NMS.py

NMS.py, a python hooking and modding library for No Man's Sky.

NOTE: This is a heavy WIP. The API is NOT considered stable currently and a decent amount of data is missing and/or wrong.

Installation

There are two ways to install NMS.py.

Basic installation

This method is for those who don't use python much or are not familiar with the python ecosystem (ie. virtual environments etc).

1. Download a version of python 3.9 or 3.10 from the official python site. Note: Later versions of python may work (eg. 3.11), however pymem seems to have issues injecting them sometimes it seems, so I find it better to stick to a slightly older version for simplicity.
2. Clone/download this repository to somewhere on your computer.
3. Open cmd in the directory this was downloaded to. This can be done most easily by typing cmd in the explorer path bar.
4. Run python -m pip install . This should install all the dependencies including pulling the latest pyMHF from GitHub which is the core framework which is used to power NMS.py.

Advanced installation

This method is more suited for those who want to modify pyMHF or NMS.py as it doesn't involve installing NMS.py, but will just run NMS.py in local mode. This will assume some experience with python.

1. Clone both pyMHF and NMS.py into separate folders. I recommend creating a directory and then cloning both into that directory so that the folders are siblings.
2. Install pyMHF in editable mode. This can done in either a virtual envirnonment or using the system python by running python -m pip install -e . in the pyMHF folder.
3. In the NMS.py folder, edit the pymhf.cfg file. Depending on whether or not you are wanting to run the old version of the game (4.13), or the latest on steam, will change what settings to change. (See settings section below)
4. In the pymhf folder add a python file called run_nms.py which looks like the following:

from pymhf import load_module

DIR = "<absolute path to NMS.py/nmspy folder>"

load_module("nmspy", DIR, True)

5. Run python ./run_nms.py

Usage

The following is for anyone running NMS.py as per the "Basic Installation" above.

1. Run pymhf nmspy. The first time this is run it will copy the config file over to your appdata folder (%AppData%/pymhf/nmspy) and it will guide you through configuring NMS.py. If you ever want to return to this configuration menu, run python --config nmspy.
2. Once the game has been configured, you will have an option to run it. Selecting y should run the game. This will create a popup with the pyMHF logo and this is your log terminal. If this doesn't occur then your firewall may be blocking the port 6770, so make sure that a TCP connection is allowed on this port on your local network (ie. 127.0.0.0, or possibly 0.0.0.0)

If all goes well you should see "Serving on executor ('127.0.0.1', 6770)".

If the game starts paused, you'll need to press the return key on your keyboard in the console window that pymhf nmspy was run from to start the game properly.

Any exceptions will be logged to a file named CRITICAL_ERROR.txt, and logs will be placed in a logs directory.

If you want to stop NMS, you can press ctrl + C in the window you started the process in to kill it.

Settings

Depending on what version of NMS you are running, you'll need to change different settings:

Running NMS 4.13 (Fractals)

[binary]:

• path: The absolute path to the NMS.exe which is to be run.
• steam_gameid: This key should be either commented out or not present.
• mod_dir: The absolute path to the directory containing mods.
• start_paused: Should be True. This can be False, but you get better hook coverage with the value set to True.

Running latest Steam version

[binary]:

• steam_gameid: This should have the value 275850.
• mod_dir: The absolute path to the directory containing mods.
• internal_mod_dir: This key should be either commented out or not present for now.
• start_paused: Must be False.

Credits

Thanks to the developers of minhook, cyminhook and pymem, all of which are instrumental in making this framework possible.

Big thanks to vitalised for their constant RE discussions. and gurren3 for the same as well as the initial work done on NMS.API which heavily inspired the creation of this.

Thanks also to the many people I have discussed various NMS details with, both big and small.

Thanks to rayrod for initially discovering the pdb.