[certificate]

My $0.02 worth:

(Keep in mind that i did not install any of the server patches nor i really intend to do so in the near future so i'm guessing blindly)

1st move should be to unpack those SFS files and look inside them. My best guess is that you'll find them fairly similar to the "regular" ones, except that there would be no real content (like: object meshes etc) but rather just a list of resources. Server doesn't really need the meshes and such because it does no rendering; visuals are rendered on the client machines. Knowing the exact structure of the server SFS files would do a lot for us to actually understand what we're dealing with so we wouldn't have to be blind guessing like i do now.

2nd move would be to figure out how to add resources to those lists - how to make the server "know" about the new 4.09 maps and other stuff. IMHO there are two ways to deal with this problem - one would be to ~somehow~ repack the existing SFS files so that they include the new resources. I'm not exactly sure how practical that approach is. The other way would be to apply a solution similar to the one that allowed us to run the mods on the "regular" IL2 install - the wrapper.dll and MODS folder. A similar structure could be developed to work with the server files too, and thus would also have the benefit of allowing us to easily add new content for the server in the future too.

So my advice would be to contact the persons who were behind developing the current framework for modding IL2 and see if they could do something similar with regards to server files too.

Of course, this is all blind guessing, so i might be completely off the mark here...

I agree, that about sums it up. Without QTIM's help, or someone else extremely skilled in the use of disassemblers/patch creation, I don't think it's going to happen.



We might be able to do some kind of 4.05 frankenserver, since the patched rts.dll does make it see modded files. The trick, I suppose, would be to extract *all* of the 4.08 sfs files, and put them in the 4.05 modded dedicated server directory. I'm not sure if the version check comes from the .exe or some java class, but bypassing that would be eons quicker/more possible than creating an entirely new wrapper/patch.