15 replies to this topic

[The Agent]

Deep in the Xbox files of Commandos 2, Pyro Studios forgot to deleted 4 broken alpha missions files. A long time ago, Robb (SirRH) has found them and sent them to me. I've tried to make them fully playable but sadly only 3 has been recovered. These missions are made by Pyro Studios which means they are kind of official missions.

These missions are:

• VEH.MIS (Saving Private Smith Vehicle - Objectives: Open the safe)
• SB_SITUATIONES.MIS (Das Boot Situation - Objectives: Put Sapper in the red area and a tank with the patrol will come over you)
• PT_SITUATIONES.MIS (Haipong Invasion Situation - Objectives: Prepare your men, kill the Japanese captain, resist the invasion)

SCREENSHOTS & DOWNLOAD

 

Videos:

 

Notes:

• A huge big thanks to Robb (SirRH) for finding the broken files.
• If someone has found a solution to decode the 4th missions which is CZ_SITUATIONES.MIS (Colditz Situation), I would be very happy.
• You can still see some Alpha screenshots and videos of these missions in my Pre-Release Commandos 2 Images Collection and also on LoneWolf 66 Youtube Channel.
• Names of these missions are Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2 and Tutorial 3 respectively in menu.
• Missions couldn't be completed due to the lack of objectives. You can pass them using cheats/debug window.
• Executable is by the late Nightgale1, and can be found here as a separate download. (By the way, we miss your mods  )
• The gameplay of these missions is like Commandos 1 due to the limited amount of ammo and grenades.

Edited by MB-2000, 09 June 2017 - 04:05 PM.

[SirRH]

Good work reviving these missions into pc

[herbert3000]

Hey MB, fantastic work!   

 

Did you try to get in contact with Rex, the creator of the ComDevToolkit? Maybe he can decode the Colditz MIS file.

[The Agent]

Actually, I've tried the latest version of the toolkit but it didn't work so I'd better stick on your idea by contacting him.

[Zakxaev68]

Work again pays off. HA! Truly excited see solid attempts at rebuilding something while I would otherwise never had idea existed. Directors' Cut would been great for the PC tho.

[The Agent]

I've made a little update to make these missions more playable: beta abilities for commandos, removed every fourniture and also hiding zones, and finally fixing some doors.

I've also added some videos as you can see.

Edited by MB-2000, 08 June 2017 - 08:44 PM.

[SirRH]

I like the haipong invasion battle on the streets, shame it looks easy as the training 2 one though

[herbert3000]

Any updates on the Colditz Situation mission?

[The Agent]

Sorry guys but all theses days my pc was broken (and it is still right now). I can't turn it on because of a problem on its fan. I'm using now an old Pentium 4 computer as "plan B" to play games and do other things even if it is slow as something more than shit

 

Anyway, I've received a mail from Rex nearly a month ago (sorry again for posting that late ) saying that it's broken because of some missing bytes in the file due to a copy/past action. Here is the message from him.

 

Unfortunately, those files are copied/pasted originally from Pyro, which means that there is no way to solve this problem

 

As a second plan (yes!), I'm sending those original copied/pasted files to SirRH. He's going to execute them in a modded Xbox and see if they're going to work there.

Edited by MB-2000, 04 July 2017 - 05:25 PM.

[herbert3000]

Well, I guess the corrupted file is impossible to restore then.

Looks like each occurrence of 0D 0A could either be 0D or 0A. And all occurrences of 1A were replaced with nothing, they are missing!

[Salvadorc17]

Well, I guess the corrupted file is impossible to restore then.
Looks like each occurrence of 0D 0A could either be 0D or 0A. And all occurrences of 1A were replaced with nothing, they are missing!

Do you mean replaced or deleted?? There is not always chance to change file header by some other functional?

[herbert3000]

Yes, deleted! There's not a single byte with the value 0x1A in the whole file.

See this histogram which shows the number of occurrences of each byte:

[carlost800]

I comment all this without much info about the files, this is a general info, but maybe can help.

The 0x1A character is named SUB, is invisible character, used in the past for indicate the end of a file. Because is invisible, maybe it was removed by a text editor that only support visible characters. Also, the 0x0D 0x0A is the sequence characters used in windows for indicate a new line, in linux is used only 0x0D.

The 0x0D 0x0A or 0x0D can be easily switching in a editor the End of line option where you can choose between: windows and linux. Also can be verified in some hex editor for found some garbage sequences like: 0x0D 0x0A 0x0A.

The missing 0x1A maybe can be inserted manually following some pattern used in other similar files. If some section of the text seems the end of a file, put a 0x1A in that position.

 

Edit: I look inside the file and the header says that is A BSMB file, the commdevtoolkit source code have a source code for convert it (FileSystem\Comm2\BSMB.vb), and also a format specification (Doc\Comm2_BSMB.en.txt). Maybe it cannot converted because some missing think in the format specification. Maybe also it can be recovered, Looking inside step by step carefully, maybe adding some padding, I think that if for example some instruction says: read size in the offset 100, and that offset not have that info because maybe BSMB file uses 0x0D characters for the new line, and in the source code there are 0x0D 0x0A, that 0x0A move the offset where exists the info. Is all theory.

Edited by carlost800, 06 July 2017 - 09:06 PM.

[herbert3000]

If have a strong feeling that a retarded guy at Pyro opened the BSMB file with a text editor and saved it with the new encoding. I even extracted the file directly from the PCK archive using a hex editor, just to make sure that the mess wasn't caused by a bug in PCKManager. But the CommDevToolkit works correctly.

 

The problem is that we can't restore some values, for example the coordinate value 17 0D 0A 00 00
could either be
17 0A 00 00 = 2583.0

or
17 0D 00 00 = 3351.0

 

Or this floating point number with a missing 0x21
0x4437AE

could be one of those:
0x442137ae = 644.87
0x443721ae = 732.53
0x4437ae21 = 734.72

 

The game would probably run with incorrect coordinates but the units would be misplaced.

Even worse, if the value is not a coordinate but an index to another section in the BSMB file, the MIS file could have incorrect keywords.

[herbert3000]

Finally managed to convert the CZ_SITUACIONES.MIS into a text file.

But I can't guarantee that it even works. Maybe compare it with CZ.MIS if anything looks strange.

 CZ_SITUACIONES.zip   98.04KB   136 downloads

[The Agent]

Wait wat

I didn't even receive a notification that you replied this topic. Thanks a lot btw for finding a way

Gonna try that file as soon as I get my PC working.

 

EDIT: I think I know why the file didn't work for you. You have to replace the three lines ".BAS_PS2 CZ.BAS", ".BAS_XBOX CZ.BAS" and ".BAS_WND CZ.BAS" with just ".BAS CZ.BAS". That's the difference between Xbox and PC code. Oh yes I forgot, you need also to change some commandos abilities to make them selectable.

I think those changes would make the mission work. (I didn't try that cause of my PC again )

Edited by MB-2000, 28 July 2017 - 03:24 PM.