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Project Roadmap

This document outlines what we’re tinkering with in rakata and where the project is heading.

Note

For day-to-day progress, bug fixes, and specific technical tasks, check out the Codeberg Issues tracker instead.

The End Goal

Right now, our libraries are mostly just good at reading and writing individual game files - like extracting a 3D model, opening a save file, or decoding audio. But the real dream for rakata is to build a full, modern KOTOR engine integration.

Eventually, it would be cool to tie all these isolated pieces together into an actual rendering pipeline. For example: dropping a vanilla model into an active window and have the engine stream the textures and background audio straight from the game data.

How We Get There

Since this is a passion project, we try to match the original game behavior down to the exact byte before building higher-level abstractions on top of it. It takes a bit longer, but it keeps us from having to constantly rewrite core parsers when we stumble into weird edge cases.

1. Laying the Foundation (Mostly Done)

Our core libraries (rakata-formats, rakata-save, etc.) can currently read, write, and safely roundtrip over 17 different KOTOR file formats. We’ve tackled a lot of the weird legacy archives (BIF), models (MDL/MDX), and raw textures (TPC), ensuring they line up with vanilla behavior.

However, the foundation is still growing! We still have a handful of outstanding data formats to map out and implement, including Pathfinding (PTH), UI Layouts (GUI), and Walkmeshes (WOK/DWK/PWK).

Additionally, formatting and bytecode support for NCS (Compiled Scripts) is actively being prioritized (see Issue #19) to allow rakata to interface natively with upcoming Rust-based community compilers and decompilers.

2. Building Real Tools (Our Active Focus)

Now that we can parse the data reliably, we are building stuff the community can actually use:

  • Mod Linter: A tool to scan modded files and point out if they break the game’s actual data constraints, catching crashes before you load them in-game.
  • Save Editor: A basic offline save editor (rakata-saveeditor) built directly on top of our stable format parsers.
  • Audio Streaming: Updating the generic audio logic (rakata-audio) so we can natively stream game music and voice lines instead of loading giant buffers into memory.
  • Drop-in Replacements: Providing modern, reliable drop-in replacements for legendary (but aging) community tools. By backing these with rakata’s strict parsing rules, we can offer faster, safer, cross-platform native tools for unpacking archives, compiling models, and building mods. (Note: While we aim to replace these tools, we will not inherit their legacy bugs or non-vanilla API quirks. When in doubt, the original game engine is our only source of truth).

3. KOTOR 2 (TSL) Support

We are strictly focusing on KOTOR 1 right now, but extending parsing support for TSL via compatibility flags is a planned enhancement for further down the line once K1 is completely stabilized.

4. The Runtime Engine (The dream but probably a few years away)

Once our standalone tools prove that our format parsers are perfectly stable, we have a pipedream to one day start weaving them together into a natively synchronized rendering loop.