Thief Fan Mission Manager Now a Mission Loader

tolsen64 on 31/5/2011 at 05:26

Thief Fan Mission Manager (Selector)

This is a Fan Mission Selector (to be used as an alternative to the built-in fmsel.dll provided with NewDark and Thief 3 Sneaky Upgrade). The project is hosted on (https://github.com/tolsen64/TFMM-fmsel) GitHub and you can download the latest build (https://github.com/tolsen64/TFMM-fmsel/raw/master/TFMM.7z) here. Watch the demo video (https://youtu.be/-jB-QiMv0fE) here.

This program only works on NewDark installs of System Shock 2, Thief TDP/Gold, Thief TMA, and the SneakyUpgraded version of TDS.

Installation is pretty simple. Extract the downloaded file into a folder (not any of the game folders, but its own folder). Then edit the cam_mod.ini files in each of your NewDark installs to point to the TFMM.dll. The line would look like this:

Quote:

; define the library name of an alternative FM Selector, the default is "fmsel.dll"
fm_selector D:\Games\TFMM\TFMM.dll

For Thief 3 Sneaky Upgraded, edit the SneakyOptions.ini file to look like this:

Quote:

[Loader]
ExternSelector=D:\Games\TFMM\TFMM.dll

Then, instead of the default fmsel launching, TFMM will launch.

Report any bugs, crashes, or general screw up's by posting to this thread.

Things still to do:

1. Add the ability to copy meta data from one mission to another (for mission updates).

Below is the original post back on 30 May 2011 announcing the original version of this program.

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Ok, I've been working on a Fan Mission loader for a while. Letting my kids test it and find new ways to crash it. I've made it available for download now that it seems to run pretty stable for both me and my kids. We've got it running on two Win7 64-bit pc's, two WinXP 32-bit pc's, one WinXP 32-bit laptop and one Win7 32-bit laptop. I have not tried every single mission out there, but I have a library of about 900 missions and my kids have tried a bunch of those without issues.

This thing can do T1, T2, T3, and SS2 (I plan to add DarkMod at a later time). I would set up a fresh install of each game, updated, patched, ddfixed, and optimized (all .crf files moved to the RES folder). I create a directory structure on the root of a drive like so:

C:\DarkGames
C:\DarkGames\Thief1 <-Thief Gold Installed Here
C:\DarkGames\Thief2 <-Thief 2 Installed Here
C:\DarkGames\Thief3 <-Thief 3 Installed Here
C:\DarkGames\Shock2 <-System Shock 2 Installed Here
C:\DarkGames\InstalledGames <- Directory where fan missions will be installed
C:\DarkGames\TFMM <- Theif Fan Mission Manager installed here.

Your fan mission directories can be anywhere, even on a network share.

Just like ModernLoader, this program uses the CreateHardLink API. It hard-links all files from the original directores that won't change, and copies those that could be changed (ini, cfg, etc). This ensures that your original game directories will not be touched.

Also, the program can install several modified "dark.gam" or "shock2.gam" files at "play time". It restores the original .gam file when the game being played is exited. I'm talking the "Zombie Mode" or "Ultimate Difficulty" patches for Thief and others for SS2. I also found a "Saved Game Patcher" that lets you set the difficulty of a saved game and give infinite supplies. I'll look at adding that to the program also.

Anyhow, download it if you're interested. I didn't write it to be fast and I don't really care about complaints that it doesn't do something a certain way. The program was written for me mostly. If you like it great. I would love to hear bug reports or no-bug reports.

Oh yeah, I re-packaged the T2X into a loadable fan mission. Just install it to a temp directory and zip up everything inside the T2X directory and viola! I had a problem with it crashing on one of my 64-bit pc's because it couldn't play the videos (VP3 coded wouldn't install). So I just deleted all the movies and it works fine without them.

Anyhow, get it here: (https://github.com/tolsen64/TFMM-fmsel/blob/master/Release.7z)

clearing on 31/5/2011 at 05:47

New version? Looks cool. Downloading.

bikerdude on 31/5/2011 at 09:05

So a similar install to most of us

D:\Games\Thief\T1
D:\Games\Thief\T2
D:\Games\Thief\T3
D:\Games\Thief\DL
D:\Downloads\Games\Thief\Missions\(T1/T2/T3 etc)

tolsen64 on 31/5/2011 at 12:49

A couple of things I forgot to mention:

1. The icons in the grid are transparent. That's why you can see text beneath them. I haven't figured out how to remove the transparency without making the icons look like crap.

2. When you exit T3, it takes a while for the program to un-hide. So just wait for it. The reason for this is because it's waiting for the game process to stop. When you exit T3, the game screen goes away and you can see the desktop but the process hasn't stopped yet. When the game process finally stops, the program will re-appear.

intruder on 31/5/2011 at 14:18

Thanks for your work, tolsen64!

FenPhoenix on 31/5/2011 at 14:54

Very, very nice. I'm drooling just looking at the info page there. I'll give this a spin later today. :)

malau on 1/6/2011 at 08:02

Nice work !

EDIT: Got an 'Unhandled Exception' just by RC-ing on an FM and then asking for 'Mission Details' - an "InvalidCallCastException Operator' "=" is not defined for type DBNULL....."

EDIT: = Also got a complete crash when trying to tell the program to fetch mission links from TKOMAG - though seems to be OK for Thiefmissions.com, though Thiefcircle returns a server error 500 (probably nothing to do with the software)

EDIT: The options on the VIEW menu have no effect on your Download Missions Tab list. They also seem to blank out EVERYTHING on my Fan Mission Tab (!)

EDIT: - How do you make the program run maximized ?

EDIT: - The FM Mission Tab does not display the mission name ONLY filename - see EDIT 1 also

EDIT: - HOW do you actually install an FM ? I RC on an FM and there is no option to install it.

EDIT: - Presuming that you actually can run Thief from this software, how are you going to incorporate turning off Multi-Cores???????

tolsen64 on 1/6/2011 at 12:52

Quote:

EDIT: Got an 'Unhandled Exception' just by RC-ing on an FM and then asking for 'Mission Details' - an "InvalidCallCastException Operator' "=" is not defined for type DBNULL....."

Did you RC and test the zip file first? I'll fix this tonight.

Quote:

EDIT: = Also got a complete crash when trying to tell the program to fetch mission links from TKOMAG - though seems to be OK for Thiefmissions.com, though Thiefcircle returns a server error 500 (probably nothing to do with the software)

I said on the web site that thiefmissions.com is the only one that worked. It's been 4 years since i've messed with the download tab. I plan on fixing or removing the others, just haven't done it yet.

Quote:

EDIT: The options on the VIEW menu have no effect on your Download Missions Tab list. They also seem to blank out EVERYTHING on my Fan Mission Tab (!)

The VIEW menu options were programmed for the Mission Files tab. They don't affect any other list. Back when this program was first made, it was nothing more than a mission file manager and there was only the first tab. I might make it work on other lists, I might not.

Also, when you choose "T2" for example, it won't show any files that don't have "T2" in the Thief Version column. You need to test the zip file and retrieve the mission info before attempting to filter the display.

When testing zip files and retrieving mission info, you can select more than 1 file. Select the entire list and then start the zip file test and walk away for a while. It's going to take some time, especially for large files. Then do the same thing for retrieving the mission info. This is faster but still can take some time if you have 900 files like I do.

Quote:

EDIT: - How do you make the program run maximized ?

Click the Maximize button. Or double-click the title bar.

Quote:

EDIT: - The FM Mission Tab does not display the mission name ONLY filename - see EDIT 1 also

See answer to EDIT 1. RC and test the zip file. Then RC and get mission info.

Quote:

EDIT: - HOW do you actually install an FM ? I RC on an FM and there is no option to install it.

To install a mission:
1. Right-click on a mission and test the zip file.
2. If the status is not "Zip File Okay" then it can't be installed. Stop.
3. Right-click on the mission again and get mission info.
4. Once the mission info is displayed, left-click on it make the "Install" button appear in the lower-right corner of the program window.

To play the mission:
1. switch to the Play Missons tab.
2. click on a mission.
3. click on the "Play" button in the lower-right corner of the program window.

Quote:

EDIT: - Presuming that you actually can run Thief from this software, how are you going to incorporate turning off Multi-Cores???????

I have T1, T2, T3, and SS2 all running on multi-core computers without any issues. One is an Athlon Phenom X4, another is a Pentium P6100, and the other is an Atom N270. I haven't applied any patches other than ddfix and haven't had a problem.

However, being the benevolent king of this software, i'll look into it.

tolsen64 on 2/6/2011 at 04:29

v11.6.1.1
-Made the context menu easier to understand by numbering the items and adding code to dis-allow getting mission info before testing zip file.
-Added context menu item for Installing missions
-Fixed button not appearing automatically after getting mission info.
-Fixed bug with the 'anisotropic' patch with System Shock 2 that would not restore the strings.crf file to the original.
-Disabled checkboxes for Komag and Thief: The Circle in the download tab until I have a chance to fix them.

See first post in this thread for the link.

fxdwg on 3/6/2011 at 03:06

I've just downloaded your mission manager and was testing my fm archives and then populating the information columns.
I have one fm (Thief 2 CTF) that continually says it's status is "corrupted". I've re-downloaded it twice from 2 locations (Cheap and KOMAG). It still says corrupted and subsequently will not allow me to install it. It does allow me to "open selected mission file", where I can browse through the zipped files located within it. Is there something about the structure of this archive that might cause Thief Manager to think it's corrupt? Other than this anomaly of mine, all else looks pretty good.

Also, is there perhaps a method existing, or upcoming, that would allow a comparison of my mission files from the Fan Mission Files tab and the Download Missions tab to quickly find missions that I haven't downloaded, without having to manually go through the nearly 1000 missions listed?

Thanks for all your effort.