How can I view or use the encrypted cached mission files?
Since FB you can’t. the encryption was put in place to stop us viewing the missions. Real shame that is.
PeeGee you could turn a track into a mission, or at least you could do once. Sorry if I’m getting it wrong and they’ve changed it so that this can’t be done and tracks are now encoded too mate
Tracks are missions. That was true once and might still be. Something about changing bits in the trackfile, renaming something and so on - will be lots on that in the Forgotten Battles archive(s) at SimHQ maybe
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No, ntrk’s are encoded sorry mate.
But maybe ntrk’s can be run in the track viewer offline and a track grabbed from that - would that then create a trk (text file) I wonder? If you record from an ntrk offline?
Maybe some version of FB/PF could make a (text) track from an encoded track? Brainstorming only 
Ming
Thanks Keets. But then why does PF encrypt and save them on the client machine? What purpose do they serve?
Thanks Keets. But then why does PF encrypt and save them on the client machine? What purpose do they serve?
The mission has to be saved on the client so that your game can go through the loading process.
i.e When the “transferring mission” is being displayed, the mission has to be saved on the client machine so it can then go through the “loading xx%” screens.
Without the mission existing on the client machine, some form of streaming would have to be done to receive the mission into the game. This would probably be complicated. Saving a local copy means you can optimise the code and use the same load routines.
In the original IL2, the missions were sent through in plain text. I think I remember the encryption was put in to prevent enterprising* people from collating all the coops we write and flogging them. This might be a bit of heresay though.
*thieving lowlife 
A little off topic i know, but how do you make a track from a track? the only buttons i can ever see are when i hit the escape key and get the usual options buttons, such as ‘return to track’ ‘stop playing track’ etc etc.
define a key in your controls, classic. It has no bind by defualt. Then press it while playing back.
Also very useful in game when you think something interesting is going to happen (that’s usually when I press the button to STOP the recording, doh!)
usually when I press the button to STOP the recording
Joe set the key to Scroll Lock, then you’re recording when the LED’s alight (not my original tip I blagged it)
Ming
Thx chaps, just a little bit of pointless waffle here because my first two words are apparently to short to post
Still trying to figure this out. The host sends the mission file to the client, the client loads the map, aircraft, objects, etc, as directed by the file to create the mission on the local machine.
So where does the encryption take place? Is the local machine loading the mission from an encrypted file? Or does it recieve a plain text file, load it, and then encrypt it to prevent reuse?
Still trying to figure this out. The host sends the mission file to the client, the client loads the map, aircraft, objects, etc, as directed by the file to create the mission on the local machine.
These are the steps…
- host creates Coop server and selects mission
- Host machine then encrypts mission and sends it to the clients as they join - this is probably by some form of FTP, though it may well be a proprietary transfer program Oleg has written
- Client machine saves incoming data from host into mission/net/cache (“Transferring Mission” Screen)
- When step 3 is complete client machine then goes into “Loading Objects… x%” mode. Loads the encrypted mission file from mission/net/cache.
When the mission files weren’t encrypted, it was exactly the same apart from the encryption step. You could look at the mission in all its glory. I think the only thing that was missing was the mission text which must have been sent via the host as well.
I should really check this out as I’m interested in this stuff. If you want to play with it, download a copy of ethereal (freeware) and try it on your LAN. (hosting a mission). You’ll be able to see the transfers etc including skin transfers.
Hope you don’t mind me picking your brains on this, it’s interesting
So, as you explain it…
The client - let’s call it my PC - my PC gets an encrypted file from the host, saves it into …/cache, and loads the mission data from it. So, my PC - or rather the Il2 program running on it - can read an encrypted mission file.
But (you saw another but coming, didn’t you) I then copy that <encrypted>.mis file into my net/coop folder, go to muliplayer>create server> and load that mission, it fails with a “missing map” error. If I cut and paste the map info from another mission, it loads a blank map with no objects.
In other words, my PC will no longer read the <encrypted>.mis file as a valid mission file, although it did so quite happily the first time I flew it after recieving it from the host.
So… what has changed about that file to make it unusable? And can that change be undone? Not looking to make a fortune selling other peoples missions, of course… but it would be useful to check if, for example, a mission that should have had the PzIIIg in fact had the King Tiger. Apart from that, you often play an online coop and think " those flak settings worked well, wonder what they were" and so on.
Hope you don’t mind me picking your brains on this, it’s interesting
Not al all PG
In other words, my PC will no longer read the <encrypted>.mis file as a valid mission file, although it did so quite happily the first time I flew it after recieving it from the host.
I think in this situation, you are now the host PC. You’re game isn’t expecting to see an encryted mission file as you’re the host. Its only the client machine that can read the encrypted file.
I think this is all to do with the file transfer process that the coders have done. Remember seeing the stuff about Oleg dropping flight sims and moving into encryption because his s/w team are so good at it?
<background waffle>
If you’ve done any stuff on encryption, passwords on a unix system for example, they encryption is one way. i.e you can’t decrypt them. each time you enter your password, it gets encrypted with a “salt” (key) that is added to your password. The result is then compared with the encrypted value on the system. All very clever and based upon the Enigma code no less.
Apologies for the waffle, I could go on but I can see your will to live hiding over in the corner
</background waffle>
Applying this to the mission file - What I think happens is the file is encrypted with the “salt”, the “salt” may also transferred with the file or it may just simply reside within the IL2 program.
I think its only the client machine which has the ability to read the encrypted file in its “joining a hosted game” routines…
Of course this is all based on theory of what I think is logically happening. It could also be a load of old tosh and I could be talking out of my :bootyshk: