matrix is in binary i believe.....
It should be, but it's not. Just loads of unicode characters iirc.
That's cool, misread you a bit there before then. But still, I feel like it would be difficult for any code in the mod to differentiate between default textures and modded ones, seeing as they use the same filenames most times. The ones that don't have edited lines in module.ini and in the textures text file. So to properly catch illegal modding you'd have to set it up to look for differences in textures by filesize maybe? But then all the cheat-modders would have to do is insert X kilobytes worth of junk data into a blank texture and make it match.
Honestly, I think its a bit too complicated an issue for any moddable game to handle. Games like Battlefield and Call of Duty can't catch texture/smoke/foliage removal packs, I don't expect this game to either. We just have to rely on the community not to be cheating douche-swallowers.
It's actually quite easy to tell wether someone has the same texture files as you want them to have. Hash the correct texture file and hardcode the result, then compare this model with the hash of the corresponding file on the local computer. Before that, make sure you got the correct file names by checking the resource listing files. But I really don't know how to force someone to run the verification program without hacking into TW's exe.
This protection would be fairly thin against any real hacker, but at least not everybody could simply replace the textures with void ones.