[zykov eddy]

Hello everyone!

I've considered myself to be a DN3D modding archeologist, and most of the time, I could find older maps and TCs and getting them to work, even the ones that weren't available on the internet for many years, or seemed broken/corrupted. But, one TC have bothered me from the very beginning, and it's a Stargate SG-1: In the Hands of a Serpent by David G. Paul, from 1999.

The only version that I could get to work was an older beta that had very few levels and lots of missing graphics. There's a newer version of this TC that seems to have much more content, but I could never get it to work. I can unzip the data file and look through the file names in the GRP, but all files seem to be corrupted. I always assumed that they were broken from the beginning and getting them to work is impossible, but maybe I'm doing something wrong? Maybe they're actually protected in some way, and I could never figure out how to decode them.

If you have any ideas how to decode the files, or have a working version available, please share it here. I would really appreciate it. This TC seems very low quality by 90's Duke 3D modding standards, but it's a part of our history nonetheless, and needs to be preserved. Thank you!

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[oasiz]

It looks like that GRP does still contain valid data but perhaps it's headers are busted..
The GRP file kind of relies on the headers to tell you where each file is located, I'll try to see what I can find..

First file is a MAP that I can see from the headers.. last files are audio files and can be heard when imported to i.e. audacity.
I think that some files or data are missing from the middle, which would explain wrong offsets.
Would need some additional analysis.. I tried to fiddle with ImHex to get patterns going on but I still don't know how to exactly do this correctly..
I feel like I'm better off writing a dumper from scratch.

The .com patcher program fiddles with the .exe but it doesn't seem to do anything to magically make the GRP work either (i.e. hardcoded magic offsets).

[MajorTom 2417]

link removed; mod was for Half-Life, but I'll keep looking.

How many files for the mod, if any, exist outside of the apparently busted GRP file?

[zykov eddy]

MajorTom 2417, on 31 August 2025 - 12:28 PM, said:

How many files for the mod, if any, exist outside of the apparently busted GRP file?

I was only able to find three con files, which do work. I tested them with an older version of the TC.

[MajorTom 2417]

I'm consulting with someone else who DL'd the second version and they're telling me there's no GRP file. So either I'm missing something in this discussion or....well, I have no clue. Was the GRP in the data file? And which file was the data file?

So the one I'm talking to says that the second version can be run with vanilla Duke3D 1.3D. Just dump all the files into a directory and go, apparently.

[zykov eddy]

MajorTom 2417, on 31 August 2025 - 01:06 PM, said:

I'm consulting with someone else who DL'd the second version and they're telling me there's no GRP file. So either I'm missing something in this discussion or....well, I have no clue. Was the GRP in the data file? And which file was the data file?

So the one I'm talking to says that the second version can be run with vanilla Duke3D 1.3D. Just dump all the files into a directory and go, apparently.

The latest version of the TC is called Beta 3. There's a sg1tc.dat file in there, that's actually a ZIP file. If you unzip it, you'll get, among other things, a corrupted GRP.

The working version that I was referring to earlier is called Beta 2. That one does not have corrupted files in it.

[MajorTom 2417]

Have you tried running the other stuff in the mod without the GRP you got from the .dat file? Also, are you sure you're using the correct tool to open the .dat file? Just cracking it open with WinZIP may be part of the problem.

[zykov eddy]

MajorTom 2417, on 01 September 2025 - 05:04 AM, said:

Have you tried running the other stuff in the mod without the GRP you got from the .dat file? Also, are you sure you're using the correct tool to open the .dat file? Just cracking it open with WinZIP may be part of the problem.

It could be that opening it like a zip is part of the problem. I tried using WinZip from 2000 and it gave me the same files, corrupted GRP included.
Almost all stuff from the mod is in the GRP. Other than that, there's a map and a couple of con files, all of which are working fine.

[oasiz]

It's a self-extracting zip file, but you can just skip the executable portion itself with most archivers. Just rename it to .exe to get the self-extracting logic.
It expects to be opened under win9x it seems, any 32bit could work I think.

The GRP itself seems to be corrupted but I'm not sure if it's the .zip itself, those tend to have rudimentary CRC checks.
I think the GRP itself is just busted.

The GRP itself is extremely simple in syntax: https://moddingwiki....wiki/GRP_Format
To me it looked like a bunch of the files were intact there (there is no compression in GRP, it's just a linear file kinda like plain tar).
Why kextract and such can operate are due to every file entry just being NAME + SIZE, unlike WAD, there is no "start at this byte".
If even a single byte is missing then it will affect all subsequent files.

As the first files are ABYDOS.MAP and ACTIVATE.WAV, do you have success accessing those even?

[zykov eddy]

oasiz, on 01 September 2025 - 11:09 AM, said:

As the first files are ABYDOS.MAP and ACTIVATE.WAV, do you have success accessing those even?

I can access and even extract themm but they don't work, as the case with the rest of the files.

[MajorTom 2417]

Could the .dat file be a patch file, to update the mod from one version to the next? That might be why the .GRP is screwing up if you're unzipping it

[oasiz]

nah, the .bat just does a bunch of renaming.
the only patch you have is the 12KB whatever .com file that gets renamed and it gets applied against duke3d.exe to generate sg1.exe

I'll have to see if I can manually extract any of the files when I have time

[zykov eddy]

oasiz, on 01 September 2025 - 12:22 PM, said:

I'll have to see if I can manually extract any of the files when I have time

That would be amazing! I wish you luck!

[oasiz]

This GRP is really weird... it looks like there is some data there but at the same time a lot of it is missing completely or just plain wrong...
I'll try to VM these patchers/installers.

EDIT: This is all sorts of fucked..
Using win9x and letting the thing handle it doesn't work
Batch file renamer is broken under 9x
Also the batch calls for 'sg -sg1tc.grp' .. Making me wonder if this whole thing is completely broken from the get go as it should be /g to load GRP files.
Unless the COM patcher does something to the .exe.. but someone would need to reverse-engineer what it's even doing.

EDIT2: I was able to get some files near the end of the GRP extracted but the problem is that pretty much evertyhing before TILES001.ART (in reverse order that is) seems to be beyond the size of the GRP itself.. lemme see a bit more.

ZATFIRE.VOC   15    KB  >15     KB
ZATBLAST.VOC  12    KB  >28     KB
UZI2.VOC      6     KB  >35     KB
TOKRA.MAP     3     KB  >38     KB
UZI.VOC       3     KB  >41     KB
TILES015.ART  2259  KB  >2301   KB
TILES014.ART  2911  KB  >5213   KB
TILES012.ART  1035  KB  >6249   KB
TILES011.ART  23    KB  >6272   KB
TILES010.ART  2257  KB  >8529   KB
TILES009.ART  1114  KB  >9644   KB
TILES008.ART  586   KB  >10230  KB
TILES007.ART  938   KB  >11169  KB
TILES006.ART  648   KB  >11818  KB
TILES005.ART  854   KB  >12672  KB
TILES000.ART  1988  KB  >14660  KB
TER-ON.WAV    44    KB  >14704  KB
SWAMP.VOC     36    KB  >14740  KB
SSTAFF.VOC    54    KB  >14795  KB
SSEXPLO.VOC   17    KB  >14812  KB
SGUSER.CON    35    KB  >14848  KB
SGSTOP.VOC    430   KB  >15279  KB
SGDEFS.CON    28    KB  >15307  KB
SG1THEME.MID  7     KB  >15315  KB
SG1MARCH.MID  10    KB  >15326  KB
SEA2032.MID   6     KB  >15332  KB
S4NOX.MAP     92    KB  >15425  KB
ROME.MAP      245   KB  >15670  KB
RIBBON.WAV    32    KB  >15703  KB
REETROAM.VOC  9     KB  >15713  KB
REETRG.VOC    16    KB  >15729  KB
REETPAIN.VOC  8     KB  >15738  KB
REETFAT1.VOC  35    KB  >15773  KB
REETDIE.VOC   7     KB  >15780  KB
REETATK.VOC   28    KB  >15809  KB
REETAT2.VOC   9     KB  >15819  KB
POMPEII.MAP   20    KB  >15839  KB
MIRROR.MAP    34    KB  >15874  KB
M16FIRE.VOC   5     KB  >15880  KB
M16COCK.VOC   4     KB  >15884  KB
M16A2.VOC     27    KB  >15911  KB
KNIFE.VOC     2     KB  >15914  KB
JETPAKON.VOC  12    KB  >15927  KB
HUATK.WAV     47    KB  >15974  KB
HODIE.VOC     37    KB  >16011  KB
GHSCREEM.VOC  22    KB  >16034  KB
GHOROAM.VOC   28    KB  >16062  KB
GHOAULD.VOC   22    KB  >16085  KB
GAME.CON      97    KB  >16183  KB
DRUMS.VOC     26    KB  >16209  KB
DGROAM.VOC    56    KB  >16265  KB
DGATK01.VOC   51    KB  >16316  KB
DEMO1.DMO     5     KB  >16322  KB
CHULAK.MAP    158   KB  >16480  KB
BRYSS.MAP     3     KB  >16484  KB
BOLT1R.VOC    5     KB  >16490  KB
BIRDS02.VOC   46    KB  >16536  KB
BASE.MAP      287   KB  >16824  KB
B2ATK02.WAV   27    KB  >16852  KB
ASGARDE.VOC   65    KB  >16917  KB
ARGOS.MAP     1     KB  >16919  KB
ACTIVATE.WAV  48    KB  >16967  KB
ABYDOS.MAP    106   KB  >17074  KB

Anything past TILES005.ART will blast beyond the GRP barrier.. I'm not sure how this was made but my theory is that the last 12~ MB are intact.

[outie]

oh hai

I've come here from a Discord I'm on with MajorTom up there and I was going to suggest a totally separate approach from "try and fix the broken grp", of trying to track down alternative distributions that might have it intact. I had thought I'd found a distribution that had the files intact but I made a fool of myself there and was looking at the wrong file. IGNORE ME

[oasiz]

Yeah, I tried searching for some alternatives but didn't get very far.

Attached are the files I managed to snag out of it.
Seems like you can combine these with beta2, which is a couple of weeks behind.
It's mostly just additional ripped art from other games it seems.
Considering that the zip comes with RTS, NAMES and CON files intact, you should be able to cobble something together, just missing maps.

Attached File(s)

•  output.7z (2.92MB)
  Number of downloads: 2

[zykov eddy]

oasiz, on 03 September 2025 - 09:14 AM, said:

Yeah, I tried searching for some alternatives but didn't get very far.

Attached are the files I managed to snag out of it.
Seems like you can combine these with beta2, which is a couple of weeks behind.
It's mostly just additional ripped art from other games it seems.
Considering that the zip comes with RTS, NAMES and CON files intact, you should be able to cobble something together, just missing maps.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Just the art files themselves are very interesting. It seems like the author was able to make huge progress in terms of enemy and weapon sprites, even though they're still pretty rough looking. It's a pleasure to finally see more of this TC. Combined with new CON files, it's a breath of fresh air. Shame that other files aren't available, I would really love to see new levels, and progress on older maps.

I combined all files I could find and made them in working order. I also edited the weapon sprites, since even in the newer beta they were kind of busted, especially the knife and the "ribbon" weapon. It all looks better now. For the moment, it's the best state that this TC have ever been in.

 Star_Gate.zip (4.91MB)
Number of downloads: 2

[oasiz]

It might be that the patched .exe changes some offsets as I see strings defined for weapon_1-9 -- which would indicate that it does something to them.
Rename SG1PATCH.dat to SG1PATCH.com
Place duke3d.exe (1.3d) on the same path
Run the patcher under dosbox or 32bit OS as it's an old-ass application

You'll get a patched sg.exe out of it that presumably does something to weapons.

[zykov eddy]

oasiz, on 03 September 2025 - 12:07 PM, said:

It might be that the patched .exe changes some offsets as I see strings defined for weapon_1-9 -- which would indicate that it does something to them.
Rename SG1PATCH.dat to SG1PATCH.com
Place duke3d.exe (1.3d) on the same path
Run the patcher under dosbox or 32bit OS as it's an old-ass application

You'll get a patched sg.exe out of it that presumably does something to weapons.

You think it changes their behaviour?
If it does, I've never seen something like this in an oldschool pre-EDuke32 TC.