ftp.wwiv.com/ftp.wwiv.com.zip/ftp.wwiv.com/pub/DOOR/2002V305.ZIP/REVISION.TXT

Text File | 1997-11-09 | 34KB | 819 lines

                            Bug Fix history for v3

11/09/97 - v3.05 released

Fixed bug that allowed transfer of fighters and shields as a player was selling
ships at stardock.

Fixed problem with lag time tracking on Win95 systems.

Fighter, shield, mine corp transfers now allow 12 digits.

When attacking an unoccupied ship, attack routine now detects when a player
transports into the ship and handles the attack accordingly.

Corp transfers no longer display cloaked players.

Q-Cannon atmosphere attack was malfunctioning in two ways.  First, it was
  firing at sector levels, and second, it wasn't destroying fighters.

Messages were being displayed while a player was at a port.  These messages
  could cause malfunctions with scripts and helpers.  They have been turned
  off.  Communications will still be displayed.  They should be turned off
  by the player.

Photon Missile update:

  Photon Missiles are now functioning for multiple players.  Due to an oversight,
    the Photon Missile effect was only active for the player that launched the
    missile (a carry-over from the single-player v2).  Now the effect exists for
    all players, regardless of the launcher.

  The player launching a Photon missile will receive notification of the
    duration at 10 second intervals, and at 5 seconds left, no matter what
    sector he/she is in.

  All players in the sector of the launching player receive a notification
    that the missile was launched.

  All players in the sector of the Photon blast will receive the same updates
    as the launcher (10 second intervals, 5 seconds left).

  Displaying the sector will show that a Photon blast has recently occurred,
    and the duration of the effect.

  A player may launch more than one Photon Missile, but can only track the
    last Missile launched.  That means that the only way to gauge the
    duration of a Photon after launching another one is to enter the sector
    and check the Display.

  Photon Missiles can't be purchased from StarDock if they're disabled in the
    game.

Fixed problem with attacking a ship with a Planetary Interdictor active.  When
  the ship attempted to flee, the game would become unstable.

Fixed bug that allowed pick-up/drop-off of colonists > 255 on your planet.

Added TEDIT option to alter the Port regeneration rate.  Values range from
  1% to 200% per day.  Standard is 5%, which is the rate that ports regenerate
  in all previous versions.

Added global key </> to display quick reference of player info.  Also, under
  computer, personal settings, setting option 7, "Persistent info display" to
  on will cause the </> key to toggle this display on or off.  When on, it
  will be displayed at the top of the screen.

Limit of 2 pods per user per day is now enforced as in MBBS.  This means a
  player can only be "podded" twice per day.  The third time results in
  death, even if the ship has a pod.

Added a new user configuration option (C/N/8) to turn all event messages off.

Added option to TEDIT to enable or disable multiple Photon missiles for a
  single player.  By default, a player may only have one missile active at
  a time.

Computer/Known Universe, List Avoids now formats properly to screen width, and includes
  CR at end of line.

Course list now has a CR at end of each line.

Fixed problem with day of week reporting in time functions.

Embezzle busts are cleared nightly now, except for the very last bust.

A setting in TEDIT now determines the frequency of bust clearing. It defaults
 to nightly, but can be set as high as every 28th day.

T'Khasi Orion can now carry a Holo Scanner.

Ferrengi Assault Trader can now carry a Density or Holo Scanner.

Transport menu now offers the ability to get more detailed information about
  any of the ships listed.

"Backtrack Key" is now only "<" instead of "<" or ",".

Fixed "dupe" names.  Before, someone could be in the game with BBS name "A"
  and alias "B", while another player was in the game under BBS name "B".
  This is no longer possible.

When a player reenters the game in a Scout Marauder, he/she gets the minimum
  of 250 figs, or the Initial Fighters value, instead of up to 2500 figs.

Made logic change to time routine that MIGHT have been causing some problems.
  When reading the time, the routine reads date, then time, and then determines
  the total seconds since the game started.  If the date gets read, then the
  clock rolls over to midnight in the instant before the time gets read, the
  time would be interpreted as 24 hours earlier.  In this event, the timing
  would be thrown of for that Tick.  In rare cases, this could cause the
  "inactivity timeout" to trigger.  The new approach doesn't have this problem,
  and is more efficient.

EXTERN now cleans up the message file of any mail left in the mail file for
  various reasons.  Mail is deleted if the destination player is inactive,
  or if the time of the message is over the "days til deletion" value set
  to delete old players.

Ship's can't interdict from ANY FedSpace sector.

Fixed problem with "Last Ported" reporting.  Any update of the port was setting
  the last ported time, when it should only be set when a ship physically
  ports there.

Attack is aborted if enemy docks or lands while you are attacking.

Added hidden global, <|>, to toggle silence mode.  This will simplify the
  task of turning off messages while scripts and helpers are running.

Last bust clear operation is reported in Game Settings screen on startup menu

07/17/97 - v3.04 released

Reworked bug fix from v3.03 release.  See * item in that section.  Several
new problems appeared after making this change, so I have made another attempt
at solving the problem.

Added file error reporting to help clarify startup problems.

07/01/97 - v3.03 released

Port reports 0 buy/sell, 0% of max until open.

Port opens with 0% buy/sell.  Regeneration begins at the moment of port
opening.

If EXTERN detects port DaysTillComplete less than 0, it sets to 0.  Before,
if was incrementing if less than 0.  I could not see any use of negative
values here.

Sector entries of 599 or less require 4th digit.  600 and above are auto-CR.
This is identical behavior to pre-v3 door releases.

When Corporate Planet Scan was called from within a Citadel, the current
planet pointer was not being reset on exit from Corp menu.  This caused
planet records to become confused in some cases.  This has been fixed.

Transfering to another ship without password doesn't ask.

Transfering to another ship sets your ship to allow ship transfers.

Can now blind-transwarp with ship in tow.

Robbing text is now "...siphon the funds out and..." as in MBBS.

Transport list handles abort properly.

Added SHARE command line parameter.  Calling with the SHARE override causes
TW2002 to skip the share detection routine and assume SHARE is loaded.

Added message for EtherProbe entering sector.  Need more detail on how to
handle this event.

* Made file-access change with potential to effect multiple areas of the game.
  Certain combinations of accesses were causing information to be lost.  This
  change will fix that problem, but could conceivably introduce some other
  problem(s).

Fixed combat bug, not losing any fighters, caused by the previous error.

Can now recover credits for destroying ships other than escape pod and
marauder.

Fixed bug in buy-ship routine that wasn't committing the credits to the
user record properly.  This is the source of the profitable ship trade bug.

Changed file access mode of overlay to DENYNONE.  This was causing the
error 150 when the overlay wasn't loaded into EMS.

Fixed bug that caused the corp attack failsafe to trigger for non-corp
unnocupied ships.

Fixed bug that was reporting personal ship as corp ship destroyed in log file.

Fixed bug that was allowing unmanned ships to flee a sector after an attack
even if an interdictor generator is present.

Fixed bug that was reading the sysop level incorrectly from the drop file.

Fixed various bugs that allowed planets to appear as both corporate and personal.

Fixed a bug with the "landing planet list" that was corrupting planet records.

Input is echoed in CIM.


06/01/97 - v3.02 released

Attacking with 0 ships is no longer allowed!

Removed SHARE detection for OS2 machines.

EXTERN:  Fixed GP resulting from delete player routine.

EXTERN:  Won't evict players who are online at the time.

EXTERN:  Only counts offline players when counting the number of ships left
in a Fed sector overnight.

Conversion of message file with 0 records doesn't generate division by 0.

Scan defaults to Density when 0 turns left.

Long course plots are not longer truncated at 160 characters.

Reporting correct ship type when destroying Aliens.

Atmosphere Quasar attack is now reported.

Destroying a corp owned ship, whether occupied or not, will go into the
logs as Corp# instead of by the pilot's name.

You can now change ownership and posture of fighters without adding or
removing them from a sector.

Fixed an Error 204 in the program exit procedure.  This was causing many
other errors to be reported as Error 204.  They will now be reported
properly.

Added LastSectRobbed to user record so this value will persist between
game sessions.  This will fix the ability to exit the game and reenter
to rob the same port twice in a row.  Should slow down the Steal-Sell cycle.

Removed 15 unnused characters from the ship record shipname field.

Removed unnused fields from Sector record.

Fixed a bug that was preventing Planet Upgrades from being committed to the
data file under certain circumstances.  This could be responsible for the
occasional planet that doesn't seem to be upgrading.

TEDIT:  Zero entry allowed for sector warps.

TEDIT:  Port production values can be negative.

TEDIT:  < and > step through the ports displayed under Port Edit.

TEDIT:  Planet production rates are displayed properly.

Data conversion from v2 to v3.01 loses all mine owner information.  This has
been fixed for conversion from v2 to v3.02, but conversion from v3.01 to v3.02
won't repair the lost owner information.  Conversion from v3.00 to v3.02 works
fine.

Travels and Avoids data was not being written properly to the data file,
causing some sector information to be lost after quitting the game.  This
has been fixed.

Converting from v3.00 or v3.01 data will clear all avoids due to the above
problem.

Revised drop file read procedure to handle unexpected data more gracefully.

Added DATA= parameter to assign a default directory for the data files at
runtime.  This directory will be overridden by a non-default node-specific
data directory.  Works for TW2002 and TEDIT.

<ENTER> now interrupts all processes that can be interrupted by <SPACE>.
Long displays, auto-pilot warping, etc. are effected.

Changed the way TW handles the input buffer.  Now, long displays that check
for <ENTER> or <SPACE> to interrupt them won't read and discard all keypresses
waiting in the input buffer.  As a result, keyboard macros and helpers will
function more smoothly.  A negative result is that only the first character
in the buffer will be checked for the display interrupt keys.  If another
character gets into the buffer first, then the display can't be interrupted.

Addressed several problems with DESQview.  A maximum 5000 sector game should
now run in a typical DESQview window leaving enough memory for processing.
Sessions with many scarce conventional ram may only be able to run a smaller
universe.

Fixed an error with the Fossil support that caused all ports to appear as
port 1 (oops).  This should improve the Fossil support somewhat.

Sector entries from 0-599 accept a four digit entry, but entries from 600
to 999 auto-return.  This is identical to previous Trade Wars behavior.


04/16/97 - v3.01 released

Added periodic online verification.  Each player online checks the next
  player online in order by user record number.  This check occurs every
  five minutes.  If the player being checked does not reply in 10 seconds,
  then the player is removed from the online list, and some cleanup takes
  place (like removing the player from a planet on which he/she cannot
  remain).

Added a flag to User record to indicate that the player is online.  If the
  program finishes properly, this flag will be set to off.  If, on startup,
  this flag is on, then some cleanup takes place (like removing the player
  from a planet on which he/she cannot remain).

Added a low level primary record justification to commit and put procedures.

Added a check of the Online flag in the message file at the beginning of
  each processing interval.  If the flag is off, then it is turned back on.
  This is a self-correction in case, for any reason, you fail to reply to
  an Online Verification message.

Fixed pointer error with Fossil communications.  Fossil is working again.

Fixed problem with left-padded field display when field contains ansi
  sequences.

Revamped TWSMF.DAT message file.  This file now cleans itself up as it is
  used.  Should result in much smaller TWSMF.DAT files in general, and
  quicker access to messages.

Fixed yet another invincible planet bug.

Tri-cron won't be interrupted by messages.

Fixed guarded planet bug that caused the next planet you attempted to land
  on to show as the planet that was guarded.

Fixed combat routine to handle case of 0 fighters and >0 shields.

Conversion routine detects the extra byte in TWNODE.DAT records in later
  v2 betas, processes accordingly.

Fixed scan for mines.  Now when emptying sector of mines, the sector no
  longer shows up on scan with 0 mines.

Fixed problem with menu help screens (!) running past end of menu text.

Computer and Corp menus from citadel won't switch your planet record.

Fixed problem with Alien ship combat.  Damage wasn't being committed to
  the alien record when the alien fled.

Radio channels are now available from 0 to 60000.

Major messaging/mail overhaul.

  The messaging system is now seperate from
  the user mail system.  TWSMF.DAT is now devoted to game messaging, while
  TWMAIL.DAT contains all mail correspondence.

  The mail and message files are packed periodically for efficiency.

    For mail, all messages that have been read by the user in that session
    will be removed from the file as the user exits the game.  They are
    physically removed, and the file shrinks accordingly.

    For messages, each message has a lifetime of 10 seconds.  If the message
    is older than 10 seconds, then it can be removed from the message file
    at the next pack operation.  These operations occur when a user exits
    the game, or whenever the message file reaches 100 messages.  This may
    be made configurable in the future if necessary.  As it is now, the
    message file can never be greater than 101 records in length, or 17271
    bytes in length.  Since the message file handles all interactivity, this
    will guarantee efficient message handling.

  Each user maintains a pointer to the last message processed by its session,
  and all processing occurs from this point forward.  This greatly limits
  the possible number of message reads during an interval cycle, so that the
  maximum possible is the number of messages added in 1 second (unless this
  interval is increased).  When the file is packed, the user receives
  notification of this, and resyncronizes this pointer.  I haven't seen any
  losted messages, duplicate messages, or loss of message syncronization
  since I made this change, but we need to watch out for this.  I'm concerned
  that it may happed in rare circumstances.

  If a mail message was added during an active session, but not read, it
  won't be removed on exit.  All messages are displayed on logon, so these
  messages will be removed after the next logon/logoff cycle.

  Messages sent to mail via the computer mail system go into mail only, but
  all computer generated messages, like fighter reports, etc, go into the
  mail and are displayed for a user if that user is online.  These messages
  are not deleted on exit unless they have been explicitely read from the
  computer mail system.  This could be confusing, but it will avoid any
  loss of important information.  We can't guarantee just because it goes
  into the real-time messaging file that it has been viewed by the user.

  An online user receives notification upon receiving new mail.

  Hail is now seperate from mail.  You can only send a hail to an online
  user.  If the user isn't online, the one-line hail will be sent, but
  will "fall on deaf ears".  A multi-line hail mode can only be entered if
  the target user is online.  These messages ARE NOT ENTERED INTO USER MAIL,
  so you can no longer use this function in place of the computer mail
  system.  One-line messages sent to a user that is not online will be lost.

  FedComm/Sub-space/Hail/Mail prompts are now more explicit as to the type
  of messages being entered.  This avoids confusion when entering one message
  and jumping into another via global commands.

Added global chat to tavern.

Fixed a transfer logic error involving ship to ship transfers like those at
  the corp menu.  This involved transfers between ships of different types,
  where the transfer used the boundaries set by the local ship for both,
  allowing the other ship to sometimes exceed it's limits.

Modified real-time message routine so that it only processes messages that
  have not expired (10 seconds lifetime).  Also, put zero-record hold in the
  Add Message routine to syncronize adds and deletes.  Now, adds and deletes
  can only occur once at a time, but there is no file locking for reads.

Revised SHARE detection.  It is less strict now.

Fixed last ported report.  Should now correctly report the time since a
  trader ported, instead of that they just left.

Now start in sector 1 if planets not allowed.

Fixed a ship to ship combat bug related to the corp transfer bug.  When
  two unlike ships are in combat, the attacked ship was inheriting the
  field boundaries of the attacker.

The size of the TW overlay buffer is now dynamically set depending on the
  amount of free memory available to the session.  This will give more
  memory to those who have not been able to run the game so far (error 203).
  This buffer was 100K, but can go as low as 45K with out a devastating
  impact on the games performance.  If the game does not use EMS or XMS for
  the overlay file, then you should keep this buffer as large as possible.

04/01/97 - v3.00 released

Can remain in citadel overnight.

Fixed multiple boundary bugs effecting the last user, ship, sector, etc.

Alien trader and Ferrengi ships are now processed on a time-base rather
  than a turn base.  The one-in-X move percent no longer represents a chance
  that the character will move for each player turn, but a chance that the
  character will move every 30 seconds.  The next reasonable interval is 70
  seconds, and this may be made configurable, since it would lighten the
  load on slower computers.  As it is, there are 10 "banks" of Aliens,
  Ferrengi, and Federation Captains.  Each bank attempts movement every
  3rd second.  When there are 50 Ferrengi + 40 Aliens + 3 Federals,
  93 non-player characters, this averages out to 9.3 ships per bank.  This
  is approximately 3 ships attempting movement every second, though movement
  only occurs every third second.

Planetary Shields can now be destroyed.

Ships can now be salvaged from combat properly again.

Fixed incorrect population line on corporation planet list.

Removed Auto <CR> from Terra colonist pick-up.  Should help those helpers.

User record now varies in size according to sectors in game, no wasted space.

Day of week of game now reports correctly.

Command and Computer Command prompts don't display menu at CR, only at ?.

03/05/97

Planets are once again producing properly.

Added Surrender to sector fighter menu.

NO NavHaz can be created at StarDock for any reason.

Ether-probe and Holoscan won't cause "void" prompt when scanning mined
  sectors.

Interdictor generators don't function at StarDock and Terra.

Unoccupied ships can't have Interdictor on.

Fixed problems with Planetary Transport.

Must kill trader to get bounty/contract.  Not just destroy ship.

Made some changes to combat routine regarding ship captures.  Can't capture
  when the ship is a Scout Marauder or Escape Pod.

Can't overwrite StarDock with a carry-over created port.

Created daily event flag to limit certain activities.  These are, at the
  moment, curse Grimy Trader, try to break into Corp, and jettison colonists.
  There is room for 13 more such event flags.

Limited photon-wave effect on planets to those with less than 200 shields.

Fixed underground name-change routine to handle the 0-4500000 experience
  range.  I set the maximum amount to be charged to 999,999,999 since this
  is the maximum that a trader could possibly have onhand.

For the moment, two different traders can deploy mines of one type each in
  a given sector.  To clarify, one trader may deploy Armid mines, while
  another trader has deployed Limpet mines in the same sector.

Can launch photons in Rylos and Alpha Centauri sectors.

NavPoint menus only show sector scan if the sector is in FedSpace, the
  sector is your current sector, or you have at least one fighter deployed
  in that sector.  Otherwise, it reports "No Scan" for that sector.

Natural disasters have been stabilized with regard to frequency of visits.
  Now, the chance for a disaster is minimal if the last visit was recent,
  and greater as the length between visits increases.  If a planet has a
  habitability of 90, there is a 10% chance of a disaster if the period
  between visits is 1 day.  There is a 100% chance of a disaster if the
  period has been 10 days.  If the period is 11 days, then one disaster
  will occur, with a 10% chance for a second disaster.

The ports are again upgrading.  This was a bug that effected the ability
  to determine a field's maximum value during a locked process, and was
  probably effecting many areas of the game.

Only taxed once per day, instead of once every time you enter the game.

If an amount of experience or alignment would put you beyond the limit,
  you are given the boundary value.  Before, this would not give any
  amount because it would go beyond the boundary.

02/28/97

CIM entry now works.

Earth now takes one turn to load colonists.

Added multiplayer code for towing.  Now, towing is discontinued when
  the tower or towee lands on a planet, port, or dock, or initiates an attack

Included messages for users to see when towing begins and ends.

Created new prompt attribute, Escape, so that prompts can be made to
  abort in the case of some event, particularly intended to deal with
  tow bugs.  Now, certain prompts can be made to abort whenever the
  trader is towed to another sector, falling back to the previous non-
  abortive prompt.  This will solve some nasty problems with prompt
  "carry-overs", where a trader can circumvent a locked-out function
  by initiating it in a sector where the function is not locked out,
  then being towed into another sector to complete the function.
  An example is the destruction of StarDock, where combat is initiated
  in an adjacent sector, but completed upon towing in the StarDock sector.

NavHaz collisions were overwriting the sector containing the navhaz with the
  sector to which an escape pod escaped.  This is fixed now.

Fighter Xfer for corps now functional.

When player dies and then reenters, a new ship is created properly now.

Fixed those annoying messages when a new user starts up.

Activated abortive prompts, so that certain functions are aborted when
  the trader is towed to another sector

Added fail-safe record sync check to abort operations which may overwrite
  another record.

When a trader is online and on a planet, and the planet is blown up from
  under them, they will be dropped to the main command prompt.

When a trader is online and evicted from a citadel, he is dropped to the
  main command prompt.

Can now receive port report from auto-pilot prompt.

Occupied corp ships aren't displayed on the X-Port list.

Interdicting flag is set to off when purchasing a new ship, and when escaping
in an escape pod.  This solves bugs with interdiction carrying over to new
ships.

Density scan showing occupied ships as 40, unoccupied as 38, and cloaked ships
as 0 with Anom Yes

Can't upgrade a port that is under construction.

After blowing up a planet, trader "reenters" sector triggering NavHaz check.

Ports are again fighting back.

Some locked transactions were not resetting the records after a failed
attempt.  I'm not aware of any bugs stemming from this, but there probably are
some.  It has been fixed.

02/22/97

Citadel now upgrading correctly for level 2 and beyond!

Many revision to guarantee identical output between previous DOS versions and
2MP.

Revisions to Interrogation mode:
  Can now be entered from any prompt, but not from within Interrogation.
  No global functions work in Interrogation mode.
  Interrogation mode can timeout from inactivity.
  Interrogation mode will exit if allotted time expires.
  For debugging purposes, Interrogation mode can be entered with the key
    sequence of "$%^&*(", or SHIFT-4 through SHIFT-9;

Modified port and planet update functions for 1 second resolution upgrade.

Fixed a data-conversion bug that inverted the BUYing amount for ports when
  converting from earlier TW data to 2MP data.

Overhauled "upgrade port" function.  Port production is now maxed out at
  65530.

"Upgrade port" is now a locked function to avoid multi-player conflicts.

Finished make-over for TEDIT.

StarDock now starts at 100% BUY when game is reset.

Turns return to a player pro-rated at 1 hour intervals.

Sector Fighter combat is now multiplayer safe.

02/17/97

All text removed from executables and placed into a data file, STRTABLE.D8A,
with an index called STRTABLE.NDX.  Encrypted to discourage meddling sysops
from corrupting the string table ;).

Global commands can only be first character entered on any command line.

A global commands cannot be called from within itself.  For example,
Who's Playing can be called from within Fed. Comm-Link, but Fed. Comm-Link
cannot be called from within Fed. Comm-Link.

Create planet now outputs like previous versions for helper compatibility.

Long input lines, like non-wrapping chat lines, don't automatically continue
when max characters are entered.  A <CR> must end the line.  Input typed
beyond the max size of the line will not be accepted.

Refined Gary's auto-entry sector input at main command line so that a player
cannot enter an invalid sector.  For example, if the maximum number of
sectors in the game is 1000, and a player enters 101, the value is
automatically accepted since any fourth digit would put the sector over the
limit.  Also, if the user has entered 100, then the only further input
accepted would be a <CR>, <BS>, or the digit 0, as a 1-9 would put the
sector over the limit.

Major revision of input routines to guarantee handling of global commands,
time-on timeout, inactivity timeout, dropped carrier, etc, at all prompts.
Watch for and report minor changes in prompt functionality for compatibility
with helpers.

02/12/97

Fixed Corp fighters display, now shows corp number and corp name.

Planet "Take All" command now takes Equipment, Organics, and then Fuel.  The
order was reversed.

Citadel sector display now shows correct warps when user enters game on
planet.

Upgrading citadel now takes correct product amounts, and correct number of
days.

Can press space-bar to interrupt autopilot and bring up autopilot menu.

Grimy Trader now only reports 1 port on a trace, pending Gary's approval.

Planet scan now shows all totals for Personal and Corp.

Planet prompt is back to normal.

Robbing port now functional.

02/06/97

Added shield totals to Compute/Personal Planet scan and Corp/Corp Planet scan.

Fixed multiple bugs where alignment and/or experience change was not being
committed to user record.

Planetary Negotiation now allows maximum credit transfer amount to be entered,
rather than the traders on-hand credit amount.

Fixed rare general file bug that kept record changes from committing.

When buying a ship without trade-in, trader stays in original ship, and new
ship appears in orbit at stardock.

When selling an extra ship, asks for verification before completing the
deal.

Fixed "retreat from fighters" routine.  Can't retreat if previous sector was
a one-way warp, or if the trader transwarp in from a non-adjacent sector.

Attacking port won't cause negative stock percentages.

Warps out of sector show up at Citadel prompt.

Game pauses after new planet ansi screen.

02/05/97

Removed sexist reference to trader, using "his" in various locations.

Traders now recieve full messaging throughout the game, except:
  Start menu - No messaging.
  Planet, port, stardock, etc - No reports of sector activity.

  Note that traders in a citadel will receive full messaging, as if they
    were in the sector off planet.  This may change at Gary's request.

Messages are purged when user exits to Start Menu, instead of when user
exits the door.

No more autopilot prompt in destination sector.

Program should now exit from within any prompt at end of game time.

02/04/97

Long range scan now reports other users in scanned sectors.

Corp ships don't revert to personal when player transports in.

Leave colonists no longer displays "123" prompt.

Removed confusing message "Leaving Personal Fighters on Corporate Planet"
from Take/Leave Fighters function.  Fighters are always considered to be
corp or personal depending on Planet or Ship affiliation.

"Take/Leave Fighters" prompt now only one keypress (no enter required).

Fixed bug that resulted in multiple instances like the previous error.

Fixed problem with defensive rating of ports.

File lock attempts now time-out.  Default is a 10 second time-out, but this
can be altered.  Players getting stuck online during a locked-file routine
won't cause others to get stuck online.  After the time-out, they will be
booted from the game.

All halts are now accompanied by a write to the TWERR.LOG describing the
condition of the halt.

Comm-links and "Who's playing" are now global commands.  These can be invoked
from anywhere in the game except from within a global command, "Announcement",
"Send Mail", or while viewing docs.

Changed main menu to seperate global commands.

Changed comm-link prompts to make it more obvious when they are invoked.

Fixed "Etherprobe" routine to display something other than your current sector.

Added hidden "Back-track" key from the main command prompt, '<' (or just ','
to avoid excessive pressing of the shift key).  The routine moves
your ship to the last sector you visited.  This works well for adjacent port
pairs.

Fixed "Buy Ship" routine to eliminate record corruption due to dropped carrier
or system crash.

New ship created during "Buy Ship" won't be orphaned by a dropped carrier or
program crash prior to the completion of the routine.

Player on planet, stardock, or port when program crashes or carrier is dropped
won't remain hidden.  Only players remaining in a citadel will stay planet-/
port-side.

Fixed EXTERN so that it won't end in error if the message or global message
file is in use when it runs.  It reports that the file was locked, then
continues without purging it.

EXTERN can now run while users are in the game.

02/02/97

Long range scan now reports other users in scanned sectors.

Corp ships don't revert to personal when player transports in.

Leave colonists no longer displays "123" prompt.

Removed confusing message "Leaving Personal Fighters on Corporate Planet"
from Take/Leave Fighters function.  Fighters are always considered to be
corp or personal depending on Planet or Ship affiliation.

"Take/Leave Fighters" prompt now only one keypress (no enter required).

Fixed problem with defensive rating of ports.

01/29/97

Fixed a nasty file access error which could potentially destroy any type of
game record (ship, user, planet, etc).  This should be responsible for most
of the apparent bad pointer errors that have been cropping up.

Fixed various problems with destroyed ship routine.  Destroyed ships weren't
being made available as usable ship numbers, user records weren't being
updated properly, and some other probs I can't remember off hand.  This
should be working much better now, but I can't guarantee it's perfect.  Keep
an eye on it.


01/27/97

Citadel now reports other traders in the citadell.