-------------------------------------- BATTLECRUISER:3000AD Release 4 C PATCH -------------------------------------- APPLYING THE PATCH ------------------ ************************* NOTE **************************** 1. THIS PATCH WILL DELETE ALL SAVED GAME AND PROFILES SINCE THEY ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE CURRENT VERSION. YOU CAN DELETE THESE FROM ROSTER IF THE PATCH MISSES ANY OF THEM. 2. THIS PATCH WILL ONLY WORK IF YOU HAVE DONE A FULL OR MEDIUM INSTALL. YOU ARE ADVISED TO APPLY THIS PATCH TO A FRESH INSTALL DUE TO NUMEROUS CHANGES. IF YOU DID A FULL INSTALL, YOU CAN SAVE 64MB OF DISK SPACE BY DELETING ALL THE FILES IN THE .\ANIM DIRECTORY. THE ANIMATIONS WILL THEN BE ACCESSED FROM THE CD-ROM. NOTE: FILE ACCESS WILL BE SLOWER FROM THE CD-ROM. *********************************************************** This patch will update the following versions of BC3K: Retail v1.00 - 10/01/1996 (Requires FULL or MEDIUM install) To apply the patch, unzip this file into your BC3K install directory and run the UPDATE.BAT file. This will patch your version to v1.01c4 (02/05/97 GA) Be sure to print out the BCKEYS.TXT for updated key commands ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FIXES IN RELEASE 4 C PATCH 02/04/97 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 Launching weapons no longer results in negative weapons bay 002 Weapons bay no longer overflows if full and a missile is removed 003 IC weapons loadout changed if waypoint assignment in tacOPS is changed though the ship is deployed and NOT on the BC. 004 Activating PTA will no longer cause missile type to change 005 XC data files are no longer saved since scenario is not saved 006 Delivery of tractored ship will now succeed at non-hostile stations (previously only Terran stations). Will not ask player for delivery instructions if the delivery is invalid. 007 If the player opts not to deliver a tractored ship, the ship is not released but remains tractored when the player leaves the station. 008 Tractored ships will now not vanish if they were fleeing and are released in a region that is not the same as the prior flee region. In this case the tractored object attempts to flee using a new escape-item in the current region. 009 AI/TACTICAL is now disabled for an object that is being tractored. Fixes problem where a disabled/tractored object "escapes" when the tractoring ship conveys it to the jump point it was trying to escape to. 010 Target TTD color is immediately restored if tractor link is lost 011 Tractored ships have additional protection from being attacked by hostiles, which will now break off if their target becomes tractored. If the attacker had STRIKE orders, orders revert to SAD. 012 TACOPS 'zoom to' list only shown in view state (otherwise it interferes with waypoint setting). 013 TACOPS 'zoom to' list is now shown after removing command palette 014 Ships will now auto-egress surface at 200,000 ft msl 015 Jump delay timer for AI ships re-enabled. Prevents ships jumping unless their jump engine has been recharged. Disabled AI ships cannot re-charge their jump engines. The lower the engine integrity, the longer it takes to recharge the jump engine. 016 Personnel image will no longer obscure tacOPS command palette 017 Mother and TO will no longer repeat weapons depleted messages 018 The game will no longer crash if the BC is destroyed due to hull breach 019 Starting XC after playing FF or ACM no longer causes lockup 020 Tradecom screen no longer corrupted when displaying cargo bay capacity 021 Joystick calibration can be dismissed using the ESC key. This forces keyboard control for the remainder of the session 022 Fixed problems with object rebuild code 023 Implemented Combat Alert Status, CAS for external threat monitoring and Ship Alert Status, SAS for internal ship alert monitoring. 024 System updates are not performed when game is frozen in tacOPS or by activating a menu choice. 025 CDROM check disabled in debug mode 026 Save game from bridge causing return to main menu modified so that calling it is not destructive (does not invalidate the current 3D world), but may cause the game to be saved multiple times if it is called more than once. Testing required. This will not not save the game if none has been loaded, but will always save the most recently loaded game. 027 BC tacOPS orders menu added to bridge menu. 028 tacOPS current Target orders menu added to bridge menu. Equivalent to entering TACOPS and clicking on a target, except it works from the BC bridge and uses the current CVD target, ie target selected in TACSCAN and identified in CVD. 029 Nullspace fluxfields programmed to work first time. Like normal jump anomalies, the target anomaly must be an FPD target using shift+f, in order for the jump to occur. 030 Can now dock at starstations Sarien and Majoris 031 Starstation Adonis correctly relocated to Pravis. 032 Updated BCKEYS.TXT 033 Fixed Fatigue Factor/Life Factor exceeding 100 (max value) 034 Fragmentation animation now being played when object hit IF it's shields are already breached and not recharging. 035 Menus are now shifted up so that all items can be accessed when pointer near base of screen. 036 Launching from station no longer raises shields. Shield state is set to it's pre-dock state. 037 You can no longer jump if the jump engines aren't fully charged. This is relaxed in debug mode for testing purposes. 038 ESC can now be used to exit to DOS during the cd-rom check screen. 039 Shuttle orders in tacOPS fixed 040 Docking range increased to 25 clicks 041 Fixed some save/load anomalies 042 Experiments on new/faster laser shots (feedback required) 042 Can now dock at starstation Parix 043 Modified AI autogeneration logic 044 Player's ship no longer subject to 'ignore' AI script command 045 More work done on save/restore model 046 Turret mappings fixed. FORE=CTRL+F1, MID=CTRL+F2, AFT=CTRL+F3 047 Update weapons specs and stats in ai script 048 Update weapon stats in Tactical database 049 Fixed interceptor docking bug (Protected Mode Error 35) 050 Interceptor will now combat in ai mode even if player IN the ship. This is a TEST and _may_ fail. I need to research it some more. You should be able to see what the ic does when it's in combat by switching to it, putting in ai mode. Make _sure_ weapon systems are armed! 051 Maximum storage (crew,cargo,personnel) updates: Cargo Cargo Weapons Weapons Personnel Reactor Shield Cloak Bay1 Bay2 Bay1 Bay2 Max Radine Plutonium Iridium ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BC 7500 7500 250 250 237 25000 10000 1000 Shuttle 2000 - - - 20 - - - ATV 500 - 10 - 4 - - - Drone 1000 - - - - - - - The drone and ATV each take up 750 units of cargo space which will reduce the cargo capacity of the shuttle they are loaded in. Radine max reduced to 25000 Iridium max increased to 1000 Shuttle capacity increased to 2000 052 An atv and drone are now loaded into all shuttles at startup 053 MIDI support removed from BC3K globally. That's the end of that. 054 Switching from a turret to a ship that is NOT ready to launch will no longer cause a GPF 055 Reduced repetition of some pilot voice messages 056 The interceptor, shuttle and ATV can now be destroyed in DIRECT mode if the integrity of the hull or reactor falls to zero at any time. 057 The interceptor pod will no longer auto-eject when the ship is destroyed when in DIRECT mode. 058 You can no longer tow invalid items such as asteroids 059 AI entities will no longer attack hazards such as asteroids etc 060 Dynamic auto-generation of ai entities will no longer occur in regions the player is not in. 061 The proper distance cued explosion soundfx is now played when an object is destroyed. 062 Race/caste alliance modifications. An object can ignore defualt race/caste relationships and treat another object as hostile. Objects launched from a platform inherit the override relationships of their platform. Example: carrier object A attacking station object B. Causes A to attack B and B to retaliate. If A then launches fighter C, then C is then hostile to B and B is additionaly hostile to C. A platform does NOT inherit the hostile relationships of its subordinates, nor do any objects attacked by a subordinate then become hostile to the platform that launched it. Hostile Override between two objects is discarded if one of the objects is destroyed or docks. Note: Hostile override as a result of friendly fire is not yet implemented. 063 Messages pertaining to events the player is not witnessing in ACM will no longer be transmitted. eg a player is sent to a region where an ACM script is running. If he's not there, messages directed at him will not be transmitted. 064 The BC will no longer be destroyed when it enters a planet. Note: Some restrictions will apply once the orbital model is in place. 065 A GPF will no longer occur when a probe is sent to a planet. Instead it will linger in the general vicinity of the planet. Once the orbital model is in, you will need a probe or the BC in orbit to do a planetary scan in tacOPS. Broadcasting for a probe on surface activities will not be supported as planned because there would be too many messages since the surface is always more densely populated than space. If it is implemented broadcasting may be restricted to the player's own ships and personnel. 066 Missiles should now hit their targets. This is work in progress as we have identified an issue where the missile will miss slow flying targets. We don't know why yet. 067 You can no longer deliver a tractored object to itself 068 You can no longer deliver an object without a positive tractor lock on 069 The aspect angle needed for ai ships to launch missiles has been increased which will increase the launch rate of ai ships. 071 The aspect angle needed for ai ships to fire lasers has been increased which will increase the firing rate of ai ships. 072 You can now select Navitron from a starstation. The menu is now fixed 073 A successful auto-evac with a surviving alter-ego will no longer call COMMLINK with an invalid parameter. Note: some additional code is required which will check for the existence of GALCOM hq _before_ attempting to relocate the player there. The system will scan for a valid GALCOM station and take the player to the nearest one. If none exist, the SOS call will fail. The player will have to hang around until one becomes available, ie repaired or rebuilt. This code will be implemented when the transitions (SEC-5 009) is being done. 074 Promotions are now disabled in Free Flight. This is going to cause a stir but in FF, you're not doing anything to get promoted for. If you want to be promoted, sign-up in ACM. 075 Payroll is now disabled in Free Flight. This is going to cause a stir but since you're out trading in FF, why should GALCOM fund your activities? Want a steady income stream, sign-up in ACM. GALCOM is a military organization and trading was included so that you could get the best of both worlds. 076 The number of digitized sound channels has been increased to minimize the likelihood of sounds not being played if there are no channels available. This is work in progress as the sound system will be overhauled for v1.1 077 All ACM scripts modified to conform to new race/alliance and other script related updates. 078 Changed interceptor laser sound to smaller version 2/5/97 - update - 079 Removed BC bridge menu from shuttle cockpit 080 Fixed problem with ship losing tractor lock. Tractor lock messages will now only play when the lock is acquired or broken. Note: If you lose power at any time when tractor beam is engaged the lock will break. 081 Increased probablity of an ai cargo pod containing objects to minimize liklihood of an empty pod being created. Note: The 'collect cargo' order for shuttles when a pod is selected will not be available if the pod is empty. 082 Removed experience point penalties in ACM for leaving a theatre before the mission time expired. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FIXES IN RELEASE 3 C PATCH 12/25/96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Prisoners will no longer end up in medibay when they should be in detention 2. People will no longer leave detention when they are tired or hungry. Food is now supplied directly to the detention hold. 3. Speed at which personnel move about the ship increased. 4. Marines will now follow 'searching' orders killing any detected intruders or escapees (based on ai and other factors) 5. You can now assign anyone to the detention hold. 6. The Fatigue Factor of people in detention hold will no longer increase. 7. It is no longer possible to launch an interceptor if the pilots are not physically 'located' in it. An 'assignment' does NOT mean that the pilot in actually in the ship since he may be assigned to it but in transit. 8. A shuttle now requires at least one person to be in it in order to launch 9. Retrieving interceptors no longer causes a crash. 10. Changes (general) personnel eat 1 nutripak per day 1 medpak increases a person's LF by 25% personnel will go off-station if LF >= 90 or FF >= 10 personnel will go to medibay if LF <= 15 11. Changes (rank) Salaries are now paid every 7 days instead of 15 Rank Salary Experience Points required ------------------------------------------------------ Supreme Cmdr 500,000 200,000 Tacops Cmdr 300,000 100,000 Strategic Cmdr 200,000 50,000 Fleet Cmdr 125,000 25,000 Commander 75,000 0 12. Changes (HUD) The FTOL/VTOL modes in the HUD have been changed FTOL - when airborne and in normal flight mode VTOL - when airborne and in vtol flight mode BRAKE - when stationary on planet surface TAXI - flashing when touching the planet surface and moving XXXX - when engine is shutdown ORBIT - when in orbit 13. The BC will now be destroyed if hull integrity falls to 0 14. Experience points and finances are now awarded for delivering various types of ships to friendly stations. Gammulan ships have the highest price, next to insurgents, then any hostile ship. Delivering friendly disabled ships gives higher experience points than finances. 15. Palette problems in tacOPS and PTE surface fixed 16. Jump anomaly offset bug fixed 17. The game will end if the player's alter-ego ever dies, ie FF =< 0 18. Clicking outside the PTE surface in tacOPS will no longer create a GPF The tacOPS grid is scaled so it does not exceed a planet/moon climate limit Some planets/moons may be larger than the tacOPS coordinate system, so the grid has an upper limit. 19. Buildings and all objects can now be destroyed on the PTE surface 20. The Combat Kills attributes for pilots is now updated during combat 21. Alliances are now saved 22. The ship will no longer move backwards after jumping to a new region 23. Ships can now fly to planetary waypoints set in tacOPS. Note: A last minute bug was detected which caused the ship to drop to the surface under gravity and take damage based on altitude. Once this ship falls, it may not be able to leave the surface since it will not be able to achieve enough thrust to breach the planet's escape velocity. If this happens, you may have to manually fly the ship back to the battlecruiser. 24. Ships will no longer take damage when flying planetary waypoints since waypoints are now pegged above the surface. 25. Joystick calibration no longer has any effect if device is not a joystick 26. Weapon systems no longer disarmed during hyperjump, ie PTE remains active 27. The engine sound will no longer 'pulse' during hyperjump transitions 28. The alert condition now flashes red. If hostiles are in the region, the alert condition is set to red and the klaxxon sounds 3 times. This check is performed every 2.4 secs for the region the battlecruiser is currently in. 29. It is no longer possible to tow targets in orbit. Those of you who have been pilfering starstations had better find something else to steal. 30. Ships emitting an SOS signal will no longer be attacked by alien nations who observe the rules of engagement. 31. Personnel messages are now integrated into ACM scripts. This is a first pass test in order to see if the player can benefit from the added info that his crew has access to. However, the person must be on station. All messages are sent to the COMMLINK log. 32. The ACM mission status can now be accessed via the bridge menu 33. Pause command has been changed to 34. Debug mission bypass had been disabled in distribution version 35. MTD bug which caused GPF crash in FATAL has been fixed 36. The altitude lines in tacOPS are no longer displayed if TTDs are off 37. During auto evacuation, if the alter-ego cannot make it to a shuttle, he will die when the ship self-destructs and the game will end. 38. Dead officers will no longer send messages 39. The Chief Engineer will now eject the reactor core during a severe breach regardless of his ai level 40. The Orbit To Surface acquistion count-down time in tacOPS is now fixed. Once the countdown expires, the weapon will lock. Once launched, switch to the bridge, select the missile in the TACSCAN computer, press F10 to switch to the external camera and follow the missile to the surface. If jammed or shot downit will not reach it's target. If the target acquisition reticle is too large, zoom the tacOPS view. 41. The battlecruiser 'destroyed' sequence will no longer loop 42. The cd-rom is now required to be in the drive during game execution 43. Several ACM scripts updated for playability 44. More work done in perspective correct texture mapping. Select from CONFIG menu or with . It's a little slow and needs more optimizing. 45. Several speed related enhancements and minor bug fixes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FIXES IN RELEASE 2 C PATCH 11/13/96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Expanded soundfx options in CONFIG. Audio System - turns off ALL sounds and music Midi Music - music on/off Digitized Music - sounds on/off 2. Fixed 'clear radiation' bug in Logistix. Once a deck is radiated, the 'clear radiation' option will be displayed. Click on this to clear the deck's radiation. This requires 1 Radiation Control Unit, RCU 3. Fixed interceptor docking bug (???) 4. Implemented new SOS sound library update and drivers 5. Fixed wrong colored TTDs in turrets 6. Fixed some internal bugs 7. The a/p indicator will now flash when activated 8. The ship will not longer fly backwards after a jump 9. If CONTINUE is selected and a saved game is corrupted, game will exit to main menu rather than attempt to load the .SAV file and cause a GPF 10. It is now possible to return from NULL space 11. The FLIR in the co-pilot seat is now fixed 12. The FPD scale is now increased so as not to obscure the TTD display 13. The ships sounds will now be muted when you dock 14. SCRIPTS directory will now only contain script fixes. All final scripts moved into resource file. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHANGES IN RELEASE 1 C PATCH 11/06/96 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Fixed various errors related to the surface engine not finding it's files. 2. Fixed a problem with collision detect/avoidance 3. Simplified and revised ACM Day1 scenario scripts (see below) 4. Modified VTOL (still work in progress). Left/Right slips ship in that direction. Pushing the stick forward/backward increases/decreases altitude. Later, the forward/backward motion will be modified so that they move the ship forward/backward whilst the ~ and tab keys modify the altitude. 5. Added version number in shift+capslock display 6. Fixed bugs in weapon systems. 7. Chase engine being removed (work in progress) 8. Modified BC3000AD.EXE so that extender allocates 20MB swap file when needed instead of creating it in 8MB chunks. 9. Fixed bug which prevented ships from using their jump engines 10. Fixed bug which prevented ships from launching missiles when they should 11. Fixed bug manual ctrl+d ATV->shuttle docking 12. Updated BCKEYS.TXT (note: some deployment keys are not yet active) 13. Changed from v2.01 to v1.97 of the DOS xtender 14. Locked down sound data to prevent swap to VMM 15. The Passive Target Acquisition, PTA system will now operate in DIRECT and AI modes. It may take a while for PTA to fire since it has to build a target list. The turrets, controlled by the PTA will NOT fire unless the target is in range. 16. Working on an extensive FAQ to go with v1.01c. It's not finished yet. 17. Armor & shield upgrades/repairs now updated accurately. The value displayed on the BC bridge is in armor units. The HUL value displayed is the current percentage of the max available protection. Protection max values are based on the currently installed armor or shield type. Note: when speaking of the armor and hull, they are one an the same since the hull has armor which only takes damage when the shield is breached. 18. Breaching an object's armor will now not necessarily destroy it An AI object is destroyed if (a) its reactor reaches 0 integrity unless it doesn't have a reactor in which case (b) its engine reaches 0 integrity unless it doesn't have a reactor or engine in which case (c) its armor reaches 0 integrity. 19. Docking events for ships is now accurately detected. This means that for instance in ACM mission 1, when a diplomat ship docks, you will be advised. 20. Game save/restore now more secure. For some reason, this problem only occurs when saving from the bridge menu. If it persists, simply got to Roster and save from there. But it seems to save/restore ok now. 21. ATVs & shuttles will no longer attempt to use HyperJump engines on a planet 22. Time compression enabled using ctrl+a and ctrl+shift+a are back in. These compress and divide time ie 2x, 4x, 8x and /2, /4 and /8 23. Modified the maneuvering code so that ships can now accurately retrack waypoints if they miss on the first pass. 24. The external F10 camera will now show the current object's target if any. 25. Debug commandline options now only available in interim 'tester' versions. 26. Shuttles should should now be able to deploy/extract mining drones and ATVs 27. TACOPS now follows the players ship if it switches to another region and was previously in the currently observed region. This means that if you are in say Earth region and viewing that in tacOPS and the ship switches to Mars as a result of flight, then tacOPS will automatically be updated. It will NOT however switch to a region that the ship is NOT in. So if you're in Earth and viewing Mars in tacOPS (using probe's SCI-LINK programming) and the BC switches regions, tacOPS will not be updated. 28. You can now select planet surface mode from tacOPS by simply clicking on the planet or moon from within tacOPS. Select 'observe' and it will be loaded. Once this is active, to revert to space mode, bring up the tacOPS command palette by moving the mouse to the right side of the screen and clicking and clicking on the SPACE button. Once in space mode, the button will revert back to BRIDGE. Due to the night/day effect. IF it is night time on the planet, everything will be pitch dark. See #35 below. The old method still works though until this mode is finalized. 29. Mining drones and ATVs can no longer be deployed in space from tacOPS 30. Navigation modified. In order for the ship to fly from one region to another you no longer need to have the jump anomaly (jpoint, wormhole, fluxfield) targeted in the CVD. You should first select the target you wish to fly to in either the NID or TACSCAN, activate the Flight Path Designator, using shift+f and the ship will fly to the target. If it's a jump anomaly, it will do the jump, if not, it will stop short of the target. This method allows you to continue using other modes of the NID, TACSCAN and CVD computers without accidentally clearing the current jump target. The FPD target can be cancelled by either turning off the FPD with f or by clearing the target with x. You can now have the ship flying toward a target while doing other things such as acquiring new targets, firing at them etc. Once a nav target is set in Navitron, activating the FPD with f will cause the AutoNav system to jump to the region without relying on the current CVD target. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE AUTO-PILOT MUST BE TURNED ON FOR THIS TO WORK IN EITHER AI OR DIRECT MODES SINCE THIS ALLOWS THEM TO CALCULATE THE ROUTE. TURNING IT OFF WILL TEMPORARILY CANCEL THE AUTONAV TARGET. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If the HUD is in TAC mode, ie weapons on, the FPD will _not_ appear though the route is being flown. Put the HUD in NAV mode by disabling weapon systems in order to see the FPD. The flight control is slightly offset to the left so that you can see the jump anomaly if it's obscured by the FPD 31. More modifications to VTOL. Move the stick left-right to slip in that direction. Move the stick forward-backward to slip in that direction. To increase your lift (altitude), using the throttle commands. Later, the ~ and tab keys will do the same thing. To auto-hover, reduce speed to around factor 2-4, enough to counter the effects of gravity and prevent the ship from falling. Activate VTOL and use the throttle wheel keys to find a suitable hover altitude. Use the numeric 5, auto-leveling key for a quick attitude orientation. 32. ACM will now report on mission success whenever it can. This is NOT true for most missions since ACM is not mission orientated and in some scenarios, a success is an 'abstract'. Several event triggers are now used to signal a new scenario without the need for an extended downtime. Some of you are going to start moaning now that you won't have a lot of time between assignments, especially advanced scenarios in which you are certain to take a pounding. You are a galactic cop and in most scenarios given a 'beat' in the form of a patrol zone. All you have to do in some scenarios is survive until the next assignment. This is why there is no mission success or failure in most ACM scenarios. Once you reach ACM scenario #30, these training scenarios will end and you will be required to defeat the Gammulans using whatever means necessary. See the FAQ for more on this. 33. The ship should now come to a relative complete STOP on the planet. You need to fine tune this and is dependent on the elevation and slope of the current terrain you're on. 34. You can now use ctrl+d from a shuttle to recall the targeted ATV or mining drone. This will only work if there is space in the shuttle. Once personnel flight is handled, you will be able to do the same for personnel from the shuttle and ATV. The proposed ALT+F9 menu command (NYI) is going to be used for this. The shuttle must wait for the ATV to dock. There is a strange anomaly which causes the ship to be immediately docked without actually travelling to the ship! 35. Night/day transition modified (first pass). At night, the terrain fades to COMPLETE black. This is NOT a bug. This will change later so that it's not as dark. Even the infra-red scope in the IC is not penetrating this once the planet goes completely black. 36. Docking the shuttle with an ATV or interceptor in tow will now dock both ships. Normal docking rules apply. ie, the status of the docking bay, launch bay etc. 37. CONFIG options are now saved when accessed from within the game. 38. Sound on/off support added. To disable MIDI support, run SETUP from the BC3K directory and select 'no MIDI device'. Do the same to disable digitized sound. If they are turned on and wish to disable them from within the game, simply turn SOUNDFX:OFF in CONFIG. This will disable both soundfx and MIDI support if they were enabled.