nasos073

First thing before coming and posting, was to look at VCF. Indeed I didn't notice anything that could affect performance in any way... About my sound card, after i read the related topic, it was the main reason I reformatted my system-dedicated partition, so that I would be sure that I eliminated any chance of remaining parts of any driver that would conflict with my configuration. After some further reading, I disabled ingame soundFX just to see what would happen. Still the same. Unless... ...without trying to be picky or something, who packed Regnow's 1.00.04 version? 3000AD or the vendor himself? ...on the other hand, RTPatch would hang if something went wrong during update (bad package or something)... Anyways, I'm gonna re-download the UCAWA package, although I didn't get any faults on my original download... glad that I paid for that extra 1yr download avaibility.

First of all, I have purchased and installed UCAWA download version from www.regnow.com, which comes at v.1.00.04 When I first installed it, my system (see profile), would pull 50-90fps in space, 20-25fps on planetside, showing minimal impact on various ingame or graphics driver settings. As soon as I updated to 1.00.06 and 1.00.07 later, I get 35-75fps in space and 7.8-11.4fps on planetside. I've tried everything that came to my attention: defragging, reverting to older audio and graphics drivers, checking BIOS settings, lowering ingame settings, 2 Windows repair attempts and finally reformatting HD/reinstalling Windows (this costed me my activation slots but SC was kind enough to give me one more round). No result so far... Ofcourse, reinstalling UCAWA and keep it on v1.00.04 would be an easy way, but, updates contain fixes and therefore are meant to be installed, don't they? I've run out of ideas here, any suggestions? [ 10-05-2005, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

As a matter of fact, you CAN install and run BC3k under WinXP. I'm not talking about the 2.09 freeware, but the 2.0 CD version, since the freeware one is hardlocked not to install on WinXP machines. Once you have installed the CD version and patched it all the way up to 2.09, you must adjust the game's windows combatibility to Win95. You might want to fine-tune the mouse behaviour from the BC3K shortcut too. I remember having problems with mouse ingame movement. Keep in mind that BC3K on WinXP is not officially supported.In fact, SC has stated (someone correct me if not) that the game won't work under WinXP, which is correct ofcourse, unless you're familiar with your OS and aware of WinXP combatibility mode.

My opinion on that is that if that battery was truly an artifact, it should be listed on the ship upgrades in the UC manual. So far, SC has been wide sincere about ship upgrades (he hasn't hidden yet any artifacts existense). Therefore, we shouldn't mess it with something like the Galaxian Probe , which indeed has to be found ingame (although it's lodation is almost crystal clearly described in the manual appendixes). It has to be something all ships have... Oh well, i have made a test game on the ROAM peacefull scenario, i'll leave it running all night, and when i wake up, i'll chk the situation out. I hope this will work...

quote:Originally posted by DennyMala: Basically I can't see a way of shutting down the solar reactor and panels as they keep supplying energy to the CC if properly oriented regardless of anything else... Denny, I share your concerns, i really do... I too have noticed that thing, yet if SR hasn't changed much since bc3k, there has to be a battery hidden somewhere inside that just needs to be charged (orelse what's the reason of having a power switch for that?) My speculation after all of this, is that SR works in both passive and active states: 1) Under passive state, it can power up most subsystems around, only if ship is perfectly aligned. 2) Under active state, that legendary internal battery is charged (i would expect a low charging rate) and for some time, the ship operates without needing to be aligned to a sun... IF that thing can powerup our fuel-driven primary systems too, (i need to reproduce a fuel-less reactor startup for that, something i still haven't done), that would be our best example of SR's true capabilities... Let BC community be sure that if and whenever i'll be able to reproduce such a thing, i'd be glad to upload the savegame somewhere, and my ship's log as well, for further investigation.

...so far i haven't seen any physical evidence of an existing SR internal battery... Has anyone tested SR on a 5-10 ingame days old game? Or we are all searching for that thing on a newly made test game? I'm just wondering if we can't see that thing, just because it hasn't been charged yet... I don't want also to believe that we need to have to let the NRCoolant get blown, wait for the system to shut NR down and then see that battery working... EDIT: the more i think about it, the more i believe it... SR is able to power subsystems at direct use, BUT it's battery might be possible to be used to power engine, main weapons, and shield... i know what i saw, and it was my reactor turning on with no fuel, but i had this game playing for at least 3-4 game hours... this might be the key, and i'm putting my main campaign save under serious testing. [ 08-12-2004, 12:36 PM: Message edited by: APOLLO ]

Dunno, what i'm planning to to next is to shutdown both reactors (NR and SR), align the CC and wait to see if i'll get any power drops. And i'm afraid it's gonna be a loooong waiting time lol

quote:Originally posted by DennyMala: In UC and AFAIK in BCMG too the solar reactor is always on and you don't need to activate it to use the energy it produce..... maybe in the original game it worked differently... That's true, and it's also true that you can turn SR off, or increase it's power supply. Having the SR allways on since the game start, doesn't mean that what the old manual says is wrong. On the contrary, it says how this thing works and what will happen if you shut it down

quote:Originally posted by ScottyBeamDownMyClothes: *something to make you think (more)* ok, just to experiment, i re-aranged my ship, so it had 99 SR power, shut down the NR, and I left my ship in a shuttle to go mining, and powered up life support sys. aux life support and launch control. when i returned in my shuttle, everyone had lost health and was off duty so that either means: A: something is wrong with my game B: something don't work with SR and life support or C: everyone threw a wild party while i was gone and drank way too much space-beer hehe, next time remember to a) put your engineering officer to DETENTION, so that he doesn't get any "ideas" set your CC to HALT c) don't stay away for long, because after a period of time, the ship loses optimal lock of the sun and needs to be realigned

Ok, i take back everything i have posted on this thread... Just downloaded the old BC3K manual (which is way more comprehensive on technical matters, from my point of view). From the hand of SC himself: "If the nuclear reactor cooling system is destroyed, the logic control system will automatically shut down the nuclear reactor to prevent overheating. It then attempts an auto-power reallocation. The ship has an auxiliary solar reactor which converts solar power retrieved by the solar panels to raw power. When the ship is close to a solar source, the solar panels automatically convert this to power and store it in an internal battery. This power is then added to the total amount of power available to the ship. Once the solar batteries are exhausted, they will automatically be recharged again when the ship is near a solar energy source. The status of the solar panels determines the amount of solar energy extracted. In order to convert solar energy captured by the solar panels to raw power, the solar reactor needs to be activated. It requires 10 ten (5 for UC) units of power to do this otherwise the energy will not be converted. Once the solar panels are extended, they will effectively charge the solar reactor with solar power which is then converted to power that can be used by the ship. If there is no power to this system, extracting the solar panels will have no affect and the solar reactor will not be charged. Once the solar panels are extracted, the solar reactor battery is charged at a constant rate and the power immediately stored in internal battery cells for use. The stored converted power will eventually be depleted." oh well... In UC, SR needs 5 units to operate, and 5 more can be allocated on (10 units in total). Then, those additional 5 units could be used to increase the internal battery cells charging rate in order to be ready faster, or to prevent power from being depleted... [ 08-11-2004, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: APOLLO ]

hmmm... after some experimentation to reproduce some previous results, i have came up with this: Solar Reactor can effectively power almost all non-fuel-operating systems EXCEPT Tactical Display on HUD (i don't know why, but, if reactor shuts down, so does tactical too...). What can this mean in practice? 1) Under normal conditions you should be able to save Radine when Solar Reactor is up and running. 2) When you run out of fuel, you can still have vital systems on, (and weapons control, launch controll, comms etc). Which means that you can launch a shuttle and tell it to tow the CC to the nearest neutral/friendly station, park somewhere close to it and: either dock and buy the goodies, or (if you can't dock for some reason) jump to another shuttle, buy the goodies and get your ship back on normal status... As for the "what does that SR power setting bar do?"... It could be the amount of energy rerouted to the appropriate systems, thus relieving the NR of that additional load. If SR was NR driven, using max power setting on it should result in more power, something that just doesn't happen. In fact, SR power output remains the same, even if power setting is set to zero (0). Now, the terrifying question: Is this it? [ 08-11-2004, 07:30 AM: Message edited by: APOLLO ]

Was it: 1) a fighter of your own carrier? or 2) a fighter you disabled during combat? If (1), then you should be able to tractor and recover it at anytime without problems. I hadn't any problems with repeatable recovery attempts so far. If (2), i don't think you could recover it since your fighter bays are allready occupied by your own crafts. Yet i still haven't figured if we can replace a destroyed fighter by capturing an enemy craft of the same type like the one we lost...

Well, i have seen some of the solar reactor's uses in the most dumb way i could ever imagine. I am in front of a station, no radine, no plutonium, a swarm of fighters, cruisers, carriers and flying grass cutters buzzing all over the place (yes, i was playing ACM), no shields, no tactical info, no weapons, nothing. Don't ask how or why i got myself into that... "Praise the Lord! I can still steer! Ok, let's see what that solar reactor is really capable of..." Final clue: I got all of my essential systems (including shields and reactor) back online and managed to get out in one piece (being lucky enough to be close to a starstation helped as well). I'm gonna test this again tonight because i can't fully understand yet how i managed to bring my reactor and shields back to online state, unless ofcourse solar reactor works as a charger too and CAN substitute fuel-powered devices energy demandings such as those above, for a short period of time (how short? 1 fuel unit consumption time-cycle maybe?)

quote:Originally posted by Mrxknown: Now this Nightstar do you have to destroy it? Also is it triggered by the ACM? Or just by going to Obsidia?You don't have to destroy it (no need at all), the artifact can be detected in that Nightstar's cargo holds. All you have to do is launch a shuttle and order it to collect Nightstar's cargo (it was meant to be yours after all) That carrier's presence IS triggered by ACM, i'm not sure if there's any enemy presence scripted in the scenario, making situation more and more complicated, in case you arrive late in sector. Even if you do , launch that shuttle with the above mentioned order, and prey it get's in and out before the enemy catches up hehe

What can i say in all of this... GameStop asked me to verify credit card info at Feb 4 2004, and a few hours later, after i had sent the updated card info, my UC copy was indicated as shipped. UPS shows it "in transit" and it's in France atm. They're propably waiting untill Monday, to bring it here. I was quite busy in RL, so i had no idea of what was going on, untill i saw the reduced game's price in my order's data...

Hello and happy new year! I have used MS Sidewinder Precision 2 and MS Force Feedback Pro on BCM/G without any problems. (although BCM/G doesn't support force feedback as it has been documented too). I don't think BCM/G ever had any problems with any joystick in the market. Of course, one with programmable buttons makes things better on any game that requires flight controller to operate Some months before i got in my hands a TM HOTAS Cougar! A true investment if you asked me, since i play falcon4 a lot. It works perfectly with BCM/G too, (not that i expected anything less) I should sit down one of these days and attempt some serious programming for BCM/G

to be honest, I hadn't checked it out, nm though, what's done, is done

Pre-ordered mine too from Gamestop. It costed $74.98 total because I live in Greece and International Economy was the only shipping method available for me... 25$ shipping and handling... God... anyways, it worths the money, so, see you in the field

Hello all, I've read all the posts in this topic, and I didn't find any problem that I never encountered in the past. Speaking of corrupted graphics, or startup screen's buttons missaligned, that's definately a graphics driver issue, unless... ...unless the graphics card is mulfunctioning due to internal fault (in common words, it's fried) and needs to be replaced ASAP. Anyway, just upgrading the drivers to the most current version won't solve the problem (espacially on nVidia chips). What needed is a complete uninstallation of the previous drivers and a clean install of the current ones. As for the reloading freezes, SC has given a working solution in the game's FAQ. BCM, and BCMG are quite demanding in sound resources, due to their 3D positioning algorithm. In SB Cards, things are much worse. I had such freezes even with my SB Extigy... As a matter of fact the more crowded and active is your ingame space region, the more possible it is to get your system frozen solid. To bypass this, The x0, x1, etc. command parameters control the 3D positioning sound system, making BCM or BCMG to utilise less or more of it's features... I may not have described something correctly, so, The full story resides in the FAQ's. Hope I helped someway...

Me and BC3K met somewhere around 1999 when I checked out the freeware v1.0 in a computers magazine bonus CD. At first I was not able to play it, since I had some trouble with video card recognition. (note: I didn't know then as much as I know today about hardware and software). What kept me trying was the manual and it's appendixes, who had a full descritption of what was going on into that game and had images of the included ships and stations and... When I decided to read more carefully the game's instructions and started to have better sense of SW/HW, voila!!! I was able to play, without a single crash! (yeap, that's true) I'll never forget my first hyperjump. Oh man... Since then, I've been close to the series, one way or another, although I didn't register to it's forum, until some months ago. With BCM in my hands, it's only a matter of time till I get BCMG and eventually, BCG... See you in the field!

I have to admit that my name is allready in the BCG buyers list!!! When BCG reaches the stores, I would like to see the faces of all those who blamed the Battlecruiser Series in the past. If I had a chance just to see their faces...

quote:Originally posted by Mrxknown: didn't have any problem with my shuttles, OCs, or CC getting damaged. My ship had the highest armor installed and the artifact shield installed.That was a real surprise to me! I don't think the "no damage" situation has to do with armor, but with the Tachyon Anagram (TA) Shield, which is (as we all know) an artifact. If you went in there with a conventional shield, you'd get damage even if your Shield Strength Indicator showed that your shield was intact and in full power! If the TA Shield can handle such an environment, there's a good reason for us to suspect the true origins of all those artifacts, since they can't be repaired by anyone it the BCM Galaxy...

As I've noticed during those early missions, fighter pilots sometimes stop escorting their designated target and tend to return to CC. The only way to get around it is to continously monitor their actions. After all, their command menus reflect the region they are in. That means you can see through their sensors anything that is in the region they are, even if you're not with them (e.g CC in EARTH - FC's and DIPLOMAT1 in MARS). So, if you see them in TARGET SEARCH, or anything else but ESCORT DIPLOMAT1, simply reissue the order to them. Be sure that they will hear you. They just are not yet smart enough to follow escort targets deep in space completely by their own. Another thing: When anyone of your pilots says "hostile target identified", do not let him to attack!!!. He will propably have spotted an enemy ODS System, or even worse, an enemy Star Station. Tell him to continue with his escort mission, or else, you'll lose both your interceptor AND your pilots!!! Believe me, it's absolutely no fun, having to buy another fighter asset and clone two pilots, especially with a mission in progress. I hope these helped...

Why don't you assign a couple of your fighters to escort that diplomat? It will be much easier that way, since fighters are much faster than any transport or even your CC. By the way, what type of CC are you using? (just curious)

Ferigad, the problem you mentioned above gives me the sense of graphics driver conflict. I've read above that you upgrade your drivers almost every month. In most cases, nVidia drivers are not installed correctly when a previous version is already installed. The result of it could be corrupted graphics or, no game at all. Just in case, do you UNINSTALL the previous driver version before applying the new one?