Hacking Finding a game's script/editing .bin files?

[kersplode]

((My apologies if this is in the wrong area; I had meant to put this in the 'Ask?' section but upon reflection thought this was less of a specific question.))
I've been researching how to start PSP ROMhacking for about a year now, and it's not really the most newb-friendly field. I couldn't find any tutorials on doing it. I apologize if this is just a huge newbie mistake, but after searching for a long while, I thought I'd ask. This seems to be one of the more friendly forums, after all.

There is a game I want to translate into English, and by searching forums I found out most scripts are in PSP_GAME/USRDIR. In my ISO, it has a directory, DATA, containing these files:
lt.bin
pr.bin
sc.cpk
union.cpk
...And a few images/videos.

Thinking 'sc' could be short for 'script', I unpacked it with cpk_unpack(from the utf_tab suite), and got .bin files going all the way from 0000.bin to 1041.bin. I have no way to open nor unpack these, and when I try using something like Notepad++ it shows up as a bunch of jargon(I have tried changing locales). Am I looking in the wrong place? Is there a way to open these whatsoever?

EXTRA INFO: I'm running Linux, but I can still run some .exes. The game I wish to translate is a Visual Novel, so it's very text-heavy. I extracted the files using UMDGen. I did google '.bin decrypter for the psp' as the suggested ask says, but only got info on how to decrypt EBOOT files.

Any help or tutorials would be greatly appreciated.

 

[FAST6191]

PSP game hacking has happened on several occasions, but, as you have probably found out, you will probably be finding yourself on the cutting edge of various things as there has not been a lot of it and what there has been is usually very specific to a given game or it deals with working around copy protection.

.bin is a generic extension used throughout computing for just about any purpose, to this end ".bin decryption" will probably only net something if you are after something very specific like your eboot example.

cpk is an extension I have seen before- I believe one of the middleware companies makes it as an archive format although I will have to have a look at those tools you mention as a more generic one would be useful.

On text- I wrote up a text chapter for my ROM hacking guide http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/utilities/download-gba-and-ds-rom-hacking-guide-2012-preview-2-f30026.html and other than the emulators I use (equivalents of which are not really available for you as I recall) everything is the same, indeed most ROM hacking skills and concepts translate fairly well across systems. The short version is text in games, especially if you have text effects and are dealing with pointers, frequently uses a custom character encoding that is possibly even unique to the game; my favourite analogy is you once probably made a code along the lines of A=00 B=01 C=02..... and it is not an awful lot different in computers other than Japanese usually requires four digits. Pointers as I mentioned them, game consoles (PC is different and the latest consoles being minor occasional exceptions) are not fast or smart enough to know when a line, paragraph or section ends so they will usually come with a list of values that somehow (there are various methods) tells the game where they are, not unlike a contents section in a book.

Also I should note I have seen a great many visual novels not have text in as a much as having a glorified text file as described above and rather opts to have the text rendered as an image by the developer and put into the game (essentially making it a glorified picture slideshow).

 

[Rydian]

http://gbatemp.net/topic/333970-mobile-suit-gundam-age-universe-accel-translation/
This PSP translation modified some CPK files, might check that out for info.