Strike Commander ---------------- This README file contains important information about Strike Commander which did not make it into the manuals. Please read this file completely. Contents: --------- 1. High Memory Required for Play 2. Warning for people with non-Microsoft mouse drivers. 3. Warning for people with 16 Meg of RAM or greater. 4. Warning about changing hardware. 5. Player Score 6. Engine Noise 7. Damage MFD 8. Radar and IR Warning Lights 9. Reference Card Errata 10. Thrustmaster and Flight Stick Pro 11. Thrustmaster Weapon Control System DIP Switches 12. CH GameCard III Automatic 13. Rookie, Veteran and Ace Options 14. Unlimited Ammo Option 15. SCSI Drive Problem 16. CD-ROM Drive Problem 17. Saved Game Limit 18. Show Weapons 19. Soundblaster auto-detection 20. Creating a Boot Disk 21. QEMM's OPTIMIZE program 22. DOS version SMARTDRV.SYS 23. Re-Installing and New Versions of DOS 24. Strike Commander and DOS 6.00+ 25. If You Still Have Trouble... 1. Extended Memory Required for Play -------------------------------------------- The Installation Guide for Strike Commander states that a minimum of 2.1 Megs of availiable extended memory is required to play the game with no sound and with bare minimum detail level. This number is incorrect. You actually need a BARE MINIMUM of 2.5 Megs of available extended memory to play the game. 2. Warning for people with non-Microsoft mouse drivers --------------------------------------------------------------- You may experience trouble running Strike Commander with a non-Microsoft (or 100 percent compatible) mouse driver. If you do, any of the following steps should fix the problem: 1. Replace the mouse driver with a Microsoft mouse driver. 2. Disconnect your mouse and use your keyboard or joystick instead. 3. Remove the mouse driver and use your keyboard or joystick instead. 3. Warning for people with 16 Meg of RAM or greater ----------------------------------------------------------- Because direct memory access (DMA) will not work with memory addresses above 16 megabytes, the digitized speech of Strike Commander may not work correctly on machines with large amounts of memory. If you hear static in the game when speech would be more appropriate, then this problem could be occurring. The best solution is to remove your memory manager and let the game supply the high memory using its own memory manager. See the installation manual for more details on memory configuration. 4. Warning about changing hardware ------------------------------------------ If you change your hard drive and video card, you must reinstall Strike Commander or the game will not work correctly. Symptoms of this not working correctly include not being able to set the plane's throttle above MIL 2. If this is happening to you, do not panic. Simply reinstall the game. Your saved games will remain intact. You can also copy your saved games to a floppy for backup purposes without any harm to them. Simply copy all of the files in the Strike Commander directory that have the extension .SAV to a safe place. 5. Player Score ----------------------- The game keeps a running total score of how well the player is doing. You can look at your score by pressing Alt-S during the cinematic option screens. To maximize your score, play the game with the Ace options. 6. Engine Noise ----------------------- Strike Commander cannot simultaneously run both music and engine noise. If you want to hear the engine noise, turn the music off. 7. Radar and IR Warning Lights -------------------------------------- An undocumented feature has been added to the warning lights in the cockpit. As missiles get closer to you, the lights blink faster. 8. Damage MFD --------------------- The Damage MFD has an undocumented feature. Systems which are damaged but not destroyed appear in yellow. Only when a system is destroyed does it appear in red. 9. Reference Card Errata -------------------------------- The following are errors in the reference card: - The Q key does not select previous weapon. It has no function. - The 5 key does not re-center the stick in keyboard flight. The keyboard automatically re-centers. - The right mouse button does not cause the mouse to go into panning mode. If you wish to use the mouse as the cockpit panning control, select the mouse panning option from the flight option screen. - The arrow keys do not rotate objects in the Object Viewer. These keys move the cursor. 10. Thrustmaster and Flight Stick Pro Joysticks ------------------------------------------------------ The third and fourth buttons on the Thrustmaster and FSPro are incorrectly documented. The third button selects targets and the fourth button switches you back to the forward cockpit view. If you select the FSPro panning option in the flight control options screen, the coolie hat on your Thrustmaster or FSPro will control cockpit panning. Selecting the FSPro flight control option will enable the extra buttons on your Thrustmaster or FSpro. 11. Thrustmaster Weapon Control System DIP Switches ---------------------------------------------------------- The DIP switch settings on the Weapon Control System for Strike Commander are switches 1, 2 and 6 on. All other switches should be off. 12. CH GameCard III Automatic ------------------------------------ The CH GameCard III Automatic requires a program to be run whenever the machine boots up. This program is called CHJOY3.EXE. Please be sure that this program runs before calibrating joysticks in Strike Commander or unpredictable results will occur. 13. Rookie, Veteran and Ace Options ------------------------------------------ The main game options screen (accessed by pressing Alt-o during flight) allows you to select Rookie, Veteran, or Ace difficulty levels. Here is a summary of the various changes these modes will make to other options: EFFECT ROOKIE VETERAN ACE -------------------- ------ ------- --- Mid-air Collisions OFF ON ON Easy Landings ON ON OFF Stalls OFF ON ON Unlimited Ammo ON OFF OFF Easy Gun Hits ON ON OFF Enemy Intelligence Rookie Veteran Ace Auto Targeting ON ON OFF 360 degree Targeting ON ON OFF Smart Targeting ON ON OFF Sun Glare OFF ON ON Gravity Effects OFF ON ON Smart Radar ON OFF OFF 360 degree Radar ON OFF OFF Smart Raw Scope ON OFF OFF 14. Unlimited Ammo Option -------------------------------- The unlimited ammo option only applies to gun rounds while playing Strike Commander. It will not give you unlimited missiles or bombs. The only exception to this rule is the training mission, which does give you unlimited amounts of whichever weapons you are carrying. 15. SCSI Drive Problems ------------------------------ The sound card detection routines conflict with SCSI drives. If you are using a SCSI hard drive, then you should not allow the installation program to auto-detect your sound cards. You will be able to manually select your sound card from a menu so that the Strike Commander will be properly installed. 16. CD-ROM Drive Problem ------------------------------- The INSTALL program cannot recognize CD-ROM drives that have not been fully initialized by the system. This usually happens because the drive has not been turned on before powering up the computer. Installation can bypass this problem by the command line parameter "-a". Example: A:\>install -a will prevent the installation program from trying to detect your drives. You will be asked to type in the letter of the drive on which you want to install Strike Commander. 17. Saved Game Limit --------------------------- Strike Commander will only recognize the first 100 saved games in the game directory. All additional saved games are ignored and cannot be selected in the save/load menu. You may delete unwanted saved games using the DOS delete command. 18. Show Weapons ----------------------- The show weapons feature in Strike Commander will only show weapons on the player's plane and on planes that are viewed using the F6 camera. 19. Soundblaster auto-detection -------------------------------------- If you have a Soundblaster with an IRQ setting other than 7, the install program will incorrectly auto-detect it as an Adlib card. To avoid this problem, make sure you explicitly select the Soundblaster sound card option during the install program. 20. Creating a Boot Disk ------------------------------- You may need to add lines to the basic boot disk CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT for Strike Commander to support certain sound cards, game cards and other hardware. Consult your documentation for these products. 21. QEMM's OPTIMIZE program ---------------------------------- Some versions of QEMM's OPTIMIZE program add lines to the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT which may cause problems with Strike Commander. If you experience problems after running this program, your old CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are stored in CONFIG.QDK and AUTOEXEC.QDK. Copy these files over the new CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. 22. DOS 5.0 SMARTDRV.SYS ------------------------------- Strike Commander does not support the SMARTDRV.SYS that comes with some versions of DOS. It does support SMARTDRV.EXE which comes with Windows 3.0 or better. 23. Re-Installing ------------------------ Should you find it necessary to re-install Strike Commander, we recommend that you first delete all the files in the Strike Commander directory except the files with the .SAV extension (these are your saved games). The install process will not write over them. 24. Strike Commander and DOS 6.00+ ----------------------------------------- Although the Installation guide says that it is necessary to re-install Strike Commander if you have first installed the game with version 5.00 and then changed DOS versions to 6.00+, this is no longer necessary. However, since further versions of DOS may cause configuration problems, we recommend that you go ahead and re-install the game if you have any trouble running Strike Commander. 25. If You Still Have Trouble... --------------------------------------- If you call Customer Service with a problem, please have the following information handy: - A listing of your CONFIG.SYS (either from the boot disk or your hard drive. - A listing of your AUTOEXEC.BAT. - The information you get when you type the DOS command "mem". If you cannot be near your PC when calling Customer Service, please have print outs of this information. Customer Service needs this information to properly diagnose and correct the problem you are having. =============================================================================