SPACE TRADER VERSION HISTORY
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Version 1.2.0 (October 13, 2002)
Three-quarters of the changes in version 1.2.0 have
been made by Samuel Goldstein (
[email protected]).
* There are four new quests. Two of these are meant
for players with a criminal career. I won't divulge
more of these quests (they are for the player to
discover), except that some interesting quest
rewards have been added.
* Six special, very rare encounters have been added.
I leave these also for the player to discover.
* From the System Information screen, you can now
access "News", which provides general information
on the current system, interesting information
on nearby systems, and a few special messages.
The price of the News depends on the difficulty
level, but you have to pay it only once when you
have docked at a system. Every next time you view
the news, you can do so for free. If you want to
pay automatically, you can indicate this on the
Options page.
* You can now dump cargo while docked. You do this
from the Sell Cargo screen by tapping the
appropriate "Dump" button. You have to pay for
garbage processing, though. You can also dump cargo
in space, when you are robbing another ship or when
you try to pick up floating canisters. However, if
you do that you run a serious risk the police will
update your record in a negative way, for "space
littering". This can have serious repercussions
if you are discovered.
* Traders you meet in space may contact you to sell
or buy goods. If you are a criminal, they may wish
to trade illegal goods. While the deals they offer
may often be good, some of your trading partners
may try to rip you off. Be especially careful when
doing shady deals! If you don't like this feature,
you may turn these meetings off on the Options page,
with the "Ignore dealing traders" option.
* On the Galactic chart, when you tap a wormhole,
you get to see its destination, both in text and
as a line on the chart.
* On the galactic chart, you can indicate that you
want to "track" a system. You can do this through
the "Find" function, or by tapping a target system
twice. A further tap allows you to remove the
track again. A system that is tracked is indicated
with an arrow on the Short Range Chart, and at the
bottom of the Short Range Chart you see the
distance to the tracked system. A track is
automatically removed when you dock at the tracked
system.
* On the Options page you can indicate that you want
the hardware buttons to emulate the four shortcut
buttons which are located in the top right of the
screen. This may especially be useful for left-
handed people.
* You can use the "Shortcuts" choice in the "Game"
menu to change the functions of the four shortcut
buttons in the top right corner of the "docked"
screens. You can assign any of the major functions.
* The Commander Status screen has been updated, and
now allows you to see Special Cargo on a separate
screen. You can switch between Status, Quests, Ship
and Special Cargo with buttons at the bottom of
these screens.
* The Commander Status screen now also shows the
player's net worth.
* The bounty system has been redesigned. Bounties
are higher for the stronger ships and lower for
the weaker ships. This depends on a target ship's
type, equipment and crew. The career of a bounty
hunter has become more intersting this way.
Bounties now vary between 25 credits for a measly
Flea to 2500 credits for a fully equipped Wasp.
You don't get bounties paid if you are a criminal.
* The bank will issue statements on your debt at
certain intervals. If you don't want this, you can
turn it off in the Options menu.
* A customs officer may give you a warning if a scan
detects tribbles on your ship.
* The Termite can now travel 13 parsecs. Furthermore,
you will always find at least one other system
within 13 parsecs of any system. The combination of
these two changes has solved the problem of the
player being able to buy a ship that can not get to
any other system in the neighbourhood. Whatever
ship you are flying now, you can always travel to
any other system in the galaxy. Since this makes
the Termite more useful, I had to raise its price
by 12.5%, though.
* Excluding the moon quest, you can now never have
more than four open quests at the same time. You
simply won't be offered new quests as long as
you have four quests open on the Quests screen.
* Added support for grayscales. The color version of
the game now no longer supports black & white
graphics. You have to install the right version
for your Palm. See the ReadMe.txt file for more
information.
* There are now two Options screens. You can switch
between them using a button on the screens.
* From the "Game" menu you can now switch to a
parallel game, and back again. This allows you to
play to different, parallel games on one Palm.
Handy for people who share a Palm. Parallel games
can either share their preferences or have their
own separate preferences. This is configured on the
second page of the Options menu choice. You can
also indicate here whether or not you want your
commander to be identified when you start Space
Trader.
* From the "Game" menu you can now make a snapshot of
your game. This is meant purely for debugging
purposes. If you encounter a bug and send me a
message about it, I might ask you to make a
snapshot just before the error occurs and send it
to me. I can use this to recreate the error or
study your current game to see if there is anything
weird going on.
* If you use Palm OS 5.0 or higher, the game will
default to using buttons with rounded corners
everywhere. This is because at the release of
Space Trader 1.2.0 it is still unknown whether or
not these OS versions support buttons with
rectangular corners, but it is highly likely they
do not.
* To account for the extra space needed for
possible rounded buttons, several buttons have
been made slightly wider, notably the shortcut
buttons and the "All" buttons on the Sell Cargo
screen. This forced a name change of the System
Information screen to System Info screen. Also,
the trade good "Machinery" had to be changed to
"Machines".
* The black & white graphics have been redone by
hand.
* Contrast between the colors of visited and
unvisited systems on color Palms has been
increased.
* On Hard and Impossible level your police record
does not convert back to Dubious so fast as
before. On Hard level it takes three times as long,
and on Impossible level four times as long.
* If you flee from a police inspection, other police
ships you meet on the remainder of your journey
will attack you, at least on Normal difficulty
level or higher.
* Added Help On Menu.
* Backup bits for PRC file and databases are now set.
* Fixed a few spelling mistakes, displays and
incorrect help texts.
* Extra events have been captured to ensure correct
working of the game on Palm OS 5.0.
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.
