Backing up the PP CD and other trivia

[lbores]

I was able to obtain the Planetary Pack from Ebay. I found the 'strategy guide' useful but would never have paid $27 for it, BTW. Having an 'old-fashioned' printed copy of a manual still seems best for me - as well as many others, I suspect.

I make it a practice to make back-up copies of all my computer apps/games/utilities - nothing is forever and Murphy is still lurkng. Also - I prefer not to take originals when I travel.

Whilst I had no difficulty in copying my original SMAC and SMAX CD's, I get an error when I try doing that with the PP CD.

I would appreciate it if anyone in the forum who solved the copying problem would drop a note here. I intend to visit GameCopyWorld(?) in the meantime to search for a solution. It may be as simple as using CloneCD but maybe not.

As a last resort, I could just copy the contents of the PP CD to my HD, copy that onto a CD and thence apply the cd crack to the installed SMAX but that seems less elegant somehow. BTW: I note that the terranx.exe 'crack' is almost 3 megs as opposed to the 244KB of the 'unaltered' terranx.exe. Can I assume that I have the correct crack here?

One other note: the 'readit' with the PP CD is somewhat ambiguous here but I'm assuming that the PP CD has the v4 update applied to the copy of SMAC resident thereon and the v2 SMAX update likewise.

Thanks for taking the trouble to answer.

[This message has been edited by lbores (edited February 25, 2001).]

[lbores]

quote: Originally posted by lbores on 02-25-2001 10:08 AM BTW: I note that ...

Okay - answered this one for myself (duh!) but someone else might want to know. Terranx.exe (and terran.exe for that matter) is not the true exe. Terranx.icd is and is in encrypted form. That file is 3 megs for terranx.icd. Therefore, the crack is the unencrypted *.icd file (and the 244kb terranx.exe as well, I suspect).

GameCopyWorld is an amazing place.
[This message has been edited by lbores (edited February 25, 2001).]

[Dimension]

quote: Originally posted by lbores on 02-25-2001 10:08 AM Whilst I had no difficulty in copying my original SMAC and SMAX CD's, I get an error when I try doing that with the PP CD.

You mean your CDR software gives you an error when you try to copy it, or the PP CD gives you an error when you try to install/play the copy?

quote: I intend to visit GameCopyWorld(?) in the meantime to search for a solution. It may be as simple as using CloneCD but maybe not.

If CloneCD works with your CDR, I'd say there's a 99.97% chance that would solve the problem right there. There's also a 409k CD Protection Detection program they should have which scans a CD for protection and tells you specifically what software can copy it.

quote: As a last resort, I could just copy the contents of the PP CD to my HD, copy that onto a CD and thence apply the cd crack to the installed SMAX but that seems less elegant somehow.

I know if I were concerned with having a copy strictly for the legitimate sake of having a backup, I'd want a perfect duplicate, but if you want to travel with the copy, you'd probably be better off just doing a file dump onto a new CD. Then you can put the SMAX crack on there (and the patches). You always want to play with the SMAX crack, even if you do leave the CD in the drive, just because the game loads up so much faster when it doesn't have to seek the CD and look for the protection. This is especially true if you are traveling and playing on a laptop, because laptop CD's generally have slower spin-up/access/transfer times and more trouble reading protection.

quote: BTW: I note that the terranx.exe 'crack' is almost 3 megs as opposed to the 244KB of the 'unaltered' terranx.exe. Can I assume that I have the correct crack here?

Yeah, the 3-meg TERRANX.EXE crack is the right one. It's actually just a hacked version of the original 3-meg TERRAN.EXE, which is why it skips the new dumb splash screen and why it warns you, "The Alpha Centauri CD-ROM was not detected," instead of saying, "The Alien Crossfire CD-ROM was not detected."

[lbores]

I got an error from the CDR when trying to do a disk copy with it - using EZ CD Creator.

I'll try CloneCD but it makes more sense to just copy the SMAC/SMAX folder onto a CD. However, for traveling purposes, your suggestion about using the noCD crack makes even more sense. That was an excellant tip, BTW, about faster load up. I'll just install the noCD crack on my laptop copy and leave it at that. That way - I'll not need a CD at all.

Thnx.

[lbores]

quote: Originally posted by Dimension on 02-26-2001 01:25 AM Yeah, the 3-meg TERRANX.EXE crack is the right one. It's actually just a hacked version of the original 3-meg TERRAN.EXE, which is why it skips the new dumb splash screen and why it warns you, "The Alpha Centauri CD-ROM was not detected," instead of saying, "The Alien Crossfire CD-ROM was not detected."

This last point makes me ask: will this handle the same CD nonsense for SMAC? After re-installing the game from PP (actually you have no real choice) - even playing SMAC gives you the 'no CD' msg. I'm seriously considering copying my 'older (but updated)' terran.exe and terran.icd into the folder as well.

My wife says the real solution is to not play the game on the plane - sleep instead. I can't sleep on an airplane - not well anyway. Besides she doesn't really understand that I need my game fix daily.

[Dimension]

I don't have any real experience with the Planetery Pack CD. You're saying that if you install SMAC from that CD, even the original game won't function without the CD in the drive? I mean, I know it always looked for the CD and then warned you that all features won't work unless you did the complete install.

If that's the case, I'd be willing to bet that simply copying the TERRAN.EXE from the 4.0 patch over the TERRAN.EXE from the PP CD would let you play w/o the CD.

[theohall]

lbores - refer to the "terranx startup crash" thread or the "tectonic missiles in SMAC" thread.

I already owned SMAC and was looking for SMAX. Found the Planetary Pack and had major problems running SMAX.

My Planetary pack had SMAC v3, not v4. Solutions to my issues are in the other threads. Even solved the No CD thing. Haven't tried copying the CD yet.

[lbores]

Problem solved thnx to Dimension and others.

I am fortunate to have the original SMAC CD which, upon Full Install, did not require the CD to play. I bumped terran.exe with the v4 update. The resultant file size was somewhat over 2.4 megs. I saved this file in another folder.

I then installed PP over SMAC. The result was a call for the CD from either SMAC or SMAX. I then copied both the previously saved SMAC terran.exe and the no-CD version of terranx.exe (3+ megs) into the same AC folder overwriting the corresponding files.

I then pointed my shortcut to axstart.exe in that folder. I now have the choice of playing either SMAC or SMAX without the 'can't find CD' nonsense.

Me smiling now.

[theohall]

Thanks lbores. I will try your suggestion to reacquire some of my not-so-valuable disk space.

[lbores]

quote: Originally posted by theohall on 02-27-2001 09:48 AM Thanks lbores. I will try your suggestion to reacquire some of my not-so-valuable disk space.

Once you have substituted the v4 terran.exe (2.4 megs) and the terranx.exe (3+ megs) you can remove the *.icd files as well as the *.016 and *.256 files. On my laptop, I turned off 'play SP videos', removed the pertinent *.wve files and was able to recover about 200 megs of space (once you've seen the videos - you've seen the videos). I recovered more space by removing the opening videos for both SMAC and SMAX since starting with axstart.exe bypasses those. I also removed EA Technical Support Help.hlp from the laptop and saved another 633KB (won't be consulting EA help on a trip).

Warning: make sure that you save all copies of files-to-be-deleted (except perhaps the videos or unless you already have backup copies) - just in case. Murphy's Law has not been repealed.

[This message has been edited by lbores (edited February 27, 2001).]

[theohall]

Thanks again lbores. Still have 12 Gig free on the 30GB drive, but ya never know when that extra 633 kb might come in handy.

Works like a champion. I kept the SP videos. Occasionally I like watching them for some weird reason.