Remove launcher from Space Taxi 2?

[MydknyteStyrm]

I have a rare game that I can't seem to find much on the forums, Space Taxi 2 by Twilight Games. I am a huge Commodore fan remembering playing Space Taxi in my childhood, and was excited to find a sequel while setting up my C64 wheel.
 
But here is the problem. The PC Game SpaceTaxi 2 has a launcher that you have to click to start the game. I found an AHK code to remove the launcher for my House of The Dead 3 PC Game, and I was hoping someone here might be able to point me in the right direction, including possibly using AHK or a revision in the PCLauncher module to help me start this game without clicking on the Play Now button. Attached is a picture of the folder structure of the game, as well as the popup that appears when I select the game from the PC wheel.
 
Thanks so much for any information you can provide.

[Drnick]

It looks like Play now is automatically selected, does pressing enter or space rather then using mouse press work?

[Howard_Casto]

Ok I took pity on you man. 

Here is the best way to do it.  You take a fake exe and replace the game exe with it temporarily.  The fake exe should be programmed to spit out whatever command line is passed to it.  Then you launch the launcher, attempt to start the game, and see what command line it's passing to the exe to get it to start. 

What's that?  You can't code ect?  Yeah no problem I've included a stub exe for you. 

If it doesn't spit out a command line then it's using either dll communication (unlikely) or a registry string (I've seen HOTD 3 do this) to launch the game. 

Hope that helps!

[MydknyteStyrm]

Howard, thanks for your help and your pity. Im a huge fan of Troubleshooter 2.

Here's the problem. The exe file "SpaceTaxi.exe" is all the option I have. There isnt a launcher, per se, but when I click on the exe, it opens the Play Now, options, quit window. No matter what I change the exe filename to, it runs perfectly. It also happens to be the only exe in the folder structure.

I downloaded your CLG.exe, but not too sure what to do with it. I dragged the SpaceTaxi.exe into the CLG.exe, and all it showed was the file location, which is exactly the same as I expected.

Let me know if there is any more information you need, and I will be happy to provide it. Thanks!


Drnick, I can press Space to start the PlayNow button, but since this is in a cabinet, ideally I dont want the window at all, I just want it to go straight to the game.

[Howard_Casto]

I think I'm confused.  Is "SpaceTaxi.exe" the only exe included with the game.  If it is then that isn't a launcher, that's the game and it just has a menu at startup. 

The exe I included was supposed to be renamed and replace whatever SpaceTaxi.exe is launching, to get you the command line arguments. 

If that is the only exe then there's nothing you can do.  You'll have to resort to autohotkey or something similar. 

[MydknyteStyrm]

I apologize for the confusion. So I'm assuming with AHK I can set it to load up, click once so the menu is up for a brief second to hit Play Now, and then it should work. I appreciate the help you gave so far though. It led me in the right direction.