More likely they used 3ds format, but then wouldn't they just stick with this format? Especialy if it have a lot of features that .mod doesn't support.
Maybe that's the idea! We should resurect debugmode and see how this mode works with saving changes to MOD files? This mode was used for UV mapping etc.
Nothing in ceebot.zip is looking obvious to me.Looks like there's no such thing. Maybe they converted those MAX with y'know - the game itself in debugmode .
I hope there's no such thing like hardcoded informations about vertexes that are responsible for states... Maybe we should analyze original converter MAX -> MOD from ceebot.zip to figure it out?