ANY OF YOU READING THIS ARTICLE, AND TRYING THIS METHOD, PLEASE REPORT BACK FOR ME YOUR RESULTS AT THE COMMENTS, SO WE CAN TALK ABOUT THINGS YOU ENCOUNTERED.
I hope this will allow us to expand our modding potential on this game.
Based on a conversation I had with mister ggrigg43, the .pak files are huffman-coded. However they are not password protected (I found that myself).
Our modding potential on this game s very limited, limited to only mapping. This is because the only tool we have is the Workshop.exe. Workshop.exe is however a broken programme, unfinished and neglected. Studying is code, I found out that it was meant for full-cover modding, not just mapping, but for unknown reasons the creators of the game removed it's modding features, leaving only the mapping ones. Leftovers of such code, suggest that the .pak files are ACTUALLY EDITABLE (with the proper tool), which means they are not password protected. That doesnt not make things any easier for us, I am afraid...
After a research I did I found out this : Forum.xentax.com This article suggest a way to unpack the .pak files.
I tested out it myself. Because the instructions on the link above are not so clear, I will tell you what to do :
1. Download this Forums.civfanatics.com
2. Install it.
3. Open the exe.
4. Press "File" -> "New"
5. Browse to your joint task force directory that contains the .pak files.
6. There will be two collumns. The left one that will contain the directory of the pak files and another at the right, a blank, greyed-out collumn. At the middle, press the "New PAK File"
7. The greyed-out collumn will now become available. In the left collunm select the "jtf.pak" and press the "Add >>"
8. Under the left collumn, there is a space "Output folder". Change that.
9. After that go to "PAK" and press "Build"
Now here comes a problem. The title of this article says "Not finished, pending for test" Here is why :
When I do that ("PAK" -> "Build"), a warning comes up saying "Out of memory". I dont really know what causes this error, and that's why I have yet to test this tutorial.
But if this error doesnt happen to you, you continue the steps.
10. After that press again "PAK" and then press "Unpack...". If the error didnt happen to you, a file will have been created in the directory you had chose at step 8. That file will have a .FPK extension an it's name will probably be "Pak0" ("Pak0.FPK"). After clicknng "Unpack...", browse till you find the Pak0.FPK.
11. Select it, and then another browser will come up. Select the directory you want the FPK file to be unpacked to.
12. If you manage to follow all these steps, the FPK file will be unpacked, along with the pak file we compressed in it, automaticly.
This brings us up to the conclusion, that the .fpk files of Sid Meier's Civilization have the same compression method/algorithm/form with the .pak files of JTF.
I have yet to find out why or how... Not that it matters, but curiosity flows inside me
Anyway this is IMPORTANT:
Hello! I tested it right now, so I have the same proble - Out of memory. Maybe this PakBuilder is outdated?
BUT LOOK! YEEES, I build a half of Pak file and then press Unpack this FPK and yeees! It works! I unpacked some files!
Oh, I was wrong, this program upacked files that was in JTF folder. Why? It's strange.
What ? You got me confused with all these comments ...
So, I did all steps. I creat new folder just with JTF02.pak (17 mb)
Then I build and unpack FPK file without errors but... When I unpacked it, there was the same JTF02.Pak file and I can't open it.
This shouldn't have happend as I tested it out myself. Though the fact that you also get the same error worries me... but since we found out that the pak. files have the same form as the .fpk files of Sid Meier's Civ. this opens up space for more possible ways to open the .pak files. Since this method failed, I am now considering a new one, that I will post soon
Ok! We'll wait!
Hello guys and I've tryed to do the same but without results. I have done some other tests and I get out of memory even if i compress only a tiny .ini file, so what's the problem here?
Thanks, Yurand2000
Well I dont really know... the program must be broken so there is little hope it will work
Hello again. After understanding on the internet how does the huffman coding works, if you guys are still interested in modding JTF, I'll try to make a decompiler using the huffman coding.
If you could, that would be something brilliant!!!
Here's my email www.bombers@gmail.com if you need something
Nice man, hope You ll make it!
Please everyone can upload file Workshop.exe
Thanks
Please everyone can upload file Workshop.exe
Mansoori54@gmail.com
Thanks
After all the years no one was able to find out how to unpack those files?
That's really a shame.
looks like no. Co ta tak zaujala tato praveka rtska?
Hi! I just try it out again and I have no error! But this programm didn't unpack *.pak files, just copied all files from JTF folder... eh(
Hey there! i wonder if anyone opened those damm files, i tried your method and i got out of memory as well, i wonder if its because its an old program and its incompatible with windows 10 or something. I also tried other methods including : renaming the format to zip, using gfcscape(it says invalid format signature) and i also tried to use pakexplorer but it also didn't revealed what was there. Is there anyone today that is trying to decompile the pak files?