A long shot - Jane's Long Bow 2.

P

PositiveG

Spaceman
Hi. I know, I know WAY off topic, but I'm hoping one of the wizards in here might know something.


It's my understanding that some of the Origin programmers went on to
work Electronic arts and helped develope this game.

Janes Longbow 2 aka LB2. It's an "Apache" AH64 Helocopter sim.

I'm hoping someone here can answer a question for me. It's a long shot but I thought I'd try.

Does anyone know the file format used in the WC series for the equivalent of a WAD file? I'm hoping they used the same format in LB2. In LB2 they are called *.TRE files.

Googleing around I found this interesting link.
http://archives.seul.org/penguinplay/Jun-1998/msg00038.html


I'm guessing these *.TRE files act almost like a zip file. They are used in LB2.EXE to retrieve game data without taking a lot of space (HD space being at a premium back then). Having the ability to crack these files open, then maybe modify the packed textures, then repack them (or even leave the open) would open up a whole new world for modding this game. I'm also hoping that one of the WC utilities can be modified to do the same for LB2.


Thoughts comments?
 
Howdy,
The Wing Commander games did use .tre files. I'm not sure if the tools developed for extracting them will work with Longbow or not -- but you can give it a shot. Download "Tre Manager" from http://www.wcrevival.de/hcl/archive/ .

Longbow 2 was develoed 'upstairs', IIRC, by the Jane's Austin team. I don't think there was much overlap with the Maverick Team (Wing Commander)... but they probably used a lot of the same proprietary technology.
 
Thanks for the quick reply.

Do you think the developers of this *.tre extractor are still around?
Maybe they could modify it (if needed) to work on LB2 *.tre files.

Thanks again.

I tried it, this is what I get.

Wing Commander TRE Manager - Version 1.0
By Mario "HCl" Brito

TRE type: Privateer 1 / Armada




Options:

1 - List files in TRE
2 - Extract ALL Files from TRE
3 - Extract one/some Files from TRE
4 - Add one file to TRE (not yet available)
5 - Delete one file from TRE (not yet available)

0 - Exit
Reading names...
Ordring names alphabetically...
Exiting due to signal SIGSEGV
General Protection Fault at eip=0000179b
eax=00000078 ebx=00058200 ecx=00056cef edx=06f30000 esi=00000054 edi=00016f00
ebp=00056cb4 esp=00056ca4 program=C:\JANES\LONGBOW2\TREMAN.EXE
cs: sel=01a7 base=02980000 limit=000effff
ds: sel=01af base=02980000 limit=000effff
es: sel=01af base=02980000 limit=000effff
fs: sel=017f base=000057c0 limit=0000ffff
gs: sel=01bf base=00000000 limit=7ffeffff
ss: sel=01af base=02980000 limit=000effff

Call frame traceback EIPs:
0x0000179b
0x00001eb8
0x00003da0
0x0000537a
 
He is still around, but he might not have time enough to help. Although he used to do a lot of stuff in modding WC games, his time has become more constrained of late.

He might have time enough to modify the treman file, so just send him an e-mail.
 
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