Hmm, that does sound a little difficult, though, from what I can tell of the data files, it would be possible to append rather than overwrite with only a few added lines of code into the GEN program since most of the written data seems to be basically .txt files by a different name...
I wonder if anyone has ever thought to try some of this stuff using a decal or shell type program to get the missing functionality into the game. They are pretty common in simulations (when I play FS2004 alone I have at least 4 running on top of the game) because they use real time updating of game files along with some trickery to get the host program to accept the changes, and therefore allow for changes which would not normally be easy to display like real-time/real-world weather and outside of program communications. This all being said, I'm sure of two things.
1) Its gotta be possible to force a reload of SH3 data files without a game restart... I've not seen a single program ever where this wasn't possible through at least some method, no matter how complicated.
2) Finding out how to do it could take quite some time due to its complexity, which I think has been the major barrier to stopping this sort of developement. Though I will say that, considering the level of time and effort that have been put into many of the mods here, it should not be impossible to see in the future. Of course whether this proves never to happen because of the SH4 release, will have to be seen.
Just some thoughts,
Greg
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