harry62 wrote on 07/19/17 at 09:59:53:
Welcome to the TMA
! Funnily enough, when I originally typed the comment you quoted, I actually had you and your TMBO helicopter hack in mind when I referred to more-skilled game hackers.
The screenshots linked to in the post you quoted are from a beta/preview build of TMB. Its PCAR folder contains an entry for the Warhawk vehicle (aka Black Razer/Darkhawk). Warhawk isn't normally listed in that build's vehicle select menus. In the aforementioned screenshots, hacks were used to force its entry to appear. The underground screenshot represents what happens when it's loaded into normal levels in story mode. The player's viewport gets stuck below ground-level, with no Warhawk 3D model in sight and no control over anything. If an additional hack is used to force the Warhawk story level to load, the player will spawn in as Warhawk and it'll be controllable... but barely playable. That TMB build's tweaks (debug) menu was used to correct and manipulate several things in those screenshots, such as increasing the FOV/camera distance and disabling gravity. Major weapon firing/shield/pickup issues also make it impossible to defeat the Warhawk bot vehicle. The Warhawk vehicle didn't seem to be anywhere close to being a properly-playable vehicle as implemented within that build.
As far as the retail/demo versions of TMB and TMBO go, no one has ever managed to make the Warhawk vehicle playable in any of them in any capacity. Hacks can be used to unveil it in vehicle select menus, but selecting it will lead to a crash upon attempting to load in any levels (including Warhawk's story mode level). As you alluded to, TMBO's PCAR folder doesn't contain any files for the Warhawk vehicle. Neither do any retail/demo versions of TMB. I believe the PCAR files in the beta build of TMB differ from their counterparts in retail/demo builds and can't be interchanged. The Warhawk bot also can't be properly loaded as a visible AI opponent in normal levels.
IMO there would be quite a few challenges to overcome to make the Warhawk vehicle reasonably playable in release/demo versions of TMB and any version of TMBO. In TMB, the most realistic way of doing it would probably be to create a hack that steals control of the Warhawk vehicle bot in story mode's Warhawk level. Anything further would likely necessitate figuring out how to trick the game into successfully loading ACAR files for the player's vehicle instead of PCAR files. I tried long ago to no avail. I'm not sure what exactly differs between ACAR and PCAR files. Off the top of my head, I believe PCAR files tend to be larger than ACAR ones. If they're solely vehicle model files, maybe bot models aren't as detailed as player ones. If they're more than just model assets, maybe they contain extra data that's necessary to make them playable.
Ripzsaur wrote on 07/21/17 at 17:38:08:
City of the Dead level? What's that?
edit: I decided not to be lazy. All I found was a screenshot of the loading screen and the soundtrack. Is there any more information currently available?
I posted those screenshots in the Drive Through Walls in Head-On thread, but haven't released any codes as of yet. I decided I'd develop a code to cleanly inject an entry for CotD into level select menus. This took a ton of time and wasn't straightforward. The code still isn't complete to this day, but it's pretty far along. IIRC, the most recent WIP version of it is capable of properly displaying a CotD level select entry in all TML modes. But it's not yet able to safely and reliably set CotD's unlock flag. Without an unlock flag, it won't list the level. I believe I know what needs to be done to resolve that, but haven't been able to devote any time to it in a while. Some of the code's addresses might still be subject to change as well.
When I get around to finalizing the code and making a proper release, it'll probably be very similar to what was done for Mini Junkyard a few years ago.
Malefactor wrote on 07/22/17 at 22:50:05:
Basically there is an additional level from TMB2 on the TMHO: Extended Edition. Long ago we theorized that there may be one, Aced found it . . . then promptly refused to give us pictures for . . . what . . . three years now?
I still think Dark should do it at this point. Promises are null and void after that long.
I did post a few images of it literally the night I knowingly found tangible proof of its existence. I wish I had been able to get a proper code out sooner, but unfortunately things didn't move very quickly. My latter posts in the thread apologized for the time it was taking compared to what I had initially hoped for and stopped promising specific timelines.
Anyway, I don't think it's good etiquette to be rude about this kind of thing. It discourages those whose generosity you're counting on. They don't owe anything to you or anyone else. What game hackers do with the hacks they spend their free time developing is their call. If they're willing to share anything they've developed/discovered, when and how they go about it is their call.
Researching, developing and testing these kinds of hacks isn't always quick and easy. Not to mention that I don't have all the free time in the world. I've been MIA from game hacking for the past several months due to factors beyond my control. I'm hoping to get back into it in the near-term and see where things go from there. City of the Dead is still on my radar.