PC Games.EXE 1997 July/August

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-------------------------------------------------- BATTLECRUISER:3000AD v1.01 R5C PATCH NEWS UPDATE -------------------------------------------------- ************************* NOTE **************************** 1. THE US AND UK PATCHES ARE DIFFERENT. BE SURE TO GET THE VERSION OF THE PATCH THAT WAS WRITTEN FOR THE VERSION YOU OWN. 2. UNTIL THE DEVELOPMENT OF BC3K IS COMPLETED, ALL PATCHES WILL DELETED PLAYER RELATED PROFILES AND SAVED GAMES ARE NOT BACKWARD COMPATIBLE EITHER. 3. AS OF v1.01C4, THE SMALL INSTALL OPTION IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED. PATCHES WILL ONLY WORK WITH FULL OR MEDIUM INSTALL. 4. AFTER DOING A FULL INSTALL, YOU CAN SAVE 64MB OF DISK SPACE BY DELETING ALL THE FILES IN THE .\ANIM DIRECTORY. THE ANIMATIONS WILL THEN BE ACCESSED FROM THE CD-ROM. NOTE: FILE ACCESS WILL BE SLOW DEPENDING ON THE SPEED OF YOUR CD-ROM BUT HARDLY NOTICEABLE. 5. REGARDLESS OF THE PATCH OPTION, THE CD-ROM MUST BE IN THE DRIVE AT ALL TIMES DURING OPERATION. *********************************************************** This patch will update the following versions of BC3K: with Fixpack #1 installed v1.00 (US retail) - 10/01/1996 (Requires FULL or MEDIUM install) v1.00 (UK retail) - 03/07/1997 (Requires FULL or MEDIUM install) To apply the patch, unzip this file into your BC3K install directory and run the UPDATE.BAT file. This will patch your version to the latest version of BC3K. Be sure to print out the BCKEYS.TXT for updated key commands *********************************************************** LIST OF CURRENT BATTLECRUISER:3000AD PATCHES BC3KUSC5.EXE - BC3K v1.01 C5 (US) BC3KUKC5.EXE - BC3K v1.01 C5 (UK) BC3KFIX1.ZIP - BC3K v1.01 C5 Fix Pak #1 BC3KFIX2.ZIP - BC3K v1.01 C5 Fix Pak #2 Note: Fix Packs will ONLY update prior versions, ie Fix Pak #2 will only update a version with Fix Pak #1 applied. So if you bought a new game, you have to download ALL the patches available and apply them in the PROPER sequence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C5 Fix Pack #2 04/22/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 Fixed a mouse crash bug on the bridge 002 Fixed a problem with incorrect cargo pod space calculation which would cause the shuttle to report insufficient space on some pods. 003 Fixed a bug which caused interceptor 'defend all' command to only launch interceptor 2 004 Added the probe list to the NID menu for easy manipulation. Probes should now be easy to launch from the bridge. NOTE: If you link to a probe which then gets destroyed or reaches it's jump range (all probes can jump n times), it will be detached and self-destruct to avoid capture by the enemy. If this happens when you are linked to the probe using the tacLINK feature, you will get static in ALL systems which are getting data about the region the probe is in. This includes (a) bridge (b) TACSCAN and (c) tacOPS You can remove this by selecting another probe or cancelling tacLINK. For those of you who don't know how to. You can launch a probe to a space region and get data about that region though the ship is not in there. BRIDGE: Select a jump anomaly in the NID computer. Once launched, click again in the NID and select the launced probe. Then click on jump at and select a 'navigation' target, ie Mars. The target for the probe will change to the new region. Probe will start to broadcast at launch and will continue doing so from the new region. You can now actually select & view targets in that region by linking to the probe by selecting it again in the NID and selecting the tacLINK program. If the probe is going into a hostile region, you should program it for SILENT mode to avoid detection and ultimately destruction. In tacLINK mode, the TACSCAN will have a flashing dot indicating it's mode. The tacOPS computer will say tacLINK. TACOPS: Select the probe and launch it. Select it again and give it a jump anomaly. Once it jumps, put it in tacLINK mode. Experienced commanders use this method to spy in regions before actually going there. You can also move closer to the jump anomaly BEFORE launching the probe. Doing this will decrease the probe's travel time since you are closer to the selected anomaly. NOTE: A bug in the tacLINK model shows a problem where you can actually tow, dock and launch missiles at targets in the probe's region even though you're not there! 005 Launch platforms (stations) will now have supplies (weapons/personnel/ships) replenished every 30 minutes. 006 Drone menu in SC has been restructured. DEPLOY is only available if the drone is IN the ship. Target only lists drones that are deployed and EXTRACT only allows extraction of drones in the SAME region as the ship. The player MUST use the pull-right to select which drone to retrieve. Drone menu is ineffective in space. **NOTE** You can deploy/extract drones/ATVs at any altitude until the ground control model is fixed. You cannot deploy/extract personnel at this time. 007 Reduced the size of MAX so that you get a better view of the target. 008 Implemented new animations for carriers and cruisers. 009 The shuttle orders in tacOPS have been changed so there is a seperate retrieve action for each drone, ie RETRIEVE DRONE 1, RETRIEVE DRONE 2, RETRIEVE DRONE 3, and RETRIEVE DRONE 4. 010 The MOON region is now a little safer. The occasional threat will show up. Use them for target practice because they are no match for your BC. NOTE: Some transports ARE armed. If it's red, transport or not, shoot it! 011 When I did the demo for CGW, I had to disable the intro in order to keep the demo size down. I forgot to remove this restriction in C5. I've restored it. You can play the demo if you enable it in CONFIG. 012 [`] + [TAB] control "collective pitch" in VTOL flight configuration. If a throttle axis is available, it has more authority than [`] or [TAB]. For best effect with a throttle axis, use the throttle for center trim and use the keys to adjust vertical speed. Hold down the keys to build up vertical speed. When the keys are released the vertical speed will return gradually to zero. You can also use the numeric 5 key to auto-hover. NOTE: Ground vehicles or ships when in contact with the ground are currently using an unstable kinematics model. The ATV uses a turret control method (like the decoupled IOD) that has insufficient control authority to overcome slope/gravity effects, and there is no modelling of ground friction to damp these forces, so it's somewhat similar to skidding on ice. (It occurs to me that in an ice climate, this is what is wanted if the player attempts to drive the ATV too forcefully). 013 When an Interceptor pod is ejected, it will home in on the location of the Battlecruiser and automatically dock with it. A bug was discovered which caused the surviving pilots in the pod to not be moved to the medibay once the pod was auto-retrieved. This has been fixed. 014 Reduced the firing rate for turrets. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C5 Fix Pack #1 04/17/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 Fixed a problem with collecting shuttles collecting cargo 002 Shuttles will now report if a cargo pod is empty or not 003 Updated the laser animations for ships 004 Upgraded the BC laser to Multi AXial, MAX type for increased firepower ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE 5 C PATCH 04/17/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 Player will no longer be able to dock at hostile stations 002 Trading model bugs fixed and completed. Also includes inflation bug 003 The image of external comms party is now displayed in NID 004 Auto-arm for interceptors will now replace missing weapons from BC cargo bay if available. 005 'missile pods are empty' no longer repeated by Mother and TO when missile stores are depleted. 006 Replacing a destroyed shuttle will no longer cause a GPF. Note: Could not reproduce GPF condition for interceptor or ATV 007 FF, LF and AI modelling revised and overhauled. AI should now increase at a faster rate based on person's health (FF+LF). The FF of personnel off-station should no longer increase (caused by folks not leaving their posts to get food) as personnel will now go look for food when they are hungry thereby momentarily abandoning their post. 008 A GPF will no longer occur when an RTB order is given to a ship if the BC is in a different region. 009 You should now be able to leave NULLSPACE 010 A GPF should no longer occur when selecting CONTINUE from the main menu 011 Roster will no longer display the FF if player is in ACM mode 012 Save/Restore should no longer cause a GPF 013 The docking range has been increased to 25 clicks 014 A mouse can now be used to select a destination in Navitron. LEFT-CLICK to set destination, RIGHT-CLICK to clear current map 015 Payroll, promotions and EPs have been restored in FF mode 016 The background comms chatter on the bridge can now be turned OFF in CONFIG 017 Fixed a bug which would cause invalid objects to appear in cargo pods 018 SIGNIFICANT keyboard changes. Refer to BCKEYS.TXT 019 Some control updates: - To return to cockpit view after using hat B on combat sticks operate the same hat direction twice in succession. - Button 5&6 on supported joysticks are not yet implemented - Retros (TAB key) are no longer discontinuous near 0 speed - 0 key uses R/R or A/B as needed to halt a ship so long as it is held down. 0 has no effect while MFD modes that expect numeric input (such as the radar filter) are active. - Stick FWD/BACK in VTOL mode move the ship FWD/BACK. UP/DOWN in VTOL is controlled with the throttle (or ` and TAB although this is not yet implemented). - LEFT/RIGHT ARROW now control YAW - INS/DEL now control ROLL 020 Started work on new ACM event triggers so that players don't have to hang around once an ACM scenario is completed, i.e the next one can be triggered immediately without waiting for the current one to expire. This is work in progress so expect some strange anomalies in ACM mode. However, PLEASE report them! 021 The Navitron condition will now be updated when repaired at a station. 022 A manual in Word 7.0 and Adobe Acrobat format is now available and can be downloaded at the same site where this patch was acquired. Readers are available at the following sites. 3000AD will NOT provide tech support for these readers. An ascii version of the manual is also available but does not contain any graphics. Word - http://www.microsoft.com/word/Internet/Viewer/default.htm Adobe - http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html 023 Illegal items pricing bug fixed. 024 Docking at a GALCOM facility with illegal items will result in a violation being logged on your record. All illegal items will now be confiscated. 025 New Navitron graphics. - Courtesy of Cmdr. Aaron 'Taliesin' Leiby 026 Salaries are now 50% higher in ACM mode 027 The PTA target array has been increased allowing ships with turrets, as well as stations to track up to 24 targets at a time. 028 If a missile with video logic is launched, the CVD will now activate to display the missile's video feed. This was in but Take2 disabled it for some reason. 029 Missile camera mode can now be selected using ctrl+m 030 Support Unit Locator, SUL, in TACSCAN implemented. Players were complaining about losing their units on the planet surface. The SUL mode solves this problem. Once activated using normal TACSCAN mode switch keys, the radar filter will display color coded dots representing the player's units only. This works in space, air and ground modes. You can then select a unit and fly to it using the TTD. Color codes: BC (blue), IC (cyan), ATV (green), Drone (grey), Shuttle (yellow), Probe (white), Personnel (red). This filter is also operational in tacOPS so that you can track your units when observing the surface from orbit. 031 TTD declutter mode implemented. This allows you to select the type of TTD information that is displayed. Use shift+t to toggle. full (default), TTD box only, box+apha info, box+numeric info. 032 It now takes 1 hr for a mining drone to completely fill up after being deployed. Previously it was 24 hrs. 033 The current capacity of a deployed mining drone is now displayed in Tactical. You can now figure out whether to extract the drone or not. 034 Corrected bug in Xtreme Message 'death' message 035 Revised Xtreme Carnage to conform to new advanced ACM directives. The next level is now only executed when all the hostiles in the current level are cleared. Previously, it was time driven. 036 Various anomalies in Xtreme Carnage fixed. These include menu restrictions, docking & SOS requests, logistix, navitron, roster, miscon, and tacops etc. The only available computer system is COMMLINK. 037 Personnel Scan, PerSCAN computer implemented. Activated with shift+p, this computer lets you monitor the status, location and assignment of everyone on the BC, right from the bridge. No more guessing where people are. It runs in real time so you should see the stats change. Press any key to remove it. This mode is NOT available in low res. 038 There is now a greater chance of intruders boarding the BC if a hostile transport, cruiser or carrier is in the vicinity. 039 All TACOPS object menus now have a ZOOM BACK choice (which is the default). Selecting this option will revert the view to previous one (position/orientation/zoom factor). Zooming out fully will also reset orientation to the default. In general, zoom out (right click etc) reverts to the previous view. I am not sure if this is desirable 100% of the time, but it is a lot faster and more intuitive for wide area use. The only drawback seems to be that you can't use the mouse to back out by 2 to widen the display view arc. To do this you have to use the HOME/END keys, which are actually far more precise than zoom by two. Of course, if you zoom in by 2 multiple times then zoom out will effectively zoom you out by 2. (The zoom is implemented with a stack). 040 IC bridge pullright now has explicit DEFEND BATTLECRUISER order 041 Launched interceptors should now go into SAD mode if launched without a waypoint or target. 042 You will now only have access to expanded Navigation option in tacOPS if you have the Hyperion Subspace Device artifact. Using this, you will be able to peek into regions your BC or one of your probes is NOT in. 043 Probe launch changed to ALT+p. This activates the CVD and NID if they are off. If the current NID mode is NOT Probe Relay System, PRS, ALT+p then (1) switches NID to probe view mode (2) switches CVD to target view mode (3) switches TACSCAN to space scan (3) sets NID as the current selected system (4) finds the first ready probe and makes that the current one. otherwise it launches the currently selected probe. 044 Ship launched *IN* NULLSPACE now inherit the launched platforms last charted region. This allows you to be able to leave NULLSPACE in an a ship that was launched from the BC while IN NULLSPACE. 045 Bridge ATV menus are functional and include SWITCH TO if the ATV is deployed. 046 ATV menu in SC has been restructured. DEPLOY is only available if the ATV is in the ship. SWITCH TO only lists ATV that are deployed and RETRIEVE only allows retreival of ATVs in the same region, and the player must use the pull-right to select which ATV to retrieve. ATV menu is ineffective in space. Note: A problem has been discovered when Flight Engineers or medics are on board the ATV when it is retrieved. Investigating. 047 Shuttle orders in TACOPS have been changed so there is a separate retrieve action for each ATV, ie RETRIEVE ATV1, RETRIEVE ATV2, RETRIEVE ATV3, and RETRIEVE ATV4. 048 Cheats implemented for testers and only in DEBUG mode CTRL-ALT-SHIFT 1-6: 1 - Restore all personnel to full health 2 - Restore all BC and IC systems to repaired status 3 - Maximum upgrades for reactor, shield, engine, armor 4 - Promotes to Supreme Commander 5 - Infinite weapons, full loadouts for BC and all IC's 6 - Gives all ACM artifacts 049 Earth's moon now linked to a new space region and free of hostiles. Can be used by new players for training scenarios. Use MOON jump point to jump to region. This region is the proposed training ground for creating training scenarios for the player. Savvy players can use it as a resting area as well. There is now a research station in orbit around the moon. A 'test' asteroid field is now in the region. You cannot destroy these asteroids - yet. 050 All regions with more than 5 moons have now been split up into smaller regions to speed up processing. A jump point will lead to the new regions which only contain moons. These regions include Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn etc 051 All violations are now recorded in COMMLINK 052 Game transitions revised and tested (additional testing may be required) - BC Evacuation (auto/manual) When the evacuate sequence is initiated, you can use either auto or manual evacuation and an option MUST be selected before the timer expires or it will default to auto. Auto puts all personnel and cargo in shuttles, interceptors and launches them. After the ship self destructs IF the player's alter-ego survived, ie, was NOT on the BC when it self destructed, COMMLINK is displayed and lists surviving crew members. On exit from COMMLINK, you are then taken to GHQ or the next GALCOM starstation where you are given a new ship. Only surviving crew members and cargo are transfered over. You can get a new ship up to 3 times before you are retired from active duty. There is an internal cheat which ensures that the alter-ego is always off the ship, if for some reason this fails, ie, you don't have any ships* (shuttles etc) to evac the crew, the game will enter a normal 'destroyed' state since the alter-ego will perish. If you lose your ship using this method 3 times, the next time it happens, you will be retired from active duty even if you survive. If you evacuate the ship under court-martial orders, the trial will proceed when you arrive at GHQ. If you perish, you will be listed as KIA. *In a future update, the system will beam personnel to the surface of a planet/moon in the region if there are not enough support ships on the BC to evac the whole crew. Once this happens, you will be able to get your new ship. - BC SOS tow request A tow can be requested at anytime. This takes you to GHQ or the nearest starstation for a fee since it is handled by subcontractors. Prices may vary. If you request a tow ship when under court-martial orders, the trial will proceed when the tow ship docks at a GALCOM station. If there are no functional friendly starstations available or if you don't have the funds, the SOS request will fail. You will have to keep trying until an active station is found. There is no limit on the number of times you can request a tow ship. If you call for a tow and don't have the funds (500,000), you will get a violation You will be listed as MIA until a station is found. - BC Destroyed If the BC is destroyed during combat before the evac procedure is activated, the rules for 'evac' apply. Therefore, IF the alter-ego is NOT on the ship when it is destroyed, you'll get another ship. If you survive when under court-martial orders, the trial will proceed when you arrive at GHQ. The BC or any ship is destroyed if it enters a blackhole or supernova and this can happen only from a flux-field. If you perish, you will be listed as KIA. - IC/ATV/SH destroyed If the IC is destroyed, both pilots will be killed. If the pod is ejected (under ai or manual control) first, it will seek the BC in space and dock with it. If on a planet, it will drop to the ground. On impact, 3D objects representing the pilots will be created at the crash site so that they can be rescued. Only surviving pilots will be created. If a shuttle or ATV is destroyed, all personnel on board will be killed. Evacuating the shuttle or ATV will only work on the planet and this ejects all personnel to the surface where 3D objects for them are created. Only surviving personnel are created as those without jetpacks will certainly die if you evac a shuttle in mid-air. You cannot evac a shuttle in space. - Player alter-ego states (ACT/MIA/KIA/CMA) Active - alter-ego alive and on active duty Missing In Action - no stations found after SOS call Game continues Killed In Action - alter-ego perished after BC destroyed Game ends when this happens. Courtmartialed - found guilty of GALCOM violations. Games ends if player docks at a GALCOM station once the courtmartial finds him guilty. 053 In the interest of gameplay, the rebuild time of all objects has been reduced. Surface factories will rebuild and replace installations between 30-60 mins after they are destroyed. Starstations will now be rebuilt after 8 hrs. The anti-matter reconstruction unit owned by these governments allow them to reconstruct matter from stored profiles. This allows, for instance, a station to be replaced from a stored profile. Personnel, weapons and stores are then shipped to it since these are not part of the stored profile. This is a similar process to DNA cloning used for personnel. Please don't ask how it works. I don't have a clue. All I know is, I wanted to find a way to explain why that station you destroyed an hour ago came from. Without the BC3K regeneration technology, you and other ai entities could destroy the _entire_ game world before long, leaving nothing to interact with. This technology is part of what allows BC3K to live and grow regardless of what you and your kid brother do in the BC3K world. 054 Added probes support to selectable TACOPS objects, see below for menu command capabilities. 055 Added probe launch ops to tacOPS. You can now launch probes from tacOPS and monitor progress without having to switch back/forth from the bridge. The probes are color coded as follows: RED : missing/destroyed GREEN : ready to launch YELLOW : deployed and in transit to destination WHITE : at destination MENU pullright allows: LAUNCH - Launch if ready. Once it's launched, select the probe again from the tacOPS map and give it nav orders as you would from the bridge. TARGET - Select jump anomaly launch target. You have to select one of the jump anomalies in the region and the probe will use it to jump to that region. You can repeat this and have the probe jump from region to region. If you have the HSD, you can select a jump anomaly in any region and have the probe plot it's course and navigate to the region. NORMAL - Normal ops mode. Full data Broadcast allows the probe to relay information to COMMLINK as it travels to it's destination. It will continue to broadcast until it is destroyed or programmed for silent operation. A probe in hostile territory broadcasting to your ship is like a beacon to your ship. It may get destroyed and/or cause hostile ships to vector to your location since they simply hack into the probes downlink channel and trace the transmission to your ship. TACLINK - Tactical ops mode. Link target data to TACSCAN. Once this happens, you should be able to select targets IN the probe's current region since the TACSCAN is now programmed to 'peek' into that region. You can also use the CVD to view the target. To cancel, select one of the other modes. Selecting targets in another region in this fashion allows you to launch interceptors to the target as you would if the target were in the current region. This mode can also cause the probe to be detected. SILENT - Silent ops mode. Suppresses probe's broadcast link. TACLINK will still work. VIEW PROBE REGION - Allows you to view the region the probe is in VIEW LOCAL REGION - Allows you to switch TACOPS back to your region after using the above. If probe is destroyed, the switch is automatic. 056 Allowing objects with FLYTO orders to jump at jump gates causes some problems with ai objects jumping out of region when close to a jump anomaly. Therefore, an additional JUMP menu has been added which is equivalent to FLYTO except that a jump will be performed on arrival at the jump anomaly. 057 If incoming comms with a video feed is received and the NID is off, it will be activated to show the speaker's video image. 058 10 marines are now automatically on 'prep for combat' status when a new game is started. 059 Intruders and escaped prisoners will no longer head for Medibay when they take injury from marines in 'combat kill' ai mode. They will attempt to make a run for it or stand and die like men. Previously, as soon as they got wounded, they would retreat and head for the Medibay with marines in hot pursuit. Marines usually get to Medibay first and ambush them as they enter Medibay! 060 Intruders are no longer stupid enough to beam into the troop qtrs where marines are just waiting to kick their butts. Talk about breaking into a police station. 062 Flight Engineers will now return to the Flight Deck after they finish prepping or running diagnostics on an interceptor. 063 The weapons bay and cargo bay bugs are now fixed. You will no longer be able to remove missiles from the weapons pod if you do not have space in the weapons bay to return them to. 064 A weapons bay capacity meter is now in the weapons loadout section of Tactical. 065 If an intruder makes it to the bridge and kills the alter-ego, the game will end and you will be listed as Killed In Action. 066 Increased interceptor's firing rate 067 The initial power setting for the Solar Reactor is now 5 units and the Cloaking System is 10. This means that you can now activate your Cloaking System when the game starts without going into Logistix first. 068 Reduced the cloning time for personnel from 4 hours to 15 minutes 070 The moon region link from Earth containing the Genesis training station is now free from high ai threats. This is a safe area for players to practice and 'get into the game'. The occasional auto-generated fighter threat will show up every now and again but it's nothing Genesis can't handle. You can dock with this station and do what you want. 071 "<wrong craft> AWAITING ORDERS" in tacOPS bug fixed 072 TACSCAN Support Unit Locator, SUL mode turns off in IC pilot seat if NID is made the active system. Previously this would disable all NID targets. 073 IC Profile menu pullright removed. The ability to change an IC orders is now targeted for a future release. All interceptors will now launch in Search & Destroy mode. 074 The PerScan computer has been added to the bridge systems menu. PerScan can also be removed by pressing the left mouse button. 075 The probe orders menu pullright in tacOPS now works 076 A FATAL target will no longer be designated until a weapon is assigned. 077 FPD controls changed. <f> key simply assigns Flight Path, FP, to the current target and this is shown above the heading indicator. If <f> is pressed again the FP is cleared. <shift+f> is now obsolete. The FPD is shown if there is a FP target and the weapons systems are inactive. The FPD MUST be visible to perform a region jump, this means that weapon systems *must be disarmed* in order to jump. 078 The flight path is displayed above heading in all ships (not turrets) shows the FP irrespective of the FPD display status. 079 Removed static asteroids from moon region in preparation for dynamic asteroid generation module. 080 Interceptor replacement bug fixed 081 Flight engineers will no longer go off station when they've completed the analysis of a craft 082 Marines search logic modified. They can now locate intruders and escaped prisoners more accurately. 083 Marines combat logic modified. They will now switch into combat mode if an intruder or escaped prisoner shows up at their location whether they are in search mode or not 084 An interceptor will no longer be allowed to launch if it is not READY. 085 New Battlecruiser & Interceptor laser animation. - Courtesy Cmdr. Gary 'Buzz' Eastman 086 Added a message log menu to bridge COMMLINK computer which stores the last 15 messages to be generated. 087 Added the ability to control the message delay rate in the bridge COMMLINK 088 Added a hot area for the bridge COMMLINK computer. Moving the mouse and clicking in this area allows you to (a) change the message delay rate and (b) view the last 15 messages. Works in all cockpits and turrets. 089 Added a hot area to the bridge so that the IOD settings by clicking on the IOD indicator. 090 Added a hot area to the bridge so that the cloaking system can be activated by clicking on the CLOAK indicator. 091 Fixed a bug which caused Flight Engineers to arm interceptors with missiles with AUTOARM ON even though there were no missiles on the BC 092 The fix in #091 now allows you to change the mission profile loadout for the interceptors from the CVD. By using the shift+. and shift+, commands when viewing an interceptor in the CVD, you can alter it's mission loadout profile (SAD, INTERCEPT etc) and the Flight Engineers will load the appropriate weapons on it. Refer to the manual for info on which missiles are loaded based on the profile selected. 093 Fixed a bug which made the FATAL system autolaunch a missile without a valid FATAL target if you used the <shift+w> command to select weapons 094 Fixed a bug (again) which prevented you from returning from nullspace if you jumped to the moon region. The jump point was too close to the edge of the moon region. 095 Removed invalid 'zoom back' menu option from bridge menu 096 The Research Engineer will now send a message (ai based) when dangerous minerals such as Uranium, Strontium, Kryptonium etc, are found in the cargo bay. If a combination of such minerals are present in the cargo bay (ie Strontium+Kryptonium+Uranium present), it will (a) cause a radiation leak spreading from that deck throughout the ship and (b) in large amounts, will cause an explosion large enough to cause a hull breach. 097 Xtreme Carnage stream lined 098 The Battlecruiser turrets now have Mk1 (lower firepower than Mk2) IOD laser rails. The main IOD now has dual Mk2 rails. 099 GALCOM HQ has been fitted with Mk1 IOD laser systems The defense systems, target acquisition range and lock range has been increased for all starstations. 100 In the interest of gameplay and the fact that there is no backward save compatibility (until game is finished), 15 of the ACM missions have been removed, leaving 10. They are being re-written, streamlined and tested. This means that in C5, all the artifacts are gone. I expect to have the rest of the ACM scenarios (15) back in by the next patch (D level). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE 4 C PATCH 02/04/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 Launching weapons no longer results in negative weapons bay 002 Weapons bay no longer overflows if full and a missile is removed 003 IC weapons loadout changed if waypoint assignment in tacOPS is changed though the ship is deployed and NOT on the BC. 004 Activating PTA will no longer cause missile type to change 005 XC data files are no longer saved since scenario is not saved 006 Delivery of tractored ship will now succeed at non-hostile stations (previously only Terran stations). Will not ask player for delivery instructions if the delivery is invalid. 007 If the player opts not to deliver a tractored ship, the ship is not released but remains tractored when the player leaves the station. 008 Tractored ships will now not vanish if they were fleeing and are released in a region that is not the same as the prior flee region. In this case the tractored object attempts to flee using a new escape-item in the current region. 009 AI/TACTICAL is now disabled for an object that is being tractored. Fixes problem where a disabled/tractored object "escapes" when the tractoring ship conveys it to the jump point it was trying to escape to. 010 Target TTD color is immediately restored if tractor link is lost 011 Tractored ships have additional protection from being attacked by hostiles, which will now break off if their target becomes tractored. If the attacker had STRIKE orders, orders revert to SAD. 012 TACOPS 'zoom to' list only shown in view state (otherwise it interferes with waypoint setting). 013 TACOPS 'zoom to' list is now shown after removing command palette 014 Ships will now auto-egress surface at 200,000 ft msl 015 Jump delay timer for AI ships re-enabled. Prevents ships jumping unless their jump engine has been recharged. Disabled AI ships cannot re-charge their jump engines. The lower the engine integrity, the longer it takes to recharge the jump engine. 016 Personnel image will no longer obscure tacOPS command palette 017 Mother and TO will no longer repeat weapons depleted messages 018 The game will no longer crash if the BC is destroyed due to hull breach 019 Starting XC after playing FF or ACM no longer causes lockup 020 Tradecom screen no longer corrupted when displaying cargo bay capacity 021 Joystick calibration can be dismissed using the ESC key. This forces keyboard control for the remainder of the session 022 Fixed problems with object rebuild code 023 Implemented Combat Alert Status, CAS for external threat monitoring and Ship Alert Status, SAS for internal ship alert monitoring.SAS monitors in-ship problems such as intruder alerts, escaped prisoners, reactor core breaches, radiation etc CAS is purely a tactical monitor which signals the presence of hostile forces in the space region. 024 System updates are not performed when game is frozen in tacOPS or by activating a menu choice. 025 CDROM check disabled in debug mode 026 Save game from bridge causing return to main menu modified so that calling it is not destructive (does not invalidate the current 3D world), but may cause the game to be saved multiple times if it is called more than once. Testing required. This will not not save the game if none has been loaded, but will always save the most recently loaded game. 027 BC tacOPS orders menu added to bridge menu. 028 tacOPS current Target orders menu added to bridge menu. Equivalent to entering TACOPS and clicking on a target, except it works from the BC bridge and uses the current CVD target, ie target selected in TACSCAN and identified in CVD. 029 Nullspace fluxfields programmed to work first time. Like normal jump anomalies, the target anomaly must be an FPD target using shift+f, in order for the jump to occur. 030 Can now dock at starstations Sarien and Majoris 031 Starstation Adonis correctly relocated to Pravis. 032 Updated BCKEYS.TXT 033 Fixed Fatigue Factor/Life Factor exceeding 100 (max value) 034 Fragmentation animation now being played when object hit IF it's shields are already breached and not recharging. 035 Menus are now shifted up so that all items can be accessed when pointer near base of screen. 036 Launching from station no longer raises shields. Shield state is set to it's pre-dock state. 037 You can no longer jump if the jump engines aren't fully charged. This is relaxed in debug mode for testing purposes. 038 ESC can now be used to exit to DOS during the cd-rom check screen. 039 Shuttle orders in tacOPS fixed 040 Docking range increased to 25 clicks 041 Fixed some save/load anomalies 042 Experiments on new/faster laser shots (feedback required) 042 Can now dock at starstation Parix 043 Modified AI autogeneration logic 044 Player's ship no longer subject to 'ignore' AI script command 045 More work done on save/restore model 046 Turret mappings fixed. FORE=CTRL+F1, MID=CTRL+F2, AFT=CTRL+F3 047 Update weapons specs and stats in ai script 048 Update weapon stats in Tactical database 049 Fixed interceptor docking bug (Protected Mode Error 35) 050 Interceptor will now combat in ai mode even if player IN the ship. This is a TEST and _may_ fail. I need to research it some more. You should be able to see what the ic does when it's in combat by switching to it, putting in ai mode. Make _sure_ weapon systems are armed! 051 Maximum storage (crew,cargo,personnel) updates: Cargo Cargo Weapons Weapons Personnel Reactor Shield Cloak Bay1 Bay2 Bay1 Bay2 Max Radine Plutonium Iridium ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BC 7500 7500 250 250 237 25000 10000 1000 Shuttle 2000 - - - 20 - - - ATV 500 - 10 - 4 - - - Drone 1000 - - - - - - - The drone and ATV each take up 750 units of cargo space which will reduce the cargo capacity of the shuttle they are loaded in. Radine max reduced to 25000 Iridium max increased to 1000 Shuttle capacity increased to 2000 052 An atv and drone are now loaded into all shuttles at startup 053 MIDI support removed from BC3K globally. That's the end of that. 054 Switching from a turret to a ship that is NOT ready to launch will no longer cause a GPF 055 Reduced repetition of some pilot voice messages 056 The interceptor, shuttle and ATV can now be destroyed in DIRECT mode if the integrity of the hull or reactor falls to zero at any time. 057 The interceptor pod will no longer auto-eject when the ship is destroyed when in DIRECT mode. 058 You can no longer tow invalid items such as asteroids 059 AI entities will no longer attack hazards such as asteroids etc 060 Dynamic auto-generation of ai entities will no longer occur in regions the player is not in. 061 The proper distance cued explosion soundfx is now played when an object is destroyed. 062 Race/caste alliance modifications. An object can ignore defualt race/caste relationships and treat another object as hostile. Objects launched from a platform inherit the override relationships of their platform. Example: carrier object A attacking station object B. Causes A to attack B and B to retaliate. If A then launches fighter C, then C is then hostile to B and B is additionaly hostile to C. A platform does NOT inherit the hostile relationships of its subordinates, nor do any objects attacked by a subordinate then become hostile to the platform that launched it. Hostile Override between two objects is discarded if one of the objects is destroyed or docks. Note: Hostile override as a result of friendly fire is not yet implemented. 063 Messages pertaining to events the player is not witnessing in ACM will no longer be transmitted. eg a player is sent to a region where an ACM script is running. If he's not there, messages directed at him will not be transmitted. 064 The BC will no longer be destroyed when it enters a planet. Note: Some restrictions will apply once the orbital model is in place. 065 A GPF will no longer occur when a probe is sent to a planet. Instead it will linger in the general vicinity of the planet. Once the orbital model is in, you will need a probe or the BC in orbit to do a planetary scan in tacOPS. Broadcasting for a probe on surface activities will not be supported as planned because there would be too many messages since the surface is always more densely populated than space. If it is implemented broadcasting may be restricted to the player's own ships and personnel. 066 Missiles should now hit their targets. This is work in progress as we have identified an issue where the missile will miss slow flying targets. We don't know why yet. 067 You can no longer deliver a tractored object to itself 068 You can no longer deliver an object without a positive tractor lock on 069 The aspect angle needed for ai ships to launch missiles has been increased which will increase the launch rate of ai ships. 071 The aspect angle needed for ai ships to fire lasers has been increased which will increase the firing rate of ai ships. 072 You can now select Navitron from a starstation. The menu is now fixed 073 A successful auto-evac with a surviving alter-ego will no longer call COMMLINK with an invalid parameter. Note: some additional code is required which will check for the existence of GALCOM hq _before_ attempting to relocate the player there. The system will scan for a valid GALCOM station and take the player to the nearest one. If none exist, the SOS call will fail. The player will have to hang around until one becomes available, ie repaired or rebuilt. This code will be implemented when the transitions (SEC-5 009) is being done. 074 Promotions are now disabled in Free Flight. This is going to cause a stir but in FF, you're not doing anything to get promoted for. If you want to be promoted, sign-up in ACM. 075 Payroll is now disabled in Free Flight. This is going to cause a stir but since you're out trading in FF, why should GALCOM fund your activities? Want a steady income stream, sign-up in ACM. GALCOM is a military organization and trading was included so that you could get the best of both worlds. 076 The number of digitized sound channels has been increased to minimize the likelihood of sounds not being played if there are no channels available. This is work in progress as the sound system will be overhauled for v1.1 077 All ACM scripts modified to conform to new race/alliance and other script related updates. 078 Changed interceptor laser sound to smaller version 2/5/97 - update - 079 Removed BC bridge menu from shuttle cockpit 080 Fixed problem with ship losing tractor lock. Tractor lock messages will now only play when the lock is acquired or broken. Note: If you lose power at any time when tractor beam is engaged the lock will break. 081 Increased probablity of an ai cargo pod containing objects to minimize liklihood of an empty pod being created. Note: The 'collect cargo' order for shuttles when a pod is selected will not be available if the pod is empty. 082 Removed experience point penalties in ACM for leaving a theatre before the mission time expired. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGED IN RELEASE 3 C PATCH 12/25/96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Prisoners will no longer end up in medibay when they should be in detention 2. People will no longer leave detention when they are tired or hungry. Food is now supplied directly to the detention hold. 3. Speed at which personnel move about the ship increased. 4. Marines will now follow 'searching' orders killing any detected intruders or escapees (based on ai and other factors) 5. You can now assign anyone to the detention hold. 6. The Fatigue Factor of people in detention hold will no longer increase. 7. It is no longer possible to launch an interceptor if the pilots are not physically 'located' in it. An 'assignment' does NOT mean that the pilot in actually in the ship since he may be assigned to it but in transit. 8. A shuttle now requires at least one person to be in it in order to launch 9. Retrieving interceptors no longer causes a crash. 10. Changes (general) personnel eat 1 nutripak per day 1 medpak increases a person's LF by 25% personnel will go off-station if LF >= 90 or FF >= 10 personnel will go to medibay if LF <= 15 11. Changes (rank) Salaries are now paid every 7 days instead of 15 Rank Salary Experience Points required ------------------------------------------------------ Supreme Cmdr 500,000 200,000 Tacops Cmdr 300,000 100,000 Strategic Cmdr 200,000 50,000 Fleet Cmdr 125,000 25,000 Commander 75,000 0 12. Changes (HUD) The FTOL/VTOL modes in the HUD have been changed FTOL - when airborne and in normal flight mode VTOL - when airborne and in vtol flight mode BRAKE - when stationary on planet surface TAXI - flashing when touching the planet surface and moving XXXX - when engine is shutdown ORBIT - when in orbit 13. The BC will now be destroyed if hull integrity falls to 0 14. Experience points and finances are now awarded for delivering various types of ships to friendly stations. Gammulan ships have the highest price, next to insurgents, then any hostile ship. Delivering friendly disabled ships gives higher experience points than finances. 15. Palette problems in tacOPS and PTE surface fixed 16. Jump anomaly offset bug fixed 17. The game will end if the player's alter-ego ever dies, ie FF =< 0 18. Clicking outside the PTE surface in tacOPS will no longer create a GPF The tacOPS grid is scaled so it does not exceed a planet/moon climate limit Some planets/moons may be larger than the tacOPS coordinate system, so the grid has an upper limit. 19. Buildings and all objects can now be destroyed on the PTE surface 20. The Combat Kills attributes for pilots is now updated during combat 21. Alliances are now saved 22. The ship will no longer move backwards after jumping to a new region 23. Ships can now fly to planetary waypoints set in tacOPS. Note: A last minute bug was detected which caused the ship to drop to the surface under gravity and take damage based on altitude. Once this ship falls, it may not be able to leave the surface since it will not be able to achieve enough thrust to breach the planet's escape velocity. If this happens, you may have to manually fly the ship back to the battlecruiser. 24. Ships will no longer take damage when flying planetary waypoints since waypoints are now pegged above the surface. 25. Joystick calibration no longer has any effect if device is not a joystick 26. Weapon systems no longer disarmed during hyperjump, ie PTE remains active 27. The engine sound will no longer 'pulse' during hyperjump transitions 28. The alert condition now flashes red. If hostiles are in the region, the alert condition is set to red and the klaxxon sounds 3 times. This check is performed every 2.4 secs for the region the battlecruiser is currently in. 29. It is no longer possible to tow targets in orbit. Those of you who have been pilfering starstations had better find something else to steal. 30. Ships emitting an SOS signal will no longer be attacked by alien nations who observe the rules of engagement. 31. Personnel messages are now integrated into ACM scripts. This is a first pass test in order to see if the player can benefit from the added info that his crew has access to. However, the person must be on station. All messages are sent to the COMMLINK log. 32. The ACM mission status can now be accessed via the bridge menu 33. Pause <pause> command has been changed to <ctrl+p> 34. Debug <ctrl+alt+a> mission bypass had been disabled in distribution version 35. MTD bug which caused GPF crash in FATAL has been fixed 36. The altitude lines in tacOPS are no longer displayed if TTDs are off 37. During auto evacuation, if the alter-ego cannot make it to a shuttle, he will die when the ship self-destructs and the game will end. 38. Dead officers will no longer send messages 39. The Chief Engineer will now eject the reactor core during a severe breach regardless of his ai level 40. The Orbit To Surface acquistion count-down time in tacOPS is now fixed. Once the countdown expires, the weapon will lock. Once launched, switch to the bridge, select the missile in the TACSCAN computer, press F10 to switch to the external camera and follow the missile to the surface. If jammed or shot downit will not reach it's target. If the target acquisition reticle is too large, zoom the tacOPS view. 41. The battlecruiser 'destroyed' sequence will no longer loop 42. The cd-rom is now required to be in the drive during game execution 43. Several ACM scripts updated for playability 44. More work done in perspective correct texture mapping. Select from CONFIG menu or with <alt+shift+p>. It's a little slow and needs more optimizing. 45. Several speed related enhancements and minor bug fixes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGED IN RELEASE 2 C PATCH 11/13/96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE 1 C PATCH 11/06/96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.