Modding Help How to Unpack .pak files

I have no idea how to Unpack .pak files. I have googled for tools, and I have searched on these forums for tools, but I have not been able to find any.

 

I have half a mind to screenshot the fact that your post sits directly on top of
How to successfully pack and unpack .pak files
I don't like being mean about these things, but... that was last updated a few hours before you posted. It was sitting at the top of the forum. You say you looked?! Well forgive me for being skeptical about that claim.

I'm taking the bait, aren't I?

 

I've tried that unpacker method for windows, but it doesn't seem to work for some reason.

 

what is the nature of your error.

 

I'm mainly trying to unpack Mods, and I keep getting this error:

I've made sure the file is in the same folder... I've checked and rechecked file paths. Does it HAVE to be in the mods directory when you unpack it, or am i doing something else wrong?

This is the only method i've heard of unpacking pak files for windows. i'm running out of options.

 

This is a permissions error on your machine, you may have to run cmd as administrator.

 

Easy enough. I have a batch file that does it for me.

Code:

@echo off
echo Unpacking ..\asd.pak into ..\_UnpackedMod\
echo This may take a long time.
start /wait /min .\asset_unpacker.exe ..\asd.pak ..\_UnpackedMod
echo Done.
pause

I have this bat file in the win32 folder, but have a shortcut to the starbound root folder. Then I just copy the mod file there, rename it to asd.pak and just run the bat file. It will unpack it to "_UnpackedMod" also in the starbound root folder

 

I've been using bat files for this too, but if the problem is administrative privileges, i don't know how to get the bat file to use administrative privileges to run CMD. I am Administrator on my own computer, so i just assumed it had privileges.

 

Where are you running it from? Basically anything in the C/program files folders have some built in "restrictions". If you install things literally anywhere else, you don't have this issue.

Additionally, you could just copy the unpacker and any needed files and run a strictly unpacking setup elsewhere.


As for assuming privilage. Yeah, not really. Even admins are not really "admins". They did this because they wanted to, like the UAC pop-ups, force developers of any program to require as little system access as actually necessary. Believe it or not, Microsoft wants programmers to be better and more efficient. no unnecessary access, unlike phone apps that require access to call history, contacts, photos, location, etc, just so you can tap the screen a few times.

 

This helped a lot! Thank you!

 

¡¡¡Additional information in case it's a Steam Workshop Mod and not an manually installed .pak!!!

For this, the mod or mods are best put into the \mods folder, RENAMED to something other than "contents.pak" and then make a filepath to the .pak in the .bat.
I tried running it as Admin and it said it couldn't find the asset_unpacker executable, so I ran it as normal and it's WORKING so far!

Needed to find out which of the Workshop mods were "music replacer/adder" and which one was FU between the three large ones I have.

This process helped, because trying to extract the mods directly from the Workshop folders they were in had hit me with the same permission wall in @CatofRiddles ' above image.

Additional WARNING: Don't leave the Workshop Mod .paks IN the \mods folder, or Starbound WON'T RUN.

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And now, to go poking the _metadata of the music replacer so I can see if there's a bug in it. Sometimes it gets stuck on just one track despite day/night cycle, and I want to see if that's an error...