ftp.wwiv.com

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ ftp.wwiv.com / ftp.wwiv.com.zip / ftp.wwiv.com / pub / DOOR / 2002V305.ZIP / TWSYSOP.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1997-11-09 | 30KB | 645 lines

Trade Wars 2002 Version 3 The story continues... by Gary Martin, MaryAnn Martin and John Pritchett Many thanks also to Drew Markham, a.k.a. Videon for v2 debugging and cleanup. Castle RavenLoft Dial : (785) 842-0300 Telnet: loft.martech.net Web : http://loft.martech.net Web Sites Martech : http://www.martech.net TWv3 : http://cypress.idir.net/~jpritch/Version3.html Welcome! Right now you're probably dying to configure this program and get it running. Before I tell about that, I just want to put a plug in here. Trade Wars 2002 is the result of over 11 years of game testing and development. The version you have in your hands is v3, our NEW version, offerings tons of new features the players requested and some new twists that we threw in ourselves! It is one of the most complex games in the BBS world at this time. You probably can guess about the amount of development time that went into this game. Install and run this game for a few weeks and if you agree that it is decent and want to keep it, you will need to register with us. The registration fee is very small, just $25. Being registered will keep you in touch with further development of the game and all subsequent releases of Trade Wars 2002 will be free of charge to you. This un-registered version is almost fully functional. There are four options that do not work: You cannot edit any values in the Trade Wars Sysop's editor, Players cannot buy any of the other shiptypes in the game, and Players cannot build or enter Citadels on planets. Photon Missiles cannot be purchased. The rest of the game works 100% Try it, I think you'll agree that our registration fee is cheap for what you get! We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express and US funds drawn on a US bank ONLY! Foreign funds will be returned as the cost of processing them is most often more than the registration fee itself! -------------------------- Ordering Info ----------------------------- To register online, see "Online Ordering Info" below. To register via mail, send $25 (US) in check or money order to: Martech Software, Inc. P.O. Box 1358 Lawrence, Kansas 66044 You will find an accompanying file on your harddisk called TWORDER.FRM, please use this to send in your order as it will speed things up. Please allow 3-4 weeks for your registration code to reach you by return mail. We will not transmit registration codes through the net. And we will not call with your codes. We have very little time to work on the game as it is. Also, US Postal Priority Mail doesn't seem to be any faster than regular mail! We get registrations from either coast in 3-4 days. Please include your BBS name, type and number as well as your address on the included form TWORDER.FRM. ----------------------- ONLINE ORDERING INFO ---------------------------- We will have online ordering available on Castle RavenLoft after Sept 1st 1996. We're sorry it took so long to make this available, but we will have it there for you now. Call Castle RavenLoft at (785) 842-0300 or Telnet to loft.martech.net and you will be able to use Visa, Mastercard or American Express to place a credit card order. Reg Codes will not be available immediately, but within 2-3 days of the time you place your order. We plan to have this fully automated as soon as we can finish that application. --------------------------- Update Info --------------------------------- If you registered Trade Wars 1.xx or 0.9x before January 1st, 1994, then you are eligible for a free upgrade to the new version 2.xx codes. You will find an update form included with this archive. Get it to us and we'll get you your new codes for 3.xx ---------------- Now on to the installation! ---------------- B E F O R E you do anything else! Copy the distribution archive 2002V302.ZIP to a nice safe place. The installation process will delete the one from out of the BBS dir to save system space. If you intend to continue a v2.xx+ game, backup your data files as well. YOU CAN'T REVERSE THE DATA CONVERSION, so back up those files! Step 1: If you are currently running Version 0.90 through 1.03d: ERASE ALL FILES IN THE TRADEWAR SUBDIR! (Optionally install version 3 in a different subdirectory. You can put it anywhere on your computer as you can fully control where the program looks for its data) Version 3 is NOT compatible in any way with the files from Version 0.90 through 1.03d Make sure and erase every file in the TRADEWAR subdirectory! if you are currently running Version 2+: If you would like to convert your data files to v3, DO NOT ERASE THEM FROM THE TRADEWAR SUBDIR! If you intend to start a fresh game, then you may delete all files before beginning the installation. Step 2: Unzip 2002V302.ZIP and it will create the installation package for you. Put the executable archives TWSUPP.EXE and TWPGM.EXE and the batch file INSTALL.BAT in your Tradewars directory. You will have to set the Dos Environment variable (more info later) to indicate which node is what. Step 3: Run the batch file. (INSTALL.BAT) It will unzip everything into the current directory, create a directory called ANSI and put *.ANS into that ANSI directory. If you want to run two versions of the game, make another subdirectory under your main BBS directory and copy EVERYTHING thats in your Tradewars subdirectory. You will then need to make appropriate changes to the BBS setup or to the batch files that you use to call Trade Wars 2002. ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* Installation Notes: Upgrading from v2+ to v3 - Backup data files, but leave them in your current game directory. After installing all new files, run TW2002.EXE to trigger the data conversion process. The game will detect the version of the data (assumes all pre 3.00 data is 2.xx) and prompt you for conversion to the most current data format. The data files will be backed up in the same directory. If a file conflicts with the backup name, you will be prompted to overwrite the file, overwrite all files, or abort. Once conversion is completed, the game will begin as usual. Note: This conversion process is not two-way, so back up your original data files in a safe place. Also, the data files and indexes created cannot be rebuilt in case of corruption, so you might consider backing them up with nightly processing. Upgrades from versions of Trade Wars prior to 2.00 are not supported. You must run BIGBANG.EXE to begin a new v3 game and will lose your current game state. Share issues: SHARE.EXE must be loaded to play Trade Wars. If TW detects a problem with Share, it reports an error and will not load. This error is "Share not loaded or unresponsive". Please NOTE!!! During a first time initialization, the BigBang Universe Creator must be run. This process can take a while on slower machines. A LARGE portion of the Trade Wars 2002 Universe is contained in the External maintenance program called EXTERN.EXE This program must be run once a day. It does NOT support the modem so it should not be run as a logon event for users. (it also gives out info that users shouldn't see). Run it in your nightly maintenance batch file. We have noticed that some other door's external maintenance files screw up the environment so that EXTERN will not function correctly. We recommend that you put EXTERN.EXE *FIRST* in your nightly batch file. ------ Running TW2002 on Your BBS ------ The new version of TW2002 runs quite a bit differently than the previous versions. The Node configuration file determines how the system runs, what type of door drop file should be read (and where it is) and how communications should be handled. There are only two command line options that are used regularly. (there are some optional override command line options available). NOXMS The NoXms switch tells TW2002 to NOT use Extended memory to load its overlay files. NOEMS The NoEms switch does the same for Expanded memory. By default TW2002 will try to use Xms memory first, then Ems memory. If neither are available (in sufficient quantity) then the game will not load its overlays into memory and your disk usage will rise considerably as the program loads and unloads modules from the overlay file. EXAMPLE: TW2002 NOXMS NOEMS Calling Trade Wars 2002 this way would insure that no high memory was used at all. (Sometimes useful for systems such as Desqview) a third, optional command line item, is an overlay buffer size. BUFFER=x Where x is the number of bytes to set aside for the overlay buffer. By default, the game tries to keep 165,000 bytes for dynamic allocations during the game, and devotes the rest to the overlay buffer. The buffer must be a minimum size (80,000 bytes currently), so there may be less than 165,000 bytes left over after the buffer is set. You may override the default if you would like to squeeze a little extra performance out of the game. The 165,000 bytes is intended to handle a 5000 sector game, so smaller games will require less for data allocation. In that case, you could force the overlay to a value that leaves about 32k-64k free while the game is running. Check the @ command in the game for an indication of the number of overlay reloads occuring as you play. Each reload indicates that a block of the overlay was moved from either disk (if no EMS or XMS is used), or memory. Obviously the fewer, the better, though this will have a greater effect if loading the overlay from disk without caching. When adjusting the overlay buffer, it is important that the memory available from the main command prompt be about 30K (see @ command). By default, For a 5000 sector game the overlay setting should leave 32k free just after a player enters. If there wasn't enough memory to meet this request, the amount could be lower. The fourth, optional command line item, is a node specifier. TWNODE=x Where x is a number from 0 to 32000 The fifth, optional command line item is useful if you want to run TW2002 on a Local area network. Setup the nodefile for Local use, and call the game with the TWUSER=<username> command line option. TWUSER=name Where name is from 1 to 40 characters long. The sixth, optional command line is a default data directory specifier. DATA=path Where path is the location of the Trade Wars data files. This path is overridden by the node-specific data directory if that path is not default. The standard method to setup TW2002 is to use a Dos Environment variable in the autoexec batch file to indicate which node a given machine is running. ╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ SET TWNODE=x Where x is a number from 0 to 32000 ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ ║ ╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Sample Autoexec.bat entry path=c:\dos set TWNODE=1 <============ Upper or lower case doesn't matter prompt $p$g ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ║ ║ Trade Wars 2002 supports many different BBS interchange file formats. ║ ║ Select one from the following list for YOUR BBS! ║ ║ ║ ║ BBS Name Interface File Name Nodeedit Door Type ║ ║ ------------------- ---------------------- ------------------- ║ ║ World War IV CHAIN.TXT WWIV ║ ║ Generic System DOOR.SYS DOOR ║ ║ QuickBBS DORINFO1.DEF QBBS ║ ║ PcBoard DOOR.SYS DOOR ║ ║ R.B.B.S. DORINFO1.DEF RBBS ║ ║ RyBBS CURRUSER.BBS RYBS ║ ║ Wildcat 3.x CALLINFO.BBS WILD ║ ║ Wildcat 4, 5 DOOR.SYS DOOR ║ ║ Telegard DORINFO1.DEF RBBS ║ ║ Spitfire DOOR.SYS DOOR ║ ║ Local Mode, no BBS LOCL ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Please note!!! This game requires between 450K and 500K of RAM. We recommend you shrink out most of your BBS before running TW2002. This system is delivered in an "as-is" basis. We do not guarantee that this system will work on your BBS. Any problems with your system, lost data or corrupted files are your problems to solve. As distributed this package will work fine on a PC-compatible running WWIV or QBBS. If your dog gets sick, you lose your job or one of your users gets into a gunfight over this game with you, it is still your responsibility. We *ARE* glad to try and help if you are having problems getting this system installed on your board. Good luck trading and watch out for the Ferrengi! Gary A. Martin, #1 and Castle RavenLoft (913)832-2888 Mary Ann Martin, #2 AutoSysop Validation, V.32bis Common Technical Problems and answers: To help troubleshoot the game, Trade Wars sends error messages to standard output. You can capture output to a file and see what messages were sent even if they weren't visible on the screen. Just run the game like this: TW2002 > ERR.LOG Then view ERR.LOG after the game ends to see what it reported. ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ║ ║ W W I V S Y S O P S ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ║ ║ ║ ║ Make sure that Use_Dos_Interrupts is set to NO for ║ ║ your Chainedit entry of TW2002. YOU MUST SET THIS ║ ║ off! It's very important. Otherwise you will see ║ ║ double characters remotely and it can lock up your ║ ║ system!!!!!!!!!!! ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Q: When running games on multiple machines that point to a shared data directory, one or more of the sessions can't receive messages. A: Clock synchronization is crucial when running on more than one machine. Beginning with v3.05, a new global command has been added to synchronize the machines. Here's what you should do. 1: Run a local session on each machine 2: From the main machine, press &. This will synchronize all other machines running local sessions to the time of this machine. You can certainly do this manually, if you'd prefer. The clocks need to be synchronized to within a second or two. Q: Trade Wars seems to run fine in Local mode, but goes crazy for the remote callers? A: TW2002 handles its own I/O. Make sure that you are NOT using some other utility program or the BBS itself to handle the Modem I/O. A program such as Gateway is not needed with TW2002. Also, make sure you are using the door mode on your BBS that removes the BBS from memory. This is the safest setting. Q: No matter who runs the game, it always comes up as the same player or as me! (the sysop) what is happening? A: TW2002 looks for your Door Interface file wherever you told it to. If you have it pointing to the wrong one (not one the BBS makes whenever a user tries to run the door) then it will always try to run that configuration. Also, if your Dos Environment variable TWNODE isn't set, it will default to Node 0 (local mode) Q: Running TW2002 on WWIV, remote callers get double characters? A: Under WWIV's Chainedit, you have Use Dos Interrupts set to "Yes". Turn that setting off as you are asking both the BBS and Trade Wars to transmit characters to the remote user. Q: When I run TW2002 I keep getting error codes 002 or 103.? Its never worked since I got it. A: You never ran the INSTALL.BAT file when you first got the archive. If you do not run this, then the appropriate data files were not created. Borland Turbo Pascal Error Messages you can get with TW2002: Number Meaning With regards to TW2002 ------ ----------------------- ------------------------------------------- 2 File not found You are missing a file. 3 Path not found You are not using the batch files we included. 4 Too many open files Increase your FILES= statement in your CONFIG.SYS We recommend about 127. 5 File access denied Either a file has been set to read only, a directory is full, a RENAME tried to rename to an existing file name or a file is not open. s 6 Invalid File Handle Your file handles have become corrupted, DOS err. 100 Disk Read Error An attempt was made to read past the end of a file most often. Something is corrupted in the record pointers. 101 Disk Write Error Generall an indication of a full hard disk. 103 File Not Open File is closed when it shouldn't have been. 104 File Not Open for Input Text file is closed when it shouldn't have been. 105 File Not Open for Output " " " " " " " 106 Invalid Numeric Format Generally this is only caused when reading a BBS interface file (that has the user's info). It happens when TW2002 is trying to read a numeric value from an interface text file and there isn't a valid number in the file. Errors 150 through 162 indicate various HARDWARE failures. If you're getting these, then something is wrong with your PC and I can't be of much help there. Some commone ones are: 152 Drive not ready Controller problem or drive not spinning 154 CRC error in data Scrogged disk (real technical eh? (grin)) 156 Disk Seek error Head problem or bad controller 157 Unknown media type Did you just change to DOS 4.0 or 5.0??? 158 Sector not found Head problem or bad controller 159 Printer out of paper Hit Control P! Disable printer logging. 160 Device write fault Disk problem 161 Device read fault Disk problem 162 Hardware Failure Reported due to Dos sharing violations, mostly having to do with Lan or multi- user problems. If you encounter this error, then you have a configuration problem with your multinode BBS setup. Make sure Share is being run. Also make sure that the Trade Wars files are setup for a Shared access mode. You can set the executables and the .ANS files to Read only to facilitate this. Fatal errors generally indicate a problem that must be fixed before you can continue to run the game. 200 Division by zero Now I hope you cannot make one of these happen as I check before every division to make sure it DOESN'T happen, but you it might. 201 Range Check Error Array index out of range. 202 Stack Overflow NOT ENOUGH MEMORY for the stack! Type @ while TW2002 and it will tell you how much memory you have left with the game running. If you're under 5K, then you're in trouble. 203 Heap overflow error Same as 202. 204 Invalid Pointer Op. Can be caused the same as 202. 205 Floating point overflow Most likely someone has used the editor and put an insane amount of credits in a credits field somewhere. YOU CANNOT make enough money in TW2002 to cause this with normal play. 207 Invalid Floating point You have a real thats trying to be converted to Operation a Long int and its greater than 2 billion. 209 Overlay File read error TW2002 had a problem getting an overlay from the TW2002.OVR file. If you're not using EMS, then the .OVR file is missing or is setting on a bad sector on your harddisk. If you are running EMS then you have a bad memory chip! (yak) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a new, hidden function inside the game, accessible as a global command. The @ key will display info about your system's memory: <@> Game Details. This function (a global key) displays important info concerning the active game session. The title area displays the Trade Wars version, and the environment that the game thinks it is running under. If this is incorrect, the game may not function properly. Supported environments are WinNT/95, Win3, DOS, OS2, and DESQview. Example: Trade Wars 2002 Version 3.02 WinNT Detected. Memory Status: Displays the current memory available to this session, as well as the largest free block and minimum bytes available so far. If, while at the main command prompt, the current memory is much greater than 30K, you might consider overriding the BUFFER size to make more memory available for the overlay buffer. This will increase the game's efficiency. See the BUFFER parameter in this document. The minimum bytes available value is a danger flag. If this value becomes low in relation to the Object Memory, you may need to attempt to gain more memory for your sessions, or BIGBANG a smaller universe. Example: 32,392 bytes available. 32,392 largest free block available. 29,792 minimum bytes available this session. Stack Status: Displays the current and minimum stack available to the game. The minimum value is an estimate, and the actual value is always less than or equal to this amount. The stack allocation is static and defined when the game is compiled. If you find the stack running dangerously low, report it to Martech, and we'll increase the stack size with the next release. Example: 32,920 stack bytes available. 30,154 minimum stack bytes available this session. Object Allocation Status: Indicates the current and maximum pool of memory allocated for dynamic structures within the game. This pool grows and shrinks as you access different features of the game. Example: 132,856 bytes allocated. 135,456 maximum bytes allocated. Overlay Buffer Statistics: These stats help you determine the optimum overlay configuration for your system. By default, the program attempts to allow about 135,000 bytes for dynamic allocation, and 30,000 bytes available for future allocation when at the main command prompt. The rest of memory available is given to the overlay buffer. A minimum buffer size currently is 80,000 bytes. In order to meet this requirement, your game may show less than 30,000 bytes free at the main command prompt. You can set this value yourself with the BUFFER= command line parameter (see RUNNING TW2002 ON YOUR BBS) to free up some more memory, or increase the buffer size to improve game performance. The Reload Count gives an indication of the number of times an overlay has been reloaded. A smaller buffer will result in a higher reload count, and a larger buffer a smaller count. If this line reports "Loading from disk", then you have either disabled EMS, or there wasn't enough EMS memory available to load the overlay file. We strongly recommend loading the overlay from EMS. This requires enough memory to hold the entire TW2002.OVR file. At this release, 460K will suffice. Example: Size 80,000 Bytes, Reload Count 99, Loading from EMS. Average Interval Lag: Another warning sign, this value should ideally be small. This is a measurement of the average amount of time spent in interval processing. If it approaches or exceeds the interval period (the delay between background processes, typically one second), there is too much load on the game. Move odds for Aliens and Ferrengi will effect this load, particularly in older games. Example: 0 hundredths Recommended Environment: Trade Wars 3 relies heavily on disk access to achieve the interactive feel of the game. Disk caching is highly recommended to limit the frequency of actual hard-disk hits. There is a noticable difference between a game running with and without disk caching. Win95 and WinNT handle this quite nicely. For a true DOS mode, try SmartDrive. This version of the game has been optimized for Windows NT server running Wildcat 5. It has shown good performance under Windows 95 and DOS. No testing has been done under OS/2, although the operating system is detected. Notes for DESQview users: Since DESQview uses a substantial amount of DOS memory, you may not be able to run a full-scale Trade Wars game. Try creating a game with various settings for sectors, maximum users, ships, planets, etc. These will all effect the amount of dynamic memory required to run the game. Share must be loaded prior to starting DESQview, and I recommend running SmartDrive or another disk caching program as well. If you won't be running a disk cache, you need to specify enough expanded memory available to load TW2002.OVR. Otherwise, overlay access will come from the hard drive, which will slow the game down. Currently, about 460K will suffice. I have run a maximum universe game under the DESQview Big DOS window, having set the Maximum Expanded Memory to 460K to hold the overlay file. With about 530K conventional memory for the window, this game runs well. Once the game has started, check the @ function to view the characteristics of your session. You would like the Current Bytes Available to stay at about 30K when at the main prompt. Check that the Lowest Bytes Available doesn't get too low. You would also like the Overlay Buffer Statistics to report a low Reload Count, and Loading from EMS. Keep the BUFFERS= setting in CONFIG.SYS reasonable. These buffers reside in DOS memory, and can limit the amount of memory available to TW. Changes to TEDIT: Some new features have been added to TEDIT. They are self-documenting. Also, the functionality of the TEDIT prompts has been revamped. The range prompt bears mentioning. Range input text (Low to High) [Default] : _ The Low and High values, if present, are boundaries for the input. The default is the current value associated with the input, so that a <CR> will leave the field unchanged. A value can be entered (as long as it falls within the range), or one of two special keys may be used. < : Enter minimum value. The prompt is terminated with the Low value entered as the result. The , key will function identically. > : Enter maximum value. The prompt is terminated with the High value entered as the result. The . key will function identically. Well this covers a large portion of the technical support for TW2002. If you have further questions, contact us at Martech Software via US Mail or via our Fax machine. We have also re-opened Castle RavenLoft for tech support. You will get full access to the TWs support area on your first call.