Oh No! Nooooooooooooooo!

[uckelman]

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

I’m not sure that I understand the problem completely, but you could unzip
the module and manually replace BlackBlock.jpg with BlackBlock.png in the
images directory of the zip file.

Or you could unzip the module, and edit “buildFile” manually in a text
editor (not a word processor). Do a search and replace with BlackBlock.jpgto
BlackBlock.png.

Editing the buildFile directly is sometimes faster (but it doesn’t always
work). The developers were very smart in using ordinary text XML for the
config file (Thanks guys).

• M.

Ben will need to run the Deobfuscator on it, most probably.

It would be a good idea in the future to save setups unObfuscated.

–
J.

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[mkiefte]

I missed the “pre-defined” setup part.

Why is the setup obfuscated? Is it only to prevent seeing hidden units?

• M.

On 05/03/2008, Joel Uckelman <uckelman@nomic.net (uckelman@nomic.net)> wrote:

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

I’m not sure that I understand the problem completely, but you could unzip
the module and manually replace BlackBlock.jpg with BlackBlock.png in the
images directory of the zip file.

Or you could unzip the module, and edit “buildFile” manually in a text
editor (not a word processor). Do a search and replace with BlackBlock.jpgto
BlackBlock.png.

Editing the buildFile directly is sometimes faster (but it doesn’t always
work). The developers were very smart in using ordinary text XML for the
config file (Thanks guys).

• M.

Ben will need to run the Deobfuscator on it, most probably.

It would be a good idea in the future to save setups unObfuscated.

–

J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

I missed the “pre-defined” setup part.

Why is the setup obfuscated? Is it only to prevent seeing hidden units?

It’s obfuscated not because it’s an initial setup, but because
initial setups are just regular save files which are packed up
inside the module, and save files are obfuscated.

There’s no point at all in obfuscating initial setups. There’s
nothing I could learn from surreptitiously unpacking one which
I wouldn’t already know from reading the setup information in
the game rules.

–
J.

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[mkiefte]

Perhaps the first byte should be a obfuscation flag. When an initial setup is loaded in, it should be deobfuscated by default?

I recall that the reason I chose at-start stacks over initial setups was because of the obfuscation. That was a poor choice in the end, because you can’t initialise rotations that way. I may have to switch over at some point.

• M.

On 05/03/2008, Joel Uckelman <uckelman@nomic.net (uckelman@nomic.net)> wrote:

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

I missed the “pre-defined” setup part.

Why is the setup obfuscated? Is it only to prevent seeing hidden units?

It’s obfuscated not because it’s an initial setup, but because
initial setups are just regular save files which are packed up
inside the module, and save files are obfuscated.

There’s no point at all in obfuscating initial setups. There’s
nothing I could learn from surreptitiously unpacking one which
I wouldn’t already know from reading the setup information in
the game rules.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

Perhaps the first byte should be a obfuscation flag. When an initial setup
is loaded in, it should be deobfuscated by default?

The Deobfuscator already acts as a pass-through filter for plain text,
so all that needs to change is that initial setups are saved as plain
text when they’re imported.

–
J.

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[mkiefte]

The real trick is knowing whether it’s been obfuscated or not without waiting for an exception. Or VASSAL could just know that initial setups are not obfuscated. Should be easy to do, I suppose. I might look into that later but it requires a change in how setups are read.

• M.

On 05/03/2008, Joel Uckelman <uckelman@nomic.net (uckelman@nomic.net)> wrote:

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

Perhaps the first byte should be a obfuscation flag. When an initial setup
is loaded in, it should be deobfuscated by default?

The Deobfuscator already acts as a pass-through filter for plain text,
so all that needs to change is that initial setups are saved as plain
text when they’re imported.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

The real trick is knowing whether it’s been obfuscated or not without
waiting for an exception. Or VASSAL could just know that initial setups are
not obfuscated. Should be easy to do, I suppose. I might look into that
later but it requires a change in how setups are read.

No, it already does that without waiting for an exception.

–
J.

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[mkiefte]

Cool! So when are save files not currently obfuscated?

• M.

On 05/03/2008, Joel Uckelman <uckelman@nomic.net (uckelman@nomic.net)> wrote:

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

The real trick is knowing whether it’s been obfuscated or not without
waiting for an exception. Or VASSAL could just know that initial setups are
not obfuscated. Should be easy to do, I suppose. I might look into that
later but it requires a change in how setups are read.

No, it already does that without waiting for an exception.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

Cool! So when are save files not currently obfuscated?

• M.

Um, never, I think, unless you run the Deobfuscator on them by hand.

–
J.

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[uckelman]

Thus spake “Michael Kiefte”:

Cool! So when are save files not currently obfuscated?

Oh, also one of the save files associated with the tour is not
obfuscated.

–
J.

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[bsmith]

This deobfiscation trick saved my butt, thanks guys. It’s going to save me hours of work going forward, I’ve always been hesitant to create pre-defined setups. Knowledge is power.