click on a card.

I know you can get highlighted (selected) cards like this

sendDebugMessage("Selected cards: "..#G.hand.highlighted)
for _, card in ipairs(G.hand.highlighted) do
    sendDebugMessage(card.base.name)
end

table.insert(mods,
        {
            mod_id = "test",
            name = "test",
            enabled = true,
             -- some other cool events
            on_key_pressed = function(key_name)
                sendDebugMessage("pressed " .. key_name)
            end
        }
)

[craggy quest]

mhm, and programmatically, how would I add a card to the highlighted/selected cards?

[noble summit]

Maybe putting them in the highlighted array, or just simulate a click

[craggy quest]

just something like if key == 'q' and not G.hand[1].isHighlighted: G.hand.highlighted.add(G.hand[1]);?

[noble summit]

Maybe there is a :highlight

[uncut granite]

Hey guys, not sure if you are interested, but i made a very basic score calulation mod:
https://github.com/csmeal/balatro-calculator

right now, all it does is show your score for the highlighted hand in the top left

but i think it could be useful

still working on testing and fixing scaling jokers before i "publish" it

[uncut granite]

in card.lua, there is a "click()" function which checks if the card can be highted and then adds to the highlighted list

[jolly forge]

It's likely a bit different in Balamod, but in Milcks QOL mod he did this (I left some stuff out but you can likely take the gist of it from his lua). If you use Balamods FAQ and the game files as reference, you could likely use this with Balamod functions instead of Steamodded ones as a reference for how to implement keyboard functions into Balamod, in combination with using the game files as reference. Balamod has some really great tools and documentation for making mods as well in the readme, and like UwU mentioned on_key_pressed would likely be a good event to use for your mod:

local keyupdate_ref = Controller.key_press_update
function Controller.key_press_update(self, key, dt)
    keyupdate_ref(self, key, dt)
    keys_to_nums = {
        ["1"] = 1,
        ["2"] = 2,
        ["3"] = 3,
        ["4"] = 4,
        ["5"] = 9,
        ["q"] = 5,
        ["w"] = 6,
        ["e"] = 7,
        ["r"] = 8,
        ["t"] = 10
    }
    keys_to_ui = {
        ["z"] = "sort_value",
        ["x"] = "sort_rank",
        ["return"] = "play_hand",
        ["space"] = "discard_hand",
        ["a"] = "run_info",
    }
    if G.STATE == G.STATES.SELECTING_HAND then
        if tableContains(keys_to_nums, key) then
            num = keys_to_nums[key]
            in_list = false
            if num <= #G.hand.cards then
                card = G.hand.cards[num]
                for i = #G.hand.highlighted, 1, -1 do
                    if G.hand.highlighted[i] == card then
                        in_list = true
                        break
                    end
                end
                if in_list then
                    G.hand:remove_from_highlighted(card, false)
                    play_sound('cardSlide2', nil, 0.3)
                else
                    G.hand:add_to_highlighted(card)
                end
            end
        end```

   if tableContains(keys_to_ui, key) then
            if keys_to_ui[key] == "play_hand" then
                local play_button = G.buttons:get_UIE_by_ID('play_button')
                if play_button.config.button == 'play_cards_from_highlighted' then
                    G.FUNCS.play_cards_from_highlighted()
                end
            elseif keys_to_ui[key] == "discard_hand" then
                local discard_button = G.buttons:get_UIE_by_ID('discard_button')
                if discard_button.config.button == 'discard_cards_from_highlighted' then
                    G.FUNCS.discard_cards_from_highlighted()
                end
            elseif keys_to_ui[key] == "sort_value" then
                G.FUNCS.sort_hand_value()
            elseif keys_to_ui[key] == "sort_rank" then
                G.FUNCS.sort_hand_suit()
            elseif keys_to_ui[key] == "run_info" then
                local run_info_button = G.HUD:get_UIE_by_ID('run_info_button')
                    G.FUNCS.run_info()
                if run_info_button.config.button == 'run_info' then

[jolly forge]

I added the run info function to this mod using @left lagoon s mod code as a guide and just referencing the game files to find the matching stuff for what I wanted to do (so instead of "play_hand" for example, I would look for "run_info" in the game files and see what I needed to copy over relatively. Instead of play_button, I had to use run_info_button which I found out by checking in the game files; same with G.FUNCS.play_cards_from_highlighted() , I had to use G.FUNCS.run_info() instead which I found in the same game file @craggy quest.

Milck also helped me fix an issue I had when adding the run info keyboard shortcut which kept causing the game to crash, and if they have time I'd bet they (or anyone else whos worked on a similar mod) would likely be willing to help you with issues you run into as well! I don't want to speak for them of course, and I'm sure Milck is often busy, but they also seemed like a really nice and cool person who likely would help out or answer a few questions if they could 😄

[obtuse frost]

I've already put a lot of work in making a calculator, but not as a mod so if you wanna chat, lmk
https://discord.com/channels/1116389027176787968/1212154374206259200

[hearty estuary]

Hi, sorry if this isn't the right place, but I can't figure out how to get this to work. I downloaded the exe file, ran it, put in the Community Pack stuff in its correct folders, but my Balatro still comes up as vanilla. What did I do wrong?

[timber tusk]

the balamod installer needs to be run from the command prompt with the flag -a

that would be like this from the folder the installer is in, assuming you didn't rename the executable: balamod-v0.1.11-windows.exe -a

[hearty estuary]

Ok, I did that, loaded it up and got this: Error

main.lua:225: Syntax error: apis/CollectionFix.lua:7: unexpected symbol near '<'

Traceback

[love "callbacks.lua"]:228: in function 'handler'
[C]: in function 'load'
main.lua:225: in main chunk
[C]: in function 'require'
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
[C]: in function 'xpcall'

[timber tusk]

it looks like balamod installed correctly at least, the file the error is referencing is from the community pack

could you take a look in the file apis/CollectionFix.lua on your computer. I think you might have downloaded a webpage by mistake

[hearty estuary]

It did say it was a .lua file

But I'll redownload it to check

[timber tusk]

make sure you download it from the button here

[hearty estuary]

Ah, I see, thanks for that. I'm just not used to using GitHub past Archipelago stuff

I've got it all sorted now. Thanks so much for your help.

[timber tusk]

it is possible to have a "releases" section on github which appears on the right, but if that isn't there the code dropdown will work (for balatro mods at least).

[hearty estuary]

I think it was the lack of release option on the mod page that threw me off.

[grizzled heath]

trying to decompile, not sure where i need the terminal navigated to. on windows

its installed and everything, trying to make a music mod

[jolly forge]

you need it navigated to the folder you have both balamod.exe and balatro.exe in. Btw you can also just use 7zip to decompile the game files, the exe is actually just a zip archive essentially 🤣 its more "extracting" the files then decompiling

[jolly forge]

OH WAIT AS A MOD?!?! THIS WOULD BE FRIGGIN HUGE!!! 😱 🔥

as far as I know a score calculator actually built into the game IRL hasnt been made yet so this would be a KILLER feature! @uncut granite

[unreal spoke]

there's one in #1216754656617693255 but it's attached to a joker and lacks some edge case handling

[jolly forge]

YOOOO were getting closer!!! I'll take any progress on that I can get! Just having the option to be able to see a calculated score before people play a hand would be HUGE and I think would probably become one of the most popular mods for Balatro 😄

[tardy lodge]

i cant install this

i have the exe

but running the cmd isnt working

do i just have the wrong exe?

[junior echo]

run with -a parameter

balamod-installer.exe -a

or whatever the exe is called

[tardy lodge]

uhhh

[tardy lodge]

can i get a pointer to an exe that you know works

[junior echo]

the one in https://github.com/UwUDev/balamod/releases/tag/v0.1.11

?

you'd run this command assuming you didn't rename the .exe file

[tardy lodge]

ohhh

i never found this for some reason

thank you

[junior echo]

that assumes you installed it at C:\Users\doome

[tardy lodge]

ah

how do i change that

[noble summit]

@tardy lodge type cd Downloads

#⚙・modding-general message

[tardy lodge]

my downloads arent on my c drive

[noble summit]

Type cmd in the file path here and then the balamod command

[tardy lodge]

what

[tardy lodge]

whats the first part

find path here?

what does that mean

[noble summit]

Here, the path

[acoustic bear]

Balamod and Steammodded don't seem very compatible with each other.

I've tried the Deck Creator, but the Anaglyph/Plasma deck properties double-trigger along with consumables at the start. Any ideas?

[tardy lodge]

IN the file path?

so like

cd E:\Downloads ?

[jolly forge]

what uwu was saying was to just click on that path bar in File explorer (when you have the folder with balamodinstaller in it open) and type in cmd then hit enter

[jolly forge]

its just a faster way to open CMD in the folder that you want it to run in, that way you dont have to type in cd C:\Users<YOURUSERNAME>\Downloads or wherever you have balamodinstaller.exe downloaded to

after you do that just run this command here, assuming you didn't rename the file as Myst said #1213838204491399218 message

[jolly forge]

this command should also work though if you have the balamod installer downloaded there yee

[jolly forge]

the cursedness is back @noble summit 🤣

[noble summit]

most steamodded break balamod injection system so if you use a steamodded mod that override a function and a balamod mod that uses injection the game will not like that. Aslo it can load mod twice

[dusk vapor]

I'm trying to add that new Better Mouse and Gamepade mod with balamod. It isnt showing up in game when I put the lua file in the mods folder. Is this not how it works? Is the mod not compatible?

[jolly forge]

That's a steamodded mod, not a balamod mod. You'll need to uninstall Balamod (or make a copy of the game folder that has the balamodded balamod.exe and move it somewhere else), get clean Balatro game files, then install steamodded onto it

[delicate lantern]

Some random bug i found after using a spectral pack that summon a bunch of ace
Im not sure it from community mod or balamod

[jolly forge]

Have you tried to remove all other mods yet and seeing if it just happens with only balamod installed? Also I would check if the issue has been reported on the GitHub yet, as I feel like an issue this noticable would be

[delicate lantern]

I can't use Familiar, Grim, Incantation for some reason

[jolly forge]

Hmm what platform are you on? Mac, windows, linux, steam deck?

[delicate lantern]

Window

[jolly forge]

send me a DM and I'll help you out, that way we can avoid cluttering things here too much 😄

[jolly forge]

Judging from your screencap I think it's either an issue with some mods not being fully disabled, issue with the mod API, or potentially a bug with balamod (but I'd doubt it, as others would almost 100% have run into this bug before if that was the case)

[noble summit]

It can't be Balamod, I'm sure it's a mod editing spectrals

Did you started your run modded ?

Because it can alter your save

But balamod don't hook on this part of code

Maybe you have an outdated api

[delicate lantern]

It fix now by @jolly forge
Thx

[noble summit]

Nice

[silent wolf]

every time i try to download a mod, this happens (i'm on linux, and the balamod executable doesn't detect the installation folder when using just -a, had to also specify the path to install it)

[timber tusk]

which mod are you trying to install?

[silent wolf]

french mod

[timber tusk]

did you build it from source? because it could be a bug in master, it looks like it's had some major architectural changes since the last release.

[silent wolf]

i just downloaded the executable from github and ran it

[timber tusk]

oh, I just realised you meant downloading via the in game menu. I've never used that but I know it has a history of being buggy, I'd reccomend just downloading the mod directly from the mod's github for now.

[silent wolf]

ah, ill try

[fringe iris]

my bad, and there are way more changes coming in the next few PRs, won't spoil too much, but there will be a fair amound of qol changes to make developer experience nicer, and user experience as well. I'm currently working on a GUI for balamod installation (so that you don't have to go into the scary command line), improvements to the mod format so that we can have self contained mods that add assets, etc to the game, standardized mod manifests that describe the mod, and some more features like better HTTPS support and such

[noble summit]

This issue is fixed on 1.11, make sure you downloaded the right version

[silent wolf]

oh ok

[leaden sundial]

Ive installed and I can see the mod button on the main menu right. But when trying to use the community joker pack it lets me "download" but then when I restart the game the community joker mod is no longer "installed" or enabled. Also idk if there is supposed to be a mods file in the balatro steam apps

Also is there a system to remove the modloader from the game files?

@noble summit

[vagrant geode]

the ingame marketplace is unreliable for now, i'd suggest manually downloading mods. the mods folder is in your roaming/balatro folder, or application support/library. for removing modloaders, just use steam's verify file integrity

[hexed otter]

verify file integrity on steam

[undone tartan]

was this made on a linux or something? This isn't like any mod related thing I've ever installed before

[vagrant geode]

yea originally linux-made, but compatible with most OSs

[jolly forge]

A lot of modloader injectors are made like this actually, but if you typically use stuff like r2modman, steam workshop, etc and have never manually installed a modloader that modifies the game files in this way, it can seem a bit tricky. If you need help installing or something feel free to ask! Also r2modman support is nearly fully out as well; I know steamodded is already on there, I expect balamod will likely be available on there too in time if I had to guess 🙂

[undone tartan]

r2modman support sounds pretty sweet tbh

[fringe iris]

I'm not planning on adding r2modman support myself, but anyone willing to contribute it is welcome to 😄

tbh I don't see the point, given that balamod adds an easy way to download mods from within the game, and that will stabilize soon

[jolly forge]

The main point I think is that r2modman is what most end users are going to use to mod their game in the future as it's much easier to install/inject modloaders, much easier to enable/disable individual mods for it, has a mod repo which has a rating/discover system so users can find the most popular or highest reviewed mods and use them, create modpacks and share them with friends by sharing a single code, start the game vanilla with 1 click without having to create a different folder for the vanilla version of the game or uninstall their modloader of choice, switch between balamod and steamodded easily by having profiles setup for balamodded Balatro and another profile setup for steamodded Balatro, etc etc.

Theres a ton of pros to r2modman but the biggest thing is that most end users are going to use it to install their mods/modloaders, meaning most modders will want to post their mods to the R2MM Balatro repo if they want their mods to be used by a lot of people. Only the more tech savvy people who also want to use mods that are only available on balamod would likely not use r2modman and manually install balamod or steammodded going forward - that's usually how it is for most games that get r2modman or steam workshop support anyways. The thing that's easiest to install or setup for everyone, including non tech savvy users, always ends up being the most used tool to mod.

[jolly forge]

It's up to you all on whether you want to add balamod to the R2MM repo and change some things to setup support for it of course, and whether or not yall decide to is totally up to you all, the devs 🙂 🫡 (or if someone comes along who wants to contribute and add support for r2mm to balamod like you mentioned!) I do hope balamod gets supports for it, as balamod has some pretty neat tools and ideas, and I wouldn't want to see it get left behind just bc most users ended up installing with r2modman, so they never even got to see balamod y'know? Regardless though, me and a lot of others here will def still be using balamod for its sick mods, esp the gay mod and slutty joker 🤣 The true best mods of Balatro

[fringe iris]

I've actually looked at adding r2modman support out of curiosity, and the PR to add an injector called "lovely-injector" is already made and approved. Unfortunately, this injector conflicts with balamod in a major way, in that it hot-patches the game at runtime through mods found in the love save directory / Mods, which means that it'll conflict on case insensitive file systems (so macos for instance would break)

that injector also seem to be prone to a lot of changes (it's less than a month old, it is far from stable)

[shadow rune]

I'm the dev of lovely. iirc @timber tusk made a couple Balamod lovely patches and they worked just fine, but things might've changed since then. the path issue is an easy fix, if not completely solveable by passing the game a path via the --mod-dir argument. I just made a note to change the mod directory path, but please create an issue if you have any other problems.

[shadow rune]

as for this, pretty much everything is changing often and unstable, that's the nature of being early :-)

the biggest issue wrt. Balamod is the fact that MacOS support is still a theoretical. I have an implementation that should work, but I can neither test nor build it until I have a development environment set up.

https://github.com/ethangreen-dev/lovely-injector/blob/master/crates/lovely-mac/src/lib.rs

[stone tapir]

For some reason, I had to brew install openssl@1.1 . I already had 3.3 installed, but Balatro was trying to load 1.1. 🤷

[fringe iris]

Not a rust dev, so I can't really judge if it'll work, I can test it out on my own laptop (M1 Pro macbook pro). It's aarch64 though, and I cannot test on intel macs. Since there are 2 common CPU architectures, it's a problem as well.

The issues with the injector as is is that for balamod mods, we do the loading and patching of the game's code at runtime in LUA (you can look at what's in master for balamod), so the patching provided by levely injector is irrelevant and even a detriment because patches are SURE to interfere with balamod's own (clean) patches.

Furthermore, some systems use case insensitive file systems, so "Mods" and "mods" are treated the same. Having the lovely patches in the same folder as balamod mods would make the behaviour undefined (which mods are taken, in which order things are installed with would impact install stability). Furthermore, this would require us to put balamod as a mod in the mods folder itself, which would be odd (since balamod is not a mod, it's a framework for mods).

Last thing : balamod mods will soon have to migrate to the new mod format (as soon as 1.0.0 releases which is the next release of balamod itself), the new mod format is detailed here : https://balamod.github.io/mod-format.html. There's still some changes planned, namely a dependencies field in the manifest, turning the author field into an array of authors, and merging both min_balamod_version and max_balamod_version into a single version constraint (using the same parser as the dependencies version constraints.

Also, balamod being on r2modman would mean that the mod menu would be rendered probably useless (unless it's just to enable/disable mods and configure them? it could be repurposed like that?)

I'm also wondering about mod dependency management and what that entails, if balamod gets on thunderstore...

[fringe iris]

I've since fixed the issue, and managed to compile lua-https instead of luasec for balamod to work well. If need be I can make a separate branch from master and release (or as uwu to do the release, don't know if I have the necessary permissions to do that on github) a hotfix patch for balamod

[stone tapir]

awesome! appreciate the prompt response 😄

[shadow rune]

To clarify, is Balamod relying wholly AOT code injection (into Balatro.exe) or does it use AOT injection to bootstrap Balamod. It's the difference between loading mods via writing them directly to the game executable (before the game runs) or loading them at runtime in the same way as Steamodded, for example.

I want to clarify that Lovely is not a modloader, it's a code injector.

[fringe iris]

It started AOT, but now relies on AOT only for the bootstrapping.

[shadow rune]

ah yeah, then Lovely and Balamod would be easily compatible.

[fringe iris]

Then why the heck does it load patches from a "Mods" folder ?

that's the main point if you're doing just code injection, load your patches from a "patches" folder. A patch can implement part of a mod, but a mod needs a mod loader

[shadow rune]

bikeshedding aside, it's because that's how Steamodded was installed. lovely doesn't care about the role of the thing it's trying to inject, it only cares about the patches itself. it works for mods, modloaders, etc.

so it can load patches from "Mods", "patches", etc. the name of the folder doesn't matter to lovely.

[fringe iris]

well it does, it's hard coded into lovely...

it's even specifically hard coded for balatro specifically

https://github.com/ethangreen-dev/lovely-injector/blob/ffeb76fa09fd6e9a49649c3be4804f1a84869085/crates/lovely-mac/src/lib.rs#L58

[shadow rune]

that path is not an intrinsic part of lovely, though, it just defines the root dir that lovely will search for patch files

as I mentioned prior it's something that can be easily changed - --mod-dir, if it needs to be set at runtime, or through changing the source code itself.

I can imagine a couple good ways to go about it

[fringe iris]

Can I get an explanation on how hard coding a path as a string does not make it an intrinsic part of the codebase ? I'm lost on your definition of what makes up lovely-injector and what doesn't. If it is not an intrinsic part of lovely, then removing those two crates would not make lovely lose any functionnality, right ?

[shadow rune]

It's not an instrinsic part of lovely in that lovely in no way requires that that path be in Balatro/Mods or even within the Balatro directory at all.

https://github.com/ethangreen-dev/lovely-injector/blob/ffeb76fa09fd6e9a49649c3be4804f1a84869085/crates/lovely-core/src/lib.rs#L38C21-L38C22

it has been harded to default to Balatro/Mods because there hasn't been a reason to change it

[fringe iris]

It's fine if you don't want to change it, it just makes things not compatible on OS X (ever by the way, since changing the filesystem to be case sensitive requires some pretty specific configuration options that will not be within the reach of your average joe)

[shadow rune]

wait wait wait

I feel like we're on the same page but looking at it from different sides

what I'm saying is that I want lovely to be configurable for any use case :-)

[fringe iris]

which it is not right now

[shadow rune]

in which my response is that it hasn't been required, but it's not designed in a way which makes change difficult. it's a +1/-1 PR

I want to be 100% clear and say that I'm not asking Balamod to change in any way

that's not really the goal of Lovely

[fringe iris]

It's a +1/-1 PR until lovely gets merged into r2modman. Then it's set in stone and can never change again

using a folder named mods for not mods is just asking for complications by the way. You made an injector. Injectors, like BepInEx allow you to inject patches at runtime, to change the code. Mod loaders are systems that will load mods which are game modifications

[shadow rune]

oh what, when did I imply that lovely is getting merged into r2mm?

[fringe iris]

https://github.com/ebkr/r2modmanPlus/pull/1267

[shadow rune]

I neither want that nor do I think it's a technical possibility

[fringe iris]

didn't have to imply, it's already there

[shadow rune]

no, that adds support for lovely

that doesn't merge lovely itself into r2mm

[fringe iris]

I meant adding official support for lovely in r2. Which means that lovely will get used by r2, as its current version for injecting stuff into love2d games. Makes it released in "production", and infinitely harder to change down the road if there ever were an API change in lovely.

[shadow rune]

I'm getting a bit confused. are you concerned about how

• lovely refers to the mod directory as a "mod directory"
• lovely uses Balatro/Mods by default
• lovely has general design flaws which makes it philosophically incompatible with Balamod
• lovely's use by r2mm

like I said before I get the feeling that we're not that far off from each other, but there's something getting in the way

[torn anvil]

Seriously what is your issue ?

You can't discuss without being like that?

[shadow rune]

I haven't been asking you to put Balamod onto thunderstore or r2mm? lovely is meant to supplant on-disk AOT patching with JIT, nothing more or less. it's not a modloader, it's not BepInEx, it's purely a code injector.

respectfully I'm confused as to why things have gone this far.

[torn anvil]

If at least that made sense but that don't even make any sense

[timber tusk]

here's the lovely patch i have been using for the latest release of balamod since it was brought up, it actually even takes advantage a change I contributed specifically to make porting to lovely easier (building paths from within mod_core). I was planning on adding it to the github with a workflow and whatnot, but the recent refactor changes so much structurally I haven't feel like bothering. (I've mostly migrated away from using balamod myself anyway)

[gritty lion]

I'm trying to get setup to develop mods on Linux using Balamod. According to the resources I can find ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/2379780/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Balatro is the path to where the mods folder should go. This path did not exist, so I created it (instead there being some data in ... /users/steamuser/Application Data/Balatro/). I've installed balamod using the -a argument, launched it and installed a mod through the in game menu. There is no indication of this mode being installed to either of the directories I mentioned. I added a AppData/Roaming/Balatro/mods/test directory and placed a main.lua file inside containing an error call just so I can verify if anything is happening, and as far as I can tell no, there isn't. Am I doing something wrong?

oh, it is on my other hard drive

there seems to be 2 different standards for mods in the documentation? https://balamod.github.io/modding-basics.html says to just create a file and place it in mods/, where this https://balamod.github.io/mod-format.html says there should be a main.lua and a manifest.json, but where do these go?

[vagrant geode]

the website has info on the new format that isnt out yet

the current release is the former

[iron adder]

So how to download a release from github i cant find one ;p

[vagrant geode]

this button o'er 'ere

[iron adder]

I got the windows.exe, when installed i try to run balamod -a.

"'balamod' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file."

So i don't think it installed but idk

[elder stone]

balamod.exe -a

?

[iron adder]

nvm idk what im ment to do

i installed windows.exe
then in the readme it says do "balamod-v0.1.11-windows.exe -a"

Where am i ment to input that

[vagrant geode]

open the folder where your balamod is downloaded, then open a terminal from that folder by typing cmd in the address bar of the folder

then in that terminal, type the name of the .exe file with -a

for example if your balamod .exe is in the downloads folder, click here

then you type cmd in

then if you didnt rename the balamod.exe, you type balamod-v0.1.11-windows.exe -a into the terminal that opens

[tardy lodge]

do i have to just reinstall for the beta? or does balamod not work?

[vagrant geode]

afaik it should work, you just need to re-inject

there MAY be some issues, but it is a beta, and we're in the middle of an overhaul so yea

[tardy lodge]

i see

damn

i forgot how to run the injector

uhh

[vagrant geode]

#1213838204491399218 message

badabing badaboom

[tardy lodge]

right

hm?

oh

reverse

[vagrant geode]

other way

ye

[tardy lodge]

thanks

[vagrant geode]

npnp

[tardy lodge]

how do i install mods

that arent

in the tab

[vagrant geode]

it depends on the mod, but generally, you just go to the github and put everything in the right folders

[tardy lodge]

okay

[vagrant geode]

i.e everything in the mods folder goes into the mods folder, everything in the assets folder goes into the assets folder, etc etc

[tardy lodge]

okay

[tall hawk]

ive installed some mods and the sprites override eachother and use default sprites instead (the mods that have textures that are being overrode are installed via steammodded)

[vagrant geode]

steamodded mods and balamod mods are usually very incompatible with eachother

[glass linden]

Does the cmd you open the mod loader in become the cli or am I misunderstanding how this works?

[vagrant geode]

you have to open the cmd from the folder urself

if you click the address bar in file explorer and type cmd it should open it up

like this

[glass linden]

I have the balamod installed already I was just wondering where the CLi mentioned in the github is

for commands like "./balamod --help"

[vagrant geode]

oh yea you have to open that yourself

[glass linden]

how would i go about doing that?

[vagrant geode]

the same way you opened the cmd to install balamod

[glass linden]

So would I use the same cmd that i launch to type "balamod-v0.1.11-windows.exe -a" or do I have to open cmd in another folder?

[vagrant geode]

yea the same one

[glass linden]

Every time i've done that I get a message that says '.' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. So I'm not sure where im going wrong lol

[vagrant geode]

oh dont use ./

just balamod

the balamod-v0.1.11 thing

./ is for linux (and mac i t hink?)

[glass linden]

I get the same message if I put "balamod --help" into the cmd except for now balamod is in the quotations of the error message

[vagrant geode]

yea you have to use the full .exe name

like balamod-v0.1.11-windows.exe --help

[tall hawk]

how do i uninstall balamod

[vagrant geode]

easiest way is deleting balatro.exe then verifying file integrity through steam

[tall hawk]

oh

can't you just verify it that way

without deleting the exe

[vagrant geode]

maybe? idk

ive always just deleted the .exe

you can try

[tall hawk]

verifying the files is meant to detect when something is wrong with them so it should detect the installed modloader

ive done it before with steammodded

[vagrant geode]

yea you can do it that way, im just saying i've always deleted the .exe