C-POD26 v1.0.0
==============

A POD archive tool for Monster Truck Madness 2.

Successor to C-POD 1.00.0057 and C-PODINI by CH_2005 (2002), whose icon this
build still uses. Both were Visual Basic 6 and no source survives, so their
file formats and behaviour were reverse engineered from the binaries and
checked against their own output. The two are merged here into one program:
the Archive tab is C-POD, the Install Analysis tab is C-PODINI.


INSTALLING
----------

There is nothing to install. C-POD26.exe is self-contained — it carries its
own .NET runtime, so it does not need .NET, the VB6 runtime, or the
COMDLG32.OCX / MSCOMCTL.OCX registration the original wanted.

Put it wherever you like and run it. Windows SmartScreen may warn about an
unrecognised publisher on first launch, because the file is not code-signed:
"More info" then "Run anyway".

First thing worth doing: Game -> Locate MTM2 Folder. That is how model
textures resolve across pods the way the game does, it is what the Install
Analysis tab reads, and it also picks up METALCR2.ACT and PodZipFiles.txt
from your install, which the tool uses for palette matching and stock-file
detection. Everything else works without it.

Settings live in %APPDATA%\CPod\settings.json. If the original C-POD is on
this machine, its configured paths are read from the registry on first run.


WHAT IT DOES
------------

Archives      open, create, add, delete, rename, extract, edit the comment,
              build from a .LST, write a .LST on extract, save the file list
Images        BMP, PNG, TGA and MTM2's RAW+ACT, in both directions, one file
              or in bulk (Tools -> Batch Convert)
Models        .BIN viewer, textured / flat / wireframe, vertex overlay, the
              texture list with offsets, and renaming a texture inside a model
Tracks        .SIT and .TRK decoded, race-type conversion, small-tires [ST]
              conversion, logo and map preview, the course plotted with its
              checkpoints, segment/checkpoint counts, enable/disable
Load order    POD.INI editing, and PodZip stock-file reduction
Analysis      the Install Analysis tab scans every pod in your load order


THE INSTALL ANALYSIS
--------------------

The second tab is what C-PODINI's Analyze did, and it answers "what is
actually in my install?" — pod count, files, megabytes, how many tracks and
trucks you have and how many are enabled, and how much of it is stock
content PodZip could strip.

The useful part is Overrides. MTM2 resolves a filename through the mounted
pods in load order and takes the first one it finds, so the same name in two
pods means the later copy is never read. That is invisible from inside any
single pod. On a large install it adds up: a 139-pod setup here has 23,609
shadowed files across 9,430 names, with DATA\ZERO.RAW provided by 103
different pods.

A disabled pod is not mounted, so it neither wins nor is shadowed.

Double-click any pod in the results to open it in the Archive tab.

It needs Game -> Locate MTM2 Folder set. PodZipFiles.txt is optional and
only affects the stock-content figure. The scan takes well under a second.


THINGS TO KNOW
--------------

Nothing is written to a pod until you save it. Every edit is held in memory
until File -> Save or Save As. The original applied some operations straight
to the archive and deferred others with nothing to tell them apart, which is
how tracks got converted without being asked.

Saving keeps the previous version as name.pod.bak by default. Turn it off in
Preferences if you would rather not. It is free when the archive is rebuilt
and costs one file copy when a save is small enough to patch in place.

POD1 offsets are signed 32-bit, so an archive cannot exceed 2 GB. The status
bar shows how close you are, and a save that would exceed it is refused
rather than producing a pod with wrapped offsets.

Two of the original's features are not here because they do not work in the
original either: Remove Checkpoints never appears in its menu, and Convert
Back to Big Tires crashes it. The tire conversion does have a working reverse
here, and it restores the pod exactly.


CREDITS
-------

CH_2005 — the original C-POD and C-PODINI, and the icon.
SLO_Fila — this build.
