A complete mirror of the classic File Universe (files.tauniverse.com) landed
in the archive and has been integrated piece by piece over the last two days.
- 311 previously missing maps — many of them self-extracting installers and
archive formats nobody had unpacked in 25 years; all re-packaged as clean
.zipfiles with minimaps and metadata. - 119 community mod packs for the Units section, including pictures and version metadata where the packs carry them.
- 26 GB of material we do not host (Mac ports, old utilities, duplicates of what we already have) archived to cold storage — byte-verified against a SHA-256 manifest before the local copies were removed.
- Everything was checksummed against the mirror manifest and scanned for malware; one infected file was quarantined and rejected (it never went near the site). Forty-nine “downloads” turned out to be saved error pages from the original server and are documented as lost.
- Feature inventory: the mirror carries no features beyond our existing library of 2,997 entries.
- Also in this batch: nine map cards that carried doubled-up names from the rescue packaging now show clean titles again.
- THE PACK v1.3.3 (the classic unit mega-mod with 235 units, AI packs and a TAM converter) was already in the Units section but hidden behind a raw file name and a wrong type label — its card now shows what it is.
- The Units page now carries a hint for multi-pack installs: run the TA Conflict Crusher (self-hosted now, tool by r1ch.net) so duplicate unit/weapon IDs cannot break the game.
- New knowledgebase page: the File Universe preservation mirror — 141 files now self-hosted: Cavedog’s official patches (including the Boneyards online patches), the demos, the soundtrack, and the classic modding toolkit (Mappy, Upspring, HPI tools, FBI/GAF editors, TA Mutation with 20 complete mod conversions). The Tools page now links the local copies.