OUTPOST: The Read Me File 1.5 ***************************** We'd like to thank you for purchasing this marvelous game. You're a fine human being. This document contains performance improvement notes, technical notes, and new features updates. *********************************************** THIS PATCH IS ONLY FOR THE *FLOPPY DISK* VERSION OF OUTPOST! OUTPOST 1.5 PATCH INSTRUCTIONS Copy all of the files contained in this self-extracting file to the C:\SIERRA\OUTPOST directory. Then run the file UPDATE.BAT. OUTPOST 1.5 NEW FEATURES HELP What follows are the new features in Outpost 1.5. This gives the seasoned Outpost player instant reference to what's new in this version. BEGINNER LEVEL: This version of the game incorporates a new difficulty level setting for OUTPOST players. If you'd like to try it, select BEGINNER when the game asks you which difficulty level you require. On the Beginner level, you have no mined resource restrictions, allowing you to learn how to construct your colony, control morale, use power, and manipulate your population without limitations on new construction. Your colonists will still die due to accidents and old age, and they will still require food to eat and air to breathe, but they won't be dying due to a lack of mined resources. TRANSIT INFORMATIONûMANUAL TRUCKING This is where you assign your Trucks to delivery routes starting from a specific tile (building). The starting point for the Truck route is the tile name listed at the top of the window. Truck route information is given in the large box on the left, marked Route. The three buttons on the right are Delete Route, Delete Leg, and Add Leg. If you highlight a route in the Route box, then click on Delete Route, the entire route will be removed and your Trucks will no longer make deliveries to that destination. Delete Leg allows you to remove only the last destination in the route. Add Leg allows you to create a new destination at the end of the current route. When you select Add Leg, your cursor will change to one that says: "Go Here." Click the Go Here cursor on the building or road tile you want to use as your trucking destination. The name of the selected tile is added to the Route list. Keep doing this until you have selected the final destination for the Truck route. All Trucks assigned to this starting location will follow this one established route. There is no need to list routing legs twice for multiple Trucks. The Trucks will follow a specific path that you establish, then keep using that path for round trip deliveries until you reassign them elsewhere or remove that route. If you want your Trucks to move faster by following an existing dirt or paved road, you must click the Go Here cursor on the last tile of each straight section where the road curves. Otherwise, they will start taking shortcuts over rougher terrain, which will slow them down. Note that the Go Here cursor can only create a path to buildings or to terrain tiles that have been bulldozed or paved, so you can't Add a Leg to a regular terrain tile. Either before or after you establish a route using the above method, you should select the Trucks button at the bottom of the routing window to assign Trucks to that route. Remember, all Trucks assigned to the starting location will follow the established route from that location. If you're satisfied with your route and Truck selections, click on the OK button. ASSIGN TRUCKS This is where you make use of your inactive or stored Trucks starting from a specific tile (building). The starting point for the truck route is the tile name listed at the top of the window. The number of inactive Trucks in the warehouse is shown as the number Available. The number of active Trucks currently assigned to delivery routes is shown as the number Assigned. Click on the up and down arrows beside the Assigned category to put more Trucks in action, then click on the OK button. TRANSFER LOCAL ASSETS This is where you choose an asset stored at this location and move it somewhere else in the same colony. The tile location where the goods are stored is shown at the top of the window. Choose an asset to transfer on the left by using the up and down arrows and highlighting the name of the item. The number of those items available to be moved is shown on the right in the Quantities section. Choose the number of items you wish to Move, using the up and down arrows on the right, then click on OK. If you change your mind, select Cancel. ROBOT COMMAND This is where you keep track of the robots controlled by a specific Robot Command facility (each of which can control 10 robots). Other information contained in this report shows you how the Robot Command itself is doing. The top of the report tells you the name of the Robot Command facility. You are also shown the Functional Status of the building, whether Operational or Idle; the condition of the staff required to operate the Robot Command; the number of robots currently available and controlled by that facility; and the number of robots controlled by that facility which are actively assigned to tasks. For more specific information on what the robots are doing and where they are, click on the Details button. ROBOT DETAILS This is where you get information on what the robots are doing and where they are. The Robot Command facility that controls this particular set of robots (up to 10) is shown at the top of the report. You are also shown the details on each robot: the type of robot, the remaining amount of life in its Fuel Cell, and where that robot is currently active (unless it's idle and waiting to be assigned to a task). MONORAIL Appropriate research must be completed before the Monorail System becomes available, at which time the Monorail tiles will show up in the Tile Picker (selection) window at the top center of the main game screen. A Monorail System has five basic components: the Monorail Station, the Monorail Power Transformer, the Monorail (track), the Monorail (track) Intersection, and the standard Tube connecting the Power Transformer to a colony. The Monorail Power Transformer can be built only at the end of a Tube connection. The colony supplies life support, power, and the workers to operate each Monorail section. Monorail (track) tiles connect to Monorail Stations. Monorail Stations can be placed only next to a Monorail Power Transformer or a Monorail (track) tile only. No tube is required to connect a Power Transformer or Monorail (track) to a Monorail Station. The only tube required for a Monorail System is the one that connects the Power Transformer to the colony. A Monorail (track) or a Monorail (track) Intersection can be placed next to a Monorail Station or another Monorail (track) only. When a complete Monorail System has been established between two stations, and the power/resource connections have been made, the Monorail line will become active. Note that if two separate Monorail lines become connected, a single train, instead of two, will make the complete circuit. For routing purposes, when trucking is manual, the two Monorail Stations are treated as legs of a truck route. MACROMANAGEMENT The Macromanagement interface allows you to do two things: sneak buildings into the rebel colony if you have an active trade agreement with them, and assign artificially intelligent computer managers to the administration of your secondary colonies. Assigning an AI to research in a laboratory is done through the research menu. This menu can be reached by clicking on a laboratory building, or through the Master Reports button in the main AI interface (reached by clicking on the chrome ball icon in the lower left corner of the main game screen). BUILD IN REBEL COLONY If you have an active trade agreement with the rebel colony, and a Trade Mission has been built for you there, you can sneak more buildings into the rebel colony. This is not necessary for your survival, but it can be used to your advantage. If you want to prepare the rebel colony for the day when you take over its operation, you will have several buildings of your own choosing already built there. If you want to undermine their economy by building structures that will sap their resources, you have that capability. You will not be allowed to build a factory or other obvious structures because shipping and storage operations would immediately trigger too much attention from the authorities in the rebel colony. The drawback to building in the rebel colony is that they will eventually notice what you're doing if you build several structures there. When they do, they will probably break the trade agreement, preventing you from trading with them or building additional structures in their colony. They will also take over ownership of any new buildings you created in their colony. The Build in Rebel Colony button shows you a text list of buildings you can sneak into the rebel colony. Highlight a building type by clicking on it, then select the OK button to confirm your decision. The building will be constructed in the normal amount of time, but it will use the resources of the rebel colony for construction and maintenance. ASSIGN AI TO COLONY MANAGEMENT If you have completed the research leading to AI Managers, you will then have the option of assigning a few of your new artificial intelligence personalities to the management of your secondary colonies. These new AI managers are not as powerful as your primary AI assistant, so they are assigned to a specific colony and instructed to build structures that will allow that colony to specialize. For example, you may want the AI manager to build an agricultural colony that will stockpile food, which you can then Truck or Monorail to your main colony unless you want to use it for trade. You will still need to check on the progress of your AI managers; they are primarily concerned about the colony systems and the orders you have given them, so the humans living in the colony get less attention. You are still responsible for the colony infrastructure and keeping the colonists alive. When they first appear, you may find that your AI managers are not exactly following the instructions you have given them. In some cases, you may find that an AI instructed to build an agricultural colony is building a sea of Communications Towers instead. If you see this situation, or if you want to slow down the use of resources by that colony, click on the Deassign AI button. Odd structures are built by unstable AI managers. Appropriate research into AI personality problems will stabilize your managers. *********************************************** IMPROVING GAME PERFORMANCE PREFERENCES FOR SPEED: To improve the performance of OUTPOST on slower machines, choose the "Preferences" button on the control panel that starts the game, or right click on any area outside the tile map diamond when you're playing the game. Select Control, then Preferences. Click on the boxes for each option you wish to de-select. If the box has no "X" in it, the option is turned off. Press the OK button to return to the normal game screen. To be sure the change in options has the desired effect, save your game, exit, and restore the game. If you're looking for a hardware solution, the animated sequences will run best on CD-ROM drives that are double-speed or faster. Increasing your amount of system RAM to 8 Megabytes or better will also improve game performance. We also recommend that you run OUTPOST using a Swap File under Windows. In order to do this, you need to launch Windows in Enhanced mode. For more information about creating a swap file and launching Windows in Enhanced mode, consult your Windows documentation. If you continue to run into problems, a good troubleshooting technique is to increase the size of your swap file. *********************************************** MICRO SOLUTIONS TO MACRO PROBLEMS Problem: After installing OUTPOST, I double-click on the game icon but all I see is a black screen. Solution: Use the ALT-TAB function to find the Midi Sequencer window. Make sure the "Don't display this warning in future" box is checked and then select "OK." Make sure to restart Windows so the changes can take effect. Problem: The animated sequences are all distorted when I run in 32,000 or 16 million color modes. Solution: Some video cards may experience graphics distortion if run in high color mode. Selecting a 256 color driver will remedy this problem. Problem: "Some of the text within the dialog boxes or buttons appear to be cut out. How do I solve this problem?" Solution: Make sure you are selecting a video driver that uses small fonts. Windows video drivers that have a Large Font option will display incomplete text message within OUTPOST dialog boxes. For information about changing your video driver, consult your Video Card or Windows documentation. Problem: "I'm experiencing a General Protection Fault... error message. How can I resolve this?" Solution: You may want to try updating your video card and sound card drivers for Windows. Contact your video card or sound card manufacturer, or browse their BBS, and see if they have more current drivers. This will often correct General Protection Faults for Windows. *********************************************** MORE TECHNICAL NOTES FOR WINDOWS CD-ROM USERS: WINDOWS USERS: We highly recommend that you disable your screen savers while playing OUTPOST. If you are in the middle of game play and your screen saver kicks in, you may experience audio break-ups and/or video break-ups. You will also want to disable any audio enhancement utilities such as Whoop-it-up, Icon hear-it, etc...as they may cause audio problems during simulation play. AUDIO BREAK-UP QUESTIONS: If you experience audio cutouts during the game you may need to alter the audio buffer size of the MSCDEX driver located in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You can do this by adjusting the /m:AUDIOSIZE parameter. We recommend that this value be set to at least 10. If you experience slow movement or audio cutouts consistently, you may wish to lower the size of this buffer. For more tips, please refer to the "OTHER NOTES" section. GENERAL QUESTIONS: Q: "I have never installed a Sierra game through Windows. What do I do?" A: To install OUTPOST through Windows, you need to do the following: 1) Enter Windows. 2) From the FILE menu of Program Manager, select RUN. 3) Type d:\setup (or substitute your correct CD drive letter) and click on the OKAY button. 4) Follow the on-screeb prompts. This will allow you to play the game through Windows. It will create an OUTPOST program group. Q: "What resolutions does the game run in?" A: OUTPOST will support most Window video drivers but requires a 640x480 256 color driver or better. Q: "I've got an SVGA video card, but OUTPOST does not appear to be running in 256 colors?" A: You may not be running in 256 color display mode. Check this by going to the MAIN program group and double-click on the Windows Setup icon to see your current display mode. "VGA" indicates that you're running in 640 x 480 in 16 color. To run in SVGA's 256 color mode, the SVGA display driver would need to be loaded. These SVGA drivers are provided by the video card company rather than by Microsoft. Most 256 color video drivers do not come standard with Windows, so you may need to contact your hardware or your video card manufacturer to obtain the specific drivers for your video card. If you're unfamiliar with installing these drivers, consult your video card manual or your dealer for more information. Q: "What's the difference between BASE and EXTENDED sound cards?" A: The basic difference between the two is with the number of instruments and notes that each can play. Examples of sound cards that often run in BASE MIDI mode include the original Sound Blaster, Thunderboard, and Pro Audio Spectrum cards. BASE level MIDI cards are configured to use channels 13 through 16 in the MIDI Mapper. Examples of EXTENDED MIDI devices include the Roland MT-32, CM-32, LAPC-I, and various General MIDI devices such as the Roland Sound Canvas and the Wave Blaster. Many of the newer FM sound cards such as the Soundblaster 16 and the Pro Audio Spectrum 16 may also use a special Extended MIDI mapper setting which enables them to play in extended MIDI mode. EXTENDED level MIDI cards are configured to use channels 1 through 10 in the MIDI Mapper. If you have an FM Synthesis card, choosing EXTENDED MIDI might not dramatically improve the music you hear within the game. Q: "The music is fine but the audio and/or voice volume is low, or vice-versa. What can I do?" A: Many sound cards also come with Windows mixer software that can adjust the SYNTHESIZER and DAC volume levels separately. Try running this utility and adjusting the input levels of the various devices. Outpost will rely on the default volume setting for both the MIDI and DAC options. Consult your sound card documentation for more information. Q: "The music is fine, but the voices hesitate or skip. What can I do?" A: Basically, the audio will hesitate or skip if played during an animated sequence. Waiting for the audio to finish before running the animated sequence, or vice-versa, will normally remedy this problem. Q: "I've got a Roland MT-32 (or a Sound Canvas, or a General MIDI device) and a Sound Blaster. The speech is okay, but the music and sound effects are incorrect. What can I do?" A: Quit the game, reset the EXTENDED sound device, then restart the game. This will flush the odd sounds that may have been loaded by a previous game or MIDI play option. If you have a Roland MT- 32, try using the specific MID file created for this device. OTHER NOTES If you are experiencing random lockups, make sure that you are using the latest Microsoft CD-ROM extensions driver, version 2.23. MSCDEX 2.23 is also shipped with MS-DOS 6.2 or above and should be found in your DOS directory. Contact Microsoft or your local dealer if you need the latest Microsoft CD-ROM driver. If you have any random problems running under Windows, you may be running third party shells such as HP's Dashtop, Norton Desktop, PC-Tools or Kids Desk. Please refer to their documentation for troubleshooting tips. If the audio still skips after trying the suggestion outlined in the first section of this README file, try the following troubleshooting steps: 1: On most CD-ROM drives, there is a /M:X stock buffers parameter for the MSCDEX line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT. Adding /M:20 should help to eliminate audio skipping and choppy video segments. Example of AUTOEXEC.BAT line: LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /V /M:20 NOTE - the above line is provided only as an example. Your MSCDEX statement will most likely be different than the example noted above. Your path and switches might be different. In any case, the /M:X value can be added at the end of the MSCDEX line. 2: In the SYSTEM.INI file found in your WINDOWS directory, try increasing the DMABufferSize line to 256. This line will appear in the [386ENH] section of this file and should read as follows: DMABufferSize=256 As with other Windows applications, installing OUTPOST will update your SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI files. If you want to immediately restore your system environment after installing OUTPOST CD-ROM, we took the added precaution of backing up your original WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files into the \WINDOWS directory. The WIN.INI file is renamed WIN.OPS, and SYSTEM.INI is renamed SYSTEM.OPS. Normally there is no need to restore these files, since these files are constantly updated every time you use Windows. Do not copy and/or rename these files in your WINDOWS directory after installing OUTPOST, or you'll lose any changes made during the initial OUTPOST setup. *********************************************** TECHNICAL SUPPORT If you continue to experience any problems, or if you have any questions concerning any of the above steps, our Technical Support Team will be more than happy to assist you. Please call (206) 644- 4343 between 8:15 am and 4:45 PM Monday through Friday Pacific time. We can also be reached by fax at (206) 644-7697 or by mail at the following address: SIERRA ON-LINE P.O. BOX 85006 BELLEVUE, WA 98015-8506 ATTN: TECHNICAL SUPPORT You can also reach the Technical Support Department on the following services: Sierra BBS..................(206) 644-0112 (Settings 8,N,1 & up to 14400 bps) CompuServe Access:..........GO SIERRA America Online..............Keyword: Sierra Please outline the problems along with specific information about your computer system, and we will gladly respond to your fax, letter or BBS message as soon as possible.