Posts by TheEconomist

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    solurus systems installer.png


    Ezrail

    SWAT_OP-R8R

    Aldenmar Odin


    I finalized the Solurus Systems installer for the 1.181 version.


    Seems the Freelancer.ini is bugged. I discovered it when I was adding the Advanced hud mod. It looks compressed but there is no DBCP or BINI tag. I used the one from Solurus Systems 1.171.


    I discovered that Freelancer mods are tasteless in single player. You start practically neutral to kinda all factions aside from Liberty Police.


    Is there any way to calculate the appropriate reps, if I am to choose a faction to be most allied with ?


    Say I want to make a Federation character. I could manually input the Federation reps from FLSTAT in a list

    e.g. Borg Collective -0.65, Breen -0.65 and so on.

    Can I just take these numbers and feed the "house=" entries in a decompiled savegame ?




    P.S. Tell me if you want the installer or the decompression sourcecode. I would like someone to convert this in a FLMM installable mod.

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    SWAT_OP-R8R Hey, I wanted to ask you something.

    Going thru the filelist.bin, it lists the files separated in 3 categories:

    FILE -> untouched

    FLDR -> compressed

    ORIG -> original (maybe, from a previous version)


    Now, checking file lengths for ORIG files, I found only 3 files different in SSM1171 from Vanilla.

    This could have been the result of my own modding, as I see the files are:

    DATA\INTERFACE\interface_generic.vms

    DATA\INTERFACE\HUD\hud_shipinfo.cmp

    DATA\INTERFACE\HUD\hud_target.cmp


    I understand those last two are about the Hud, probably the mod changed, but what is that interface_generic.vms ?

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    Ezrail Just managed to decompile Lancer's code for DBCP0002 files with ChatGPT and Ghidra.

    We also got the filelist.bin, which was DBCP0002 compressed, with the full paths for each file.

    I don't know if we'll have any success with DBCP0003, but if we hit the jackpot we might get the Solurus Systems 1.181 functional.


    The major difference vs. 1.171 is the fact that it has a galaxy, a myriad of systems out there.

    And unfortunately Lancer's change to beam weapons, which I'd like to see reverted. I'm nuts for beams.


    Later update:

    The mod is an UPDATE, albeit a big one. There are references to "ORIG" files in the filelist that do not exist in the archive. but exist in 1.171,

    like DATA\UNIVERSE\HEAVENS\heavens.txm for instance.

    I'll run a check to see if all of them are there. Otherwise it's a reference to 1.174 / 1.175 which we do not have at all.


    SWAT_OP-R8R : You may not give enough credit to ChatGPT, but it's quite amazing. When it told me that a transformer will overheat in rectified current regardless of the primary turns. I didn't believe. Until I saw it.

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    Quote from Huor

    Don't trust this woman too much. Lately, she's been agreeing with others far too much and not recognizing her own mistakes — I think she's a little overwhelmed.

    No, not very trustable. Told me100 times "Why I'm confident" while failing every time. But a great teacher nonetheless. I am still learning electromagnetics and transformers with her. Now she's giving me a tour of Ghidra... as we're delving in Lancer Solurus' magic. Even if we'll fail, the experience is quite awesome.

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    Quote from Ezrail

    Oh wow that's great news. Now I will need to try and set up MP server.

    Oh, this is interesting.

    Let me tell you what I've been doing.


    I'm trying to create my own save file. Freelancer Save Editor doesn't work in Windows 11, so I made an XP VM and it does work there.

    I am able to set some initial rep, that is okay, but under no circumstance I can change location. I have all names unlocked in FLSTAT, it just doesn't wanna do it.

    I've tested Phasers and the visual effect is wrong. I do remember a vague discussion about phasers being bugged at that time.


    In the meanwhile Mrs Confidence (ChatGPT) told me it could unlock the DBCP0002 format, handled by the DBSAutoUpdater, if I am to decompile the executable in Ghidra.

    This would give us a head start on what DBCP0003 is about in the work to unlock the 1.181 version.

    If we'd have both algorithms we could then just modify filelist bin and recode all DBCP0003 as DBCP0002 and run the DBSAutoUpdater as installer.

    I'll give it a slow try.

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    Quote from Aldenmar Odin

    for the naming problem, you could try changing the names with a script. I am familiar with powershell and bash and a first try is here:

    Unfortunately, this is the least of my worries. Our problem is Lancer's custom compression.

    We managed to rule out Zlib and LZO, and we're currently looking at LZSS, but I'm not expecting too much. And this is just regarding the DBCP0003.

    We did not touch yet DBCP0002, but I have a plan for that if we succeed this one.

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    I'll try tomorrow a new tactic. I've seen zlib.dll has been done with DBCP0003 and it matches the size inside is the size of the zlib.dll from vanilla freelancer.

    I think I should apply a zilb compression of the vanilla one and see what we're dealing with - a rearranging of the zlib header combined with maybe some a xor mask to obfuscate data.

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    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.

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    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.

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    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).

  • Recovering the Solurus Systems mod

    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...