SPACE TRADER VERSION HISTORY ============================ Version 1.1.2 (January 14, 2002) * In the Options menu you can now choose "Continuous attack and flight". If you check this option, after you choose "Attack" or "Flee" on the Encounter screen, that action is repeated every second until you choose another action, or the situation changes (a ship is destroyed, a ship escapes, the opponent turns around and starts to flee, the opponent surrenders, etc.). This may alleviate the "tap-fest" for more experienced players. While the action is repeating, you can interrupt by tapping the button marked "Int." (for "Interrupt"), or you can simply switch to another action. Anything you do (except tapping "Attack" or "Flee") will interrupt the repetition. To show you that the repeated action is still continuing, a spot is blinking right next to the "Int." button. If you want, you can, on the Options screen, also indicate that you want to automatically continue attacking a fleeing ship. If you don't check this option, as soon as a ship stops attacking you and starts fleeing, the repeated attack will be interrupted because the opponent is changing his action. Since most players want to be ruthless killers, they probably simply want their attack to continue, and that's why this option has been added. * You now have the possibility to keep your unique equipment when buying a new ship, if the ship has slots available for this equipment. The prices asked may seem very high at first glance, but they are actually a good deal, because they were already subtracted from the new ship's price, and you don't have to buy new equipment for those slots. You will automatically lose (or rather, sell) your unique equipment if your new ship doesn't have the slots to install it. * Space Trader is now a multi-segmented application, meaning that it should have far less problems on Palm OS 2.0. Beta tests have shown that this also solves the crashes encountered sporadically on Palm OS 4.0 and higher. This conversion has been done by Sam Anderson, to whom I extend my heartfelt thanks. * Sam Anderson also solved the problem of a debts getting so large that they would turn into profits. * Sam allowed you to see your cash position on the Ship Yard screen. * I've made a few, small textual and visual changes. Sam corrected some grammatical errors. * I corrected some rare errors which could occur when activating cheat functions. Of course, cheaters shouldn't prosper... * In earlier versions it was, due to an oversight, in some circumstances possible to jump to the current system. This is no longer possible. * The alien invasion quest now gets one extra day. That is, the final day of the quest (day zero) they haven't arrived yet, while in the previous version of Space Trader they were already there. * I finally solved the problem of the information "i" appearing in the upper right corner of some screens when tapping between two buttons. * Some players who installed an enhanced Palm environment would get white boxes around the ship displays. That should have been solved now, though I couldn't test it. * You get to see your score even if you don't enter the high-score list. * I changed the reputation "Helper" into "Liked". Originally I intended this to be "Deputy", and allowing the player to take over the role of police officer, but that proved to be too much work for my limited time for this release. * When the picture was shown for the Destroyed ship, the Utopia moon or the Retirement, you could still switch back into the game by using one of the shortcuts. Of course, this has been fixed. * You must now confirm the firing of a mercenary. * On Palm OS 2.0, the icon of the application was shown for only three quarters. This has been solved. Version 1.1.1 (December 24, 2000) * The Alien Invasion quest could overwrite one of the other quest end systems, meaning that you wouldn't be able to finish such a quest. This could even mean that you couldn't claim your moon. This has been fixed. The claiming of the moon is also fixed in on-going games, but if you are still playing a game when you install the new version, it might be that one of the other quests cannot be ended. Chances for that to happen are low, though. New games won't have any problems. * On some Palms, it could happen that little bits of the shields were still shown at the top of the ship. This should be fixed in this version, though I couldn't test this, because it doesn't happen on my Palms. * This version uses slightly less memory than the previous version. This might solve a problem on the oldest Palms, which would sometimes report that the game can't be loaded. Not certain about that, though. A future version should reduce memory usage drastically, solving this problem completely. Version 1.1 (November 1, 2000) * Thanks to Alexander Lawrence, encounters in space now have graphical ship displays. If you like, you can turn this feature off in the Options menu. The graphical displays visualize the status of your shields and hull. A small icon indicates what type of opponent you are dealing with. The ship designs are also visible on the ship info screen. * Alexander Lawrence also supplied new pictures for the intro screen and all the endgame screens. Previously, only the "moon" endgame screen had a picture. Now all endgame screens have a picture. * Since this release, there are two versions of Space Trader, a color version and a black & white version. The only difference is in the screen-filling pictures, of which there are four in the game. In the black & white version, these are only available as black & white. This makes the black & white version substantially smaller than the color version. If the black & white version is played on a color Palm, you still have colored solar systems and colored ships, though. * In version 1.0.2, you could warp to the system where you are currently located from the Average Price List. This has been solved. * The check whether or not the extra cargo bays you have are full when you want to sell them was faulty. The check wasn't executed for the extra cargo bays, but for any gadget which was first in your gadget list at the moment you tried to sell it. This has been solved. * The fact that your ship is worth less when you have tribbles on board should only be taken into account when you try to sell it, not for insurance calculations. This wasn't the case in earlier versions, but it has been changed now. * Trying to find a system with a name later in the alphabet than the last system name ("Zuul") would result in a soft reset. Now it simply focuses on the system where you are currently docked. * You can now buy a trade item by tapping its name or price on the Average Price List. * The option (in the Options menu) "Always ignore when it is safe" has been replaced by separate options for police, pirates and traders. The previous option has been converted to the "traders" one. The police one is on by default, since normally almost any player won't attack a police ship unless it attacks first. * When a pirate couldn't see you because you had a cloaking device, the game wouldn't say that he didn't notice you. This has been solved. * Average prices can now only be bold if the item is indeed available in the current system. * You must now confirm your surrender to aliens. * You would never pay more than 1 credit in interest per day. This has been solved. * When you had an Elite reputation, the Commander Status screen could crash the game, forcing a soft reset. This has been solved. * Previously, a player on Beginner level would get a bonus of 2 points on all of his skills. This has been reduced to 1 point. * Previously, there were three systems where you could get the space monster quest, and three systems where you could get the Dragonfly quest. It is now one system for each, like all the other quests. This makes the occurrence of these quests rarer. Which is a good thing, because they are very difficult and should only be attempted by very strong and quick ships. * Added two new quests "Ambassador Jarek" and "Alien Invasion". Both these quests have interesting rewards. Note that you can only get them when you start a new game with this version of Space Trader. * Pirates can now surrender to you. They don't do it often, and if they do, they normally have less on board than your average trader. * A bug in the game made opponent's reactions different than I wanted them to be in some cases. This has been changed. * Tribbles multiply faster when you feed them. * For the score calculation, every credit you have over one million, won't be counted for as much the ones below. This may change the score percentages in your high score table a bit. * The Flea has got a stronger hull. * When an opponent has shields, he now has an 80% chance that his hull is intact. If not, his hull damages will be equivalent to the hull damages of a ship without shields. In the previous version, the hull of a shielded ship always had a good chance to be damaged, though it would usually be less damaged than an unshielded ship. * I accidentely reset the random number generator at some point during the fight with a pirate or a trader. If that happened, you could get into a loop where each next fight would go through exactly the same motions. This has been solved. Version 1.0.2 (October 5, 2000) * You can no longer get to the average price list for an out-of-range system. In 1.0.1 you could. You could even warp to an out-of-range system. This could get you an impossible amount of fuel in your tanks, which could crash the system later on in the short range chart screen. Thanks to all of you who helped me finding out the cause of this annoying and elusive problem. * Your police record score converges to "clean" faster than before, if you don't do anything special, especially when you're a criminal. Your score won't rise above "dubious" in this way, however. So, even if you're keeping quiet, the police won't trust you when you were a criminal, until you undertake some positive action. * When you get arrested, you are convicted according to your police record. A criminal therefore gets off a lot easier than a villain. If you can pay the fine with your credits, you don't lose your ship. Mercenaries, however, will leave and any insurance will also be lost. During your time in prison, if you have debts, you will pay the interest and if needed, your debt will increase during that time. * If tribbles eat narcotics, they eat at most three bays of them, and their furs are left behind. * You can now use the physical scroll buttons to scroll through the systems within range in the average price list and the target system screens. * Added "Crook" to police records. A crook will be attacked by the police, but will be dealt with fairly easily when arrested. The other levels have been moved a bit. * You can now also see information on ships which aren't for sale at a space station. Version 1.0.1 (October 1, 2000) * The black and white version of the end-game picture was corrupted on earlier versions of the Palm OS. This proved to be due to the picture compression. I turned compression for the black and white pictures off, which solved the problem. * If you would specify a loan amount, you were limited to four digits. This has been fixed. Paying back was even worse: you could enter five digits, but the game could crash if you did. * Shortcut buttons have been added to most screens to go immediately to Buy Cargo, Sell Cargo, the Ship Yard or the Short Range Chart. * On the average price list screen, it is now possible to toggle between absolute prices and price differences. * On both the average price list screen and the target system screen, you can now scroll through the systems within range. * On the short range chart, the last system you have consulted is marked with a cross. * Tapping a system on the short range chart will load either the average price list screen or the target system screen, depending on which of these two screens was loaded last. * Tribbles can now bring even greater profits. Also, selling a tribble infested ship will get rid of the tribbles, but your ship won't be worth much. If your ship is destroyed, this will also destroy the tribbles. * Water now brings slightly higher profits. * Criminals and villains can surrender to the police. This will cost you your ship and cargo, and you have to spend some time in prison. You will live, however. After that time, your police record will have reverted to dubious. Psychopaths do not have the option to surrender. * Attacking a police ship while you are still dubious, or attacking a trader while you are still clean, will ask you for confirmation. * The Options menu now has a shortcut. * In the Options menu, you can now specify that you want to leave some cargo bays empty when buying trade goods. This makes it easier to leave some room for picking up cargo during flight, especially if you are an avid user of the Max button. Version 1.0 (September 25, 2000) * First release.