BATTLECRUISER:3000AD Release v1.01c (Release 2) ---------------------------------------------- APPLYING THE PATCH ------------------ ************************* NOTE **************************** THIS PATCH WILL UPDATE THE FULL OR MEDIUM INSTALL VERSIONS OF THE RETAIL RELEASE WITH OR WITHOUT THE RELEASE 1 C PATCH THIS MEANS THAT IT WILL PATCH THE FOLLOWING VERSIONS: V1.01 (retail release) TO V1.01c (R2 of 11/14/96) V1.01c (R1 of 11/07/96) TO V1.01c (R2 of 11/14/96) To apply the patch, unzip this file into your BC3K install directory and run the UPDATE.BAT file. ************************************************************ 11.13.96 (Release 2) A BRIEF NOTE ON CHANGED/ADDITIONS ---------------------------------- 1. Expanded soundfx options in CONFIG. Audio System - turns off ALL sounds and music Midi Music - music on/off Digitized Music - sounds on/off 2. Fixed 'clear radiation' bug in Logistix. Once a deck is radiated, the 'clear radiation' option will be displayed. Click on this to clear the deck's radiation. This requires 1 Radiation Control Unit, RCU 3. Fixed interceptor docking bug (???) 4. Implemented new SOS sound library update and drivers 5. Fixed wrong colored TTDs in turrets 6. Fixed some internal bugs 7. The a/p indicator will now flash when activated 8. The ship will not longer fly backwards after a jump 9. If CONTINUE is selected and a saved game is corrupted, game will exit to main menu rather than attempt to load the .SAV file and cause a GPF 10. It is now possible to return from NULL space 11. The FLIR in the co-pilot seat is now fixed 12. The FPD scale is now increased so as not to obscure the TTD display 13. The ships sounds will now be muted when you dock 14. SCRIPTS directory will now only contain script fixes. All final scripts moved into resource file. 11.07.96 (Release 1) A BRIEF NOTE ON CHANGED/ADDITIONS ---------------------------------- 1. Fixed various errors related to the surface engine not finding it's files. 2. Fixed a problem with collision detect/avoidance 3. Simplified and revised ACM Day1 scenario scripts (see below) 4. Modified VTOL (still work in progress). Left/Right slips ship in that direction. Pushing the stick forward/backward increases/decreases altitude. Later, the forward/backward motion will be modified so that they move the ship forward/backward whilst the ~ and tab keys modify the altitude. 5. Added version number in shift+capslock display 6. Fixed bugs in weapon systems. 7. Chase engine being removed (work in progress) 8. Modified BC3000AD.EXE so that extender allocates 20MB swap file when needed instead of creating it in 8MB chunks. 9. Fixed bug which prevented ships from using their jump engines 10. Fixed bug which prevented ships from launching missiles when they should 11. Fixed bug manual ctrl+d ATV->shuttle docking 12. Updated BCKEYS.TXT (note: some deployment keys are not yet active) 13. Changed from v2.01 to v1.97 of the DOS xtender 14. Locked down sound data to prevent swap to VMM 15. The Passive Target Acquisition, PTA system will now operate in DIRECT and AI modes. It may take a while for PTA to fire since it has to build a target list. The turrets, controlled by the PTA will NOT fire unless the target is in range. 16. Working on an extensive FAQ to go with v1.01c. It's not finished yet. 17. Armor & shield upgrades/repairs now updated accurately. The value displayed on the BC bridge is in armor units. The HUL value displayed is the current percentage of the max available protection. Protection max values are based on the currently installed armor or shield type. Note: when speaking of the armor and hull, they are one an the same since the hull has armor which only takes damage when the shield is breached. 18. Breaching an object's armor will now not necessarily destroy it An AI object is destroyed if (a) its reactor reaches 0 integrity unless it doesn't have a reactor in which case (b) its engine reaches 0 integrity unless it doesn't have a reactor or engine in which case (c) its armor reaches 0 integrity. 19. Docking events for ships is now accurately detected. This means that for instance in ACM mission 1, when a diplomat ship docks, you will be advised. 20. Game save/restore now more secure. For some reason, this problem only occurs when saving from the bridge menu. If it persists, simply got to Roster and save from there. But it seems to save/restore ok now. 21. ATVs & shuttles will no longer attempt to use HyperJump engines on a planet 22. Time compression enabled using ctrl+a and ctrl+shift+a are back in. These compress and divide time ie 2x, 4x, 8x and /2, /4 and /8 23. Modified the maneuvering code so that ships can now accurately retrack waypoints if they miss on the first pass. 24. The external F10 camera will now show the current object's target if any. 25. Debug commandline options now only available in interim 'tester' versions. 26. Shuttles should should now be able to deploy/extract mining drones and ATVs 27. TACOPS now follows the players ship if it switches to another region and was previously in the currently observed region. This means that if you are in say Earth region and viewing that in tacOPS and the ship switches to Mars as a result of flight, then tacOPS will automatically be updated. It will NOT however switch to a region that the ship is NOT in. So if you're in Earth and viewing Mars in tacOPS (using probe's SCI-LINK programming) and the BC switches regions, tacOPS will not be updated. 28. You can now select planet surface mode from tacOPS by simply clicking on the planet or moon from within tacOPS. Select 'observe' and it will be loaded. Once this is active, to revert to space mode, bring up the tacOPS command palette by moving the mouse to the right side of the screen and clicking and clicking on the SPACE button. Once in space mode, the button will revert back to BRIDGE. Due to the night/day effect. IF it is night time on the planet, everything will be pitch dark. See #35 below. The old method still works though until this mode is finalized. 29. Mining drones and ATVs can no longer be deployed in space from tacOPS 30. Navigation modified. In order for the ship to fly from one region to another you no longer need to have the jump anomaly (jpoint, wormhole, fluxfield) targeted in the CVD. You should first select the target you wish to fly to in either the NID or TACSCAN, activate the Flight Path Designator, using shift+f and the ship will fly to the target. If it's a jump anomaly, it will do the jump, if not, it will stop short of the target. This method allows you to continue using other modes of the NID, TACSCAN and CVD computers without accidentally clearing the current jump target. The FPD target can be cancelled by either turning off the FPD with f or by clearing the target with x. You can now have the ship flying toward a target while doing other things such as acquiring new targets, firing at them etc. Once a nav target is set in Navitron, activating the FPD with f will cause the AutoNav system to jump to the region without relying on the current CVD target. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE AUTO-PILOT MUST BE TURNED ON FOR THIS TO WORK IN EITHER AI OR DIRECT MODES SINCE THIS ALLOWS THEM TO CALCULATE THE ROUTE. TURNING IT OFF WILL TEMPORARILY CANCEL THE AUTONAV TARGET. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If the HUD is in TAC mode, ie weapons on, the FPD will _not_ appear though the route is being flown. Put the HUD in NAV mode by disabling weapon systems in order to see the FPD. The flight control is slightly offset to the left so that you can see the jump anomaly if it's obscured by the FPD 31. More modifications to VTOL. Move the stick left-right to slip in that direction. Move the stick forward-backward to slip in that direction. To increase your lift (altitude), using the throttle commands. Later, the ~ and tab keys will do the same thing. To auto-hover, reduce speed to around factor 2-4, enough to counter the effects of gravity and prevent the ship from falling. Activate VTOL and use the throttle wheel keys to find a suitable hover altitude. Use the numeric 5, auto-leveling key for a quick attitude orientation. 32. ACM will now report on mission success whenever it can. This is NOT true for most missions since ACM is not mission orientated and in some scenarios, a success is an 'abstract'. Several event triggers are now used to signal a new scenario without the need for an extended downtime. Some of you are going to start moaning now that you won't have a lot of time between assignments, especially advanced scenarios in which you are certain to take a pounding. You are a galactic cop and in most scenarios given a 'beat' in the form of a patrol zone. All you have to do in some scenarios is survive until the next assignment. This is why there is no mission success or failure in most ACM scenarios. Once you reach ACM scenario #30, these training scenarios will end and you will be required to defeat the Gammulans using whatever means necessary. See the FAQ for more on this. 33. The ship should now come to a relative complete STOP on the planet. You need to fine tune this and is dependent on the elevation and slope of the current terrain you're on. 34. You can now use ctrl+d from a shuttle to recall the targeted ATV or mining drone. This will only work if there is space in the shuttle. Once personnel flight is handled, you will be able to do the same for personnel from the shuttle and ATV. The proposed ALT+F9 menu command (NYI) is going to be used for this. The shuttle must wait for the ATV to dock. There is a strange anomaly which causes the ship to be immediately docked without actually travelling to the ship! 35. Night/day transition modified (first pass). At night, the terrain fades to COMPLETE black. This is NOT a bug. This will change later so that it's not as dark. Even the infra-red scope in the IC is not penetrating this once the planet goes completely black. 36. Docking the shuttle with an ATV or interceptor in tow will now dock both ships. Normal docking rules apply. ie, the status of the docking bay, launch bay etc. 37. CONFIG options are now saved when accessed from within the game. 38. Sound on/off support added. To disable MIDI support, run SETUP from the BC3K directory and select 'no MIDI device'. Do the same to disable digitized sound. If they are turned on and wish to disable them from within the game, simply turn SOUNDFX:OFF in CONFIG. This will disable both soundfx and MIDI support if they were enabled. Revised BC3K scripts -------------------- The included scripts are revisions of those shipped with the RETAIL version of Battlecruiser:3000AD. The first ACM Tour Of Duty missions have been simplified in order to extend your enjoyment and help you proceed with the game. KNOWN BUGS ---------- 1. On the surface, some objects are destroying others when they collide with them, ie mechs against buildings. This is NOT a bug but object 1 inflicts enough damage on object 2 to destroy it. 2. On the surface, some ground objects think they can fly. 3. Orbital flight model still crashes making the o key obsolete 4. The orbital flight model problem renders the probe ORBSCAN mode useless 5. Selecting an area outside the tacOPS map ares results in a crash due to the size of the planet. 6. Ships are not using hyperjump engines to proceed to their waypoints. 7. Noticed a screen corruption in the Roster savegame option. 8. Bugs in trading model 9. On the surface, hitting water results in negative altitude since it is not considered in the collision detect. 10. Perspective Correct Texture mapping for the surface is disabled due to a bug (which is why the clouds are also disabled). 11. BC solar reactor is not storing extracted solar power. The effect of this if the ship is positioned accurately with respect to the Sun, the solar reactor will charge, but once this position is changed, the solar charge is cleared. 12. Starstations interfering with ACM specific entities, ie they will attack a hostile target you're supposed to interact with. This is NOT a bug but requires modification to the ai. 13. Radiation clearance uses an RCU but does not assign an engineer not elapse time. 14. Spurious crashes when interceptors docking in 'orders' mode. 15. Spurious sound related bugs. 16. Ship's alert condition not changing to RED when intruders board ship, prisoners escape or when ship is under attack. 17. Inconsistency between ATV and SHUTTLE->ATV status screen in Tactical 18. Illegal items not being detected when docking at GALCOM controlled stations 19. Marines ignoring 'searching' orders 20. Cannot replace destroyed mining drone with new one. 21. Unable to assign people directly to Detention Hold. 22. Interceptor can be launched even though pilot's location is not IN the ship. This happens if the pilots are en-route to the ship when it was launched. Their assignment is set to the ship and the launch rule is using the assignment instead of the location to determine if the ship has pilots. 23. Invalid personnel listed in shuttles (TRADCOM) when docked at station. 24. Still able to fly BC if alter-ego dies 25. Bugs detected in destroyed, SOS and evacuate BC states 26. Ships in ai mode colliding with surface and taking severe damage 27. In most cases, ships turning too fast for missiles to maintain lock 28. Pilot Combat Kills, CK, attribute not being updated HINTS FOR ACM TOUR OF DUTY DAY1 ------------------------------- DAY1 - Tour Of Duty Mission 1 Diplomatic Mission There are three insurgent ships about to attack the diplomats you are sent to protect. Though the diplomats have escort fighters, they are not strong enough. In order to succeed, you must make sure that both diplomat ships dock with Starpath. Once the scenario starts, concentrate on defending the diplomats and let their escorts engage the threats. Use your interceptors and give them instructions to attack each of the threats named THREAT1, THREAT2, THREAT3. If the diplomat ships are damaged by 35% or more, the diplomats will be beamed on-board your ship and will be located in personnel qtrs #2. As ACM progresses, a ship will come for them and they will disappear from your ship. If you're lucky, Starpath may launch intercept craft at the insurgents making your task a little easier. There is one diplomat in the first ship and two in the second ship. You gain 100 experience points for each diplomat ship which docks You gain 25 experience points for each diplomat that is beamed to your ship You get 1 violation for each diplomat ship that is destroyed DAY1 - Tour Of Duty Mission 2 Kidnap Insurgent Leader This one's a milk run. Simply search for the ship named LEADER-ONE and disable him by firing with low weapons intensity. Once damaged by 50% or below, the ship will surrender and the leader will be beamed to your ship and put in the detension hold by the marines. WARNING: If the detension hold becomes damaged, he WILL escape!! You gain 75 experience points if the leader is beamed to your ship You lose 150 experience points if the ship is destroyed before the kidnapping DAY1 - Tour Of Duty Mission 3 Show Of Force This show of force is a farce. The Vesperons will ignore the Enteris warning and open fire anyway. The ship named THREAT1 is who you should be worried about. His escorts will attempt to flee the region if he is destroyed. You gain 150 experience points and awarded a COMBAT SHIELD medal if THREAT1 is destroyed. DAY1 - Tour Of Duty Mission 4 Carrier Intercept Your first nightmare mission. You CANNOT destroy the Whirlwind carrier! When you enter the region, he's cloaked. He will send you a warning and then decloak. Once this happens, leave or you'll regret it. If you don't leave, he'll destroy your ship or beam over a covert team to sabotage your ship. Once they're on board your ship, put some marines on 'searching' assignment and pray that they catch and kill the intruders. If you survive 15 mins in this encounter, he will still beam over the covert team as intruders and then leave the region for Ramis. DON'T follow him. You'll meet him again. You gain 25 experience points for each of the Whirlwind's escorts you destroy. DAY1 - Tour Of Duty Mission 5 Transport Intercept As soon as this transport detects you on radar, he's going to emit an SOS squawk code and you won't know what hit you. If you take out the ship named THREAT1, then THREAT2 will warp into the region. This ship is cloak capable and a nightmare. You gain 25 experience points for destroying THREAT1 and 100 for THREAT2 Once you've completed this TOD, go to Cronus right away, the universe is about to change in a dramatic way!