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Looking at BTD6 Code (Sorta)


dnSpy

dnSpy is a program that lets you look into compiled Assemblies to see their code, to a certain extent. For Bloons TD 6, this means we'll be opening ...\BloonsTD6\MelonLoader\Managed\Assembly-CSharp.dll file to look at the Main Bloons TD 6 code. It'll look something like this: Screenshot of dnSpy

You can navigate around the Assembly just using dnSpy, especially using the search function: screenshot of dnSpy search

or you can go to File -> Export to Project to save it as a .csproj that you can open up in your favorite IDE to navigate around in a more familiar way. Screenshot of dnSpy Exporting to project

Limitations

Unfortunately, due to the game's usage of IL2CPP, we're limited in what we can see through this method.

What We CAN See

  • File, Method, Field, Property Names
  • Method, Field, Property types used
  • Number of times a Method/Class is used (using Analyze)

Screenshot of Analyze

What we CAN'T See

  • The actual code within method bodies
  • The places where methods get called

When you look around the code, you'll basically as see the same pattern of Method stub used, which is basically: Convert parameters to C++y forms, call the particular C++ compiled native method, manually raise necessary exceptions.

Needless to say, that information isn't really useful. This is not a method that will let you get an understanding of what Methods actually do and how they do it.

Still, it can be useful to look at all the Names and Types of things within a Class

ADVANCED: IDA

You can use decompilation software like IDA on "...\BloonsTD6\GameAssembly.dll" to look at the actual assembly code to see what methods do, or more accurately, look at IDA's attempt to generate C Pseudocode for that assembly code.

More info coming at a later time.

To learn how to download BTD Mod Helper and install mods, click here