Eeeek A Bug! 
by "Cajun" David Richard

 A couple of weeks ago, Ambrosia released the long awaited update to Escape Velocity
version 1.0.3. We here in the Ambrosia Tech Support department were hoping this
would solve all of the problems that the previous versions had. However, being the huge
game that EV is, a few bugs squeaked through the system. Below is a sampling of the
reports I have received: 

           - Flying through space causes the stars to streak and leave trails all over the place.
             This isn't actually a bug. This is caused by not upgrading properly. The EV Tuner
             was upgraded as well and needs to be placed in the plug-ins folder. With out it, the
             star streaking will occur.

           - Random Crashing - We strongly urge folks to keep a backup of their pilot files to
             protect against this one. It seems that from time to time, a pilot file can become
             corrupted (which means that you loose all of your hard work in the game). With a
             backup, you can prevent loosing too much of your status.

           - Ships with the wrong graphic, or wrong starting point - I believe this is related to the
             random crashing bug. Pilots are not completely written to the disk before the game
             crashes, and EV attempts to place information when it finds some that is missing. If
             this happens, the pilot file is corrupted and you will need to replace it with a back up. 

There is some good news however. Many people have written in and said that EV 1.0.3 is working fine on their systems. Maybe these people are just winning at all of the odds, or there may just be some machine-model type of relationship with the bugs. Either way, it can't hurt to play it safe.

We would like to apologize for those who are experiencing these problems. We too are frustrated because we want to provide you with a solid product. We hope that folks understand that sometimes these things happen, and when they do, we just have to make the best of it. We will have a fix to EV in the relatively near future.

Bubble Trouble

Initial releases usually have bugs. Sometimes bugs are very successful in hiding their existence, especially with the group of beta testers we had with Bubble Trouble. However, one or two have made it into the release version.

Keep in mind that this is a preliminary list of bugs. We have found the first version of Bubble Trouble to be very stable, but you may want to look out for the following: 

           - Blinky gets stuck going in one direction, regardless of what key you press - We found
             this one right before we released it. We don't know what causes it at the moment, but
             hitting the direction Blinky is traveling will fix it.

           - Sound volume doesn't change in the game, regardless of the sound setting - Watch out
             for this one when you are playing late at night where there may be others in your
             household who just might be sleeping.

           - Bubbles pushed towards each other seem to pass through each other, taking out both
             Blinky and the critter - This isn't a bug, it's a feature. The bubbles are bouncing off of
             each other. This is a powerful tactic if you use it correctly. 

If you run into any problems that are not mentioned here or have any questions about any of our products, please drop a note to help@AmbrosiaSW.com