ROM Hack How to convert/pack .app files into .cia?

[Kayya]

Hello! I want to extract a game's contents to poke at them with PackHack/HackingToolKit9, but I need a .3DS/.CIA file to do that. The game is one I've downloaded off of the eShop and comes with one .tmd file, two .app files, and a .cmd file in a cmd folder. I've done lots of searching, but all the answers have come up vague and I've found no tutorials on how to do this whatsoever. Could someome help, please? Thank you in advance, and sorry if this is the wrong forum to post this in.

 

[Ryccardo]

First, if you have the main NCCH file (.app), you can extract it directly - in fact, the first step of extraction is splitting the cia into ncchs
(packhack may or may not have the option directly, I don't know... but it's just a frontend to ctrtool/3dstool/makerom, which certainly can do so)

The issue would be at the time of reassembling the cia (if that's what you want), as you must figure out which .app file is which partition (unless you want to throw away the manual and downloadplay app, if they are there in the first place): the main application - content 0 - is likely the largest one, manual must go as content 1, and downloadplay client as content 2.
You can figure out their original filenames by opening the TMD file with ctrtool, luckily!