Topic: SFC3 Questions/Comments

[AngryAndroid]

Hello everyone!

I have a few questions and comments about SFC3. Firstly it?s been a while since I?ve played this but decided to give it a go again a few days ago. Now as much as I once loved this game, the bugs did get to me but nothing quite like this. I can?t seem to have 5 or more battles against the computer before it crashes back to the desktop.

This never happened before so I am putting forward a few things that are different about my PC than they were last time.

1)   I have 256 megs more of DDR memory
2)   The 512 to 1280 meg page file (under XP) is now on a separate hard drive
3)   Windows XP SP1 is now installed
4)   DX9 has been updated along with video card drivers
5)   The game was installed with several others one after another, causing fragmentation on the drive. This is being dealt with by NSW ?optimization? right now.

Hopefully that?s all the changes bar the new hard disk which the game is not on anyway. Personally I suspect it?s either the page file or the fragmentation causing the crashes as now the game runs very slowly when playing the single player campaign. All my other games run problem free as far as I am aware. Can anyone shed some light on this? Oh and also I installed the beta patch right after installing the game.

Now that?s out of the way, ill get onto the fun I?ve been having. It?s been a real joy playing this game again, playing with the smaller ships as Federation has been really entertaining (Captain Difficulty). The only problem is that things are a tad too easy with the smaller ships.

I find the Defiant especially is just too awesome, loading with IXF and XF phasers plus a few quantum?s coupled with the large engine space is a nice combination. After doing some maths, I worked out the most efficient federation weapon is the IXF phaser. Even overloaded its far more power efficient than all but the XF phaser not overloaded. This bit of maths really helped with ship design, the standard photon was ditched as it?s rather shockingly poor.

Anyway, weapon efficiency aside, me in a Defiant can take out 2 to 3 CPU controlled warbirds. Is this normal? It?s just too easy as I swarm in, blow a hole in their shields and cause some internals before legging it out of there. Another trip back and in they are taking serious internals, my is AV normally too high to worry about plasma.

Onto the Intrepid, kitted out with IXF phasers all around except a XF in the 360 degree mount, 1 quantum launcher forward and back, then still plenty of energy spare to fully overload those phasers! Not only does this armament relate to the real Voyager, but while constantly spinning around it can stop some ships from using their cloak as they are nearly always under fire. Once again, 2 warbirds are normally defeatable in this ship.

I?m not saying this would happen against human controlled ships, but these 2 CL?s are devastating. I just wish I knew what to do with the bigger ships. The Sovereign, Galaxy, Nebula and Excelsior I find to be incredibly difficult to get to grips with. The bigger they are, the more useless I find them, my crew especially often miss most of a volley in a Sovereign where as everything would hit in the Defiant. Could any of you guys suggest some comprehensive strategies or tips for commanding the bigger ships? I would just like to know what I?m doing wrong as I?m sure they can be far more useful than I?m making them.

Right, onto modding! Fighting against the Borg and Romulans is getting a tad boring; I really would like to fight the Klingons as well. I?m sure I heard about being able to change the allegiances, like in the multiplayer servers. Can you modify the single player game so that it?s an all races against all? If so, how so? And, I want a better map! Can a relative newbie to modding make changes to the map considering I?m PC competent? And, seems I?m asking a lot, I want to modify a few of the ships as well. Some of the standard load outs the game gives my opponents are pathetically weak; I think I could do a better job and so increase the challenge. To be specific I?m playing the Federation conquest campaign. Not too much to ask is it? Cheers for any response in reference to any part of this post.  

[AngryAndroid]

Sheesh not even a P/O  

[Cleaven]

I think all the SFC:TNG types went to another forum.
 

[David Ferrell]

My guess would be memory.  256 megs is a min for running just Win2k or XP.  If you wish to
happily run games on top, I would suggest bumping up to 512 if possible.

As for making everybody enemies, go to:
C:\Program Files\Activision\Sfc3\MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer
and open up MetaMap.gf

The Klingon section looks like this:
[PoliticalTension/StartingTensions/Klingon]
Federation=145
Klingon=0
Romulan=800
Borg=1000
Species8472=1000
Cardassian=800
Ferengi=200
Rakellian=1000
Pirate=1000
Neutral=800

For example.  To make them hate the Feds just bump the value up from 145 to something greater
than 500.  Do this for all the races you wish to change, save it and start a new campaign.

To  change the map, you will need to download the mapeditor which is included with the
server kit (does anyone else have this seperate?).

Thanks,

Dave  

[AngryAndroid]

Ah thank you, thats the racial tension sorted out, and ill have a look for the server kit. However, about the memory, I meant I have 256 megs more, which coincidently means I do have 512. In fact, the game ran far more smoothly in single player when I had 256, never had performance issues with SFC3 till now. Since that post I think I have found the problem though, for some reason I had the page file split up over 2 hard disks, I noticed recently windows menus appearing slower etc.

But thats great, thanks again!

[AdmiralFrey_XC]

Dave,

XC offers both the Map Editor and the Model viewer as separate downloads:

Map Editor :

http://www.xenocorp.net/downloads/ftp/Starfleet_Command/Starfleet_Command_OP/OP_Server_Kits/Map_Editor_OP.zip

Model Viewer:

http://www.xenocorp.net/downloads/ftp/Starfleet_Command/Starfleet_Command_OP/TaldrenModviewer.zip

[David Ferrell]

Thanks Frey, I thought someone would, but couldn't remember who.

Thanks,

Dave

[AdmiralFrey_XC]

Having multiple page files  shouldn't slow up a NT5 + based machine.

In all reality, it's recommended to NOT put the pagefile on the same drive as the system itself.

As well, Windows will only utilize the pagefile when all 512 MB of memory has been used.

Have you defragmented lately ?
 

[Alexander1701]

  Visit www.battleclinic.com for cookass* loadouts of all of the SFC3 ships plus ships from the exciting TNZ mod!

Seriously, the Galaxy is a GREAT machine for what you're doing with the intrepid, which some people call Mizia striking but, due largely to a misprint in my sfc1 manual I call Mizra striking, and, since I talk about it most, everyone else does these days. The sovereign does a pretty spiffy job of it too. The akira can be fun as well.

Don't be afraid to well your warp core! go down a level, many ships need it.

Alexander

*It may not be true, but its Truenuff    

[AngryAndroid]

AdmiralFrey I'm lost then, if its not the page file I dont know what it could be. I havnt defragged, but used NSW optimization instead (slightly different), I do this generaly once a week on all partitions.

Alexander I already found Battleclinic when I was searching these forums for tactics, and yes downloaded the TNZ mod, then signed up for the online campaign! Already made my way up to a decent sized CA and am using a combination of Mizra and Alpha strikes right now (after looking at yours and a few other articles on Battleclinic). If I manage to get into one of the DN's or BB's (if I'm really lucky), ill consider what you said in downgrading the warp core. If I do that though, I figure I'll have to downgrade shields perhaps as well? Personaly I prefer manouverability over raw power anyway, feel like a sitting duck if I cant turn on a dime lol.

Thanks for the responses!  

[Pestalence]

If you game is running laggy or slow, then try lowering your screen resolution in windows and in game.. set game to fun in 1 level resolution lower than your current setting... such as if it is in 1600x1200 now.. set game to 1280x1024. and on your desktop, lower color resolution from 32 bit to 24 bit or even 16 bit color... Your video card may be struggling on the color/size combination, thus causing system slow down...

also if you are using Windows XP, try using the built in Defrag and Scandisk.. those are designed for NTFS file structure... your current optimization may be set for FAT32, which works much differently than NTFS systems...

also, disabeling your system services that it doesn't need will increase performance...

go to www.blackviper.com for Services setup...

or www.winguides.com will do just as good...

remember to look for special information if you are on Dial-up as those configs are primarially designed for Broadband internet and show 2 services disabled that you will need for dial-up

If you do edit services.. use the Services.msc file as that will not show anything that is needed for XP to operate.. you can access services by going into start button, click on run, type in 'services.msc' (without the ' marks) and click OK.. then edit along with one of those sites.... On broadband, windows XP only needs 8 services to operate.. on dial-up, it need 10.. if you plan on running a server, then you should be using XP Pro and have a few more services active for a total of 15 (recommended for broadband only)...

also, another thing is to set your machine for gaming.. Right click on my Computer (if you have your machine in classic mode) then click on properties, then click on the Advanced tab.. click the settings button, click the advanced tab, and in Memory usage, put the dot into system cache.. that will free memory on your system and allow for smoother running of games. click OK to set you will need to reboot your system in order for all the changes to take effect...

another thing to consider is if your system has Spyware or Hijackers on it.. DL and update the Ad-Aware 6 program, then set it for deep scan and all of C drive (and any other HDD on your system. it will give you a listing of everything that may be a system hijacker or spywhare that infiltrated past your firewalls... speaking of which.. disable the firewall built into XP...

also another system performance program that will help is Spy-bot Search & Destroy, another spyware removal, hijack killer program that gets things that Ad-Aware misses.. Ad-Aware is the safer of the 2, but Spy-Bot is still supported as Ad-Aware support on updates ended about 3 months ago...

hope that this increases your system performance...

also check your MSCONFIG program in the start-up tab.. that is where all those icons pop up next to your system clock come from.. those are programs that load and stay resident in memory upon system boot.... Remove all that you don't absolutely need. You can access MSCONFIG by going to Start, Run, type in MSCONFIG then OK...

and finally for anyother program that loads at start-up that you may not need may be found in Start, Program Files, Start-up folder.. remove the one's you absolutely don't need.. reboot system for changes to take effect.. upon reboot it will give a grey box stating you made changes and gives a warning and if you want to edit any more.. just put a check mark in the check box and click OK..

at this time your machine should increase it's performance by at least 30 %

Hope that this infor helps you out.
 

[AngryAndroid]

Wow lots of advice! Well yes, some things I had not thought about at all. Ad Aware is already run about once every two weeks, but Im fairly carefull anyway. On boot I have 25 processes running, and CPU ussage is normaly around 5-10% while I sit here. Your right, my resolution is too high for my meagre GF2 ti, that has been sorted now. I tried the memory usage for chach thing, which did show an improvment in performance, but because I do a lot of multi tasking as well, I had to change back. Also I went back and ran the standard XP defragger tool, but that didnt do anything noticable, I presume because every partition was under 5% fragmented. I'll have a go at disabling some of my system resources when I'm a tad less tired, but to be honest, XP and most other things run ok.

For now ill just stay away from the single player campaign, thats where the problem is anyway. I find it strange but ill just have to deal with it, besides TNZ is making up for that now. Also after I have installed that massive mod, I dont expect it to run too well, it loads slower than an a C64 lol. Short of a fresh isntall of the game and windows I cant see me being able to tweak this any futher.

[AngryAndroid]

Hello everyone!

I have a few questions and comments about SFC3. Firstly it?s been a while since I?ve played this but decided to give it a go again a few days ago. Now as much as I once loved this game, the bugs did get to me but nothing quite like this. I can?t seem to have 5 or more battles against the computer before it crashes back to the desktop.

This never happened before so I am putting forward a few things that are different about my PC than they were last time.

1)   I have 256 megs more of DDR memory
2)   The 512 to 1280 meg page file (under XP) is now on a separate hard drive
3)   Windows XP SP1 is now installed
4)   DX9 has been updated along with video card drivers
5)   The game was installed with several others one after another, causing fragmentation on the drive. This is being dealt with by NSW ?optimization? right now.

Hopefully that?s all the changes bar the new hard disk which the game is not on anyway. Personally I suspect it?s either the page file or the fragmentation causing the crashes as now the game runs very slowly when playing the single player campaign. All my other games run problem free as far as I am aware. Can anyone shed some light on this? Oh and also I installed the beta patch right after installing the game.

Now that?s out of the way, ill get onto the fun I?ve been having. It?s been a real joy playing this game again, playing with the smaller ships as Federation has been really entertaining (Captain Difficulty). The only problem is that things are a tad too easy with the smaller ships.

I find the Defiant especially is just too awesome, loading with IXF and XF phasers plus a few quantum?s coupled with the large engine space is a nice combination. After doing some maths, I worked out the most efficient federation weapon is the IXF phaser. Even overloaded its far more power efficient than all but the XF phaser not overloaded. This bit of maths really helped with ship design, the standard photon was ditched as it?s rather shockingly poor.

Anyway, weapon efficiency aside, me in a Defiant can take out 2 to 3 CPU controlled warbirds. Is this normal? It?s just too easy as I swarm in, blow a hole in their shields and cause some internals before legging it out of there. Another trip back and in they are taking serious internals, my is AV normally too high to worry about plasma.

Onto the Intrepid, kitted out with IXF phasers all around except a XF in the 360 degree mount, 1 quantum launcher forward and back, then still plenty of energy spare to fully overload those phasers! Not only does this armament relate to the real Voyager, but while constantly spinning around it can stop some ships from using their cloak as they are nearly always under fire. Once again, 2 warbirds are normally defeatable in this ship.

I?m not saying this would happen against human controlled ships, but these 2 CL?s are devastating. I just wish I knew what to do with the bigger ships. The Sovereign, Galaxy, Nebula and Excelsior I find to be incredibly difficult to get to grips with. The bigger they are, the more useless I find them, my crew especially often miss most of a volley in a Sovereign where as everything would hit in the Defiant. Could any of you guys suggest some comprehensive strategies or tips for commanding the bigger ships? I would just like to know what I?m doing wrong as I?m sure they can be far more useful than I?m making them.

Right, onto modding! Fighting against the Borg and Romulans is getting a tad boring; I really would like to fight the Klingons as well. I?m sure I heard about being able to change the allegiances, like in the multiplayer servers. Can you modify the single player game so that it?s an all races against all? If so, how so? And, I want a better map! Can a relative newbie to modding make changes to the map considering I?m PC competent? And, seems I?m asking a lot, I want to modify a few of the ships as well. Some of the standard load outs the game gives my opponents are pathetically weak; I think I could do a better job and so increase the challenge. To be specific I?m playing the Federation conquest campaign. Not too much to ask is it? Cheers for any response in reference to any part of this post.  

[AngryAndroid]

Sheesh not even a P/O  

[Cleaven]

I think all the SFC:TNG types went to another forum.
 

[David Ferrell]

My guess would be memory.  256 megs is a min for running just Win2k or XP.  If you wish to
happily run games on top, I would suggest bumping up to 512 if possible.

As for making everybody enemies, go to:
C:\Program Files\Activision\Sfc3\MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer
and open up MetaMap.gf

The Klingon section looks like this:
[PoliticalTension/StartingTensions/Klingon]
Federation=145
Klingon=0
Romulan=800
Borg=1000
Species8472=1000
Cardassian=800
Ferengi=200
Rakellian=1000
Pirate=1000
Neutral=800

For example.  To make them hate the Feds just bump the value up from 145 to something greater
than 500.  Do this for all the races you wish to change, save it and start a new campaign.

To  change the map, you will need to download the mapeditor which is included with the
server kit (does anyone else have this seperate?).

Thanks,

Dave  

[AngryAndroid]

Ah thank you, thats the racial tension sorted out, and ill have a look for the server kit. However, about the memory, I meant I have 256 megs more, which coincidently means I do have 512. In fact, the game ran far more smoothly in single player when I had 256, never had performance issues with SFC3 till now. Since that post I think I have found the problem though, for some reason I had the page file split up over 2 hard disks, I noticed recently windows menus appearing slower etc.

But thats great, thanks again!

[AdmiralFrey_XC]

Dave,

XC offers both the Map Editor and the Model viewer as separate downloads:

Map Editor :

http://www.xenocorp.net/downloads/ftp/Starfleet_Command/Starfleet_Command_OP/OP_Server_Kits/Map_Editor_OP.zip

Model Viewer:

http://www.xenocorp.net/downloads/ftp/Starfleet_Command/Starfleet_Command_OP/TaldrenModviewer.zip

[David Ferrell]

Thanks Frey, I thought someone would, but couldn't remember who.

Thanks,

Dave

[AdmiralFrey_XC]

Having multiple page files  shouldn't slow up a NT5 + based machine.

In all reality, it's recommended to NOT put the pagefile on the same drive as the system itself.

As well, Windows will only utilize the pagefile when all 512 MB of memory has been used.

Have you defragmented lately ?
 

[Alexander1701]

  Visit www.battleclinic.com for cookass* loadouts of all of the SFC3 ships plus ships from the exciting TNZ mod!

Seriously, the Galaxy is a GREAT machine for what you're doing with the intrepid, which some people call Mizia striking but, due largely to a misprint in my sfc1 manual I call Mizra striking, and, since I talk about it most, everyone else does these days. The sovereign does a pretty spiffy job of it too. The akira can be fun as well.

Don't be afraid to well your warp core! go down a level, many ships need it.

Alexander

*It may not be true, but its Truenuff    

[AngryAndroid]

AdmiralFrey I'm lost then, if its not the page file I dont know what it could be. I havnt defragged, but used NSW optimization instead (slightly different), I do this generaly once a week on all partitions.

Alexander I already found Battleclinic when I was searching these forums for tactics, and yes downloaded the TNZ mod, then signed up for the online campaign! Already made my way up to a decent sized CA and am using a combination of Mizra and Alpha strikes right now (after looking at yours and a few other articles on Battleclinic). If I manage to get into one of the DN's or BB's (if I'm really lucky), ill consider what you said in downgrading the warp core. If I do that though, I figure I'll have to downgrade shields perhaps as well? Personaly I prefer manouverability over raw power anyway, feel like a sitting duck if I cant turn on a dime lol.

Thanks for the responses!  

[Pestalence]

If you game is running laggy or slow, then try lowering your screen resolution in windows and in game.. set game to fun in 1 level resolution lower than your current setting... such as if it is in 1600x1200 now.. set game to 1280x1024. and on your desktop, lower color resolution from 32 bit to 24 bit or even 16 bit color... Your video card may be struggling on the color/size combination, thus causing system slow down...

also if you are using Windows XP, try using the built in Defrag and Scandisk.. those are designed for NTFS file structure... your current optimization may be set for FAT32, which works much differently than NTFS systems...

also, disabeling your system services that it doesn't need will increase performance...

go to www.blackviper.com for Services setup...

or www.winguides.com will do just as good...

remember to look for special information if you are on Dial-up as those configs are primarially designed for Broadband internet and show 2 services disabled that you will need for dial-up

If you do edit services.. use the Services.msc file as that will not show anything that is needed for XP to operate.. you can access services by going into start button, click on run, type in 'services.msc' (without the ' marks) and click OK.. then edit along with one of those sites.... On broadband, windows XP only needs 8 services to operate.. on dial-up, it need 10.. if you plan on running a server, then you should be using XP Pro and have a few more services active for a total of 15 (recommended for broadband only)...

also, another thing is to set your machine for gaming.. Right click on my Computer (if you have your machine in classic mode) then click on properties, then click on the Advanced tab.. click the settings button, click the advanced tab, and in Memory usage, put the dot into system cache.. that will free memory on your system and allow for smoother running of games. click OK to set you will need to reboot your system in order for all the changes to take effect...

another thing to consider is if your system has Spyware or Hijackers on it.. DL and update the Ad-Aware 6 program, then set it for deep scan and all of C drive (and any other HDD on your system. it will give you a listing of everything that may be a system hijacker or spywhare that infiltrated past your firewalls... speaking of which.. disable the firewall built into XP...

also another system performance program that will help is Spy-bot Search & Destroy, another spyware removal, hijack killer program that gets things that Ad-Aware misses.. Ad-Aware is the safer of the 2, but Spy-Bot is still supported as Ad-Aware support on updates ended about 3 months ago...

hope that this increases your system performance...

also check your MSCONFIG program in the start-up tab.. that is where all those icons pop up next to your system clock come from.. those are programs that load and stay resident in memory upon system boot.... Remove all that you don't absolutely need. You can access MSCONFIG by going to Start, Run, type in MSCONFIG then OK...

and finally for anyother program that loads at start-up that you may not need may be found in Start, Program Files, Start-up folder.. remove the one's you absolutely don't need.. reboot system for changes to take effect.. upon reboot it will give a grey box stating you made changes and gives a warning and if you want to edit any more.. just put a check mark in the check box and click OK..

at this time your machine should increase it's performance by at least 30 %

Hope that this infor helps you out.
 

[AngryAndroid]

Wow lots of advice! Well yes, some things I had not thought about at all. Ad Aware is already run about once every two weeks, but Im fairly carefull anyway. On boot I have 25 processes running, and CPU ussage is normaly around 5-10% while I sit here. Your right, my resolution is too high for my meagre GF2 ti, that has been sorted now. I tried the memory usage for chach thing, which did show an improvment in performance, but because I do a lot of multi tasking as well, I had to change back. Also I went back and ran the standard XP defragger tool, but that didnt do anything noticable, I presume because every partition was under 5% fragmented. I'll have a go at disabling some of my system resources when I'm a tad less tired, but to be honest, XP and most other things run ok.

For now ill just stay away from the single player campaign, thats where the problem is anyway. I find it strange but ill just have to deal with it, besides TNZ is making up for that now. Also after I have installed that massive mod, I dont expect it to run too well, it loads slower than an a C64 lol. Short of a fresh isntall of the game and windows I cant see me being able to tweak this any futher.