- If you did a SMALL or MEDIUM install, do this to fix a minor glitch.
Copy ALL the files in the STE directory on the cd-rom to the STE directory on
the hard drive where the game is installed. This is about 3MB.
This fixes the 'cannot find GBM' problem in SMALL and MEDIUM install modes.
- Be sure to follow the instructions that came with the patch BEFORE installing
it!
TACOPS:
- DO NOT click outside the map area when viewing a planet surface or you will
get pteSetClimate(-1) error. This is caused because the planet sizes vary and
there is no restriction in TacOPS on where to click. This will happen more
often on small planets and moons, ie the Moon in Earth region. Try using the
zooming box in the TacOPS Command Palette for initial zooming.
- The camera in TacOPS does not collision detect, therefore it is possible to
rotate under the surface. Use the numeric 5 key to recenter the map display.
- Ignore the sizing error in the CVD and TacOPS cameras which tends to chop off
the tops of large surface objects, ie mechs.
- Try not to put surface waypoints under the terrain until a feature which
prevents this is done.
CONFIGURATION:
- If you deleted your SETUP.CFG file by accident, reconfigure from the main
menu BEFORE entering the game!
- Perspective Correct Texture mapping is not enabled on the planet surface.
Selecting this sets it to FLAT shading. Change to any other rendering mode
for now. This is not a problem for non-surface rendering.
SOUNDFX:
- To disable the runtime MIDI music, run the SETUP.EXE program from the
directory and disable MIDI driver support.
QUICK FAQ:
- Yes, I know, some surface objects with 'dynamic ai' think they can fly. This
is being fixed. If you see flying SAMs, SALs etc ignore them. If you see
flying cows, go see your therapist because I _know_ there are no cows in this
game.
- Yes, I know, you cannot manually dock an ATV with a shuttle. At least not in
your version It's been fixed.
- No you cannot enter orbit with the o key. You lose nothing by not being able
to do this _except_ the ability to launch probes to a planet's surface and
have it report surface activities in ORBSCAN mode.
- You MUST have the jump anomaly, ie jump point, wormhole, fluxfield targeted
in the NID and visible in the CVD in order to make manual jumps. Flux fields
tend to deposit the ship in blackholes where you may or may not be destroyed.
Jump points like regions, ie Earth, Mars etc, wormholes link systems, ie Sol,
Alpha Centauri etc, flux-fields are random and link regions to systems. The
autonav route finder linked into the ship's computer does this automatically
when a route is plotted in Navitron using the s key.
- Personnel move around the ship therefore their assignment and location may be
different. An assignment says where that person is working at and location
gives the physical location. If you take someone off-station, they are
unassigned and will roam the ship eventually ending up in their qtrs. You can
toggle the assignment/location display in Tactical.
- Rotate your crew often. If they get too tired, their life factor will
decrease and they will die.
- Keep Nutripak rations on the ship. Your crew eat too. If they run out of
food, their life factor will decrease and they will die.
- If a core breach occurs, fix it or radiation will leak and as decks get
radiated personnel at those locations will get radiated and die. If a
radiated person moves to an unradiated location, that location will become
radiated as well. Use Radiation Control Units in Logistix to fix this
quickly.
- If prisoners escape from the detention hold, set some marines in 'searching'
mode. If intruders board your ship, you've got problems. The first set are
likely to destroy systems and steal one of your ships and escape. If you
don't believe me, wait till it happens in ACM. The second set are likely to
kill people before attempting to escape. The first can be brought to the ship
by your marines, the second set a beamed to your ship at random using
transporters.
- When personnel come to the ship make certain they go to Medibay first. If you
allow an infected person on your ship, it will spread like radiation.
- Changing your ship's orientation to a solar source, ie the star (Sun), in the
system will charge the solar reactors. There is no storage facility yet. This
is dynamic.
- The longer you leave a drone on the surface, the more minerals it will have
when you retrieve it.
- Yes, I know, personnel tend to fly upside down when flying with jetpacks.
- You cannot jam an ODS missile
- If you have contraband on the BC and you dock at a GALCOM facility, it will
be removed and you'll get a violation, fine or both. Try transferring them to
a shuttle, launch the shuttle and then dock. Once you launch, recall the
shuttle.
- If a deck is damaged, try moving personnel elsewhere until repaired because
personnel will take injury (reduction of life factor) in damaged locations.
If a location is destroyed, all personnel there WILL die.
- DO NOT leave personnel on a planet for extended periods. They will run out
of supplies (Nutripaks) and weapons (Combat Kits). If this happens, send
some more down using the shuttle's cargo drop facility.
- To make sure you don't launch and Interceptor with the wrong weapon
complement, change it's 'combat profile' in the CVD by selecting it and using
the > and < keys to cycle thru the profiles. Each profile loads a certain set
of weapons. The computer will then arm the ship. For surface excursions, use
SAD and SEAD profiles. These have Air To Air (ATA) and Air To Surface (ATS)
weapons.
- To decrease your personnel's fatigue factor, send them to Medibay. The rest
rate is higher than in their qtrs.
- In critical power conditions, the BC failsafe system will do auto power
reallocation which results in the shutdown of non-critical systems. High
priority systems are Life Support. Combat Systems are LOW on the list.
- If the BC is under attack when you are in an IC. Target it and use the
b key. Then put the ship in AI mode using ctrl+a.
- When you cloak ALWAYS change the ship's location. If you fire weapons,
dock/launch ships, the ship will decloak briefly. That's all it takes for
someone to get a bead on you.
- Use your probes before entering a region if you can wait. Target the region
in the NID, select the probe in the NID and use ALT+F9 to launch it. As it
travels to it's destination, it will send back broadcast messages. Once it
gets to the region, put it in SCI-LINK mode and view it's feedback from the
TacOPS. Using this method, you can spy into a hostile region before entering
it.
- If you breach the edge of charted space, you will end up in NULLSPACE. Target
the jump anomaly to return to real space.
- If you complete all XC levels (10), I owe you a beer or a stick of gum.
- Use the PTA and FATAL systems often. That's why they're there.
- In cases where you want to fire the BC laser IOD but do not want to change
the ship's orientation, decouple it from the flight control system using
SCROLL LOCK and you can move it around the HUD and fire in any direction. The
flight system will still try to compensate by pointing the ship in the
direction of fire gradually.
- The laser won't fire unless they are charged. To increase the recharge rate,
decrease the laser intensity.
