I do seem to recall that there were some items in the crates, maybe just my memory playing tricks on me.

Don't remember attacking any of the cap ship in the game just used to run away from them.

No I don 't think there was any way to tell the prices between stations, the space part of the game is the least developed as it's seems they never got around to implementing all there ideas.

Thanks, Pinback. I just went through your screeshots from 3 years ago, very nice work 😎

Ah 🙂 Yes! There is cargo ! It's *inside* the ship containers (crates). You cannot scoop them directly: one has to slightly shoot at them and they will open, revealing their content. A nutshell, very nice idea 😎  It took  me some time to figure out. Transformed my credits quickly from 8000 to about 35.000.

This game will keep me busy for a long time I think

XenonS

I must get back to playing it myself, will have to dig out the XP machine and see if it all still working.

Still I must deal with the Framrate drop (I have an ATI card but do not experience any grafic glitches, only the framrate drop).  It's nasty to reload the game every 30 minutes. Seems to happen only in the desert of Goldin. Have changed the VIDEOOPTIONS.INI like explained by Wesp5 in his patch readme, will now try some direct changes on my grafic card (AA settings etc.) and switch off the "Used by application" option in my Catalyst driver, but I'm not optimistic.

Memory leak... Bad thing.

But the game itself is awesome,  nice space and ship designs. Smaller ships unload cargo ships which is spectacular 🙂  Just got on the Planet Gli with its jungle world and spiders... Very strange: here, when quitiing,  the program will correctly shut down, no need to kill the process in the task manager.

[ADD]

I just did an entire re-install of the game after backing up my save games, this time skipping the russian patch 1.1, only copying over the russian sound files + Wesp5's patch 1.7. and it seems that the memory leak is solved

Will make some tests, if they succeed I will take out the Russian Patch step from my "Install Question" solution. It seems that the Russian Patch is ONLY meant for the russian version, not for the English Release of Gamergate (or other providers). It's then very confusing that they call the english version "1.0", but the heck, who cares as long as the game runs fine...

XenonS

Now you mention it I seem to recall some one saying that the Russian patch  was not needed with the English version of the game.

The game is full of small details and will reward you if you become a tourist and not just run through the missions. have you found any fuel cans for the jeeps on Gil, seem to recall in the early part of the game there were none and if you lose the jeeps they don't seem to respawn at the base.

Now you mention it I seem to recall some one saying that the Russian patch  was not needed with the English version of the game.

 

The game is full of small details and will reward you if you become a tourist and not just run through the missions. have you found any fuel cans for the jeeps on Gil, seem to recall in the early part of the game there were none and if you lose the jeeps they don't seem to respawn at the base.

I have only done few missions at Gil. As in Goldin, there are lots of side missions to do. Find the base commander to get a buggy. In the military base at Gil (where you land), inside a single building there is a Weapon Upgrader and a Merchand. You must always buy jerricans at a  merchand (cheaper than refilling at a station for 100 credits). Buggies are worth 2000 credits, still in the rare case that you can buy one, but there is a simple and cheap solution (look my tips below).

So far, I can give these tips for this blast-action game:

1)

Chose any position in the Map View:

In the map view (m) you can set any position with the right mouse button. A blue flag will be added.

Fighting enemies:

When killing enemies, not only can you pick-up their amunition, but also be sure to pick-up their weapons which you can use or sell. Don't carry too many weapons, deposit weighty (but not precious) material in your buggy so you can walk or run faster.

3)

Fix your status with hostile factions:

In the bar of planet Goldin, there are representatives of the 2 main factions. If paying them an amount this will improve somewhat your relationship (4000 credits minimum, also depends on how much you are hostile). Fixing your status is very important to be able to do space missions for cargo ships. I haven't figured out yet how to fix your relationship with the Free Traders.

4)

Usage of your Buggy (vehicle):

Do always care of your vehicle when going in the desert or in the jungle, if bandits make it explode or if you otherwise lose it, you will be in very bad shape and exposed to any sorts of attack. When crossing the desert or the jungle, the safest place is inside your buggy which you can use to overroll enemies or by using its powerful machine gun. When operating the machine gun, you must face the enemy to be able to shoot at him, you can only rotate the gun around in a -60/+60 degree cone. The machine gun can be reloaded at the service station by one of the technicians, and only if it's completly empty.

I find it easier to control the buggy after re-assigning the control keys A and D to Left Arrow / Right Arrow (secondary key, otherwise you clash with straffing !)

Use your buggy to deposit materials to reduce your weight, but don't deposit expensive and precious things in it, because enemies may blow up the buggy with grenades or if colliding with you.

Be sure to buy enough fuel before travelling in the desert or jungle! The service station (a little away from the Goldin town) can refill your tank, but it's cheaper to buy some jerricans before at the town's shop (place them in your buggy, don't carry them around as they will slow you down!) A single full tank is NOT enough to make long distances in the jungle or desert and come back to your initial point.

Repairing your buggy:

If you go to the service station, you can pick up for free at least 4 repair kits.

The repair kits don't seem to repair your pneumatics, also you cannot pick-up new wires or jerricans at the service station. After some time, your wires will degrade which will be visible and you will slow down more and more which is dangerous. To really get your buggy in a "new" state, go to the technician dressed in white operating the crane. You can make a full repair for 300 credits.

If your buggy has been destroyed in battle, or you have a severly damaged buggy, and you are near a road, don't despair: It's very easy to get a new buggy, at least in the desert of Goldin:

Getting a new buggy:

Don't pay 2000 credits for a new buggy at the station's car seller, instead just hijack one by waiting for bandits passing on the road. Just block the road with your damaged buggy, or just stand on the road with your Shotgun and the comming driving bandits will stop in front of you. Now, to be able to use the bandit's buggy, you will have to kill him inside the vehicle (be sure they are bandits, not civilians!), after which don't forget to reload it with the content of your old buggy. Park your old buggy in a place to remember so you can use the same trick again or have a reserve buggy if needed. Proceding like that, you can build a whole parking full of buggies if you want, also I once caused a big traffic jam

Will have to publish some screenshots in a while...

5)

Before going in the desert or jungle:

Always have enough MEDECINES, FOOD and DRINKS (both as good as medecine), GRENADES and AMUNITION, or you will be an easy prey!

6)

Medecines:

Drinks and food packs are as good as medecines and a lot cheaper. A little away from the market at Goldin, there is a scientist where you can buy some animal and plant extracts to use as medecine which are as effective but less expensive.

It's higly worth to hack the medecine dispensers with hacksticks: the probability of success is low (about 1 of 30 hacksticks I think), but you if you succeed you get medecines for a value of about 30.000 credits that you can sell to a merchand; you cannot transport them all at once: just drop some content with the J key and you can re-pick it later on.

Still doing tests running without the 1.1 patch, English release + Wesp's patch + russian sound files. Will report back.

Have fun,

XenonS

Excellent work Xenons

Theirs a guy on on Reandore that will fix you rep with the empire and Free traders http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/topic/965-hints-tip-cheats-and-mods/ for a price.

Yep, thanks a lot. That's really important, because if you do some pirate actions on cargo ships you won't be able to do any repairs on the stations anymore: those technicians will remember (not sure though if this is because your ship damages are not important enough, or if it's because of attacking ships of the same faction than the technician's faction...). By scanning a ship, you don't get info about its faction, only A-Z will tell you that when spotting a ship.

One side mission in the space part of the game is buggy: You cannot end the mission where you have to get fuel for a stranded ship, because at the 3rd waypoint there is no container to collect. But I recall to have collected such a container out of plan, maybe that's why.

Good news:

I have done some stress tests with my current install, going from space to the Goldin Jungle with lots of objects and enemies appearing, generating big framerate situations. No slowdowns anymore, also the program will always shut down correctly (no more need to kill it in task manager). Will edit my last post "Install questions" to emphasize using the russian patch 1.1 only with the INITIAL RUSSIAN DVD VERSION.

My system specs: Intel Core i5 processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650, 8 GB RAM (that's much more than needed).

Sound: The default sound is set to "Headphones", one should probably change it to Stereo or Surround. Didn't notice any difference, though.

Grafics: I'm currently playing with "High" setting with no problems or grafic glitches. I try out now the last "Very High" setting.

XenonS

Have you noticed any difference between the graphic setting?.

No, in the settings it's called "Highest", but you can't select it, it will revert back to High. That's probably an effect of Wesp5's patch., he probably has set it at highest possible already. To get sure, one can try to set the value in the INI file, but please revert immediately if there's no difference !! We all don't want new issues growing !! The default value (after patching)  is: Quality = 3 ; there are 4 settings (Low, Medium, High, Highest) I will try with Quality = 4 but I don't expect any miraculous change, the numeric range is probably 0-3.

But grafics and else,  I have no complains whatsoever, quite the contrary: for a game of 2007, my overall impression is: It's a space game which has all elements in it and the FPS part is amazing, grafics included. The authors have put tremendous work in this game, in this genre I have never seen such numerous and detailed landscapes and activity on planets. There must be around 200+ interesting missions to carry out, there's really no danger to get bored.

I feel that the developers didn't have the time to finish the space part, but even in space there are already a lot of secondary missions to keep you busy.

If the game can still be bought on Gamersgate or else, I highly recommend to get it

XenonS

Ok, I tryed out again and I was wrong above, sorry:

You CAN chose the "Highest" setting. The value in the INI will be Quality = 3. And there IS a difference, mainly in the lightening and shadow effects. The High quality will already provide detailed and moving grass and all kinds of plants, the highest will give more lightening and texture details for objects further away. Also the texture loading is immediate, no more delayed.

XenonS

Chase View:

How do you switch to it?

Also, there is the Chase Perk, but I think it does nothing, or am I wrong ?

In space I only have the main forward view and a 3rd person view, nothing else, no rear view, lerft/ right view etc. I wonder if I can trigger that. The game was unfinished at release, so there is some chance with activating a key or trigger it with the SDK (Editor). Also this Editor could probably  be used to create missions, interesting 😎 This reminds me of the Crytec (Farcry, Crysis) engines where the devs were so kind to make their tools available to modify the game.

XenonS

Don't think any-one found what the chaser perk was for or how to use it, bit like the change target key which I don't think it works either.

Controls

There is a roll keys A/D it depends on weather you have game set to arcade or simulation as to what these two keys do.

Some of the other keys in space are.

W-speed up

S-slow down

A-strafe/roll left

D-strafe/roll right

Tab-afterburners

B-complete stop

H-hyperspeed

C/F-brings up the icons when near an odject

N-changes the target in space but it must only work with missile that can be targeted (not working in game)

F10-3rd person view

F9-is supposed to put the view back into 1st person but its the quick save key,so theres some thing wrong there.

Keys 1-4 switches lasers if upgrades are installed.

Keys 5-8 switches missiles if upgrades are installed.

Stealth mode,press F when on a planet and you are given a choice of using the torch,going to sleep or going into stealth mode.

If you are in the jeep you can turn the lights/off on at night by using the F key

Hi Pinback,

thanks to mention these controls. The F key is really important for doing some secondary actions like Stealth, or in space to Autopilot / join a ship in escort mode / dock at station.

Some newer files from the Russian official patch 1.1 can be overwriten in the 1.0 English version without causing issues. Maybe if used together with Wesp5's patch they give better results in some broken features (like the Chase), I will check it out. These files are:

game.dll

game.pdb

game_space.dll

game_space.pdb

All other files from the Russian patch are not usable, because you will have to use a cracked Precursors.exe version to overcome Starforce protection, and this will cause issues (framerate drop, memory leak).

Ohter funny thing:

Only now I discovered that you can use the flyers at Goldin, just wait for one landing. Alas, there must be a bug: if landing at the same place, you may remain stucked inside, you can move the mouse around, use the map, and mission window (o), but you can't get out of the flyer anymore. F or Return key will do nothing, neither saving + reloading the game.  Hope this bug was just exceptional (if landing in the desert somewhere it works perfectly).

XenonS

Ohter funny thing:

Only now I discovered that you can use the flyers at Goldin, just wait for one landing. Alas, there must be a bug: if landing at the same place, you may remain stucked inside, you can move the mouse around, use the map, and mission window (o), but you can't get out of the flyer anymore. F or Return key will do nothing, neither saving + reloading the game.  Hope this bug was just exceptional (if landing in the desert somewhere it works perfectly).

 

That happened to me as well at the space port had to quit the game and then restart it.

You may also encounter a bug on Reandore when using the Meks, every time I went to drive one it crashed the game to desk top.

I think I have now gathered the list with most of the Console Commands. SDK should be able to print out a complete list. Most of the commands can be used for cheating, but I will use them to investigate about broken and hidden (locked for release) features.

But before getting in all this, I will have kinda fun with this game first 😎

Console Commands:

To enable the console in the game, go to the folder UserDocumentsPrecursorsINI, open ENGINESETTINGS.INI, change the following:

;Enable console popup with '`' key

; 0 - disable

; 1 - enable

; Should be 0 for release.

Enabled=0

CHANGE Enabled=0 to Enable=1

In the game, press the Tilde key (left from 1) to access the console. The commands are:

addsid (ID#)  ..................Add item (ID#) to inventory.

addammo (##)  ..............Add more ammo

addarmor (##)  ..............Add more armor

addhealth (##)  .............Add more health

add_hyperfuel (##) .......Adds fuel for the ship.

allweapons.....................All the weapons in your inventory (do not use, as it may show strange effects!)

allmoney (##)................ Add more money.

clockspeed (##) ............Sets the "run" time in the game. Pick a value from 0.1 to 100.

drawhud........................ Removes the user interface.

god............................... God mode.

printpointedchar ...........Information about the object. That's on it and you will be able to use such a command addsid (see above).

rpgrules.........................Allows you to use any of the closed technique in the game.

set clip ?........................Set ? to 1 or 0 to fly (or stop flying) on the map.

siderel (A#) (B#)............Sets the reputation of a faction (A#) to an amount (B#). For example "siderel 1 100" will give 100 points to the reputation of the Empire. There are 7 factions in total.

supergod.......................Invisibility, the enemy wont shoot at you.

* For (##) you can enter numbers ranging from 1 to 99.

XenonS

God mode my favorite mode

Seem to recall that their were a number of the perks which did not work, have you found anything about them?.

I have only half of them activated, so I cannot say exactly, but:

Chameleon:

Sometimes a mask appears (to activate with F1) when you first encounter ground enemies, but they fire immediately with no advantage for me, so I don't know what it does exactly.

Chase:

Will probably only work the first time you activate it, the help screen appears explaining you how to use it, I remember I saw this screen soon after I've encounter a pirate ship , inviting me to hit "F1 or C when in chase mode", but I was too slow to use it. It never appeared again since. The help text suggests that first one must go in "chase mode", but I've tryed out all key combinations with enemies in the reticule, there's no such view or mode.

Arghhhh, I miss very much a rear view, it would be easier to locate planets or special objects that never spot on the radar. I don't believe that the authors have skipped this on purpose, they just didn't had the time, they were sooo meticulous elsewhere adding a lot of stuff.

If only they had more time, what a game this would have become! I guess one of the best space games... But who knows, maybe Precursors II one day...

XenonS

I have only half of them activated, so I cannot say exactly, but:

 

Chameleon:

Sometimes a mask appears (to activate with F1) when you first encounter ground enemies, but they fire immediately with no advantage for me, so I don't know what it does exactly.

 

I think you have to eat one of the plants for that chameleon perk to work, not sure if it was that one or one of the others perks.

Think the chaser perk is bugged and not activated in the game.

Damn, I'm now just before landing at Yarent for the first time, and I get series of game crashes with the vital.dll , maybe it's because I re-installed several times and just replaced my savegames folder SAVE in Documents... I also have replaced the files above from the 1.1 patch (game.dll + game_space.dll) and re-changed them later back to version 1.0 (I didn't notice any difference, but it's probably better to use the newest ones from 1.1).

I hope it was just me and my savegames which are corrupt, and nothing more serious which cannot be overcome. Will have to try an older savegame before I did all those messy operations and restart from 1st-time-in-space.

XenonS