PC PowerPlay 29

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========================================= BATTLECRUISER:3000AD LIST OF BUGS & FIXES ========================================= Last Updated : 07-01-98 Author : Derek Smart, Ph.D [Project Manager/Lead Developer/Designer] Lead Tester : Robert 'Pandora' Hentsche Public Version : v1.01D7C - 11-03-97 v1.04B - 03-18-98 (3DFX only for free v1.01D7C) v1.07D - 07-01-98 Testers Version : v1.07D - 07-01-98 * = Fixed ? = Could not reproduce $ = No bug ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION 1 REPORTED BUGS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 Surface dynamic entities (i.e with ai) flying due to ai parameters being misinterpreted. SAMs, SALs etc which are 'dynamic' entities because they have intelligence, are flying because they share the same/similar ai as objects that _do_ fly, ie spacecraft. Requires are separate parameter in their ai flag which anchors them to the surface and prevents them from taking off. 002 Ship radiation flag not being cleared if ship degaused at starstation 003 Medics are refusing to auto-search/heal injured personnel on BC 004 Radiation Control Units not being removed from cargo when used. RCUs are disposable. 005 If the BC life support systems are destroyed, personnel are moving to ships with functional ones, i.e, interceptors. 006 Tractoring with the shields down is fine but if you jump into a new region and the CO raises shields due to hostile contact, the shields are raised but the tractor beam remains in tact. 007 Ships with waypoint orders in tacOPS are not using hyperjump to travel 008 During EVAC excess marines should move to ATVs that are loaded in shuttles 009 After EVAC, everything in transporter room (cargo+crew) should be destroyed 010 The evac option should launch ships regardless of 'launch control' power allocation. Currently, the game locks up if evac is attempted and there is no power to launch control. 012 The repair status of an IC is not updated (blue) when commenced. Allows the ship to be launched. However, if you launch and then dock the ship, it is updated. 013 If a craft with say 90% takes further damage while repairs are being performed then the repair status gets stuck (?) as in OPR status=90 and completed=100. The repair will not be cleared since the OPR is <100 and repairs will not continue since completed=100 014 Repairs on IC-3 are performed in IC-BAY 4 instead of IC-BAY 3 015 Repairs on SS are performed with spares from SS inventory. However, if you try to clear radiation from a SS, it won't work unless the RCU is on the BC 016 Ships under AI control, including personnel, are launching the default missiles for the ship class, ignoring the ship's actual weapons bay content 017 Docking a shuttle with illegal items is not triggering the violation. If you dock with a shuttle (no illegal items) but the BC has illegal items, it is accurately logged. 018 Some missiles not operating according to programmed specifications. 019 Placing waypoints or selecting location using mouse in tacOPS results in slight offset due to view angle of tacOPS. 020 Various anomalies in shuttles including menu appearing outside clipping region, firing lasers produces sound, main menu active etc 021 Ejected ic pod should drop to surface with increased pitch angle to prevent it from flying out of the surface region 022 Player should not be able to control any craft if it does not have any personnel in it. Ships on planets should drop to the ground under gravity. In space, they should remain stationary. 023 Ships not being destroyed on surface when they collide with a water texture resulting in a -tive altitude 024 Ships under ai control taking off when player switches out. This is accurate but may not be desired under certain circumstances. Requires a HOLD mode. 025 Recalling an ATV or drone results in them being immediately extracted regardless of location on planet. This needs to be changed so that extraction operations are based on distance to object on current planet. 026 VTOL needs some more work and the lift keys are mapped wrong 027 Nuclear/Solar reactor and engine models don't work based on installed type 028 Unable to leave nullspace if you have NOT jumped to a region. It uses the last jump region to relocate the ship _but_ if you had not jumped, it doesn't have this reference to use, ie, you just started a game. This is NOT a duplicate of 045 because the code was actually modified then to make nullspace fluxfields work the first time they were activated. 029 When shield, armor, reactor, engine are upgraded, they become active once installed even before the installation is completed. 030 Require restrictions in the tractor beam feature to prevent players from towing certain objects from the game world, tractoring the BC to a planet surface and similar illegal tasks. May use speed, integrity, size, orbital status or similar factors to impose such restrictions. 031 Unable to collect cargo pods if flying shuttle. Need to use the alt+d docking command for the shuttle or ATV which allows it to collect the currently target person, cargo pod, drone or atv. Similarly if you alt+d from the atv with the shuttle as target, it puts the atv in the shuttle and switch to the shuttle. 032 Unable to manually deploy/extract personnel from ATV and shuttle 033 The ATV is not at present usable. 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). 034 Flying North far enough on the PTE results in a GPF due to numeric precision restrictions 035 ATS weapons have red MTAR on the planet surface. Should be green 036 ATV deployment msg missing, ie 'SH-x has deployed ATV-x'. Should also be done for personnel 'SH-x has deployed <person>' 037 BC shields down msg played when shuttle tows an object 038 Corruption in Time Of Day, TOD palette when clouds active on planets with a different time zone than Earth. 039 Random screen corruption in Roster save/restore screen. Probably related to the .PRO file created when a game is saved. 040 Using backspace to erase part of the ship name in ROSTER will cause a crash when the ship launches and tries to look up the corrupt ship name. 041 There are some problems in the transition states which need to be tested The rules are as follows: - 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 in shuttles in interceptors and ATVs, then 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 over. You can get a new ship up to 3 times before you are retired from active duty. The system will always try to ensure that the alter-ego is evacuated. If for some reason this fails, you will be listed as KIA and the game will end. You are allowed 3 ships before GALCOM retires you from active duty. If you evacuate the ship under court-martial orders, the trial will proceed when you arrive at GHQ. TO DO: The system should pick another friendly station if GHQ is destroyed Currently, you are docked there regardless of it's status. - 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. Once you get to the station, you can then initiate repairs. 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 you will get a violation. The fee is higher if the tow ship has to enter a hot area. TO DO: The system should pick another friendly station if GHQ is destroyed Currently, you are docked there regardless of it's status. A tow request should present a menu of valid stations showing the name and price. You then pick one. - BC Destroyed If the BC is destroyed during combat, the game will end regardless of whether the alter-ego is on board or not. TO DO: If the alter-ego dies IN the ship, the status should be KIA. If the ship is destroyed and he's NOT in it, the status should be MIA. - 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 (NYI). 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 (NYI). - Player alter-ego states (ACT/KIA/MIA/CMA) TO DO: Pod should drop to ground and 3D objects of surviving people created Active - alter-ego alive and on active duty Missing In Action - ship destroyed and alter-ego NOT in it Killed In Action - ship destroyed and alter-ego IN it Courtmartialed - found guilty of GALCOM violations. Games ends if player docks at a GALCOM station once the courtmartial finds him guilty. 042 When a Sidewinder 3D Pro is used with a Thrustmaster, the calibration for the hat switch will cause a crash if the user forgot to change the SW mode to TM before calibrating the stick. 043 Switching from one IC to another in different regions sometimes results in loss of engine sound for the first IC when switching back to it. 044 In the SH,IC,ATV which don't have 3 dedicated systems, the SUL mode of the TACSCAN is preventing the use of the NID. In fact, any key should override the current MFD operation. The SUL filter should not affect the NID. 045 Entering a blackhole is not destroying the ship. It should after 2 mins. 046 In AI mode, you cannot hear the ic laser shots when they fire. Also, in the ext camera view, the lasers use the wrong sfx when fired 047 If recovery of an ATV/person fails in the shuttle, the 'recovery failed' message is stuck on the screen. 048 Unable to deploy personnel from shuttle/atv deployment menu 049 ATV missiles are not available when ATV is deployed 050 HTOL/FTOL indicator missing in the BC bridge 051 During EVAC if pilots are not in ready interceptors, the game will crash when the evac transition ends 052 Extended testing required for the location and use of all game artifacts 053 AI actors with >100% system integrity (engines, etc.) after Vag/Ral hit 054 Launched ICs will not attack the target unless you manually arm their weapon systems because they are in NAV mode at launch time. 055 AI ships that already have a target lock on the BC before it cloaks, do not lose the lock even they should once cloak is fully active. 056 The face of people speaking in ext comms (scripted) not being displayed in IC, SH or ATV due to the mode of the NID 057 The ingress pointer for ships entering planets needs to be set when the ship is in manual or AI mode. At the moment if you enter a planet manually and the point is set and you then order the ship to come back under AI control, it will return from the ingress point that was set when you flew it there in manual mode. 058 The PTA power settings controlled by the keyboard settings have no effect on it's operation whatsoever. It doesn't affect it's recharge time nor the damage factor of the shots. 059 You cannot destroy asteroids or collect cargo pods in debris fields and not all fields have pods or asteroids in them. 060 The system ratings in the CVD for the BC remain unchanged even though the TTD is updated. They all remain at 100 even though the craft is damaged. 061 Curious anomalies with IC pilots. Some of these don't work 1. If the pilot or co-pilot takes injury or dies while you are IN the ship, you should get notification in the IC commlink from either seat. 2. If a pilot dies, you should not be able to fly the craft nor switch to that location. If you are in a cockpit when the pilot dies, you should be switched to the other seat and not be allowed to switch back. Also if you switch to the craft from another, you should be in the co-pilot seat if the pilot is dead. 3. If the pilots of a craft are BOTH dead, the craft should not be able to respond to commands, you should not be able to switch to said craft and the only way you can get that craft back is to tractor it. 062 Ground objects showing up in AIR mode of TACSCAN when on surface 063 If there are too many different cargo items in the SH cargo bay then the game crashes if you use the CARGO button from the SH HUD. 064 TacOps CP: Waypoint -> Add -> Target. When you have a waypoint and click TARGET then a half crosshair is displayed in the upper left corner of Tacops. Targeting things is very unreliable and requires multiple tries. 065 Wrong message played when you try to launch a mine and the missile pod is empty 066 The retros don't work if the ship's speed is excessive 067 AI ships are not subject to the same speed restrictions as the player 068 Clipped TTD in tacOPS and turrets is a black line in screen center. 069 If a SH/IC had previously entered a planet using waypoints and you then switch to it and give the O command, it plays the planetfall transition. 070 Some logging of ship movement/action is wrong. If you enter a region, it plays "SC-1 LEFT MARS", if you leave, "SC-1 ENTERED". Also sending a SH to GHQ using a LR probe feed, "GALCOM UNDER ATTACK BY SC-1" is logged when using FLYTO->FRIENDLY-GALCOM from the probe region. 071 The EVACUATE flag is not being cleared if you don't evacuate the ship and then you go and repair the ship at a station. 072 Setting waypoints in regions using the probe sci-link mode, causes all sorts of fatal crash problems. 073 A/P sometimes collides with surface during terrain follow mode 074 The a/p navigation code is not updating the current location with each jump. This results in the current and desired destination in Navitron being identical even though you have not reached the destination yet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION 2 FIXED BUGS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001* A flaw in the alliance system is causing ships to not attack races they are not hostile to. This usually causes scripted scenarios to fail or not operate as designed. This also enables the player to go around attacking and blowing up friendly/neutral targets without retaliation from the victims or GHQ. 002* Player able to dock at hostile starstations even as 'military' caste 003* A destroyed drone is sometimes listed in the shuttle as active 004* Illegal items are not detected in the player's cargo hold when docking at GALCOM controlled stations. Items should be confiscated, a violation logged, as well as loss of experience points. 005* Prisoners are ending up in medibay instead of detention hold 006* Marines in 'searching mode' going off-station prematurely. Unless there are escaped prisoners or intruders, marines will go off-duty if put on searching duty. 007* Unable to manually put people in the detention hold. 008* Fatigue Factor of people in detention hold will no longer increase Also, they will no longer leave the detention hold when tired or hungry. Food is supplied directly to the detention hold. 009* An IC will no longer launch if the pilots are not physically 'located' IN the craft. The 'assignment' is NOT the same as the 'location'. 010* Speed with which personnel move about the ship has been increased. 011* A shuttle now requires at least one person to be 'located' in it before it can launch. If this person dies when the shuttle is in flight, the shuttle, like the IC pod, will auto-return to the BC using the a/p. If on the surface, it will drop to the ground. 012* Retrieving all interceptors via tacOPS causes a crash 013* The Combat Kills attributes for pilots is now updated during combat 014* Alliances are now saved with the save file and reset at beginning 015* Weapon systems no longer disarmed during hyperjump, ie PTE remains active 016* 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. Note that internal ship conditions such as a radiation leak, badly damaged reactor core etc will also set off the red alert condition as will jumping into a region with *any* type of hostile target in space or on the planet. 017* 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. 018* Ships emitting an SOS signal will no longer be attacked by alien nations who observe the rules of engagement. 019* 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. 020* 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. 021* Dead or off-station officers will no longer send messages 022* The Chief Engineer will now eject the reactor core during a severe breach regardless of his ai level IF he's on-station. 023* 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. 024* 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. 025* It is no longer possible to assign more than 2 pilots to an IC 026* Invalid personnel listed in TradeCOM when docked with shuttle at station 027* Flaws in trading model. Affects inventory and inflation logic 028* Transfering missiles from shuttle to BC results in invalid BC inventory 029* Firing last missile resulting in empty missile pod and weapons bay results in looped message from Mother and Tactical Officer. 030* Combat Pilots not moving to Medibay when extracted from escape pod 031* People will no longer auto-leave a shuttle or ATV that is deployed when they get tired or hungry. 032* Launching weapons results in negative number in cargo listing 033* Weapons bay overflows to 65535 if full and a missile is removed 034* IC weapons loadout changed if waypoint assignment in tacOPS is changed though the ship is deployed and NOT on the BC. 035* Activating PTA causing missile type to change 036* XC data files are no longer saved since scenario is not saved 037* 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. 038* If the player opts not to deliver a tractored ship, the ship is not released but remains tractored when the player leaves the station. 039* 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. 040* 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. 041* Target TTD color is immediately restored if tractor link is lost 042* 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. 043* Targets not attacking hostiles or retaliating against attacks from neutral or friendly targets resulting in script 'holes' and various illegal attacks on non-hostile targets by trigger happy players. Requires an overhaul of race/caste alliance modelling. Also requires a friendly fire avoidance and target leading model. 044* Ship personnel messages in ACM pertaining to current scenario being played even though player may very well have ignored the mission anyway! It gets better, some actions pertaining to the current mission, ie beaming people to the ship, still happen even though the player may not even be in the region. Requires a player-ship-detect-in-region type check for scripted messages, comms and actions. 045* Rebuild elapse time too short or instantaneous for some objects subject to 'rebuild' ai such as Barin starstation. 046* Ships alert condition conflicting with internal condition. Requires two separate alert conditions Combat Alert Status, CAS and Ship Alert Status, SAS which monitor different alert conditions. 047* Increased cpu usage as game universe evolves 048* Image of external comms party not being displayed in NID or tacOPS 049* Unable to dock at Sarien and Majoris starstations 050* Starstation Adonis located in Capella instead of Pravis 051* Strange anomalies with cargo pods dropped after targets destroyed 052* Reports of FF and LF values exceeding 100 053* Player's support ships subject to script 'ignore' command causing them to ignore hostiles which have this flag set, ie leader-one 054* Unable to dock at Parix station 055* Invalid weapons in IC weapons bay when set to auto-arm 056* Cargo Bay quantity overflow to 65535 when attempting to unload drones into already full BC cargo bay. 057* Docked ships not switching ai state when launched. Maintain waypoint state for some reason. 058* Auto-arm option using default weapons loadout instead of checking in BC weapons bay. 059* PTA system running out of allocated target slots (8) thereby if other types of targets are already accounted for, ie neutrals, friendlies etc, it will not have slots for hostiles. So it won't fire. This is being revised so that hostiles are given priority especially those which have targeted the BC. 060* Jump points to Frellis and Midae reversed 061* Hazards (asteroids/meteoroids/comets) being seen as valid targets by ai platforms. 062* AI dynamic autogeneration still occurs in regions the player has not visited. 063* 'missile pods are empty' message repetition by Mother and TO when missile stores are depleted. 064* Replacing a destroyed interceptor/shuttle results in a GPF 065* Revised personnel FF/LF/AI model 066* Prices of illegal items ridiculously high because the checks for illegal items (which you get fined for) is not being made. 067* Violations awarded when illegal items are located in your cargo bay or when you fail to complete a tow request transaction, are not being recorded in COMMLINK 068* Evacuated interceptors stuck in assignment and not sent to Medibay 069* Shuttles reporting stores full when collecting cargo 070* tacOPS probe information not being reset when a destroyed probe is replaced in TACTICAL. 071* Ships under AI control are unable to make jumps. I suspect this is due to the new link control file which was created when I created the new MOON region in C5.0 072* Disabled ships will no longer be able to hyperjump 073* Probes sometimes reporting laser shots and other irrelevant data feedback 074* Personnel assigned to an ATV in TACTICAL are unable to 'locate' the craft 075* Reactor, shield fuel and nutripak levels being incorrectly reported as depleted. 076* 'Shields down' message played when docking though shields not affected. 077* BC will now be destroyed if it's hull is fully breached. 078* Ship moves backwards after jumping to a new region 079* 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. 080* Ships will no longer take damage when flying planetary waypoints since waypoints are now pegged above the surface. 081* The engine sound will no longer 'pulse' during hyperjump transitions 082* The ACM mission status can now be accessed via the bridge menu 083* MTD bug which caused GPF crash in FATAL has been fixed 084* The altitude lines in tacOPS are no longer displayed if TTDs are off 085* 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. 086* The battlecruiser 'destroyed' sequence will no longer loop 087* 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. 088* Take2 Chase 'dogfighting' Engine 99% removed 089* Fixed bug which prevented ships from launching missiles when they should 090* Fixed bug manual ctrl+d ATV->shuttle docking 091* 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. 092* 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. 093* ATVs & shuttles will no longer attempt to use HyperJump engines on a planet. 094* Modified the maneuvering code so that ships can now accurately retrack waypoints if they miss on the first pass. 095* The external F10 camera will now show the current object's target if any. 096* Shuttles should should now be able to deploy/extract mining drones and ATVs 097* 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 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. 098* 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. 099* Mining drones and ATVs can no longer be deployed in space from tacOPS 100* Navigation modified. In order for the ship to fly to a region 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 101* 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. 102* 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. 103* 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! 104* 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. 105* 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. 106* TACOPS 'zoom to' list only shown in view state (otherwise it interferes with waypoint setting). 107* TACOPS 'zoom to' list not being shown after removing command palette 108* Ships will now auto-egress surface at 200,000 ft msl 109* 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. 110* Personnel image obscuring tacOPS command palette 111* Mysterious crashes when making long ai pre-computed nav jumps 112* Lockup on launch from station. Traced to invalid setup.cfg file when when joystick selected in config when game run the first time. 113* Extracting ATV from shuttle results in crash if flight engineers or medics are on board. 114* Disabled ships will no longer take off using hyperjump engines. 115* Unable to leave nullspace first time fluxfield is used. This works correctly since fluxfields are unstable and may not work the first time even though they may only have one exit point. The nullspace fluxfield needs to be special case so that is works first time around. shift+f must be used to target fluxfield. 116* Shield and laser systems still being updated even though menu is active. 117* Shuttle indicators mapped wrong. Should be mapped to power, shield, armor cargo. ATV should be power, laser, shield, cargo 118* IC pod is autoejecting when ic destroyed. This should NOT happen. Pod should only autoeject if initiated by player or pilots in ai mode 119* Collision detect has some bugs in it 120* Shields on when leaving station with tractored ship. In general, shields should be down when tractor beam is engaged. 121* Unable to select RTB order for shuttle from tacOPS 122* Ship sometimes moves backward when hyperdrive activated. This is NOT a bug but a restriction in jump sequence. The game tries to slow down to intercept the jump anomaly. However, depending upon your speed, the ship may have breached the jump anomaly position _before_ it's activated and therefore moves backwards to intercept it. To do this, it has to slow down, hence the backward movement. To fix this, the ship will have to do a proper roll/pitch/yaw orientation to face the anomaly and execute forward thrust into it. The result: a slower transition jump resuling in your ship being perhaps destroyd in a high combat theatre. 123* Possible to activate jump engines though not fully recharged. FO, if onstation will now display a message. 124* Unable to extract drone/ATV using shuttle from BC main menu 125* Switching from a turret to a ship that is NOT ready to launch causes a GPF due to the way the ship switch works. 126* Bridge command menu for shuttle 2 does not work from main menu 127* Incorrect turret mapping. 128* Unable to destroy own ship (ic,shuttle,atv) if it's in DIRECT mode due to the way the logic works. The integrity of a ship is the average of all it's systems. In AI mode, this works fine but if the ship is in DIRECT mode, this is NOT used, instead the AILOG/API values are used because this has to be preserved due to repair operation etc. Once this is fixed, any support ships in DIRECT mode will be destroyed if the hull or reactor reaches 0. In ai mode, the pilots will auto-eject the ic pod based on damage level and their ai. 129* Distance cue for exploding objects seems wrong as no matter how far, it's not played. Sounds usually play based on your distance from them. I think this problem is also related to SEC-5 013. Dunno. 130* Sending RTB orders to a support ship and jumping into that ship during the RTB process if the BC is in a different region results in a GPF. 131* If a probe is linked to the BC radar system in TACLINK mode, there is a bug which allows the player to tractor, target and dock with targets though the BC is in a different region. 132* Interceptor 'defend all' command only launching interceptor #2 133* Doing multiple tractors of the same object should not be allowed since it causes a weird anomaly. 134* Multiple tractors of the same object results in a strange anomaly 135* If a shuttle is sent to collect a cargo pod and it is destroyed, the shuttle still collects the pod contents and broadcasts the collected msg 136* A GPF occurs if a shuttle is in hyperspace & sent to collect a pod that is destroyed before it gets there. 137* Objects in fixed orbit, ie orbital defense systems and stations entering 'flee' mode and attempting to escape when badly damaged. 138* An ACM target which hyperjumps out of the current region, still shows up on TACSCAN radar though it has jumped to a new region. 139* Fixed a bug in the launch from station transition camera which would cause a crash when the satellite (1 of 4 views) view transition was used. 140* Various palette problems fixed 141* Jump anomaly offset bug fixed 142* Buildings and all objects can now be destroyed on the PTE surface 143* 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. 144* 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. 145* Crash when selecting texture mapping for external planet rendering 146* For some reason the shaded and flat rendering options do not match the palette map. 147* Cloak effect not working in texure mapped rendering mode. 148* Surface hazing doesn't work right in some rendering modes 149* Buildings and surface objects not being rendered under 'terrain objects' option 150* tacOPS orders menu for shuttle not displayed when target selected. 151* Strange anomalies in Perspective Correct texture mapping mode. Prevents clouds from being implemented correctly 152* Some planetary maps disappear, ie, Saturn 153* Fixed a bug which caused an incorrect object extent calculation for PTE 154* Fixed a bug which placeds objects incorrectly on PTE site textures 155* Tactical: ATV section info is inconsistent with the ATV info in the shuttle section. 156* CONFIG options are now saved when accessed from within the game. 157* Navitron condition is not being reset if damaged and repaired at a starstation. 158* Corruption in Navitron/Miscon/Commlink menu options at CENTCOM. Selecting Navitron executes Miscon. Selecting Miscon executes Commlink. You can select Commlink though it is not highlighted 159* Selecting NAVITRON button from menu when docked should return and NOT activate MISCON. 160* Selecting CONTINUE from menu if current profile is invalid, ie player killed in action or courtmartialed results in game attempting to load scenario, realizes it's an invalid move and returns back to main menu. 161* Corruption in Tradecom screen when displaying cargo bay capacity 162* Selecting CONTINUE from main menu with valid game causes crash. Use save/restore for now. 163* Missing parts required by CE for repairs no longer indicated in TradeCOM 164* Combat induced palette manipulations results in screen corrupt for Tactical, Logistix etc 165* Selecting CONTINUE from main menu displays scenario as FF instead of ACM in Roster. 166* Unable to modify ATV assignment from ATV screen in Tactical though it can be done from the shuttle->cargo screen in Tactical 167* Wrong 'death' message being displayed when player killed in XC 168* Able to access normal menus in XC via the COMMLINK access 169* Strange bugs regarding drones... If you click on "drone 1" the drop down list appears listing the rest of the drones. What I have noticed is that once you deploy a mining drone, you can load another with the same name in any shuttle. However, if the named drone is actually in one of the shuttles, you will get a message "Drone 138623485 Not Available". Also, if you go to the tactical loadout screen and view the drone status with all of the drones deployed...it always says "drone 1 deployed" for each shuttle. I'm not sure if the stats only referred to drone 1 but it says drone 1. Nothing is listed for drones 2-4. 170* Selecting COMMLINK after messages are recorded will cause a crash. This is probably related to the multi-language support which is new in D.0 171* Selecting weapons image in Tactical results in a crash 172* Incorrect damage factor for Vagrant missile in Tactical 173* Roster STATS screen misaligned 174* Unable to assign personnel to an ATV from the main ROSTER->CREW screen 175* Screen corruption in Tactical drone->unload screen 176* Frame for Navitron computer missing 177* Joystick calibration no longer has any effect if device is not a joystick 178* Locked down sound data to prevent swap to VMM 179* Lockup after BC destroyed transition when hull fully breached 180* Starting XC after playing FF or ACM results in lockup 181* Game exit on auto-evacuation resulting in invalid option passed to commlink message. Also associated to game erroneously starting the current invalid game when a new game is started in Roster. 182* Selecting 'save' from bridge returning to main menu instead of bridge 183* Game loops in joystick calibration screen if joystick not supported. Unable to exit screen. Will implement ESC to exit calibration. 184* Last item on menu is off-screen if mouse pointer located near edge of screen when menu activated. 185* Unable to exit out of 'cd-rom check' screen if invalid drive detected 186* Soundfx disappearing. Traced to sound system running out of channels if a lot of sounds are queued. 187* Moving the mouse to the lower left corner of bridge causes GPF 188* Strange anomalies with the 'evac' transition 189* Reports of game crashing with repeated save/restore 190* GPF caused if INVERSE TACTICAL camera target goes out of scope 191* ATV incorrectly configured with shields 192* A graphics anomaly prevents the co-pilot SSD from displaying the status 193* Pilots messages repeating even after they are docked 194* Bridge menu for ATV misaligned. Also misaligned when deployed 195* Cross region problem which prevents player's ships in ai mode to use jump anomaly when moving from one region to the next. 196* Detaching a TACLINK probe causes noise interference even though BC is in the probe region 197* Detaching a probe puts static in tacOPS. Static should not appear unless the probe is in tacLINK mode and is detached or destroyed. A destroyed or detached probe should cancel tacLINK anyway. 198* Using the target->observe menu on the bridge corrupts the screen if you select a planet. 199* If probe is in TACLINK then the SHOW PROBE REGION/SHOW LOCAL REGION buttons for the other probes don't work. Should probably only be able to set one probe to TACLINK. 200* You can transport people into space if you are viewing the planet and switch to space while in tacOPS. The transporter reticle remains active 201* You should not be able to transport personnel to a region monitored in probe TACLINK mode 202* Discovered that all Type 4 stations had missing texture maps. Affected stations are PIXAN, VELARI, PROCYON, ADONIS, ALIDIS, SOVAR, LV130 203* Discovered that all Type 1 stations had a missing explosion vector info Affected stations are RAMIX, STARWIND, SARIEN, MAJORIS 204* 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. 205* XC scripts updated to be more streamlined and better structured 206* The IC shields will now be raised when XC starts up 207* When the IC is initialized in XC at the end of a level, the indicators are not updated. 208* Changes (rank/salary) 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 0 209* Changes (HUD symbology) 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 210* 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. 211* The game will end if the player's alter-ego ever dies, ie FF =< 0 212* Pause <pause> command has been changed to <ctrl+p> 213* Debug <ctrl+alt+a> mission bypass had been disabled in distribution version 214* The cd-rom is now required to be in the drive during game execution 215* Several ACM scripts updated for playability 216* Added version number in shift+capslock display 217* Modified BC3000AD.EXE so that extender allocates 20MB swap file when needed instead of creating it in 8MB chunks. 218* Changed from v2.01 to v1.97 of the DOS xtender 219* 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 /8 220* Debug commandline options now only available in interim 'tester' versions. 221* 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. 222* Changes (personnel) Each person consumes 1 Nutripak per day 1 Medpak heals a person by 25% Personnel go offstation if LF =< 10 or FF => 90 Personnel go to Medibay if LF =< 15 Celestial Orb updates LF of personnel faster and FF will not increase J.A.C randomly repairs systems at the rate of 1 every 10 minutes 223* CREW/CARGO/FUEL CAPACITY ------------------------ 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. 224* An atv and drone are now loaded into all shuttles at startup 225* Personnel Scan, PerSCAN, computer implemented for tracking ship's personnel 226* Support for 70 video card chipsets. Use bc3000ad /v? command to see options 227* 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. 228* 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. 229* Extensive speed optimizations and improvements in all renderers 230* 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. 231* Since all the rendering modes are now perspective correct, the CTRL+t command is now obsolete. These have also been removed from CONFIG 232* 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. 233* Cloud layers implemented with view fogging at cloud layer. Further optimization is required to reduce speed drop when banking at certain angles 234* You can now turn shadowing on/off for the planet's external view 235* Revised ship cloaking effect. It is now transparent. Try it against the backdrop of a planet or from any turret view. 236* Implemented lens flare effect complete with solar white-out. Watch for spectacular effects during flybys, view controls and in tacOPS view modes. 237* The planet surfaces are now segmented into friendly, neutral and hostile regions based on alien nation and castes. 238* Keyboard commands modified. Please refer to new BCKEYS.TXT or Appendix A of the manual for new commands. 239* Intruders will no longer beam onto the ship if it is FULLY cloaked 240* Revised object explosions. Still needs some synchronization 241* Revised jump gate object 242* Tilt control added to external views and tacOPS, tilt adjusted by INS and DEL on the numeric keypad. 243* External F8 & F10 view keys now toggle between LOCKED/FLOATING camera modes 244* As of v1.01D.0, save game files are now backward compatible 245* MIDI music not looping when done due to problem in the sound files 246* Docking is possible with stations that are under repair 247* You should not be able to modify a DEPLOYED probe's slot in TACTICAL 248* Using the a/p to make jumps causes the ship to oscillate between the last and current jump points. 249* Games cannot be saved/restored from the SAVE RESTORE screen 250* A NO PROBE (empty slot) can be reprogrammed to a NAV target with Alt-L (sound message also played) 251* Detaching a probe from the NID bridge menu (TacOps is fine) puts you in an outside view of the BC. (Same effect as bug #020) 252* TacOPS CP missing if setting waypoints in previous game that was restored 253* In tacOPS CP, the SH1,3,4, teams are not highlighted as they are in SH-2 254* Marines are going directly to their locations without being prepped 255* Rebuilding actors (ODS/SS) show a frozen RADAR scanning circle when they are destroyed shortly before emitting a Radar scan. 100% reproducable. 256* Launching IC1-4 in tacOPS, you are dumped to the BC bridge though the shuttles, SH1-5 are fine. 257* Trying to launch an IC using tacOPS from an IC, puts you in an outside view of the IC 258* The alter-ego does not have a name when deployed as a 3D object 259* Alter-ego stats not being updated. Killing the alter-ego on a planet destroys the 3D object does not end the game like it should. 260* You should not be able to tractor personnel. This causes a GPF 261* You should not be able to reload the game using 'continue' if the alter-ego dies during an EVAC. 262* You should not be able to load a saved game if the alter-ego is dead 263* You should not be able to dock while in hyperspace 264* Ships which crash into the ground are unable to take off due to inability to achieve enough thrust to breach gravity model 265* Starstations not launching missiles due to aspect ratio restrictions which makes it difficult for them to get a lock solution 266* Ships in waypoint follow mode colliding with surface, taking damage and being destroyed. This also affects ATVs and drones deployed at high altitude from shuttles. They take serious damage when dropped. Surface flight model requires 'terrain following' model and relaxed rules for ATV/drone deployment from shuttles at high altitude. 267* Missiles and OTS weapons unable to catch up with high turn rate targets. Note: The damage a missile inflicts on a target is determined by the damage factor of the missile and it's length of time in flight. The longer it remains in flight, the less the damage inflicted. If it stays in flight too long, it will self destruct and no damage will be done. This is being changed. 268* Stations are not restored (rebuilt) when the timer expires. 269* Carriers and stations launching infinite ships 270* OTS-Tanix not showing up on loadout screen and therefore cannot be put into weapons bay from cargo bay 271* Recalling a ship from the planet is docking it with the BC immediately 272* Fixed a bug which caused the Glide display to not switch back to 2D when joystick calibration was completed from CONFIG via the Main Menu 273* "Out of bounds index (num,num,num) error sometimes occur when you try to CONTINUE a game. 274* Having clouds on when running software version causes a crash 275* Missile contrails in software version rendered incorrectly