PC PowerPlay 22

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-------------------------------------------------- BATTLECRUISER:3000AD PATCH UPDATE -------------------------------------------------- ************************* NOTE **************************** 1. THE US AND UK BASE PATCHES ARE DIFFERENT. BE SURE TO GET THE VERSION OF THE PATCH THAT WAS WRITTEN FOR THE PRODUCT YOU OWN. ONCE YOU HAVE APPLIED THE BASE VERSION, ALL INCREMENTAL VERSIONS ARE FOR BOTH US AND UK PRODUCTS. 2. UNTIL THE DEVELOPMENT OF BC3K IS COMPLETED, ALL PATCHES WILL DELETE PLAYER RELATED PROFILES. SAVED GAMES ARE NOT BACKWARD COMPATIBLE EITHER. 3. PATCHES WILL ONLY WORK WITH FULL OR PARTIAL INSTALL 4. AFTER DOING A FULL INSTALL, YOU CAN SAVE ABOUT 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 OF THE GAME. *********************************************************** THIS PATCH WILL UPDATE THE FOLLOWING VERSIONS OF BC3K v1.00 (US retail) - 10/01/96 (FULL or MEDIUM install) v1.00 (UK retail) - 03/07/97 (FULL or PARTIAL install) LIST OF CURRENT BATTLECRUISER:3000AD PATCHES/FILES [INCREMENTAL PATCHES] BC3KUSD6.ZIP -> BC3K v1.00 to v1.01D6 (US VERSION) BC3KUKD6.ZIP -> BC3K v1.00 to v1.01D6 (UK VERSION) BC3KD6A.ZIP -> BC3K v1.01D6 to v1.01D6A BC3KD7.ZIP -> BC3K v1.01D6A to v1.01D7 BC3KD7A.ZIP -> BC3K v1.01D7 to v1.01D7A BC3KD7B.ZIP -> BC3K v1.01D7A to v1.01D7B BC3KD7C.ZIP -> BC3K v1.01D7B to v1.01D7C [FULL PATCH] BC3KUSD7.ZIP - BC3K v1.00 to v1.01D7C (US VERSION) BC3KUKD7.ZIP - BC3K v1.00 to v1.01D7C (UK VERSION) ***************************************************************** [INSTRUCTIONS] 1. Do a NEW install of the game and leave the cd-rom in the drive * If install does not work, use the text version by typing INSTALL t * If you have a problem installing under WIN95, try the text version or boot up in MS-DOS mode 2. Apply the patch by unzipping it into the BC3K directory and running the included batch file. 3. Once the install is finished, you will be required to set up your sound card. Do so and be sure to test it. If your sound card does not work in the SETUP program, it won't work in BC3K. Later, you can change your sound card again by running SETUP. 4. If you are applying the FULL patch, type UPDATEUS x or UPDATEUK x depending on the version of the D6 patch that you have. Substitute x for your cd-rom letter. Do NOT include the colon. The patch will copy some files from the cd-rom to your hard drive. Once it's finished, you can delete the files in the ANIM directory to save 64MB disk space. 5. If you downloaded any other incremental patch, you can now unzip it into your BC3K directory and overwrite any existing files if prompted. Apply the patch by running the batch file provided. 6. You can now run the game by changing to the BC3K install directory and typing BC3000AD. * If the game refuses to start, please refer to the BC3KHELP.TXT file included in the patch. The most likely culprits are your sound and video cards. Sometimes, lack of disk space for a FULL install may also play a part in mishaps. If you are low on disk space, delete the files in the ANIM directory BEFORE applying the patch. * Be sure to print out the BCKEYS.TXT for updated key commands. The KEYBOARD.DOC file in the BC3KNDX.ZIP file is identical. 7. The manuals are contained in BC3KMAN.ZIP and BC3KNDX.ZIP. You will need Acrobat v3.01 (www.adobe.com) to read them. Create a DOCS subdirectory from your BC3K install directory, ie md C:\BC3K\DOCS and unzip all the files in there. You can then load them from within Acrobat. ***************************************************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.0 PATCH 09/11/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 Support for 70 video card chipsets. Use bc3000ad /v? command to see options 002 Probes can now be detached causing them to be destroyed and a slot made available for a replacement. Select the desired probe and send it the 'DETACH' command. 003 Multi-Lingual support. This is NOT included in this patch and can only be obtained from the publisher. Supported languages are French, German, Italian & Spanish. 004 Extensive speed optimizations and improvements in all renderers 005 The planetary object is now rendered using triangles and supports high res or high definition textures. In order to keep the patch file down, only the Sol system has high res map support. You can download high-res map support file (BC3KMAPS.ZIP) when it becomes available. This will provide high-res map support for all planets and removes the cloud cover from planets which do not require them. 006 Since all the rendering modes are now perspective correct, the CTRL+t command is now obsolete. These have also been removed from CONFIG 007 Rendering options have been revised in CONFIG. Refer to manual for an explanation of the new options. The patch file will delete this file and allow BC3K to create a new one on startup. Go to CONFIG and change your settings as desired. 008 Complete manual in Adobe Acrobat format now available. The BC3KMAN.PDF file requires the Acrobat 3.0 reader available at www.adobe.com. Once you install Acrobat, you can load this file and view or print it. 009 Cloud layers implemented with view fogging at cloud layer. Further optimization is required to reduce speed drop when banking at certain angles 010 You can now turn shadowing on/off for the planet's external view 011 Revised ship cloaking effect. It is now transparent. Try it against the backdrop of a planet or from any turret view. 012 Implemented lens flare effect complete with solar white-out. Watch for spectacular effects during flybys, view controls and in tacOPS view modes. 013 The planet surfaces are now segmented into friendly, neutral and hostile regions based on alien nation and castes. 014 Keyboard commands modified. Please refer to new BCKEYS.TXT or Appendix A of the manual for new commands. 015 Intruders will no longer beam onto the ship if it is FULLY cloaked 016 Revised object explosions. Still needs some synchronization 017 Revised jump gate object 018 Tilt control added to external views and tacOPS, tilt adjusted by INS and DEL on the numeric keypad. 019 External F8 & F10 view keys now toggle between LOCKED/FLOATING camera modes 020 As of v1.01D.0, save game files are now backward compatible ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.1 PATCH 09/13/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 021 Disabled ships (grey) will no longer be able to hyperjump 022 Fixed COMMLINK access bug introduced in multi-language support 023 Fixed Radar Mask text error introduced in multi-language support 024 Interceptor shields now set to max at XC launch 025 Problem with ai ships being unable to jump D.2 [9.14.97] 026 Fixed HUD weapon selection corruption 027 Fixed GPF in Tactical weapons view 028 Removed all OTS weapons from BC default startup weapons list D.3 [9.16.97] 022 Xtreme Carnage scripts updated to be more streamlined and better structured like the ACM ones 023 Experience points are now used to keep score in Xtreme Carnage. You can gain and lose experience points based on the destroyed target. Now compete against your friends for who has the highest level score. 024 Xtreme Carnage level info is now displayed in the CVD. Like ACM, is shows the start, completion and down time for each level. (Pending: Need to remove ACM STATUS heading in translation) 025 Xtreme Carnage now has a bonus Level 11 which runs free form with active active threat auto-generation for a period of 24 hrs before shutting down. 026 XC now has high-res map support. Also changes names of two planets. 027 Split Neptune space region into three parts 028 Fixed tacOPS surface mode probe menu mis-alignment 029 Fixed tacOPS 'zoom back/rtb' menu bug 030 Fixed tacOPS shuttle tow menu (feature itself does not work yet) 031 If a player ship is towing another and it docks with the BC, the towed object is updated so that it no longer thinks it is towed. 032 FATAL system now maintains LOCK on a target if the target leaves HUD FOV (Bug: leaves "sticky mtds" on display in some situations though). This means that once you achieve a LOCK on the target, FATAL will now launch a missile when it comes within range. You no longer have to orient the ship in order to maintain lock, FATAL does this automatically as part of it FAst Target Acquisition and Lock technology. (Pending: Need to suppress weapons list so that only STS missiles are displayed). 033 Corrected lens flare annulus shape 034 Synchronized explosions with differential time release playback. You've GOT to see this to believe what I've gone and done. After redoing explosions for over 200 objects, you'd _better_ like it. 035 Fixed problem with Saturn map disappearing. 036 View updates (some may be removed and moved into Battlecruiser Commander. These ONLY work in debug mode) The engine supports the following types of views: TACOPS : (various) INTERNAL: FRONT WITH COCKPIT FRONT CLEAN REAR LEFT RIGHT TURRET EXTERNAL: SEARCHING LOCKED FLOATING TRACKING SPECTATOR TWIN OBJECT Explanation of the EXTERNAL views: SEARCHING This mode is used when switching from one subject to another (modified) the camera shifts location smoothly between objects. It is not selectable or controllable by the user. LOCKED This view fixes the camera with respect to the object. The user (old) can control the position (pitching/yawing/distance). The camera always points towards the object. The view of the object is not effected by orientation of that object. Toggled with FLOATING using F8. FLOATING This is similar to LOCKED except that the camera is always (modified) "upright" so that if the ship rolls, this is visible from the camera view. The user can control the position of the camera distance and yaw. "pitch" now effects the cameras elevation wrt the object and is not effected by object orientation. The camera always points towards the object. Toggled with LOCKED using F8. TRACKING This is used for flybys. The camera tracks the object, but it (old) does not move with the object. The user has no control over the camera, and the camera is always upright. SPECTATOR This view also has a fixed camera position. but the user (new) can control the direction the camera looks in and zoom in/out. It is similar to the basic tacops view. TACTICAL/ The most flexible of the external views. Two objects are INVERSE - used, object1 and object2. This view constantly tracks TACTICAL both objects so that irrespective of their orientation and (new) position, they are always in the centre of the display. Object1 appears closer than object2 (and may obscure it), the user can change the only distance of the camera to object1. The camera is always upright. This is similar to a "padlock" view, except it is external to the object. TACTICAL views are selected when you cycle through the views with repeated use of the F8 and F10 keys. The sequence is: LOCKED TACTICAL FLOATING INVERSE TACTICAL This sequence is designed so that double presses of F8/F10 toggle you easily between the two tactical modes in the heat of battle. When F8 is used, TACTICAL views relate to the players ship and it's CVD target. When F10 key is used, the tactical views relate to the players ship, it's CVD target and *that targets* target. The latter allows you to observe another ship and see how it behaves wrt it's objective irrespective of yourself. "Target" here refers to the flight objective of an object. Eg: an escort ship might switch flight objectives between a threat and leader. Note that if any object is assigned to a TACTICAL view and there is no object target, the view reverts to a LOCKED view, the TACTICAL view will be automatically re-establised when the object selects a target. Orbiting structures (such as stations and ODS) do not select targets. They may select multiple targets for turrets but that doesn't count as a "target" in this sense. Use arrow keys to shift the closer object away from the screen center. HOME/END/PGUP/PGDN move the viewpoint away from the object per usual. Numeric keypad 5 resets the view. The default setup has the closer ship 1/4 of the way up from the bottom of the screen. Example: 1. Run game with /d1 /q to disable autogeneration 2. Start new game (Free flight) and launch BC 3. Use Tactical to assign an FE to SC1 4. Press a to turn off BC auto-pilot 5. Press 0 to disengage engine and halt the BC 6. SHIFT-P to Enter Perscan wait for the FE to enter the shuttle 5. Press ESC to return to the bridge 6. Launch SC-1 with ALT-F5 7. Switch to SC-1 with ALT-F5 8. Press . three times to target the BC from the shuttle 9. Press f to assign the BC as the FP target for the shuttle 10.Press a to engage autopilot shuttle will now fly a pattern around the BC 11.Press F1 to remove cockpit and external view diagnostics 12.Press F8 twice to select external TACTICAL view Sit back and watch, after a few passes you'll see what the view is doing. Note: the SC is better for this demonstration than the IC, IC flight dynamics are too crisp, it accelerates too rapidly to clearly see what's happeming, and it may illustrate certain weaknesses in it's flight model. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.4 PATCH 09/21/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 037 In XC, the ACM status has now been corrected to read, LEVEL. Other ACM specific info removed. 038 The target filter in the IC pilot CVD has been reformatted. It was also removed from the co-pilot's RSA system 039 Fixed a bug which caused the laser animation to remain active even after the fragmentation animation was played. 040 EPs now awarded for destroying ground objects 041 Synchronized explosions completed for all objects 042 Fixed a bug in XC which caused the game to crash when IC was destroyed 043 Fixed a script bug in XC which caused script events to fall through 044 In XC the COMMLINK will now be displayed when a new level is activated 045 FATAL has been revised as follows: - Uses only Vagrant and Ralix missiles. If you don't have these in the weapons bay, then you will not see any in the weapons selection list - Only cruisers and carriers can carry these two missile types though you can arm your interceptors with them. If you see one of these missiles headed your way, it's curtains. - These two missiles are expensive, huge and very, very deadly. Check the updated WEAPONS.DOC or TRADECOM for info. - When you designate a FATAL target with d, you no longer have to get a valid lock in the MTD. FATAL will maintain it's internal memory lock and fire the missile once the target comes within it's parameters ie lock time and range. - You can designate any number of missiles to a target - You CANNOT manually launch missiles that have been assigned to FATAL. You will have to cancel the target which causes FATAL to make the previously assigned missiles available to the weapons launch system. - Once the target is designated, you can pretty much forget about it and let FATAL do it's job. This is keeping with the functionality of the PTA system which controls the turrets in a similar fashion 046 TACTICAL/INVERSE-TACTICAL views revised. See # 036 above. 047 You can now cycle targets in external views using the . and , keys 048 Been playing around with the music - again -. It seems to work ok but still has some quirks: When current song is finished, it won't restart. You have to go into CONFIG and turn MUSIC on/off again. Also, it should play a new song each time you jump. This seems to work. Sometimes, the game will hang when launching on jumping. If this happens with music ON, it means it crashed when trying to load a new song. If this happens often, go into CONFIG and turn music OFF. To have music, you must run SETUP.EXE from DOS and activate your MIDI device. Test it to make sure your sound card works! 049 Implemented a new 'hit' soundfx. This will be played when you or target are hit by laser. It's not perfect yet but it'll do for now. This sound is only played when you hit a target with shields. Once the shields are breached, you should hear a different sound. Remember, the sound environment is distance cued (even for cameras) therefore the playback volume is dependent on your distance to the target. rtPatch refused to build a patch for BC3LIB5A.RES (28MB) after several hours, so I modified the code to use the HIT1.WAV file from the current directory. Since I have no way around this problem, it will remain this way for all patches distributed on-line. 050 Changed the soundfx that was used when a target was destroyed or hit after a shield breach. The sound file was already in the resource file, I just changed it. This one is more sublte and not as raspy as the one that is being used in prior versions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.5 PATCH 09/24/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 051 Fixed a bug which caused a crash in the INVERSE-TACTICAL view 052 Fixed incorrect damage factor for Vagrant missile in Tactical 053 Fixed Roster STATS 'experience point' misalignment 054 The ATV was incorrectly configured with shields (manual has been updated) 055 Fixed a problem in the animation renderer which caused a random GPF crash when animations such as explosions, jump anomaly etc were played * reproducing this and fixing it was a beauty 056 Pressing SHIFT+t in debug mode will no longer declutter the TTD as well 057 Fixed ATV menu misalignment 058 Tractoring an object multiple times is no longer allowed. If you try to tractor an object that's already tractored, you will get a red flash X 059 Docking with the BC with one of your ships in tow, will leave the towed ship behind. To tow the second ship, use the BC tractor beam. You will then be prompted to bring the ship in if you wish. 060 Changed XC weapons rearm to include space missiles only ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.6 PATCH 10/10/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 061 Fixed problem with co-pilot Systems Status Display 062 Fixed SAVE/RESTORE bug (again) 063 The v key will now view the current object in any mode 064 Explosions are now time based to make them less frame rate dependent 065 In debug mode, the A/B and R/R were excessively powerful. They are now only this powerful if the current CVD target is a planet or moon. 066 ***WORK IN PROGRESS*** Implemented new momentum based collision detect for ships, lasers, missiles You can now creep up on a large target without fear of the old Take 2 implemented collision detect, prematurely bouncing you away from the object. Notes: - Lasers pass through lasers - Missiles can be hit by missiles and by lasers (both blow up immediately but see blast notes) - Ships can collide with ships (both effected by momentum of collision, recovery is slow). Collision damage is applied to both. - Ships can be hit by missiles (ship momentum effected by blast, recovery is slow). collision and blast damage is applied to ship. - Ships can be hit by lasers (ship is destabalised (stunned) by hits if shields are down). - If the players ship collides with an object a collision sound is played. - Collisions result in spin applied to objects. 067 Final version of revised Xtreme Carnage 068 **WORK IN PROGRESS** Proximity explosions has been implemented. When an object explodes, it produces a shockwave which can damage any objects within it. The object disintegrates in 3D polygonal objects which are dynamically textured using the object's texture maps. These fragments will will fly at random speeds and random spin. Shockwave blasts from exploding objects will damage nearby objects and cause a chain reaction if any object that's hit, also explodes. Missiles and laser are unaffected by shockwave blasts. [currently, the 3D fragments are not created] 069 Removed obsolete GALCOM database ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.6A PATCH 10/14/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 070 Soundfx changes: - If your ship gets hit when your shields are down and you take damage, a different sound is now played (GETHIT1.WAV) - If you hit a ship with it's armor breached, a sound is played (HIT1.WAV) - You will now hear shots from hostile ships firing at you and within range - You will now here turrets soundfx when ships/stations with turrets fire. This does NOT apply to your own ship! - The collision sound (CLUNK.WAV) is only played when two ships collide and you are one of them Note: A shield animation is being implemented. This will play an animation for up to 5 areas on the ship that are hit. It will be precise using the advanced collision detect routines so that if you hit a ship on the left side, up to 5 animations on that side will be played. This requires new pointers in the object file. This will invalidate ALL previous saved games. 071 Powerful missiles no longer cause incorrect damage values to ship systems 072 You can now test the FRENCH.LNG, GERMAN.LNG and SPANISH.LNG by putting them in the current directory (NO need to delete ENGLISH.LNG) and using the debug command to enable it, ie /l? parameter. ?=1-5 for the language used. !You CANNOT change languages mid-stream, ie start with English and then change to German but use the English game that was in progress. Note: Only the game kernel text is translated in this file. I cannot send out the scripting and frontend text (menus already translated) to translate until the project is FINISHED. This will be added to the end of the .LNG file once no more text changes are required ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.7 PATCH 10/27/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 073 Soundfx changes: - A sound is played if your shields are hit. - ATV now has it's own engine sound. Thanks Pandora! - Fixed a bug which would cause the game to crash when it tried to play a new MIDI song at launch or when the ship jumped to a new region. - MIDI volume levels can be increased by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-. - MIDI volume levels can be reduced by pressing CTRL-SHIFT-, * Quite recently, a bug was discovered which prevented the system from playing a song when the current one was finished playing. This is no longer a bug in the system but a problem in the file format. The original songs were composed in MIDI format and converted to the SOS .HMI format for playback by the Take 2 musician. Since I don't have the original MIDI files, we can't fix them. There is no utility to convert from HMI format back to MIDI, so that won't work either. I am still figuring out how to solve this problem. * In lieu of the above, you can now have your own MIDI music. Locate your own MIDI files and use the MIDI2HMI utility available at the web site, to convert them to the SOS .HMI format. Typing the name of the program will reveal the options though you don't need to use any of them. Once you've converted the files, you can use the WIN95 utility in the MIDIPLAY.ZIP file, to play and test them. If they play correctly, then they will play fine in BC3K. The files must be named RUNTIMEx.HMI where x can be from 1-9. Once you've converted and named the files, copy them to your BC3K directory. The game will then use them instead of the onces in the BC3LIB6.RES file. To revert to the originals, simply delete the .HMI files you created. 074 In game French, German, Spanish translation supported completed. BC3K will now load the appropriate image & sound resource file based on the installed language. This feature is NOT supported in patches and will only be available in the retail v2.0 for European markets. Some internal messages are not yet translated, nor are the scripts (last on the list) 075 The French and German soundfx are in BC3LIB5B.RES and BC3LIB5C.RES. The frontend images are in BC3LIB1B.RES and BC3LIB1C.RES. This is for testers only since only the retail v2.0 will have multi-lingual support. The patches will NOT have multi-lungual support. To use these files, simply download the above files and unzip them into your BC3K directory. Then use the /l? commandline to activate the desired language. Make sure that the FRENCH.LNG and GERMAN.LNG files are also present in the directory. 076 Objects in orbit will no longer try to flee if badly damaged 077 You can no longer tow an object that is in orbit 078 If one object tows another, collision detect is disabled between the two 079 Missiles can no longer be destroyed by lasers. Mines still can. Weapons launched from the same ship cannot collide with each other unless one is a mine and the other is a missile. 080 A cargo pod can no longer be collected if it is blowing up. This used to cause a GPF if a shuttle was en-route to collect it. 081 AI ships will no longer dock or rtb with a target that is blowing up 082 Scripting changes: - Fleeing objects now fire the NOEXIST event and clear the EXIST flag when they disappear. 083 Xtreme Carnage changes: At the end of every level when XC_INIT is called... - all values are re-initialised - shield/engine/laser/afterburner/reactor are reset to 100% efficiency - IC armor/fuel are set to default values - IC fuel is set to default value - pilot/copilot FF & LF are set to 100% - display rolling/cramping anomalies (due to damage) are repaired 084 You no longer need to lower shields/weapons when docking. When you launch these values are what they were on docking. 085 The visual range of dynamic objects and lasers has been increased 086 Dynamic objects will stop maneuvering if they are exploding 087 Added fragmentation option to CONFIG Explosion fragments are now debris objects or lasers. Size/speed and spin of debris fragments is determined by size of object. All types cause damage if they impact a ship. Exact type is chosen at random. If an exploding object is textured, fragments use those textures. If the object is a missile, laser fragments only are used. 088 An object with a rebuild time will no longer vanish when destroyed. It will be visible (but not targetable), and will show varying degrees of gridwork depending on how much time remains before the rebuild timer expires causing the object to be completely visible and active once again. To test this, start in debug mode (/d1), target GHQ, switch to the F10 external camera, adjust the view as necessary and destroy it with ALT+X In the interest of gameplay, max rebuild time is 8 hrs and min is 1 min. Starstations have the longest rebuild time of 8 hrs. Buildings vary. The max rebuild time will be reduced upon majority request. * Note: Rebuild will be implemented for carriers, cruisers and transports so that the carcass will remain for a short period before being finally destroyed and removed a random time later. This means that after a huge skirmish, you could basically turn a space region into a ship graveyard. * At the moment collision detect is disabled for a destroyed object that is being rebuilt. Later, this will be enabled and special color bleep in the TACSCAN will be used to identify these type of objects. 089 CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-S attempts to restart the sound when you lose it under OS/2 090 The system will now check the active state for an interceptor before it broadcasts a message from the pilot to prevent sending messages though docked. 091 More work on collision detect/avoidance. ---work in progress--- and getting there. AI ships may behave strangely in this work in progress. 092 Probes in SCI-LINK mode will no longer report laser shots 093 The support ship menu is now available in the tacOPS computer 094 The support ship menu is now accessible from any ship, however, you will only be able to launch ships from the Battlecruiser. All other command work as normal. 095 The 3D object for personnel, ATV, drone will no longer be removed unless there was a successful transfer. 096 Restored the missing frame for the Navitron computer 097 Changes in CO-PILOT cockpit - cleaned up CVD ship integrity display - moved target filter from RSA to CVD - implemented HID, damage to HID can effect it's stability - revised RSA, these depend on IC computer integrity for stable display - The thrust keys will now work from this seat 098 ILD range is now 5km, in SVGA enemy missiles are diamonds, own missiles are squares. 099 Jump time now based on engine integrity, allowing the player to overtake a fleeing ship that is jumping and wait for it to arrive at it's exit anomaly. This means that you now have a greater chance of catching a damaged ship if it decides to flee. This probably won't affect ships that are in good condition. Requires further testing/tweaking. * Note: You CANNOT find an ai ship that has jumped from one region to another via sub-space. The system removes the ship from the system so that processing for it, does not reduce the game's speed. ACM scripted ships and those in XC or FF that are created to persist, are not affected. If these jump and they are designed to persist, you should be able to located them by jumping after them. 100 The 3D objects for a drone/ATV or personnel will no longer be removed if there is insufficient space in the ATV or shuttle. 101 The HUD color is reset to default when returning to space from a planet ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.7A PATCH 10/28/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 102 Fixed yet another problem in the MIDI which would cause a strange timing effect when at the Main Menu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.7B PATCH 11/03/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 103 BCKEYS.TXT update - ALT+p now activates PERSCAN - ALT+l now launches the current probe - h now changes the HUD color - SHIFT+h now declutters the TTD - CTRL+SHIFT+. and CTRL+SHIFT+, MIDI volume controls added 104 BC EVACUATION CHANGES: - Fixed some bugs in the BC evacuation procedure - Increased the timer countdown to 2 minutes - You can use PERSCAN to see if personnel are making it to the support ships. The countdown WILL continue! - After a MANUAL or AUTO evac completes, any previously deployed ships or personnel remain where they are in the 3D world. Personnel on the BC are vectored to available ships. The status of these ships is set to EVACUATED and launched. Once the transition ends, the BC self- destructs and in some cases, the fore shell will eject though this will only happen if there are survivors that did not make it to the ships. If they survive, they too are transfered to the new BC. Sometimes if you evacuate and return to the region, you may see the eject BC shell. Once the evac transition ends, all evacuated personnel are transfered to the new BC and the ship states changed to readying as the personnel move to their stations. NO cargo is transfered during an AUTO evac. If you want to save your cargo you should use a MANUAL evac and transfer cargo to the shuttles and ATVs. - The BC fore shell is now eject during an evac or normal destruction. - GALCOM will NOT give you a brand, spanking new ship. The new ship will be slightly damaged to discourage you from scuttling their property. - If the alter-ego (you) dies in an evac, the game will end and you will be listed as killing in action. - You are only allowed to evac your BC up to three times before you are retired from active duty. - If you were under court-martial status when you evacuated, you will be sent to trial when you arrive at the starstation. 105 The Free Flight scenario has been changed so that the Earth region is free of AI entities for 30 mins. This can be used by new players in training and is based on the extensive walkthru I am in the process of writing. 106 Destroyed drones will no longer be listed as active. 107 Misc revisions: - Each person consumes 1 Nutripak per day (24 hrs) - 1 Medpak heals a person by 25% - Personnel go offstation if LF <= 90 || FF <= 10 - Personnel go to Medibay if LF <= 15 - Cloning will now take 1 hr - The mining drone will now take 4 hrs to fill to max capacity 108 Artifact revisions: - The Celestial Orb now updates LF of personnel faster. FF will not increase - The Celestial Orb will now increase personnel AI over time - JAC randomly repairs systems at the rate of 1 every 10 minutes 109 False alarms for item levels,ie nutripak, radine etc, no longer generated 110 Pilots in recovered ic evac pods will now leave once the pod docks 111 People will no longer automatically leave a shuttle when it docks. This allows you to launch/retrieve a shuttle without going through the hassles of sending personnel to it. 112 Fixed TACTICAL screen corruption if intruders make it to the Medibay. They will now be correctly listed. 113 Damaging player's ships with high impact weapons, ie Vagrant, will no longer cause screen corruptions and other anomalies. 114 Fixed screen corruption in sh->drone-unload feature 115 The required spare parts for a repair are now indicated in TRADCOM, prompting you to buy them while you're there. 116 Personnel can now make it to the ATV when sent there 117 You can now change the ATV assignment from the TACTICAL->CRAFTS->ATV screen 118 The ATV data is now consistent when accessed from the ATV screen or via the SHUTTLE screen in TACTICAL 119 You can now assign personnel to an ATV from the TACTICAL->CREW screen 120 The shuttle now has 50 units of shields and 125 units of armor. The ATV now has 50 units of shields and 500 units of armor. Note: The displays in these crafts have NOT yet been update to reflect these changes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE D.7C PATCH 11/05/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 121 MIDI music will now loop correctly 122 You will now lose 100,000 EPs if GHQ is destroyed even if Earth is not your patrol zone 123 Fixed a bug in Xtreme Carnage due to recent directory changes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C5 Fix Pack #3 04/23/97 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 FINALLY fixed this bug which prevented you from leaving nullspace. To leave, target the fluxfield in the NID, press f to lock it to the Flight Path, then press f again to program it into the Flight Path Designator. Turn your weapons systems off or the FPD won't work. You can now either engage the a/p to do the jump, or do it yourself. 002 Fixed a problem introduced in Fix Pak #2 when fixing bug #013. This caused personnel to be 'stuck' at their locations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.