Reach For The Stars Version 1.2 beta Changes

For more information visit these web sites:

• SSI's RFTS Site
• SSG's RFTS Site
• SSI Online
• SSG

Special Note for users of NVidia graphics cards

We have discovered a rare problem on certain combinations of PCs, TNT2  and GeForce video cards and NVidia Detonator drivers. The symptoms are a complete freeze within a minute or so of game start. There are two possible solutions:

• Preferred Solution: Upgrade your video driver to the Detonator 3 drivers (Version 6.18 and above)
• Alternate Solution: In the RFTS.INI file, under the [General] heading add the following line:

  NVIDIA=1

The alternate solution uses a different but slower method of drawing graphics to the screen, so the driver upgrade is the recommended solution.

New and Updated Campaigns and Scenarios

Note that these campaigns and scenarios require version 1.2 to be installed to work correctly.

Reach for the Stars Campaign Change

Scenario six of the first campaign was made harder to prevent players from beating the Hive and invalidating the rest of the campaign.

Episode 2 Enter the Klaa'Keen

This ten scenario campaign starts up where you left off at the end of the first one and takes you through to the final apocalyptic battle with the Klaa'Keen. The winner will dominate our Galaxy.

Transit Point

A perfect three player multiplayer game. The only way between the three star clusters is through the star Transit. Control of this star is vital to victory and it will be hotly contested.

Spiral Arms

Two species, three spiral arms. After building an empire in their own arm a battle royal will be fought over the central arm. Perfect for two player multiplayer.

Piggy in the Middle

Four isolated species surround a central star cluster populated by the Hive. Your first enemy is obvious, but at some stage you must switch your war effort from attacking the Hive to the other species. This scenario is great for single player play of four player multiplayer. For a really challenging game, play the Hive.

Game Enhancements

These two enhancements change the game balance to a large degree and so are not available when playing a campaign.

Tough Satellites

Added an option to make satellites much more powerful, thereby making it easier to defend planets and more costly to attack them.

NOTE: As with some other game options, you must turn this option on before starting a game for this option to work.This is done by checking the "Tough Satellites" checkbox in the Options screen.

The changes that have been made are as follows

• Satellite weapons have double the penetration value
• Satellites have double the number of shields
• Satellite shields have double the deflection value

Technology Cost Multipliers

Added an option to vary the cost of Technologies and Era Jumps between Tech Eras. The costs are set via sliders in the Options Screen. The cost of Technologies or Era Jumps are multiplied by the value chosen with the slider. Available values are 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 5. The default setting is 1, that is, the Technologies and Era Jumps will cost the base amount set by the Tech Tree designer.

Major Game Fixes

• Fixed a problem with reinvading colonies you previously owned. The population will now be your own, if it should be.
• Fixed a problem with the placement of initial colonies in a random scenario, so they are now less clustered.
• Fixed a crash when making a Random Game and the Advanced option was picked for Players, but the computer players were not set up.
• Fixed a crash loading saved games with the Detect Incoming Fleets option turned on.

 Minor Game Fixes

• Increased the importance of technologies being researched, and they now appear in the start of turn event dialog.
• Fixed a problem with the display of side symbols in setting up of random games.
• Fixed a crash that would occur when loading a scenario that had no empires defined.
• Fixed a bug when placing random stars in small clusters. Sometimes the game would give up too early when looking for places for the stars.
• Made some improvements to the computer players' production and diplomacy decision making.
• Improved the balance of starships at the start of a Random Scenario. If a side could build no Destroyers, the side would be at a disadvantage. Now, half the number of Cruisers are built instead.

Editor Fix

• Fixed an Editor bug that would ot allow the Victory Condition for a scenario being set to Galactic Domination once it had been changed to something else.

V1.1 Changes

Game Enhancements

Fleet Detection

Added an option to the Options screen called "Detect Incoming Fleets" to allow detection of enemy ships targeting a friendly system. The type of detection depends on the level of the best Planetary Defense Facility in the system.

NOTE: As with some other game options, you must turn this option on before starting a game for this option to work.

• Level One: No detection possible
• Level Two: Detects only the presence of a fleet
• Level Three: Detects the total number of ships (including Colony ships and Marine vessels) and its time to target.
• Level Four: Detects the number and hull type of incoming ships (DD, CA, DN, SD, Colony Marine) and its time to target.

When an enemy fleet is detected, a red target symbol will appear over your system and the fleet will be listed in the fleet wing for that system, with a level of detail as noted above. Allied fleets are shown with a yellow target symbol.

The Defense Hyper Scan is the technology used to detect incoming fleets, and the range differs between species, with initial values ranging between three and seven squares. This range can be increased through research. The technologies that increase the Defense Hyper Scan Range are hidden if this option is not selected.

Note that an attack that is launched from a system within one turn's hyperjump range for the attacking fleet cannot be detected.

Note also that if your detection range is less than the attackers hyperjump range, then detection is not guaranteed, regardless of the distance that the attacking fleet has travelled. This is because the location of the end point of the second-to-last jump depends on the distance from the departure system, and this end point may or may not be within the detection range. The greater the difference, the greater the chance that an attacking fleet will be undetected. If your detection range is equal to or greater than than the attacker's hyperjump range, then detection (of any attack launched from more than one turn away) is automatic.

Editing the Default Queue

Added the facility to allow removal of items from the default queue. This means that the queue need only contain the exact Planetary Facilities that you require.

Changing file formats to prevent cheating

Changed the file format for the standard Species and Tech Tree information to prevent cheating. The files containing this information still appear in the editor, allowing the user to modify this information. The modified files must be saved under a different name before they can be used in the game.

Campaign changes

Added the Auto Design Ships and Detect Incoming Fleets options to the campaign.

Sound files can now be imported into a campaign. Type a filename into the text area and click the Plus button. The file name should include any path information required, either the full path name, or relative to the RFTS directory. The filename can include wild cards.

Tutorial Interface changes

The highlight box in the tutorial now stays on the screen, and only clicks on the highlighted button will have any effect.

Other Interface changes 

Shift and Control keys can now be used when moving colonies up and down the list of colonies in the System Production screen.

Double-clicking on ships or hulls in Ship Design now takes you to the next screen.

Typing ENTER when naming a colony in the Colonization or Invade dialogs now closes the dialog and the ESC, Space and ENTER keys now dismiss dialogs as appropriate.

Clarifications

• In multiplayer games, no human player can start their turn until all human players have dismissed any event or colonization dialogs that occurred at the start of their turn. If it looks like your turn is not starting, it will be because another human player is taking too long. When your turn does start, use the chat wing to send a polite reminder to the recalcitrant player.
• In multiplayer games with large scenarios, the Host may set a species to "off" and there is a chance that players joining the game may not see this notification. If so, the Host should simply chat with those players and ask them to deselect that species. The reason the "off" option was included was so that you could play large scenarios, such as Heavens' Gate, over the Internet without having a lot of species being played by the AI.
• If you create a scenario on a large map with thousands of ships, it may require several minutes to load and play saves from that scenario.
• If you are playing a Random Game and wish to use a player-created Species or Tech Tree file, you will need to select the "Advanced" option of the Player section of the Random Game screen.

Major Game Fixes

• The host in a multiplayer game now cannot start the game unless all players have all of the required species and tech tree files.
• Fixed a crash that could happen if, while playing a campaign scenario, a save game from a different campaign scenario was loaded and the player then started a single player game during the same session.
• Fixed a problem with the shield display in combat, which was not correctly accounting for withdrawn ships.
• Fixed a display problem for Ship Production capacity, which failed to correctly account for planets destroyed or invaded during that turn. Additionally, ship production orders are now reallocated correctly.
• When repeating a campaign scenario, the R&D queue is now correctly emptied and any techs researched during the first attempt at the scenario are marked as unresearched.
• Fixed a problem where weapons that normally had a Planetary Attack value of zero, but that had been increased by a Military Improvement were being ignored in assessing whether a planet was able to be bombarded.
• Fixed a problem where Military Improvements that had effects at all ranges were not implemented correctly.

 Minor Game Fixes

• Corrected some anomolies in the Arimechs and Outies tech trees.
• Fixed a crash that resulted from attempting to load the very last save game from the end of a campaign.
• Fixed a problem with buttons and tooltips being incorrectly displayed at the end of a campaign.
• Fixed a crash in an MPlayer game if a player name contained a period, dash or underscore character.
• Fixed a problem with double-clicking on a side in the Side selection screen for multiplayer games. It now has no effect.
• Made a change to prevent players from changing their species when loading a multiplayer save game.
• The Take No Prisoners scenario had some invalid ship designs, which have been corrected.
• Fixed a bug where a user could paste an illegal character into the Player Name when it was created for the very first time.
• Fixed a display problem caused by canceling a fleet order while at the same displaying the fleet wing at the fleet's destination.
• Fixed a display problem where destination markers were incorrectly remaining on the map after a fleet had been merged with another fleet, and effectively given new orders.
• Fixed a display problem when the fleet wing was displaying all fleets where the wrong fleet was shown selected when merging fleets.
• Fixed a display problem when the fleet wing was displaying all fleets and a colonizable planet was picked up from the system wing and dropped onto a colony ship. The number of remaining colony ships is now shown correctly and the colonize button is also correctly disabled.
• Fixed a discrepancy with build values.
• Fixed a problem that caused Colony Ship and Marine Vessel pictures not to appear in the Starship Report.
• Fixed problem with drawing ship destination lines on the map.
• Fixed a problem in MPlayer games where sides were being reset to computer control when non-host players attempted to select a side.
• Fixed a crash caused by trying to set advanced Game options in an MPlayer game.
• Fixed a problem where turning off Wing Animations could lead to inconsistent map scrolling.
• Prevented uncommanded changes to the Wing Animation check box in the Option screen.
• The Starship Report now correctly selects a ship to display when changing empires.
• Prevented the computer players from sometimes ignoring planetary compatibility when decided to invade.

Editor Fixes

• Fixed an Editor problem where copying and pasting a side did not copy all of a side's symbol colors.
• Fixed an Editor crash when creating a campaign.
• Fixed a crash bug in the editor that could occur when setting up start fleets.
• Added new game variables to the scripting system: Total RPs for an empire, Total SPs for an empire, Total RPs Earned by an empire this turn, Total SPs Earned by an empire this turn, RP Pool for an empire, SP Pool for an empire. The "pool" values differ from the "total" values in that they represent the RPs or SPs the empire has at the start of the turn. The "total" values are the sum of the pool, RPs/SPs earned, trade and bribes.
• Added a new script action to set the value of selected values. The only values that can be set are the RP and SP pools for an empire.

Copyright Info

Reach for the Stars, copyright (C) 2000  StrategicStudies Group Pty Ltd.
Reach for the Stars and SSG are Trademarks and/or Registered
Trademarks of Strategic Studies Group Pty Ltd. and are used by Mattel Interactive under license.