SnowRunner Translator v1.0
SnowRunner Translator v1.0
This tool allows to edit any string from any of the 13 languages of the game.
What it does is extracting the language file you want to edit in a simple .txt file that you can easily edit and then applies your changes back into the game.
There are some strict rules to apply but it’s a good start to fix some labels or even to replace a language by your own if you are really dedicated.
I wrote a quite complete user guide that is in the same archive as the tool.
Enjoy.
PS : this is a tool, not a vehicle, so don’t subscribe to it, just download it clicking on its size on top of the description.
This tool was designed to edit SnowRunner language strings the easiest way possible.
Where are language strings and how to update them in summary :
The game has 13 language files and they are stored in a single file named initial.cache_block which is included in the game file initial.pak.
So in order to edit strings we will need to extract a language file from there, edit the strings we want to change, and finaly update the initial.pak with our changes.
Required : You will need WinRAR to update game files
Extracting the language file :
– You will need to find your SnowRunner “client” folder containing all the .pak files
by default it shoud be C:\Program Files\Epic Games\SnowRunner\en_us\preload\paks\client
– MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR “INTIAL.PAK” FILE ANYWHERE ON YOUR COMPUTER. If antyhing goes wrong, you will be able to recover it this way.
– Open ther initial.pak file with WinRar and extract the initial.cache_block file.
– Place SnowRunner Translator.exe in the same folder you extracted the initial.cache_block file
– Drag initial.cache_block over the icon of SnowRunner Translator icon
– A small window appears. Select the language you wish to extract and hit the convert button
– After a short time, a new .txt file is created, containing all the strings of the selected language
Editing the language file
– To edit the .txt file. I strongly recommend using Notepad++.
– In the .txt file itself, you can see the variable name in capital letters, a tabulation and then the translated string between double quotes.
– Be sure to keep this format and only add, delete or change text inside the quotes and nowhere else. Also don’t remove a single double quote.
– THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE :
In order to work, the final .txt file MUST BE THE EXACT SAME SIZE as the original file you got after conversion. In order to simplify things, I wrote the size in the name of the file so “English 909874.txt” means your final file MUST BE 909874 bytes after you edited it (for information, each char is encoded on 2 bytes).
This means that if you remove some chars somewhere, you will need to add some chars elsewhere. We don’t care in which lines, as long as you only edit strings between quotes and that the final file size is the exact same as the original. There are empty strings in most of the language files (they are just two double quotes). find them and if you need to add chars to match the size, you can place them here. If you have too much chars, you will need to simplify some of your strings.
Each language file has a different size. So if you intend to create a full translation to another language, you might use and replace a language with a similar verbosity or a higher one. Extract each language and check their size if needed.
– Once you finished your changes, drag your .txt file again over SnowRunner Translator icon
– After a short time, a message will tell that the initial.cache_block file has been updated (or will raise an error)
Update the initial.pak with your changes
– Right-Clic over the game initial.pak again and choose “open with” and choose “WinRar” (if it is not in your most used list, you might need to browse your computer program file folder to find it)
– WinRar window opens and displays the content of the initial.pak file
– Drag and drop the initial.cache_block file you updated in the winrar window
– WinRar shows a popup window. Hit the OK button (you can check that format is zip and compression method is normal)
– A quick progress window might appear and disappear. Once done, you can close Winrar and any other window.
That’s it. You can start SnowRunner and enjoy the changes.
I hope this tool will ease the life of modders who want to improve some translations.