Gunship trainer

[KrazyKato]

Ok, so I dug out my old games disks last week and I would swear I had the original Microprose Gunship disks as me and a friend used to play it constantly. But alas they weren't there.
Reason being used I wanted to crack and train it (infinite ammo) on a real ST.
I never got around to doing it years ago as my 68000 knowledge wasn't that good. Still isn't really!
So I just used STEem with MonST and it's now cracked ( disk checks removed, vehicle identification and countersign ignored ) and runs from the hard drive or from one disk with an infinite ammo trainer which I find very useful ☺.
A few questions though.
I've only ever used a modified version of MonST and the ultimate ripper to crack and train games like Baal; Ballistic and Stormtrooper to recall a few.

What did you guys use to train games with?
MonST? Toxic? Bugaboo ?
And has ayone had experience with the LLS cartridge in STEem and if so where do i get this wonderful .stc file from?

[Mug UK]

From the few that I did back in the day, I would:

Use MONST to work out where in the code the offset was and/or work off a dead listing created using EasyRider.

Get the offsets to where the bytes needed to be altered.

Using a standard front-end bit of code (nicked from the original EXECHEAD.S from Pompey Pirates), I added all kinds of extra options to display the cheats I'd coded. The patches were put into the same code and assembled with the original program as an unpacked binary stored as an INCBIN. Then the program was packed and made ready for distribution.

It's better looking at the examples, than me trying to describe the front-end, so see the attached

Trainer Examples by Mug UK.rar

They're not top class as I didn't know (still don't!) how to do some of the more advanced trainers/cracking that others could easily do.

My way was "if it interested me, I'd do it!"

[wongck]

And I thought it was done either with a whip and good training treats.

[ggn]

In brief:

On the real machines: bugaboo.
On emulation: Steem engine boiler room.

[KrazyKato]

Never used bugaboo before, any advice on how to use it as it appears to be in German?

[Showaddywaddy]

GGN wrote a bugaboo guide on the D-Bug forum

[KrazyKato]

GGN wrote a bugaboo guide on the D-Bug forum

Thanks for the link to the bugaboo tut.

I've put together a pdf on how to crack and train this game now.
Linked here as it's 3MB along with the MSA of finished trained crack.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1itoRgItO3WEpDjp01jJE1bwhp086v5xk

[Showaddywaddy]

nice one... you mentioned that "the Automation one had a crap way of bypassing the vehicle ID check so I decided to have a go
at it myself", what did The Law aka Cyrano Jones do? It would be interesting to see how he circumvented the protection? - can't be arsed to dis-assemble Automation 187

Shw

[KrazyKato]

It looks like the vehicle names have all been erased and all set the same result code. It still works absolutely fine but doesn't look nice on the ID screen. There's also a way to completely bypass that screen altogether as i've been hacking my way through it.

[millap]

ahh... Gunship... Happy memories and still playing it today on my Mac using the HATARI emulator.

Sounds like your experiences playing this game were similar to mine. Used to play this all through the night back in the day, but only ever managed to get the CMOH twice.

One extra tip if you're using the infinite ammo hack. Empty your fuel tanks and chain gun ammo to the bare minimum as this will reduce the weight, and actually lets you fly faster. You'll also be able to take off again with only one engine if the other is damaged.

I have the info on how to edit the ROSTER.FIL file somewhere, so will dig it out if anyone is interested.