Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

There are 8 replies in this Thread. The last Post () by TheEconomist.

    • New

    Hi guys, I'm just trying to return to Freelancer and I understand there won't be any way to replay online old mods, but those mods work in open SP.


    I found in the archive the old Solurus Systems mod 1.181. While I do have the big archive, I do not have the DBSAutoUpdater, however was called, the installer.

    I know Lancer Solurus lost the files and Brockenstein told me years ago that it's all done for, but I just can't believe there is no way to recover this.

    I only lack the installer, and the files are encrypted with something that even ChatGPT can't break. Maybe Lancer remembers and we could recover the mod...

    • New

    Any link to the download so I can take a look?

    I only can find version 1.13

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


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    • New
    Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

    Any link to the download so I can take a look?

    I only can find version 1.13

    There is no link. I have it on my hard drive, since a very long time ago actually.

    It's a big 7z archive. and inside is a "Packed" folder, in which there are all the files. I belive it is not an update, but a full mod release.

    Files have concatenated names with paths, something like "DATAMISSIONSENCOUNTERSareatradefreighterini".

    But what's worse, is that many of them are encrypted, with a header like DBCP0002 or DBCP0003, including the filelist.bin

    I tried for days, and ChatGPT would go on presuming all kind of nonsense, but I can't break the encryption.


    If you want to go into the files, or may be if you can get a hold of Lancer Solurus to tell us how to decrypt and remake the DBSAutoUpdater (probably at least the 1.121 version) that would be nice. I actually have it on my google drive.


    It's far bigger than the one you put long ago, the Solurus Systems 1.13, it's about 8 times larger (800 MB unpacked).

    • New

    There is no special encryption at all. Inside the tar is a 7z which easily can be unpacked.

    I can only speculate about the installer. But inside the 7z are all files required to run the mod (from what I was able to see).

    The files are not encrypted... just in an unusual naming scheme which includes the directory structure of each file.

    There is a binary file, probably holding the instructions for the installer.

    However, in theory all that needs to be done is take the file names, based on them create the directory structure and then copy the files into the correct locations.


    e.g.

    "DATASHIPSStarWarsXwingxwing3db"

    belongs into

    "DATA\SHIPS\StarWars\Xwing\xwing.3db"


    So in theory very well possible to restore everything. With +4700 files however, pretty tedious work.

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


    This is ten percent luck,
    Twenty percent skill,
    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
    Five percent pleasure,
    Fifty percent pain,
    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

    • New
    Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

    There is no special encryption at all. Inside the tar is a 7z which easily can be unpacked.

    Oh, but there is. You may have looked on a few unencrypted files.

    Freelancer.exe (aka EXEFreelancerexe) is encrypted itself. It begins with DBCP0003. 572 files are like that. Many are encrypted with DBCP0002 (1265 files).

    2921 files are seemingly unencrypted.


    Transforming the names in a folder structure isn't overly dificult. In fact, I could do that part myself. I started to work on that part when I discovered Lancer's special encryption. Because it can only be Lancer's proprietary one. There is no trace of this DBCP thing on Google.


    It's in this unfortunate state because Lancer made it his own thing. The old release you have, 1.13, is installable by one of the FLMMs. Then he switched to this DBCP thing and made his own installer, DBSAutoUpdater for version 1.174. Then 1.175 was an upgrade to 1.174. I do not know how many happened forward to 1.181, but probably even 1.181 was not final. However, he lost everything.


    I thought maybe you know something. There were plenty of Freelancer modding tools, maybe there is something to deal with these DBCP encrypted files. Otherwise, maybe Lancer can tell us the algorithm. If we decrypt the files, restoring the paths is easy.

    • New

    DBCP might refer to the apache database connection pool (that would be a wild guess actually) and the Freelancer.exe actually is the updater.

    Potentially can be checked by at least extracting all files located in EXE folder and then executing that freelancer.exe to see what happens. Its unlikely that it would run on its own but with some additinal dlls it might.

    Dunno. Worth a try.

    But you might be right... other files also have DBCP tags, even plain text files. The logic behind doing something like that is beyond my my comprehension.

    signew.jpg


    cfmoddblogo.png5904.png5904.png
    http://www.moddb.com/scripts/topsite.php?ts=4766


    Only dead fish swim with the stream.
    Don't discuss with idiots. They only drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience there.


    This is ten percent luck,
    Twenty percent skill,
    Fifteen percent concentrated power of will,
    Five percent pleasure,
    Fifty percent pain,
    And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

    • New
    Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

    DBCP might refer to the apache database connection pool (that would be a wild guess actually) and the Freelancer.exe actually is the updater.

    Potentially can be checked by at least extracting all files located in EXE folder and then executing that freelancer.exe to see what happens. Its unlikely that it would run on its own but with some additinal dlls it might.

    Dunno. Worth a try.

    But you might be right... other files also have DBCP tags, even plain text files. The logic behind doing something like that is beyond my my comprehension.

    While we working earlier, we got to this funny number, 3005956 while working on the EXEFreelancerexe . This matches exactly the size of the Frelancer.exe of the version you are hosting, the 1.13. ChatGPT presumes we are dealing with a compressed file inside the DBCP0003. If we manage this, might be a huge step ahead.


    I would like you to tell me, just in case I need it, how to change the Freelancer.exe version number. If it's too close to the beginning of the file it would hammer our attempts to figure out the compression method. I would first patch the Freelancer.exe of the 1.13 with the 1.181 version number and then run the compression tests.