.bin/us/techrooms_content/faqs/screens/header.gif)
|
|
Stars! FAQ
What are the hardware requirements? Where can I get the latest demo? What more does the retail version offer and where can I buy it? Where can I find hosted games and other players? How does the copy protection work? Why is a serial number required for for a CD game? Where do I get patches and how do I install them? Problems caused by utility programs which hack the Stars! exe... How do I find out what version number I currently have? Will anyone listen if I have feedback for the authors? How do you do this, how do you do that? (Any gameplay question) Where can I find hosted games and other players? How do I move more than one item at a time in various dialogs? Can I edit a race during play? Can I design my own ship hulls? How can I print out a star chart of the universe? How do I intercept something moving faster than me? I keep missing. How do I measure the distance between 2 objects in the scanner? How do I set a waypoint near an object without snapping to the object? Where are the stars in Stars!? What is the order of events during turn generation? Why can't fleets in orbit prevent bombing or invasions? How do I control which AI's I play against? I'm confused by the Transport waypoint task. How about some tips? How do I deal with incoming mineral packets? How can I build starbases at multiple planets without opening the queue for each one? Why is there no way for a host to retrieve a lost password? Can a game include both the demo and full versions? Can the host of a multi-player game use a demo copy? Can several people play on the same computer using one copy? Can a game have a mix of hotseat and email players? I have a player who isn't seeing the changes he made last turn Why? Can multiple players submit turns from the same machine in the same e-mail game? Is it possible to Host Stars! from DOS? Why aren't zipped game files any smaller? Stars! is a turn-based, space strategy conquest game for Microsoft Windows (all versions). You can play solo or against any combination of up to 15 human opponents or AI's. Play on a single machine, across a LAN, or submit turns via the Internet, e-mail or BBS's. The game is fast paced, with every turn testing your strategy as you build and deploy starships, colonize and develop planets, and forge new technology to expand and defend your empire. The race creation editor, game setup and victory condition features are rich with options--every new game is different, and a terrific challenge. With it's interactive tutorial, Stars! is easy to learn, and hard to put away (as many formerly married and gainfully employed players can attest). To learn more, visit the Stars! website and newsgroup. System requirements
Where can I get the latest demo? The fully-playable demo is about 1.6 MB and can be downloaded in a self-extracting zip file from Waypoint Zero - the Stars! home site. Installation instructions are on the web page. Download stardemo.exe, place in an empty directory and run it. The demo files will unzip. Run Stars!.exe to start the demo. What more does the retail version offer and where can I buy it? Players with the retail version can...
Where do I get patches and how do I install them? The Waypoint Zero website has past and current patches. Go to the patch page. Each patch package includes installation instructions in a file called patch.txt. Problems caused by utility programs which hack the Stars! exe... There is no support for copies of Stars! altered by editors. Editors which change the game exe may cause you some problems and disappointments... Patches applied to altered copies will fail. Save an unmodified copy of Stars! before experimenting with an editor. Bug reports are useless and gameplay questions are unanswerable. Please help us maintain our sanity. We're happy to answer all questions about Stars! but we won't have a clue if the problem is a result of tweaking with an editor. Players using editors don't gain any advantage in honest games. Editors just modify some of the constant data in the Stars!.exe file. There is no effect on multiplayer games unless the host is using a modified copy, in which case every player is affected equally. A host using a modified copy can easily ruin the balance of the game. A player using a modified copy will have no impact on others in the game, nor will they gain any advantage. 1. Write a description of the suspected bug in a text file. 2. Zip all the relevant game files and the text file: pkzip gamename.zip gamename.* backup\gamename.* bugnotefile 3. Send us the zip file in one of the following ways: FTP the zip file to beast.webmap.com/pub (login as ftp or anonymous), then send email to bugstars@webmap.com with a description of the problem, or .... Mail the zip file to bugstars@webmap.com along with a description of the problem. We appreciate the time and effort it takes to send these files. It helps us a great deal to have the actual game files when trying to determine if a bug exists. How do I find out what version number I currently have? The version number is displayed on the splash screen when you start the game and in the Help/About information off the main menu bar. Will anyone listen if I send feedback to the authors? If you didn't like something in particular or if you have good ideas for the game, please let us know. We try to answer all our mail and value your feedback. If it's just a matter of not having a feature you want, let us know that, too - it just may show up in the next version. When you submit your ideas, please keep in mind that Stars! is turn-based, not live action. How do you do this, how do you do that? (Any gameplay question) 1. Play the tutorial. Many, many questions players ask are covered in the tutorial. Many people ask us questions covered in the tutorial. 2. Read the manual and use the online help. Again, we get many questions that are easily answered by a flip through the manual or a search of the online help. They are good references if you take the time to use them. 3. Play the tutorial. Had to sneak that in there again. It will save you a lot of time and make you a much better player. Where can I find hosted games and other players? Many websites host games. You'll find a comprehensive list of links on this page. Games are often advertised on the Stars! newsgroup. No. Stars! is a game that requires strategy to win. Any "feature" in Stars! that allows you to cheat is a bug that we will fix if notified. No, they can't by design. We've actually had people argue this one. They see something they interpret to be a cheat, but it always turns out to be a behavior by design. Trust us. We wrote the code. They can't cheat and they don't. How do I move more than one item at a time in various dialogs? Production Queue:
Ship and Starbase Designer:
Ship Transfer:
These methods are all covered in the tutorial and help file. Can I edit a race during play? Once a game is started, you're stuck with the race you entered the game with. All game files are compressed and encrypted to provide security for all players. Players cannot read or modify data files. You can however, at any time, open a saved race file (including the file for a race currently in play) and make edits. As you are playing a race, you might discover a weakness you would like to correct for the next time you play that race. To edit a race:
Can I design my own ship hulls? You can design elaborate component configurations but you can't design your own hulls. This restriction is critical to game balance, the one thing that makes strategy mean something. Stars! has features that allow you to practice simple diplomacy in multiplayer games. The manual and help file both have a section on diplomacy. Here are a few examples: Use the Message pane to communicate with other players, arranging such things as alliances, rendezvous, trade agreements and non-aggression pacts. When you're setting up the game, you can specify winning conditions that encourage diplomacy by allowing for multiple winners. Stars! does not require one winner. You can declare neutral and friendly players using the Player Relations dialog. This prevents you from attacking the wrong people and allows you to automatically come to a friend's aid if they're under fire. Friends can also pass through each other's mine fields without harm. So it's worth while to set up alliances, even if they're temporary. Stars! Supernova will include a wide range of features that integrate diplomacy directly into the game. How can I print out a star chart of the universe? Use the File (Print Map) menu item. How do I intercept something moving faster than me? I keep missing. The path lines shown for mass packets and other players' fleets are only approximations so you can't intercept them by setting waypoints on the tick marks. Here's how to do it: First, Click on the fleet or mass packet you are trying to intercept. Look at tick marks. Find one that you can reach the same year they will get there - but don't set a waypoint there. Instead, set a waypoint within one years travel from that tick mark (in other words, you will be at most, one year away from that point the same year the fleet or packet is within one year of that point). Then, set a second waypoint on the current position of the target fleet or packet. You will intercept the fleet or packet EVERY time. How do I measure the distance between 2 objects in the scanner? Hold down SHIFT, then right-click on one object and drag to the other. The distance is displayed in the status bar under the scanner. How do I set a waypoint near an object without snapping to the object? Hold down the SHIFT key while setting a waypoint to disable the snap-to feature. Where are the stars in Stars!? See those points of light in the scanner? Those are the stars. It is assumed that they all have multiple planets in orbit of them. We just abstract out one planet per star system to simplify game play. The premise is that as the Emperor, you should not care about micromanaging the nit picky details about each colony. Some lowly bureaucrat, a Colonial Governor, manages the tedious details of unimportant planets. All the Emperor cares about is the total resources flowing from the entire colony system. The planets you deal with are the capital worlds of the colony systems. How does the copy protection work? The CD is NOT required to be in the drive. When asked, just enter the 8-character serial number supplied on stickers or paper in the box. SAVE YOUR SERIAL NUMBER. Ideally you would only be asked for your serial number once, but because it and other copy protection records are stored in a computer file, Stars! will ask for it again under these circumstances: If you ever reinstall Stars! or install it on a new computer. (The file containing the serial number is deleted during reinstallation, so Stars! must ask for the serial # again.) After you make changes to your computer's hardware (Stars! sees a different hardware fingerprint and must assume it is on a completely different machine.) After you install an upgrade patch (Patches sometimes change enough of the code that it's like reinstalling the game) The copy protection activates only when: If asked to enter a serial number, you cancel the dialog and continue to play. Two players using DIFFERENT COMPUTERS each submit turns bearing the SAME SERIAL NUMBER. Only these players are affected. Hosts don't need a serial number: A host using a retail copy can can use the same serial number as one other player without affecting the host or the player. The person running the host can also cancel the serial number dialog and set up the game without affecting play. For more information on the copy protection, see Introduction and Player Support in the help file. Why is a serial number required for for a CD game? Prior to retail distribution on a CD through Empire Interactive, Stars! was distributed both electronically and on floppy disk as shareware. Serial number copy protection is just about the only option available to shareware authors. The primary reason we continued the serial number mechanism was to ensure that the old shareware was 100% play compatible with the new version distributed on CD through Empire. What is the order of events during turn generation? Each turn the host program loads the .hst file, setting everything to exactly the condition it was in at the end of the last turn. It then loads the .x# file for each player and applies their change orders. The only interesting part of this is what happens if two or more players try to grab the same stuff. For example if two players are both at the location of some salvage and each one tries to transfer all of the minerals to their freighter by hand. When each player was taking their turn we could not know what the other players were going to be doing so we had to pretend the by-hand transfer was going to succeed. During turn gen we flip a coin when multiple players are going for the same thing. This is why sometimes things that you were SURE you did by hand turn out to have been day dreams by the next year. At this point we allow all waypoint zero tasks to be completed. This is whatever task each fleet has at its current location. When processing transport orders we fulfill all unload operations before any load operations to ensure that exchanges work correctly. If you sent a colonization fleet to a planet and forgot to give a Colonize task at that the destination waypoint, your fleet will be in orbit of that planet waiting for orders. Most players have done this at least once. So, when you give a Colonize task at the current location it is a Waypoint Zero task. It happens at the beginning of the year. Waypoint zero tasks cannot be prevented by battle. There is no difference between using the Cargo dialog to load up with stuff by hand and giving a Transport task at waypoint zero. Now the Mystery Traders and existing mass packets move. All fleets with waypoints on a mass packet or MT get their orders updated to point to the new locations. All fleets move if not blocked by waypoint zero tasks that could not be completed (Wait for...). If fleet A has fleet B as its destination waypoint and fleet B is moving then the movement of fleet A is postponed until fleet B is done moving. If fleet B is following fleet C then it too is postponed until fleet C has moved. If fleet C is chasing fleet A then (we detect a circular case) and allow each fleet to move 1/10th of it's total movement value and repeat 10 times. This causes these fleets that are chasing each other in a circle to spiral in on each other. This is also where fleets hit minefields, run out of fuel, go through wormholes, stargates and so on. Inner Strength colonists grow in fleets. In theory, this was happening while the fleets were moving. Mass packets and salvage decays. Mining. Production. It is assumed that production takes all year and that the minerals are not needed all up front but "on demand" throughout the year. This means that all minerals mined one year can be used in production that same year. Population growth. New mineral packets travel 1/2 their rated yearly travel. Research. Random Events (like comet strikes...) Battles occur now. Notice that the destination waypoint tasks have not yet occurred. For example you have a remote mining planet with some fighters in orbit and I send a fleet to colonize that planet. When I arrive at the planet you get a chance to kill me before I can fulfill my colonize orders. These are the "post movement" tasks. All tasks assigned at destination waypoints are post movement tasks. They sure can't happen before you arrive. Contrast this to the case where my colonizer was already in orbit and you send a fighter after me. I give my fleet a colonize task at the current location (waypoint zero). The waypoint zero tasks happen before movement (I'm already there) so by the time your fleet shows up (post movement) the planet is already mine. Indeed this is where battle MUST happen for many many reasons. Any attacking fleets with bombers or troops to be unloaded can do so if not blocked by starbases. Post movement (destination) waypoint tasks. Minesweeping. Ship/Starbase repair. All old files get copied or moved to the backup directory and the new .m# files and .hst file get written out. Done. Why can't fleets in orbit prevent bombing or invasions? Fleets in the system are considered to be anywhere (or everywhere). Only the starbase is guaranteed to be in the right place to prevent bombing and invasion. Your fleet captains' jobs are to kill the enemy before they get close enough to require starbase defensive action. How do I control which AI's I play against? A common question:
You have complete control over which AIs you play against. Check out Page 2 of the Advanced New Game wizard. Get into the New Game dialog, hit the Advanced Game button, then the Next button. Right click on the blue diamonds to change the race of each player position. Hit the help button for details. I'm confused by the Transport waypoint task. How about some tips? You can specify separate actions for each type of cargo. I'm not sure why you are trying to load or unload fuel in this case. It usually isn't necessary and has nothing to do with any other type of cargo. Read the help file topic: Playing - Transporting Freight - Shipping Freight. The important thing to remember is that you can specify a different action for each type of cargo. For example, you could set up a waypoint task such as:
Each of these things would be done with unloads happening before loads and dunnage actions happening last. In this case, any colonists would be unloaded, then we'd load as much Germainum as is available. Then, if there was any remaining cargo space, we would load as much Boranium as possible. Then fuel would be loaded or unloaded such that the fleet had just as much as it needed for this journey. Setting up this kind of multi-step transport order can require a quite a few mouse clicks so we have supplied a shortcut called Zip orders. A Zip order is a set of transport actions. Zip orders are available by Right-Clicking on the blue diamond on the Waypoint Task tile when the Transport task is selected. For example the predefined Zip order QuikLoad sets your transport
task to the following:
The QuikDrop Zip order is identical except that each Load All Available is replaced with Unload All. In general, for freighters moving back and forth between a remote mining planet and a production center the QuikLoad and QuikDrop orders work great. If one mineral is more important to you than others or one is less important then you might want to create a custom zip order that specifies only some minerals or includes dunnage orders for the less important minerals. For instructions on how to create your own custom Zip orders please read the help topic: How To - Create Custom Zip Order How do I deal with incoming mineral packets? There are also a lot of ways of dealing with incoming packets. Defenses:
Mass Drivers:
Interception:
Dodging:
Offense:
In general it is a good idea to use a combination of these. Always build defenses when there is a threat, especially if the colony is an important one. Concentrate on intercepting only the largest of the incoming packets. Build mass drivers if you have the technology and have unused Orbital slots. Try dodging in those cases where you've got a large population center with inadequate defenses and a freighter that can reach the planet but not the packet. Finally, remember that the best defense has always been a good offense. How can I build starbases at multiple planets without opening the queue for each one? This is the best way:
The Production dialog is now open for the first planet. Now you can
begin upgrading:
Repeat these two steps until you run across the first planet not to be upgraded selected. The big win here is that you only look at planets you really do want to upgrade and the work per planet is reduced to a double-click and a click. The only drawback to this technique, other than still having to touch every colony, is that the starbase is added as the second item in the queue. In general this isn't a problem because there is almost always a partially completed item at the top which you wouldn't mind finishing. How do I restore a turn ruined due to serial number conflicts? Once you sort out which players are affected and ensure that all players have unique serial numbers, copy the game files from the backup directory to the game directory and have each affected player open and resubmit their turn. When I try to open my game file, Stars! asks me for a password. Why? I don't remember entering a password. It is likely that you are attempting to open another player's file. If you are not playing in a multiplayer game then the name of your turn file will be gamename.M1 where gamename is whatever name you entered in the Save dialog when you started the game. Files ending in .M2, .M3 and so on belong to other players. All computer player game files are password protected. When I try to open a game in the backup directory, Stars! tells me there is a missing or invalid file. Why? The backup directory does not contain all of the files needed to load your game. You can do one of two things. 1) You can copy the files from the backup directory down on top of your current game files. This will have the effect of backing up one turn. You can then open your turn and modify your orders. If you want to scrap your previous orders and start over for the year, you can just delete gamename.x#, where # is your player number, before reloading your turn. 2) You can copy the gamename.xy file into the backup directory. This will allow you to view the previous turn's data without affecting the current state of the game. Some historical information will not be visible unless you also copy gamename.h#, where # is your player number, into the backup directory. Where can I find information on hosting or playing by email? Both the manual and help file cover these topics. There are also utilities available from some Stars! websites that automate email hosting to some degree. Why is there no way for a host to retrieve a lost password? Any utility which allowed hosts to remove or change passwords would remove all security from the game. All an unscrupulous host would have to do is copy the game files to another directory and remove the passwords from the player's files in that directory. They could then look at everybody's data in that copy of the universe and no matter what Stars! did, the real players would never know. In a network game ANY player could pull the same trick. Security is an all or nothing element. If Stars! didn't provide at least the minimal level of security it does now, multi-player Stars! games would always be subject to cheating. No. Passwords in Stars! never expire. It would be a huge security loophole. Can a game include players using both the demo and full versions? Yes, but among other things, demo players are limited to tech level 10 and cannot create their own races. This does give the players using the retail version an obvious advantage. Can the host of a multiplayer game use a demo copy? Yes. However, a host using a shareware copy will be limited in his choice of universe attributes. Players with the retail version will have all game features available, while shareware players such as the host in this case, will be limited to the feature set of the shareware version. Can several people play on the same computer using one copy? Yes. Up to 16 people can play "hot-seat" on the same computer with one copy of Stars!. Just make sure that all players use the same copy. In other words make sure that there is only one copy of the game on the machine. To play one game with several players on one machine: Method 1
Method 2
SETUP:
PLAY:
All of the player's instances beep once and blink to announce that a new turn is available. The first player then opens their instance and play continues. This is just like playing on a LAN except that you have to take turns sitting at the same keyboard. Can a game have a mix of hotseat and email players? Yes. Just have the hotseat players follow the instructions for playing hotseat and the email players folloe the instructions for playing by email. I have a player who isn't seeing the changes he made last turn Why? Each turn the host needs to send the player his M# file which is what you did. The player should be sending the host his X# file not his M#. If the player is sending back his M# file it would explain why his changes aren't happening. No player action will change the M# file in any way. All player commands and change orders are logged in the X# file. A full description of the purpose of each of these files can be found in the Stars! help file topic Guts - Files Used in Stars!. Full details about how the files need to move back and forth in multiplayer games can be found in the topic Setup/Hosting - Hosting a Multiplayer Game - Hosting Modem and Email Games. Can multiple players submit turns from the same machine in the same e-mail game? Yes. When your .x# file is created it is marked with both your serial number and a fingerprint of your machine. The host will only "penalize" two or more people playing with the same serial number and DIFFERENT machine fingerprints. Any number of people can submit turns from the same machine with the same serial number. If however, you had two machines at home and submitted one .x# file from each, then each one must have a unique serial number. This allows you to do cool things like take a friend's turn for them when they're out of town or have two family members play from the same machine and so on. We have tried to make sure that our copy protection mechanism is as non-intrusive as possible. Is it possible to Host Stars! from DOS? It depends. If the machine cannot run Windows, then the answer is no. If the machine can run Windows but usually does not, then the answer is yes. It is possible to launch Windows and Stars! from a DOS batch file in such a way that Stars! will generate turns for one or more games and then exit all the way out of Windows allowing the batch file to continue where you it left off. See the help file topic Getting Started - Options for Launching Stars! for more details. Why aren't zipped game files any smaller? Stars! game files are already compressed.
|
.bin/us/screens/linker.gif){kind=small} |