Just Cause 2 Native Archive Packer Script

Modern Just Cause 2 modding has a major flaw - old tools developed for the game appear to have partially or completely stopped working.  For example, Just Cause Content Editor has a model viewer, but it no longer works.  One thing that people used to be able to easily do is pack files into the game's own ARC/TAB format, using tools like Just Cause Content Editor or JustARC.  Some examples of mods that did this are the 100% completion fix, several of the expanded Black Market mods, and the infinite rocket parachute mod.  However, since these tools were never made open-source and properly maintained, they haven't worked properly for a long time.  The biggest consequence is that we lost the ability to pack ARC/TAB pairs...

...until now!  What if I told you that the best and most efficient archive packer is the game itself?  Unlike Just Cause 3, Just Cause 2 can't truly read loose files from its dropzone folder.  Instead, it quickly packs all the files inside it into an ARC/TAB pair named "separate_files" and then proceeds to load it along with the other archives.

This is a Windows Batch script which automates the creation of a mod package using this system.

While you can pack mods and DLC with this, you can't repack the game's main data archives (pc0 through pc4), as it's expecting compression which the dropzone folder can't use.  I imagine this would also break if you add a very large amount of files or add very large files, but mods don't need that, and you can just pack into multiple archives if you require it.

Extract the Windows Batch script onto you desktop and keep it there.  Put whatever you want to pack into an archive into your dropzone folder, start Steam, then run the script with Administrator permissions.  It'll run the game for 10 seconds then close it, and you should see your newly-packed mod.arc and mod.tab on your desktop!

This script assumes you have Steam and the game installed to the default directory:

C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Just Cause 2/dropzone

and that your PC is powerful enough to reach the first loading screen in under 10 seconds, which any computer released in the past 5 years (from 2024) should be capable of doing.

FOR ADVANCED USERS ONLY:

If the delays in the script are too short for you, then you can increase them.  Lines 10 and 16 are the two time-based ones, measured in seconds.

Changing paths to a different install directory can be done by modifying lines 1, 3, 5, and 15.