GameStar 1999 May/Gamestar_05_1999-05_cd2.bin/READ.ME

Text File | 1995-06-13 | 23KB | 476 lines

OUTPOST: The Read Me File 1.5
*****************************
We'd like to thank you for purchasing this marvelous game.
You're a fine human being.

This document contains  performance improvement notes, technical
notes, and new features updates.

***********************************************

OUTPOST 1.5 NEW FEATURES HELP
What follows are the new features in Outpost 1.5. This gives the
seasoned Outpost player instant reference to what's new in this version.


BEGINNER LEVEL:

This version of the game incorporates a new difficulty level setting
for OUTPOST players.  If you'd like to try it, select BEGINNER
when the game asks you which difficulty level you require.  On the
Beginner level, you have no mined resource restrictions, allowing
you to learn how to construct your colony, control morale, use
power, and manipulate your population without limitations on new
construction.  Your colonists will still die due to accidents and
old age, and they will still require food to eat and air to breathe,
but they won't be dying due to a lack of mined resources.

TRANSIT INFORMATION/MANUAL TRUCKING
This is where you assign your Trucks to delivery routes starting from
a specific tile (building). The starting point for the Truck route is
the tile name listed at the top of the window. Truck route information
is given in the large box on the left, marked Route.  The three buttons
on the right are Delete Route, Delete Leg, and Add Leg.

If you highlight a route in the Route box, then click on Delete Route,
the entire route will be removed and your Trucks will no longer make
deliveries to that destination. Delete Leg allows you to remove only
the last destination in the route. Add Leg allows you to create a new
destination at the end of the current route. When you select Add Leg,
your cursor will change to one that says: "Go Here."  Click the Go Here
cursor on the building or road tile you want to use as your trucking
destination. The name of the selected tile is added to the Route list.
Keep doing this until you have selected the final destination for the
Truck route. All Trucks assigned to this starting location will follow
this one established route. There is no need to list routing legs twice
for multiple Trucks.

The Trucks will follow a specific path that you establish, then keep
using that path for round trip deliveries until you reassign them elsewhere
or remove that route. If you want your Trucks to move faster by following
an existing dirt or paved road, you must click the Go Here cursor on the
last tile of each straight section where the road curves. Otherwise, they
will start taking shortcuts over rougher terrain, which will slow them down.
Note that the Go Here cursor can only create a path to buildings or to
terrain tiles that have been bulldozed or paved, so you can't Add a Leg to
a regular terrain tile.

Either before or after you establish a route using the above method, you
should select the Trucks button at the bottom of the routing window to
assign Trucks to that route. Remember, all Trucks assigned to the starting
location will follow the established route from that location.

If you're satisfied with your route and Truck selections, click on
the OK button.

ASSIGN TRUCKS
This is where you make use of your inactive or stored Trucks starting from
a specific tile (building). The starting point for the truck route is the
tile name listed at the top of the window. The number of inactive Trucks
in the warehouse is shown as the number Available. The number of active
Trucks currently assigned to delivery routes is shown as the number
Assigned. Click on the up and down arrows beside the Assigned category to
put more Trucks in action, then click on the OK button.

TRANSFER LOCAL ASSETS
This is where you choose an asset stored at this location and move it
somewhere else in the same colony. The tile location where the goods are
stored is shown at the top of the window. Choose an asset to transfer on
the left by using the up and down arrows and highlighting the name of
the item. The number of those items available to be moved is shown on the
right in the Quantities section. Choose the number of items you wish to
Move, using the up and down arrows on the right, then click on OK. If you
change your mind, select Cancel.

ROBOT COMMAND
This is where you keep track of the robots controlled by a specific Robot
Command facility (each of which can control 10 robots). Other information
contained in this report shows you how the Robot Command itself is doing.
The top of the report tells you the name of the Robot Command facility.
You are also shown the Functional Status of the building, whether
Operational or Idle; the condition of the staff required to operate the
Robot Command; the number of robots currently available and controlled by
that facility; and the number of robots controlled by that facility which
are actively assigned to tasks. For more specific information on what the
robots are doing and where they are, click on the Details button.

ROBOT DETAILS
This is where you get information on what the robots are doing and where
they are. The Robot Command facility that controls this particular set of
robots (up to 10) is shown at the top of the report. You are also shown
the details on each robot: the type of robot, the remaining amount of life
in its Fuel Cell, and where that robot is currently active (unless it's
idle and waiting to be assigned to a task).

MONORAIL
Appropriate research must be completed before the Monorail System becomes
available, at which time the Monorail tiles will show up in the Tile Picker
(selection) window at the top center of the main game screen. A Monorail
System has five basic components: the Monorail Station, the Monorail Power
Transformer, the Monorail (track), the Monorail (track) Intersection, and
the standard Tube connecting the Power Transformer to a colony.

The Monorail Power Transformer can be built only at the end of a Tube
connection. The colony supplies life support, power, and the workers to
operate each Monorail section.

Monorail (track) tiles connect to Monorail Stations. Monorail Stations
can be placed only next to a Monorail Power Transformer or a Monorail
(track) tile only. No tube is required to connect a Power Transformer
or Monorail (track) to a Monorail Station. The only tube required for
a Monorail System is the one that connects the Power Transformer to
the colony.

A Monorail (track) or a Monorail (track) Intersection can be placed
next to a Monorail Station or another Monorail (track) only.

When a complete Monorail System has been established between two
stations, and the power/resource connections have been made, the
Monorail line will become active.

Note that if two separate Monorail lines become connected, a single
train, instead of two, will make the complete circuit. For routing
purposes, when trucking is manual, the two Monorail Stations are
treated as legs of a truck route.

MACROMANAGEMENT
The Macromanagement interface allows you to do two things: sneak
buildings into the rebel colony if you have an active trade agreement
with them, and assign artificially intelligent computer managers
to the administration of your secondary colonies.

Assigning an AI to research in a laboratory is done through the
research menu. This menu can be reached by clicking on a laboratory
building, or through the Master Reports button in the main AI
interface (reached by clicking on the chrome ball icon in the lower
left corner of the main game screen).

BUILD IN REBEL COLONY
If you have an active trade agreement with the rebel colony, and a
Trade Mission has been built for you there, you can sneak more
buildings into the rebel colony. This is not necessary for your
survival, but it can be used to your advantage. If you want to
prepare the rebel colony for the day when you take over its
operation, you will have several buildings of your own choosing
already built there. If you want to undermine their economy by
building structures that will sap their resources, you have that
capability. You will not be allowed to build a factory or other
obvious structures because shipping and storage operations would
immediately trigger too much attention from the authorities in
the rebel colony.

The drawback to building in the rebel colony is that they will
eventually notice what you're doing if you build several structures
there. When they do, they will probably break the trade agreement,
preventing you from trading with them or building additional
structures in their colony. They will also take over ownership of
any new buildings you created in their colony.

The Build in Rebel Colony button shows you a text list of buildings
you can sneak into the rebel colony. Highlight a building type by
clicking on it, then select the OK button to confirm your decision.
The building will be constructed in the normal amount of time, but
it will use the resources of the rebel colony for construction
and maintenance.

ASSIGN AI TO COLONY MANAGEMENT
If you have completed the research leading to AI Managers, you will
then have the option of assigning a few of your new artificial
intelligence personalities to the management of your secondary
colonies. These new AI managers are not as powerful as your primary
AI assistant, so they are assigned to a specific colony and
instructed to build structures that will allow that colony to
specialize. For example, you may want the AI manager to build an
agricultural colony that will stockpile food, which you can then
Truck or Monorail to your main colony unless you want to use it
for trade.

You will still need to check on the progress of your AI managers;
they are primarily concerned about the colony systems and the orders
you have given them, so the humans living in the colony get less
attention. You are still responsible for the colony infrastructure
and keeping the colonists alive.

When they first appear, you may find that your AI managers are not
exactly following the instructions you have given them. In some
cases, you may find that an AI instructed to build an agricultural
colony is building a sea of Communications Towers instead. If you
see this situation, or if you want to slow down the use of resources
by that colony, click on the Deassign AI button. Odd structures are
built by unstable AI managers. Appropriate research into AI
personality problems will stabilize your managers.

***********************************************

IMPROVING GAME PERFORMANCE


PREFERENCES FOR SPEED:

To improve the performance of OUTPOST on slower machines,
choose the "Preferences" button on the control panel that starts the
game, or right click on any area outside the tile map diamond when
you're playing the game.  Select Control, then Preferences.  Click on
the boxes for each option you wish to de-select.  If the box has no
"X" in it, the option is turned off.  Press the OK button to return to
the normal game screen.  To be sure the change in options has the
desired effect, save your game, exit, and restore the game.

If you're looking for a hardware solution, the animated sequences
will run best on CD-ROM drives that are double-speed or faster.
Increasing your amount of system RAM to 8 Megabytes or better will
also improve game performance.

We also recommend that you run OUTPOST using a Swap File under
Windows.  In order to do this, you need to launch Windows in
Enhanced mode.  For more information about creating a swap file
and launching Windows in Enhanced mode, consult your Windows
documentation.  If you continue to run into problems, a good
troubleshooting technique is to increase the size of your swap file.

***********************************************

MICRO SOLUTIONS TO MACRO PROBLEMS

Problem:  After installing OUTPOST, I double-click on the game
icon but all I see is a black screen.

Solution:  Use the ALT-TAB function to find the Midi Sequencer
window.  Make sure the "Don't display this warning in future" box is
checked and then select "OK." Make sure to restart Windows so the
changes can take effect.

Problem:  The animated sequences are all distorted when I run in
32,000 or 16 million color modes.

Solution:  Some video cards may experience graphics distortion if run
in high color mode.  Selecting a 256 color driver will remedy this
problem.

Problem: "Some of the text within the dialog boxes or buttons
appear to be cut out. How do I solve this problem?"

Solution: Make sure you are selecting a video driver that uses small
fonts. Windows video drivers that have a Large Font option will
display incomplete text message within OUTPOST dialog boxes.  For
information about changing your video driver, consult your Video
Card or Windows documentation.

Problem: "I'm experiencing a General Protection Fault... error
message.  How can I resolve this?"

Solution: You may want to try updating your video card and sound card
drivers for Windows.  Contact your video card or sound card
manufacturer, or browse their BBS, and see if they have more current
drivers.  This will often correct General Protection Faults for
Windows.

***********************************************

MORE TECHNICAL NOTES FOR WINDOWS CD-ROM USERS:

WINDOWS USERS:

We highly recommend that you disable your screen savers while
playing OUTPOST.  If you are in the middle of game play and your
screen saver kicks in, you may experience audio break-ups and/or
video break-ups.  You will also want to disable any audio
enhancement utilities such as Whoop-it-up, Icon hear-it, etc...as
they may cause audio problems during simulation play.

AUDIO BREAK-UP QUESTIONS:

If you experience audio cutouts during the game you may need to
alter the audio buffer size of the MSCDEX driver located in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file.  You can do this by adjusting the
/m:AUDIOSIZE parameter.  We recommend that this value be set to
at least 10.  If you experience slow movement or audio cutouts
consistently, you may wish to lower the size of this buffer.  For
more tips, please refer to the "OTHER NOTES" section.

GENERAL QUESTIONS:

Q:  "I have never installed a Sierra game through Windows.
What do I do?"

A:  To install OUTPOST through Windows, you need to do the
following:

1)  Enter Windows.
2)  From the FILE menu of Program Manager, select RUN.
3)  Type d:\setup (or substitute your correct CD drive letter) and
    click on the OKAY button.
4)  Follow the on-screeb prompts.

This will allow you to play the game through Windows.  It will create
an OUTPOST program group.

Q: "What resolutions does the game run in?"

A: OUTPOST will support most Window video drivers but requires a
640x480 256 color driver or better.

Q: "I've got an SVGA video card, but OUTPOST does not appear to
be running in 256 colors?"

A: You may not be running in 256 color display mode.  Check this by
going to the MAIN program group and double-click on the Windows
Setup icon to see your current display mode.  "VGA" indicates that
you're running in 640 x 480 in 16 color.  To run in SVGA's 256
color mode, the SVGA display driver would need to be loaded.
These SVGA drivers are provided by the video card company rather
than by Microsoft. Most 256 color video drivers do not come
standard with Windows, so you may need to contact your hardware
or your video card manufacturer to obtain the specific drivers for
your video card.  If you're unfamiliar with installing these drivers,
consult your video card manual or your dealer for more information.

Q: "What's the difference between BASE and EXTENDED sound
cards?"

A: The basic difference between the two is with the number of
instruments and notes that each can play.  Examples of sound cards
that often run in BASE MIDI mode include the original Sound Blaster,
Thunderboard, and Pro Audio Spectrum cards.  BASE level MIDI
cards are configured to use channels 13 through 16 in the MIDI
Mapper.

Examples of EXTENDED MIDI devices include the Roland MT-32,
CM-32, LAPC-I, and various General MIDI devices such as the
Roland Sound Canvas and the Wave Blaster.  Many of the newer FM
sound cards such as the Soundblaster 16 and the Pro Audio
Spectrum 16 may also use a special Extended MIDI mapper setting
which enables them to play in extended MIDI mode.  EXTENDED
level MIDI cards are configured to use channels 1 through 10 in the
MIDI Mapper.  If you have an FM Synthesis card, choosing
EXTENDED MIDI might not dramatically improve the music you hear
within the game.

Q: "The music is fine but the audio and/or voice volume is low, or
vice-versa.  What can I do?"

A: Many sound cards also come with Windows mixer software that
can adjust the SYNTHESIZER and DAC volume levels separately.  Try
running this utility and adjusting the input levels of the various
devices.  Outpost will rely on the default volume setting for both
the MIDI and DAC options.  Consult your sound card documentation
for more information.

Q: "The music is fine, but the voices hesitate or skip.  What can I
do?"

A: Basically, the audio will hesitate or skip if played during an
animated sequence. Waiting for the audio to finish before running the
animated sequence, or vice-versa, will normally remedy this problem.

Q: "I've got a Roland MT-32 (or a Sound Canvas, or a General MIDI
device) and a Sound Blaster.  The speech is okay, but the music and
sound effects are incorrect.  What can I do?"

A: Quit the game, reset the EXTENDED sound device, then restart
the game.  This will flush the odd sounds that may have been loaded
by a previous game or MIDI play option.  If you have a Roland MT-
32, try using the specific MID file created for this device.

OTHER NOTES

If you are experiencing random lockups, make sure that you are
using the latest Microsoft CD-ROM extensions driver, version 2.23.
MSCDEX 2.23 is also shipped with MS-DOS 6.2 or above and
should be found in your DOS directory.  Contact Microsoft or your
local dealer if you need the latest Microsoft CD-ROM driver.

If you have any random problems running under Windows, you may
be running third party shells such as HP's Dashtop, Norton Desktop,
PC-Tools or Kids Desk.  Please refer to their documentation for
troubleshooting tips.

If the audio still skips after trying the suggestion outlined in the
first section of this README file, try the following troubleshooting
steps:

1: On most CD-ROM drives, there is a /M:X stock buffers parameter
for the MSCDEX line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT.  Adding /M:20 should
help to eliminate audio skipping and choppy video segments.

Example of AUTOEXEC.BAT line:

LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /V /M:20

NOTE - the above line is provided only as an example.  Your
MSCDEX statement will most likely be different than the example
noted above.  Your path and switches might be different.  In any
case, the /M:X value can be added at the end of the MSCDEX line.

2: In the SYSTEM.INI file found in your WINDOWS directory, try
increasing the DMABufferSize line to 256.  This line will appear in
the [386ENH] section of this file and should read as follows:

DMABufferSize=256

As with other Windows applications, installing OUTPOST will update
your SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI files.  If you want to immediately
restore your system environment after installing OUTPOST CD-ROM,
we took the added precaution of backing up your original WIN.INI
and SYSTEM.INI files into the \WINDOWS directory.  The WIN.INI
file is renamed WIN.OPS, and SYSTEM.INI is renamed SYSTEM.OPS.
Normally there is no need to restore these files, since these files are
constantly updated every time you use Windows.  Do not copy
and/or rename these files in your WINDOWS directory after installing
OUTPOST, or you'll lose any changes made during the initial
OUTPOST setup.
***********************************************

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

You can reach Technical Support at [phone] between 8:15 am and
4:45 pm, Monday through Friday.  We can also be reached by fax at
[phone] or by mail at the following address:

Sierra On-Line Technical Support
PO Box 85006
Bellevue, WA  98015-8506

Please outline the problems along with specific information about
your computer system, and we will gladly respond to your fax, letter
or BBS message as soon as possible.

In Europe, please contact our office in England. The Customer Service
number is (44) 1734-303171, between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm, Monday through
Friday.   The BBS number is (44) 1734-304227 and the fax number is (44)
1734-303201.  Customer Service can also be reached at the following address:

Sierra On-Line Limited
4 Brewery Court
The Old Brewery
Theale, Reading, Berkshire
RG7 5AJ UNITED KINGDOM

You can also contact our Technical Support Team on one of the
following services:

   Sierra BBS         [phone]
   CompuServe         GO SIERRA
   America Online     KEYWORD SIERRA



Sierra Technical Support provides this documentation as a reference to
Sierra customers using Sierra software products.  Sierra Technical
Support makes reasonable efforts to ensure that the information
contained in this documentation is accurate.  However, Sierra makes no
warranty, either express or implied, as to the accuracy,
effectiveness, or completeness of the information contained in this
documentation.

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HEREIN WILL WORK WITH ANY OR ALL COMPUTER SYSTEMS.  SIERRA DOES NOT
ASSUME ANY LIABILITY, EITHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL, FOR THE USE
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