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Plugins

Note

Writing plugins require some very basic familiarity with C++

Plugins are native modules loaded by Northstar. Because they're not limited to any API provided by the game, plugins are a powerful tool to enable you to do almost anything you could with a custom Northstar Client.

For example, you could write a plugin that compiles maps at runtime, allows squirrel scripts to save and load recorded animations from disk or provide discord rpc integration.

However because plugins have full access to your system plugins should be treated with caution and regular scripts are preferred if possible.

Installation

Any .dll file located in the directories <Northstar Profile>/plugins/ and <Northstar Profile>/packages/<Thunderstore package>/plugins/ will be attempted to load as a plugin.

To manually install a plugin, copy the plugin .dll into the <Northstar Profile>/plugins/ directory.

Note

The default northstar profile name is R2Northstar. Profiles are located in the same location as NorthstarLauncher.exe.

Any Plugin is only valid if it exposes every required interface.

If a plugin does not expose every Interface the Launcher requires, it is unloaded immediately.

Development

To debug a plugin it's recommended to compile Northstar itself or download the debug data from the Release Page.

When developing a plugin it's usually easier to output the binary directly in the <profile>/plugins/ directory, the packages/ directory is usually only used for complete packaged mods downloaded from Thunderstore.

Valid plugins

Every plugin must fulfill these criteria to be considered valid by Northstar.

Invalid plugins get unloaded as soon as possible.

  • The plugin module must export a function named CreateInterface that returns an interface instance when called.

  • Every required interface must be exposed via CreateInterface

Debugging

If you know how to use a debugger you can safely skip this.

For simplicity it's assumed your development environment is Visual Studio and you're compiling Northstar from source.

Otherwise are the steps basically the same everywhere else.

  1. Clone the Launcher

  2. Set the binary output directory to the location wherever you have installed your game. The compiled NorthstarLauncher.exe should be outputted next to Titanfall.exe.

  3. Launch NorthstarLauncher.exe with a debugger or attach a debugger to a running process

  4. Load debug symbols of your plugin(s) (for example myplugin.pdb) in the debugger

That's it.

Hooks

Any Plugin can install hooks anywhere in memory it desires. However, plugins should avoid hooks if possible because of conflicts with Northstar itself or hooks installed by other plugins.

It is not generically possible to determine if a given address has already been hooked by a different plugin and there is currently no mechanism for plugins to share information which addresses have hooks installed.

Northstar does not expose an interface to (un)install hooks. Every plugin is expected to use their own provider.

Examples and Libraries

  • A small plugin ""framework"" to show the basics of writing plugins and Squirrel bindings in C

  • A complete Rust plugin library that allows you to easily integrate safely with large parts of the engine itself