UNIVERSAL COMBAT : A WORLD APART CHANGELOG

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KNOWN ISSUES
GENERAL

• At very high frame rates, characters in escort mode will constantly update their position around the object they are escorting (e.g. player). This is not fatal and is only happening due to the increased AI processing loop. Its more of an annoyance than a bug and is only seen if viewing the character from an external camera view or if a character who was previously prone, decides to fine tune his position, even though you [player] have not moved at all and then crosses your view (thus ending up obscuring the line of fire).
• You can drive through trees. There is no collision detect for them because they are not solid objects. If they were, the performance hit would be significant. Especially due to the sheer number of trees which can be in an area at any one time. Vegetation is there for scenery purposes only and do not bear any relevance to gameplay.
• If you go up a building then go prone and have personnel escorting you, they too will go prone and possibly end up prone at some really funny angles.
  This is the same as going prone on a mountain, then crawling over a peak because you can. The end result being that a good portion of your body is suspended in midair. So don’t do it because it can’t be addressed.

• While on the planet and viewing a target which resides on another map (that you are not on) using the F10 key, the target will sometimes appear to be
  slightly above the ground. This is due to terrain height variations since that region is only demand loaded. If you actually go there, you will see that the ground units are exactly where they should be. The F10 camera – like all view cameras – is for viewing purposes only.

• If you died in the game and previously had a saved game prior to your death, but when you restore it you are still dead, it means that the saved game in which you are dead, is still cached and being auto-loaded. A workaround for this is to quit the game, go to the SAVE folder and delete the file with the .SAV extension. Then start the game and Restore the saved profile you wish to use.
• Personnel in water are unable to swim correctly. They can walk on the seabed and wade correctly however.
• A couple of minor quirks which still need to be addressed in the new asset switching system. Basically, the handling of some assets needs to be tweaked a bit.
• Due to the massive number of collision detect ops being performed on crafts located on the decks of carriers and assault crafts, flying around these assets can result in a significant drop in performance. This specific handling needs to be ripped out and revised with special case conditions for naval assets capable of supporting other assets.

MULTIPLAYER

• Because the first person view position is tied to the model with mouse look, your model will sometimes appear to be tilting at an angle, when viewed by another client.
• If you are docked at a station which then gets destroyed, you will not be killed. Instead, you can launch just fine.
• If you dock at a station, your craft will remain outside the station.
• If your CC is destroyed due to a reactor shutdown or similar mishap unrelated to being destroyed by another client or NPC, the server will not send a message because it doesn’t handle that situation. You will just respawn as normal and other clients will see you as reconnecting, not knowing what happened. This usually happens if you took serious combat damage and your nuclear reactor goes South and self-destructs.
• The ASE powered in-game server browser takes up to 40 secs to update the number of clients on the server. So sometimes the number of clients displayed, does not necessarily reflect the actual number of clients on the server. This means the server list will not display correctly until ASE master server has updated. This can take as long as 40 seconds. This also means information displayed to someone wanting to join is only as good as the last update or refresh they did. This was done by ASE in order to prevent clients from flooding the master server by doing repeated refreshes.
• If you had the chat message log window open in the front view, then switch to Tacops and back again, the window is not refreshed until a new message comes in.

1.00.22 | 08-12-2008

• Compiled with latest FMODex (4.16.08) audio SDK.
• Compiled with latest DirectX (June 2008) SDK. Requires June 2008 (or later) Runtime!!
• Multiplayer
  • Console server will no longer abort when 3D hardware support not found

1.00.21 | 02-28-2008

• FIXED: Issues with hotspots in Save/Restore screen
• Multiplayer
  • FIXED: client name/race/caste/etc… weren’t being updated on other clients when it was changed without disconnecting first. Server now broadcasts the client information when they log on.

1.00.20 | 10-19-2007

• Compiled with latest DirectX 9.0c (August 2007) SDK. Requires August 2007 runtime or later. Run the updated dxwebsetup.exe file in the game folder to download it if you don’t already have it installed.
• Compiled with latest FMODex audio SDK.
• Compiled with latest ReplicaNet multiplayer SDK.
• FIXED: A bug in Vista’s implementation of DirectX 9 was causing problems with polygon line drawing used in the cockpit display.
• FIXED: DJP planetary travel (to a different part of the current planet) was broken due to a translation error

1.00.19 | 11-21-2006

• Removed obsolete commands from Tactical Orders Menu.
• Minor localization fixes.
• Multiplayer
  • Removed support for UDPSoft master server system in our in-game server browser
    since Yahoo! (who bought UDPsoft) is no longer supporting it. Now using our own master
    server app which is now far more responsive and accurate.

1.00.18 | 10-26-2006

• Verified and tested to work under Vista. This does not mean that the game is Vista compliant as that entails several conditions set by Microsoft which are unattainable by most legacy (pre-Vista) software.
• Multiplayer
  • Updated for DirectX 9 October 2006 Runtime. Run .\directx9\dxwebsetup.exe to update your DirectX runtime drivers if you haven’t done so already.
  • Removed support for UDPSoft cd-key auth system since Yahoo! (who bought UDPsoft) is no longer supporting it. Now using Replica Software’s new cd-key auth system.
  • The cd-key number entry is no longer case sensistive.
  • FIXED: Sometimes the wrong character was sent when entering the cd-key number when prompted by the server.
  • FIXED: The game server will no longer abort starting up if the GameCQ master server is off-line or cannot be reached. It will still startup but will
    not broadcast to the master server and so will not be visible in the GameCQ lobby server list. NOTE: Since Yahoo! is no longer supporting tools licensed from UDPsoft, the in-game server browser which also uses another of their tools, will cease to work at some point in the future. In which case you will only be able to browse (you can still use direct connect via IP. See the game faq) for servers using GameCQ. In the meantime we are implementing a new server browser developed by Replica Software.

1.00.17 | 08-24-2006

• Multiplayer
• A game server no longer reports to the GameCQ master server by default. So /gcq command line parameter was added to enable this. This allows it to report to the GameCQ master server IF the master server is online. To determine if the master server is online, use the GameCQ lobby client app.

  NOTE: The GameCQ master server is only used by the GameCQ lobby client app. If servers are not reporting to the master server, they will not appear in the lobby client.

1.00.16 | 06-30-2006

• Removed model preloading options from Config screen. Can still be enabled by direct editing of the ucconfig.ini file. Use at your own risk!!
• FIXED: In SFM career, if you were killed or self-destructed the shuttle you were in, a crash (endless loop) would occur.
• Multiplayer
  • FIXED: The March 2006 version of GameCQsetup.exe was incorrectly setting a registry key. This would cause the “GameCQ: Could not open SOFTWARE\3000ad\GCQServices registry key” error when an Internet server was started and would prevent the server from reporting to the master server. To fix this, just uninstall and reinstall the new GameCQ lobby program.
  • FIXED: The console server would crash when a client was initiating planetfall in some rare cases.

1.00.15 | 05-27-2006

• FIXED: Unable to view VDD/SMD cargo contents in friendly crafts (including yours)

1.00.14 | 04-27-2006

• Compiled legacy compiler (which works with Direct2Drive DRM) and DirectX April 2006 SDK. The corresponding DirectX April 2006 runtime is required.

  NOTE: This version was released for the Direct2Drive distribution only.

1.00.14 RC2 | 04-22-2006

• Compiled with DirectX April 2006 SDK. The corresponding DirectX April 2006 runtime is required.
• FIXED: An issue with the new Visual Studio 2005 compiler which would cause a “Floating Point Support Not Loaded” error on AMD processors.

  WARNING: The Direct2Drive version has not yet been released due to a conflict with new compiler and the DRM scheme being used. For more info, please read this
  tech support forum thread.

1.00.14 RC1 | 04-10-2008

• FIXED: When you docked with a fighter craft, sometimes no weapons were listed at the station for re-arming. This was caused by a revision in 1.00.09.

1.00.13.01 | 02-21-2006

• This build is identical to the previous build, except that it was built with the older compiler because some people were reporting a “Floating point not loaded” error message due to an issue with the new compiler we are now using.

1.00.13 | 02-19-2006

• FIXED: When the display pane was updated, a crash would occur in PERSCAN on some video card combinations when intruders were captured and turned into
  prisoners.

• FIXED: An issue with the new compiler would cause saved games to not be saved (or restored) properly.

1.00.12 | 02-17-2006

• Compiled DirectX February 2006 SDK. The corresponding DirectX February 2006 runtime is required.
• Added UCAWA_MANUAL_REVISIONS.HTML to the docs folder. It documents the revisions to sections of the printed manual and PDF manual related to patch
  related game revisions.

• Further performance improvements to the character rendering engine.
• Added four (IA0117-IA0120) new Instant Action scenarios.
• Revised the fp HUD map. [Manual Section 8.0]
  • Radar targets are now plotted on the map and work exactly like the TRS. Any target within the inner section is in front of your current bearing. If the target is farther out, it is behind you. The very center of the display represents what is directly in front of you. Therefore, if a target is in the inner area you are directly facing it.

  • Has four filter modes cycled using T when the DIE is off. The current filter is displayed to the left of the heading as follows:
    
P - Personnel units
V - Vehicles & Naval units
C - Craft units
A - All units


  • The current target (selected in the DIE) is indicated by a flashing box and is always shown, irrespective of the filter being used.
  • The map can be zoomed by up to x4 using [ and ] when the DIE is off. The current zoom mode is displayed to the right of the heading indicator as a bar graph. The default zoom factor is 5km. Each zoom step decreases this range (zooms in) by x5. So the ranges at the circle boundary are 5km, 1km, 200m, 40m
• Radar range/target revisions:
  • The max range of planetary first person (fp) mode VTT tags increased from 25m to 100m.
  • The min range of planetary craft VTT tags reduced from 1km to 25m.
  • The max radar range of the DIE has been increased from 5km to 50km.
  • If L (nearest attacker to my current target) does not return a valid target, the nearest target is now selected instead.
  • If O (nearest enemy attacker) does not return a valid target, the nearest enemy target is now selected instead.
• An MFB unit can now operate as a supply platform and can be accessed using the U command. This was previously only enabled in multiplayer.
• Added ability to activate SOS emitter in fp mode. Was previously only enabled in multiplayer.
• Changed the TDU and PSU/PRL/PSS keys to J and L respectively. NOTE: For this to take effect, you have to either delete your UCCONFIG.INI file so that a new one is created with the new settings or manually edit it in Notepad.
• The ALT+D command in fp mode has been revised to always allow you to enter the asset directly in front of you and within 1m range. There is no longer a need to first select it as a target in the DIE. [Manual Section 8.1]
• Implemented SHIFT+\ night vision in fp mode when on planet surface. This, unlike the DIE/IVM mode, gives you the ability to more effectively engage targets at night or during low light conditions.
  SHIFT+N now also toggles night vision because on some Euro keyboards, the default SHIFT+\ does not work.

• Reduced movement speed when in prone or crouch pose. Also reduced run back speed by 1 m/s
• Updated GBS parser. The SAD, SEAD and CAP when used in the LAUNCH command, now take an optional region and numeric class parameter. e.g.
  
events
!reach ^wp1
LAUNCH stardrone,4,sad this_region 11
LAUNCH marine_eforce,2,sad earthz 5
LAUNCH phantom,2,sad 14
endevents


• Audio system fixes/revisions:
  • Now using unique engine sounds for gunships and naval assets.
  • A distinct explosion sound is now played for nearby self-destructing missiles.
  • Revised NPC craft gun fire sound.
  • Can now cycle songs playback in fp mode using ALT+, and ALT+.
  • FIXED: In some instances, the new audio engine caused the front/rear speaker channels to be reversed when playing multi-channel positional 3D audio (e.g. engine sounds).
  • FIXED: A bug in the new audio engine caused some sounds with zero loop points to be looped when they shouldn’t. e.g. the gun sound used on some planetary vehicles.
  • FIXED: A bug in the new audio engine prevented some multi chunk sounds (e.g. those used by the XN32 weapon) from being played and would cause a crash on exit in some cases.
• FIXED: Night vision mode was not being cleared across game sessions.
• FIXED: Some rendering artifacts on coastal planetary terrain areas.
• FIXED: Alpha channel on some building models (e.g. barriers) was removed during DXTC conversion.
• FIXED: A rendering artifact on the death specialFX for some character models
• FIXED: Misc graphics glitches in PERSCAN related to misaligned borders at 800×600 resolution.
• FIXED: The POV offset for the MIM has been adjusted due to the weapon view looked wrong when the weapon was being reloaded.
• FIXED: A missing localization text in IA completion MISCON display.

1.00.11 | 01-09-2006

• Implemented a new licensed audio engine (FMOD Ex)

  This audio system is vastly more advanced than our aging in-house legacy DirectSound based system and represents a significant performance boost and overall audio enhancement. We had planned to adopt this audio engine for use in our 2006 and later titles but decided to implement it into the already released UCAWA as well.

  This new implementation requires that your audio card have at least 32 hardware channels. This is the standard for most audio cards, including on-board audio. If you don’t get any sound, this means that your card does not meet with these specifications
  and thus hardware mixing cannot be used. In this case, use the /x command line option to force the use of software mixing.

  You can also use the /x parameter to solve buggy audio driver issues.

  NOTE: if you are using an Audigy sound board set to 5.1 speakers and don’t get any audio when you first startup the game, change your speaker setup to something else (e.g. 4.1), then change it back to 5.1 and save it. This seems to solve that problem with some SoundBlaster drivers. This might work for other audio drivers as well.

  A sample massive battle saved game is included for quick testing of this improvement. Just restore and play it with the invincibility cheat on (or you will probably die).

• Made several audio playback tweaks and revisions to better suit the new audio engine. e.g. better sound attenuation, more channel mixing etc.
• Added ability to toggle hyperspace transition FX via Config.
• More tweaks to turret optimizations from 1.00.05 because the turrets on some crafts (e.g. Megaron), were still not firing as often as they should.
• Released an update to the full v1.00.09 demo based on this build.
• FIXED: The race/caste of the player is now checked before stations launch fighter escorts when playing the EFP career. Previously stations would launch escorts but only checking the career. So you’d end up in cases whereby a Ter/Ins station would launch
  Ter/Mil fighters because only the race was being checked.

• FIXED: An INI file was out of synch, causing a crash when docking at Borealis station.

1.00.10 | 11-22-2005

• When a towed object’s state (beached/disabled/sos etc) is cleared and an object is towed to space, the flag is no longer reset as this has a side effect of also causing the A/P to cancel any pending orientation maneuvering.
• Giving the FLY-TO command when the CC is under A/P AI control will now perform the action, regardless of the target type. Previously it would ignore
  the command if the target could not be attacked (e.g. disabled, SOS etc) because attacking that type of target is against the Rules Of Engagement.

• The tutorial script now uses the Megaron carrier in order to remain consistent with the tutorial text.
• The PLV is no longer populated by all personnel defined in a mission script (which may include hostile persons).
• Units ordered to ESCORT the player are automatically added to the priority list (and hence also the PLV) if not already present.
• Implemented joystick controls support for vehicles when the joystick controller is selected in CONFIG. [Manual Section 6.0]

  The vehicle can still be controlled by the keyboard when the stick is the selected controller. The keyboard commands then override the stick.

  The throttle/number keys have no effect on the vehicle speed. As in the other craft, the speed is dependant on how long a key is pressed/stick pushed
  fwd/back etc. When the stick is in the centre (released), the craft maintains its previous speed (there may be some bleed of speed) in the same manner
  as when the keyboard is used.

  Stick x-axis (L/R) functions similarly to keyboard Q/E. In weapons mode the axis sets the currently selected turret yaw position, unless the joystick
  has a twist axis, which then takes precedence.

  Stick y-axis (forward/back) functions similarly to keyboard W/S except that there is a fairly wide low-sensitivity zone near the centre that allows for
  more precise maneuvering at low speed.

  Stick twist axis controls the selected weapon turret yaw at all times if present. The joystick throttle controls the pitch.

  In WEAPONS mode, the throttle (if present) and stick Y both control the turret pitch (the effects are added together).

  In CONTROL mode the throttle (if present) sets the turret pitch alone.

  Control/Weapons mode is indicated in the velocity tab (ie where the VTOL, A/P, H/S etc are located).

• FIXED: Sometimes the weather particle effects (snow & rain) were not cleared between IA scenarios.

1.00.09 | 10-31-2005

• Released a new full demo based on this build.
• Player personnel escorts are now set to HALT if the player uses an asset. When the player re-deploys from the asset, all prior player escorts that are still in HALT state are re-assigned to escort the player.
• FIXED: The NPC naval units were incorrectly ‘bobbing’ on water because they were attempting to perform maneuvers (turn towards targets) and this should not be possible unless the craft is moving forward (or backward).
• FIXED: Docking with some assets (e.g. SAM units) was listing incorrect missile loadouts for re-arming them. e.g. a TSX-1 unit uses TSX-1 missiles,
  instead of the standard missiles (e.g. Radix, Ralix etc)

1.00.08 | 10-18-2005

• Exported additional localization strings to LANGUAGE.LNG
• FIXED: Some missing asset (e.g. TSX1 sam unit) images would cause a crash if you docked at a planetary starbase with such an asset and clicked on the CRAFT button in LOGISTIX.
• Multiplayer
  • The static displayed when a cloaked ship is detected, is now rendered in the
    VDD like it is in single player.

1.00.07 | 10-02-2005

• FIXED: A missing value in the world script caused rings to not be rendered on planets (e.g. Jupiter)
• FIXED: Graphics rendering anomaly in the dynamic cloud layer (seen from space) on planets with rings.
• When character models are preloaded, a status message during the load is now displayed. Also, if both options of loading models and character models are enabled in Config, then character models are only loaded once.
• Multiplayer
  • FIXED: The server wasn’t correctly setting the hyperjump timer status for regions which weren’t being observed. This caused ships in those regions to be stuck in hyperspace because the anomaly wasn’t being updated.

1.00.06 | 09-16-2005

• FIXED: The external hyperspace jump fx wasn’t working correctly.

1.00.05 | 09-10-2005

• FIXED: The collision detect optimizations in 1.00.03 were so fast that on some ships
  (e.g. Violon) which have turret vectors in optimal locations, they weren’t firing correctly.

• Multiplayer
  • The graphics server can now run on remote servers which do not have PS 1.1. This is a serious hack and is not supported. If it doesn’t work, stick with the console server or make sure that your remote server has PS 1.1 (which is the minimum requirement for the game)

1.00.04 | 09-07-2005

• FIXED: When an auto-generation pass occured, intruders would randomly be generated and transported to the CC. Sometimes during this pass, a CTD would occur depending on the number of intruders currently on-board the CC.
• FIXED: If you docked as an SFM with a shuttle asset and selected the CARGO button, the game would CTD due to special handling required for this career which was previously not allowed to have an asset.
• Mltiplayer
  • FIXED: An INI file was out of synch, causing some multiplayer planetary terrain locations to not be located.

1.00.03 | 08-28-2005

• Performance improvement revisions to planetary terrain rendering.
• Performance improvement revisions to skeletal character model collision detect.
• Performance improvement revisions to global collision detect.
• Revision to planetary terrain site textures. No longer rendered as Black at high altitudes.
• FIXED: If you set a planet as a jump target (SHIFT+9), then saved the game while in HJ transit, when the game was restored, the game would crash when the craft emerges from HJ and about to enter the planet because the planet data may not be stored in the saved game.
• FIXED: NPC crafts emerging from planet to space in a region with more than one planet/moon, would randomly emerge outside the wrong planet/moon they egressed.
• FIXED: The ASSETS.INI table was out of synch when the ITEMS.INI was updated with new additions. This caused player controlled threat assets (SAMs etc) to fire the incorrect ordnance.
• FIXED: The IA0113 (NIGHT KILL) scenario was exiting upon startup due to it loading incorrect assets. This scenario was part of the demo.

  NOTE: This update was pushed into this patch on 08-31-05. If you had previously downloaded this patch, simply open the SETTINGS.INI file in Notepad and change the version line to 1.00.02. Save the file and run the Updater. This will re-download and re-apply the 1.00.03 patch containing these updated assets.

• Multiplayer
  • FIXED: Requesting a tow ship would sometimes select a station in the single player galaxy.

1.00.02 | 08-16-2005

• FIXED: The ASSETS.INI table was out of synch when the ITEMS.INI was updated with new additions. This caused a shield and reactor upgrade to be listed incorrectly in LOGISTIX.

1.00.01 | 08-10-2005

• 3000AD Gold Master release with support for Starforce ProActive DRM activation as well as support for various DRM solutions used by our e-commerce partners including TryMedia, Direct2Drive, Digital River etc.