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[The Fifth Horseman]

Yep, that's the one, allright.

Sorry, I had to remove it because for certain reasons linking to HOTU is a bad (...bad...) idea in these parts.

OK, I've found two cracking programs which list this game as being one possible to De-protect. The first one is NEVERLOCK from Spring 96 and the second one is LOCKSMITH PC 7/94 edition. They both claim to have de-protects for Disciples of Steel.

HOWEVER, the problem is we now need a fully *uncracked* version of the STEEL.EXE file to test these programs out on! I tried it on the three versions of the program I've been able to find online (1. here, 2 HOTU and 3. STARE.GRY), the version of STEEL.EXE is 759,404 bytes in all three of these. The problem is the game has already been "cracked" (the RAZOR 1911 611 byte crack.com file is included in each of the three archives).

Both unprotect utilities fail because they can't find the bytes they need to modify in STEEL.EXE because it is already "cracked" (namely, our infamous 180-attribute limit bomb). As a hint, it appears NEVERLOCK attempts to modify two byte streams. The first one it actually successfully locates in the "cracked" STEEL.EXE file. It fails to find the 2nd set of bytes to modify, and aborts the crack... Unfortunately, it doesn't tell us *which* bytes it's modifying so we can't go in and do a manual hex-edit!!!

So, we need an uncracked version, *or* we need to know which bytres the CRACK.COM file included in the archive is modifying, and reverse those changes manually, *then* apply the cracks in NEVERLOCK and/or LOCKSMITH. I think we have a GREAT chance at getting this game playable if we can do this!!

WOW!! I think I've finally got a working cracked STEEL.EXE. I figured out there are four locations to modify. Two of these are checksums. Replacing these with NOPs seems to fix it. Now no message about "CRC failure" comes up. The other modification was made so that savegames are no longer checked and corrupted if CRC mismatch occurs. To crack the game, perform the following modifcations to the STEEL.EXE file at these offsets. The file should be exactly 759,404 bytes:

0x0464A0: 74 06 FF 46 B6 E9 05 00
to: 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90

0x069B30: 75 09
to: 90 90

0x069EA0: 75 09
to 90 90

0x06F710: 7E 03
to 90 90

It is now cracked! Test this out to make sure I haven't missed anything. Hopefully the game should now be able to be completed normally.

Hi there,

First of all, thanks for getting the manual uploaded, that's a great help.

Unfortunately though, I'm a complete beginner when it comes to debugging etc. Anyone able to give a quick guide as to what I have to do to apply these modifications? Do I need any specific software, or can this be done in Dos?

Cheers

Ferris


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest_zyzzle @ May 20 2006, 11:15 AM) [snapback]231429[/snapback]</div>

WOW!! I think I've finally got a working cracked STEEL.EXE. I figured out there are four locations to modify. Two of these are checksums. Replacing these with NOPs seems to fix it. Now no message about "CRC failure" comes up. The other modification was made so that savegames are no longer checked and corrupted if CRC mismatch occurs. To crack the game, perform the following modifcations to the STEEL.EXE file at these offsets. The file should be exactly 759,404 bytes:

0x0464A0: 74 06 FF 46 B6 E9 05 00
to: 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90

0x069B30: 75 09
to: 90 90

0x069EA0: 75 09
to 90 90

0x06F710: 7E 03
to 90 90

It is now cracked! Test this out to make sure I haven't missed anything. Hopefully the game should now be able to be completed normally.
[/b]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ferris @ Jul 15 2007, 09:43 AM) [snapback]299465[/snapback]</div>

Hi there,

First of all, thanks for getting the manual uploaded, that's a great help.

Unfortunately though, I'm a complete beginner when it comes to debugging etc. Anyone able to give a quick guide as to what I have to do to apply these modifications? Do I need any specific software, or can this be done in Dos?

Cheers

Ferris

[/b]

There's a procedure to get this game up & running without any hacking or crack. The availability of the manual makes cracking the copy protection (which has yet to be fully defeated) a moot point. Here's how to get the game working:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Svend Karlson @ May 8 2007, 06:21 PM) [snapback]289645[/snapback]</div>

Game is now playable in 4 easy steps:

1. Download the main program zip from this site & install it
2. Do NOT run the crack file, just delete it
3. Download the 1.013 patch zip & apply it (if you cannot find it, message me, I'll email you it)
2. Download the manual from this site (essential, unplayable without it)

The manual is needed because without it you cannot get past the manual copy protection built into the game (the supplied crack doesn't remove all the protection) & the patch is needed because the main executable file has already been 'cracked' even if you don't run the crack supplied, which triggers an additional copy protection measure that will cripple your game after about 6 hours of playing.

I've now been playing for quite some time, it's just as I remembered it, sort of.

In answer to the question about the theives tools above, I cannot say for certain, but there is a theives guild in a tower inside Teal. Theives tools may be inside, but presently I cannot fight past a band of cutthroughts to progress beyond the very beginning of that tower.
[/b]

The patch seems to be just what I needed and it's all looking good now! Thanks Doublejack (and everyone else), hopefully I'm there now!

[styxer]

I bought this game years back, played it ALOT.

Sold my old computer, forgott to make a backup of the saves before formating AND lended the game to friend who lost the CD...

But now, 12 years later, I'm back on track!!!!

Thanx a lot for all the posts, and I think I have some old notes from game in a drawer somewhere..

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(doublejack @ Jul 18 2007, 10:11 PM) [snapback]300096[/snapback]</div>

There's a procedure to get this game up & running without any hacking or crack. The availability of the manual makes cracking the copy protection (which has yet to be fully defeated) a moot point. Here's how to get the game working:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Svend Karlson @ May 8 2007, 06:21 PM) [snapback]289645[/snapback]

Game is now playable in 4 easy steps:

1. Download the main program zip from this site & install it
2. Do NOT run the crack file, just delete it
3. Download the 1.013 patch zip & apply it (if you cannot find it, message me, I'll email you it)
2. Download the manual from this site (essential, unplayable without it)

The manual is needed because without it you cannot get past the manual copy protection built into the game (the supplied crack doesn't remove all the protection) & the patch is needed because the main executable file has already been 'cracked' even if you don't run the crack supplied, which triggers an additional copy protection measure that will cripple your game after about 6 hours of playing.

I've now been playing for quite some time, it's just as I remembered it, sort of.

In answer to the question about the theives tools above, I cannot say for certain, but there is a theives guild in a tower inside Teal. Theives tools may be inside, but presently I cannot fight past a band of cutthroughts to progress beyond the very beginning of that tower.
[/b]

[/b][/quote]


If anyone happens to have the 1.013 patch for this, I would love to have it, seeing as how I cannot find a reliable link to download it from. Please email it to me at [BEEEP]@hotmail.com
Any help is appreciated.

Forgot to mention above that attributes can now extend well beyond 180, in fact the range is a 16-bit signed integer, so enjoy hacking your characters to have 32,000 strength, etc. The practical limit seems to be around 900, for aesthetic purposes, the bar graphs corrupt the display at ranges much higher than 900 - 950! Save games no longer crash the game if attributes are > 180.

Hey, that crack worked great! So has anyone else played through the game to the point with some lame giant talking mouth that asks you a question? I can't find anything in the game to answer it, and this game barely seems to exist on the Internet!

So if you know that answer to the mouth, help me out! I killed the hermit to get around his question, but the game won't let you kill the mouth.

Thanks