Ripping Death Tank Zwei

[Djidjo]

Hi folks,

I managed yesterday to rip Death Tank out of Powerslave. I found out what files were needed because the "Main.bin" file had the text "Bonus.bin" inside and the Bonus.bin had the text "Corbomite" along with all other weapon names and "Bonus.dat" also.

Strange thing : before using builcd, if I rename bonus.bin into 0bonus.bin in the "image.cti" file, the ISO works. If I don't, the ISO doesn't work (Satourne says : invalid opcode for SH2 master). It might mean the first .bin has to be the first in alphabetic order to be loaded properly (before abs.txt and bib.txt)...

I tried to rip Death Tank Zwei (mainly because I don't have Quake) out of Duke Nukem. The game seems to use "Bonus.bin", "Bonus.dat" and "Bonus2.dat". Same thing : if I don't rename Bonus.bin into 0Bonus.bin, the ISO doesn't work. If I do, the game starts, you can select your players, put your name in, but when you press Start to begin the game, it just stops... both in Satourne and on real Saturn.

Any idea why it stops ? And I'd like to find a FAQ about "buildcd" to understand the commands in the "image.cti" file, but I can't find any... There is this mysterious "0" file both in PowerSlave and Duke Nukem that contains the names of all ".bin" of the games, but "0" is a filename buildcd refuses, there must be a way to force him accept it.

Thanks for any help !

Djidjo

 

[TakaIsSilly]

The 0name thing is easy to explain. The _first_ file in the ISO directory must the the main executable. The best to do so, is to name it so it's the first in order alfabetically. The problem with Zwei is that it might need more files than those .dat files you mentioned, or it calls Bonus.bin again. In the last case, you could try and hexedit inside bonus.bin for it's name and replace it for an equal sized name (0onus.bin, for example).

The trick to make a filename named zero is to name it 0. (as in 0(point))

 

[Djidjo]

The name "bonus.bin" is only in "0" and "main.bin" files. It's not in any other file. But you're right, it might need other files, though I really wonder which ones. There should be a tool that browse a directory, extract all filenames and do a string search of all these filenames in the files themselves. Do you know a tool like that ? Otherwise, I might write one.

Thanks

Djidjo

By the way, Death Tank 1 is here : http://fschwebel.free.fr/saturn/

 

[TakaIsSilly]

The file bonus.bin itself might contain names for other files you'll need. A simple hexadecimal search should suffice. The 0 file is curious. I don't happen to have this games so I wonder if it's a magic file for the boot process, or some sort of overlay. A file with that name is supposed to load before anything else in the system. Could you put it online as well?

 

[antime]

Under Unix or Cygwin, you could try mounting the image, do a

ls > ~/filelist

grep -alf ~/filelist *

If grep has trouble with the binaries you could try looping over the files and run strings on them.

 

[gameboy900]

Why don't you place all the files that were originally on the cd with your image. If the game works fine like that then you know that you need other files to be present. If not then the game needs something other than other files to run. Also include the original unrenamed files as well just in case they are reloaded.

 

[SimSonic]

ISO? What is that? Can it be played with comp?

 

[slinga]

I actually tried this same exact thing over the summer. I couldn't get it to boot at all on a real saturn, never tried Satourne for it.

EDIT: I'm not sure about Death Tank One, but I know for a fact that Zwei requires a save game file of quake OR a death tank save game.

EDIT #2: If I'm not mistaken, the 0 file in the DUKE directory is the menu.

 

[slinga]

I've been running a number of tests on this thing, can't figure it out. Try this (I have no idea how to code this), edit the 00000.000 (the I.P.) to load \DUKE\bonus.bin. I think it might be crashing because its trying to access something in the main directory, which of course is not there.

 

[Djidjo]

Hi folks,

No progress yet, I didn't do any new try since I lost my copy of Duke Nukem, I have to re-burn it :/

Taka : the files 0 from powerslave and duke nukem are online. In powerslave, 0 is in the main directory, whereas 0 in duke is in DUKE sub, as slinga said. The 00000.000 is in the main dir from Duke CD. It's also here : http://fschwebel.free.fr/saturn

Slinga : I think you need a Quake savefile to unlock DT2, but not to run it once it's ripped.

Gameboy900 : yes, that's what I want to do when I'll restart my tries.

Thanks for your interest,

Djidjo

 

[TakaIsSilly]

Originally posted by Djidjo@Dec. 16 2002, 6:09 am

Taka : the files 0 from powerslave and duke nukem are online. In powerslave, 0 is in the main directory, whereas 0 in duke is in DUKE sub, as slinga said. The 00000.000 is in the main dir from Duke CD. It's also here : http://fschwebel.free.fr/saturn

Thanks for your interest,

Djidjo

well, they're all different. 0 from powerslave is provably the main executable... Duke3D 0 is a main menu resource file... and 00000.000 is apparently a resource file for the PlanetWeb web browser Oo;

 

[antime]

Originally posted by TakaIsSilly@Dec. 16 2002, 3:56 pm

00000.000 is apparently a resource file for the PlanetWeb web browser

It is the main browser executable, but I don't know which version. It's neither of the downloadable upgrades though. It might have been used for the Netlink code, but you'd think the actual networking stack would be available as a separate component. It might also just be some junk left in the build directory (or can you start the browser from within the game?)