Legendary Edition Modding: Getting Started

So you want to create a mod for Mass Effect Legendary Edition? Here's some guidance.

Know your terminology

In order to make effective communication about games, ensure you use the correct terminology. You will see many acronyms in the scene.

Games

• ME1 = Mass Effect (2007)
• ME2 = Mass Effect 2 (2010)
• ME3 = Mass Effect 3 (2012)
• LE1 = Mass Effect 3 (Legendary Edition)
• LE2 = Mass Effect 3 (Legendary Edition)
• LE3 = Mass Effect 3 (Legendary Edition)
• Game (1/2/3) = Mass Effect (1/2/3) OT + LE together
• OT = Original Trilogy (ME1/ME2/ME3)
• LE = Legendary Edition (LE1/LE2/LE3)

Tools

• MEM = Mass Effect Modder (texture installer)
  • MEM has two versions: < 500 and >= 500
    • < 500: Original Trilogy
    • >= 500: Legendary Edition
• M3 = ME3Tweaks Mod Manager
• LEX = Legendary Explorer
• LEC = Legendary Explorer Core (backend library used by many tools, including LEX)
• ME3X = ME3Explorer (what LEX as based on)
• ME3C = ME3ExplorerCore (backend library that LEC was based on)
• Toolset = Legendary Explorer
• Nightlies / Nightly = "Nightly" build of Legendary Explorer that is built on every code commit to the repository
• Stable = Checkpoint build of Legendary Explorer that is taken every few months and has additional bugfix work put into it

Groups

• ME3Tweaks
  • Development group led by Mgamerz
• Public Modding Discord
  • Public discord for developers and users
• Workshop
  • Private discord for modding for vetted developers
• Nexus
  • NexusMods.com

Colloquialisms

• ME2 Curse
  • Mass Effect 2 (ME2) has long had very frustrating issues to deal with for what seem to be no apparent reason, and is this known as 'cursed'

Technical

Package Terms

• Package file
  • .pcc file. Contains the majority of the game data, including meshes, textures, scripting, etc. Has 3 components: Imports, Exports, and Names.
• Export
  • An export defines an object in a package file. For example a mesh or texture metadata
• Import
  • References an import already loaded into memory. Typically from a higher tier file, like the level's master art file or an always loaded file
• Name
  • A string that is referenced by it's index in the name table

Texture Terms

• TFC
  • Texture File Cache. Used in all games except ME1. It's a file with headerless texture data concatenated one after another. This data is referenced by its offset in the file.

Audio Terms

• AFC
  • Audio File Cache. Used in all games except ME1 / LE1. It's a file with headerless texture data concatenated one after another. This data is referenced by its offset in the file.