PC Gamer 2.12/1997-01_Disc_2.12.iso/patches/steel103.zip/Patch.txt

Text File | 1996-10-08 | 8KB | 175 lines

                        Shattered Steel FAQ
   Advice for Shattered Steel players with Versions 1.00 or 1.01


It has come to our attention that problems have been occurring on certain PCs.
We have acted quickly to try to address as many concerns as possible;
below is a description of some of the problems that were revealed with
Shattered Steel's first version and the solutions we have devised:


1) Problems functioning in true DOS with certain CD ROM drives, causing CD
Read Errors and general crashes.  These often occur when accessing the
Holoprojector.

The above has been fixed in the Version 1.03 Patch.  The coding of the CD
Audio routines did not account for adequate variability in CD ROM access times
and as a result certain CD ROMs were not functioning optimally.


2) The movies don't seem to be smooth.

We have discovered that if you reboot the computer immediately after
installation this problem is solved.  All future movies should run smoothly.


3) Problems with auto-detection in the Soundset sound setup utility.

The auto-detection process is quite difficult and thus many users may find
that incorrect sound card or settings are created.  Always test the sound
afterward to verify that it is working.  If you change from Win95 to DOS often
the IRQ and DMA settings are often re-mapped, so watch for this.  If the game
appears to hang during start-up try turning off the sound to see if it still
works.  If it does work you likely set the sound card up incorrectly.

If you are using the Auto-detection feature be sure that you start with it set
to "No Digital Device" before you auto-detect.


4) Problems setting up MIDI music.

Shattered Steel doesn't use MIDI music; instead it uses direct CD Audio.
Some people may find that they don't seem to get any music.  There are two
reasons for this.  The first reason is that some CD ROM drives aren't plugged
into the sound card internally and require external speakers.  The second
reason is that the CD Audio is turned off in the Ssteel.ini file
(See Appendix A - The SSTEEL.INI File for more information on this).
We discovered that performance is sometimes hampered on machines with 8MB and
CD Audio;  for this reason on these machines the CD Audio is off.  You may
turn it on if you wish.


5) Problems with Installation.

The installation program sometimes seems to run out of memory space and the
user gets a message like "unable to malloc() memory."  This most often occurs
with large, huge or massive installations and most commonly in DOS.  If you
have Win95 try installing it through Win95 as it seems to be more consistent.
If you continue to have problems see the end of this document on how to
contact Interplay's customer support for further advice.


6) Shattered Steel and Kali

There has been limited testing to date for Shattered Steel and Kali.  If any
fixes are required they will show up in future patches.



General Game Tips and Info - The purpose of this section is to add some
documentation to specific procedures which may not be adequately discussed in
the manual or help files.

1) Saving and Loading Games in Multiplayer

Players are able to save and load games in Multiplayer Co-op between missions.
When a player saves a game only his or her personal information is saved, none
of his allies information is saved.  We recommend that all players save
frequently to maintain the advancement of their Runners and weapons.

Another interesting feature we have implemented is that you can join a Co-op
game which you have never been a part of, load a single player save game to
get more advanced Runners and weapons that you have earned in Single player
and play with your friends.  Currently you are prevented from taking higher
level Runners on missions before they would normally appear in the single
player game.

Also, only the first player on the list can set which missions are active in
multiplayer.  Thus, you should designate one player to always start the games
and keep valid save games of the active missions.


2) Shattered Steel's Missions are Hard

Yes they are.  "Shattered Steel" was designed as a difficult game, so people
would get their money's worth.  If you spend $50 or $60 on a game you should
get a lot of play value out of it in our opinion.  (We made single player
anarchy for this reason).

If you are having trouble winning a mission we have the following suggestions:

a) Try setting the difficulty on EASY.  This does not make the missions simple
   but it certainly helps on difficult missions.
b) Think about how you are playing the mission;  in other words, are you
   charging directly at your target with guns blazing?  The missions were
   designed with a strategic element so the head on attack will fail.  There
   are often tricks to finishing missions that are as simple as approaching
   the enemy from behind or looking around the battlefield for a powerful
   weapon that may have been left from a previous battle.
c) Always think in terms of ammunition management - you really should usually
   have at least one energy weapon that recharges. Unless you know for a fact
   that a mission is quite short.
d) Mortars are a very important weapon, one that every veteran pilot should
   master.
e) Learn to do attack runs with the runner's head pivoted to the side, this
   makes you a moving target and will make you deadlier in multiplayer
   conflicts.



General Fixes in Version 1.03

- On game startup, several informational messages were added - including
  messages detailing  which (command-line parameters/SSTEEL.INI) parameters
  were in use.
- Copy protection now works properly with the '-nocd' option
- CD read errors (for minimum install) under DOS have been repaired
- you cannot map the enter key to any function.  It is reserved for chat mode.
- the intelligence screen would not show the Spectre, this has been resolved.
- The "F9" key toggles the screen resolution (320x200/640x480)



Network Play Fixes in Version 1.03

- Weapon packets were redesigned, to lessen the chance of duplicate weapons
  appearing in anarchy
- Improved network synchronization
- Computer-controlled players (added in the voting screen) will now never
  attack a teammate (this happened in some cases)
- Joining non-team anarchy game bugs have been fixed



Appendix A - The Ssteel.ini File

The Ssteel.ini file is a simple text file that can be edited by programs such
as DOS edit.exe or common word processors.  If you do edit the ssteel.ini file
make sure that you save it as a plain text file and not in another format.

This file contains important information about a number of the functional
parameters in Shattered Steel.  They are detailed below:

-nopoll   : If this command appears in the ssteel.ini file the CD ROM Player
            will not poll to see if the CD ROM has stopped or a song is over.
            Turn this off if the music has a "broken-record effect" or you feel
            that there are other problems with reading the CD.

-nocd     : If this command appears in the ssteel.ini file the CD Audio will
            not play at any time.  Use this command if you find that your
            machine functions poorly with the CD Audio and that trying the
            -nopoll command did not help.

-no640    : This command turns off high resolution modes.  Shattered Steel's
            memory requirement varies during gameplay and as a result
            sometimes more than 8 MEG is used.  If you have an 8 MEG machine
            this parameter will be set in the ssteel.ini file and you will not
            be able to use high resolution graphics.  You may want to try taking
            this command out to see if you can play in high resolution
            successfully if you have a faster machine with 8 MEG of RAM.

-window   : This command makes the movies appear in a smaller window on your
            monitor.  This is used if the movies play slowly even if you have
            rebooted.