YES! I FOUND A WAY to inject CAWs on PS3 2K14!!!

[Impaler]

Hi guys, I'm have been trying once again to inject a CAW for quite a while now. I have recently gave my all once again with a fresh mind though it seems that X-Packer (though advertises that it does inject CAWs) actually doesn't. At least for PS3.

Thing is that I've first of all tried to inject my own CAW, from my own save (in order to skip the save resigning stuff) but I was unable to do even that. For the record I state that my save is Unlocked.

First attempt step by step:

Attempt #1:
- I made a backup save of both hdd1 save.dat and all the files in the usual save folder found in home..../BLES01937_SAVE
- took the uncompressed save.dat file, extracted via x-packer the info of one caw #65 I will try to re-inject later
- went to CAS and copy-pasted another caw from #85 over #65 slot. Thus replacing CAW #65 with #85.
- left to main menu
- went to hdd1 took the save.dat, opened up in xpacker - I see details of the 85th CAW in place of CAW 65th. good. I injected the real #65 caw info file to slot #65. file updated successfully.
- I put back save.dat to hdd1. go to options. save. go to CAS selection menu - #85th CAW is in place of #65. Not the #65.

Attempt #2
- I go back to hdd1 and grab save.dat file - wham the data from the real #85 caw is back in place where the injected caw #65 name (and data) should be.
- again went to hdd1 took the save.dat, opened up in xpacker - I see details of the 85th CAW I inject the real #65 caw info file. file updated successfully.
- I put back save.dat to hdd1. go to options. choose load this time. then right after loading I grab save.dat from hdd1. open it in x-packer. again the info of #85th caw is back in #65.

what I'm trying to say it whatever I do after injecting uncompressed save.dat - either I load or I dont CAW info is just not injecting back. (NEXT TIME I found out this is because I did not erase CASHED.DAT file (that file is like a some sort of database of all the CAWs on your save which is exctracted into HDD1 when the game loads).

then I decided to do this all again:

Attempt #3
- took the uncompressed save.dat file, opened up in xpacker - I see details of the 85th CAW I inject the real #65 caw info file. file updated successfully.
- restarted game, put back save.dat file when the first game loading prompt appears where you have to press x to continue. press x. game says data corrupted. ok, perhaps because I did not put the cas.064 file back to original save folder.
- restart again. put cas.064 file where it belongs, put save.dat to hdd1. press x to start game loading. - again data corrupted.

So the only conclusion that I draw is that X-Packer CORRUPTS the save file during injection OR absolutely does not take into account the CASHED.DAT file which has some major role with the save's integrity as a whole and X-Packer just does not make any changes to the CASHED.DAT thus making the injection process incomplete. @tekken57

Fun-fact. I have managed to come into this knowledge that if your save is unlocked you can grab somebody else's save and GRAB ONLY ARENA FILES and put them into your save. Just like that. CAA.000 - CAA.049, CAA.LST and CAAHED.DAT.

So I make the assumption that CAS.LST and CASHED.DAT also play a role in this CAW injection. Not only save.dat file with CAWs' data and cas.XXX (where X insert a number like 064) file.

And just for kicks I decided to correct some names of the arenas I copied over to my save and I opened up CAA.LST (list) file and using a hex editor I corrected names of arenas each arena has 2 places where its name is mentioned and when I did the changes, saved, and put it into PS3, loaded - THE NAMES WERE STILL THE OLD SAME NAMES. Meaning some essential into is also stored on CAAHED.DAT. And in CAWs case - CASHED.DAT file. That file I guess holds the key to successfully CAW injection on PS3.

Anyone who can chip in any useful info speak up please.

If any explanation on my part is unclear just tell I will go more in depth.

Sup guys?   @Titavius @UndertakerWLF @brienj @Andy @LordBarker

Edited February 19, 2020 by Impaler

[Impaler]

I tried messing some more this morning with those saves and here's what I did and what I got. However the result was not satisfactory and the search is not over.

1. I loaded WWF save from which I want to copy a CAW, load game, enter caw mode, select caw, open it

2. I go to PS3 saves' directory and overwrite with original target save copying CAS.000 - CAS.099, CASHED.DAT, CAS.LST files.

3. Delete save.dat, cashed.dat from temporary folder in HDD1.

4. Save the CAW I opened in the 1 step.

Game saved without errors.

Now I go into selection screen and I see the all my CAWs from original save ended up as a part of the source save. Which is like a reverse deal. But strange thing is that after you play 1 match, autosave the game. no errros. the same game save can't be loaded in the future anymore. if you try to reset game and load it you will get a cas data corrupted errror. Damn. That was a close one.

Did some googling next and.. this darn CASHED.DAT is screwing all the things. That's why X-Packer injection simply does not work. It does not deal with CASHED.DAT in any way. @tekken57 any comment?

Quote from Cleveland Rock

Quote

WWE 2K14 has one "CAS file" for each individual CAW. These CAS files are numbered from CAS.000 to CAS.099. The data contained within these CAS files are also contained in a file called CASHED.DAT. If the data from the CAS files don't match the data from CASHED.DAT, the CAWs will not work. So, it's not as simple as transferring and swapping CAS files; CASHED.DAT must be edited each time.

To make matters worse, WWE 2K14's save data is encrypted. The only time these files are decrypted are when they are in the PS3's memory. As such, one would need to obtain these files while the game is running. A modded PS3 is the only way such a thing could be done.

In theory, I could take your save file, decrypt it, make the necessary modifications, encrypt it, and send it back to you. However, I must reiterate that you cannot do this without modding your system or running every change to the roster through me. Even then, I can't guarantee I can do it. The most likely person would be kim666, and I'm sure he's not as eager to help the show as I am. Switching back to '13 would make it much easier for me to do it.

However, most likely, you will not be asking for my help and you'll be stuck with the same 100 CAWs, but I hope this post was educational.

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by Impaler

[Impaler]

YES! I HAVE DONE IT!

I have finally came up with a way to transfer INDIVIDUAL CAWs between different PS3 SAVES!!!

My passion for this game, logical thinking and endless perseverance finally produced the desired result! The game said 'fuck it, you want it so bad, there have it but please enough' 🤣

Finally I will fill up remaining 50 slots with some impressive CAWs which do not have mods made after them from this WWE 2K14 PS3 save pack.

At the moment I have ported without any tools whatsoever the CAW model from one save to another. Meaning that CAW info and moveset are not transferred yet. I will do some more tests and try to port that too. In the event if that does not work out. There's always a way to simply rename a CAW and copy its moveset to a superstar then extract save with X-Packer and export its moveset file and inject it into the target save.

I will finish testing everything and will create a tutorial for all of you guys.

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by Impaler

[tekken57]

Hi there. Sorry for the delayed response.

 

Everything is going into lockdown due to Covid 19 here, so life is very hectic here. Glad to see that you managed to get it working. 

[Red Rooster]

Well done!

[UndertakerWLF]

That's a great discovery, well done!!!!

[Impaler]

Thank you all guys

Feels great to achieve something that brings the who's-who of WWE game modding / hacking scene to give me thumbs up! 🤩

The in-depth tutorial I promised can be found here: