I would advise the following procedure if a little twitchy on using the beta patch.
First duplicate the install directory in the same place you initially installed the game.
C:\Program Files\Activision is the default path to the install directory sfc3.
Just duplicate that first. Drag and drop, it takes a bit, lots of files to copy
You will then see another directory that say copy of sfc3
Download and run the patch. it will patch the original install directory.
If you want to go back to the original. Rename the directory to sfc3beta, and rename the copy to sfc.
Then run as usual.
By changing the names of the directorys, you can easily switch between versions with no hassles.
Make sure you have enough harddrive space for the duplications.
This technique is also useful for full custom mods btw.....
Enjoy the patch
Readme from patch below--
Star Trek Starfleet Command III 1.01 BETA Patch Readme
CLIENT FIXES
0) Follow, Orbit and Match target speed works on undetected cloaked ships - fixed.
1) Win 9x not displaying "Mission Complete" message - fixed.
2) Looping text at end of Klingon mission 'Obedience' - fixed.
3) Occasionally the Romulan Mission 'Gray Area' cannot be completed - fixed.
4) If a starbase construction fleet lost a freighter, the player would still be able to deliver the starbase - fixed.
5) Owning player would receive prestige if his construction fleet freighter(s) were destroyed - fixed.
6) AI not firing plasmas - fixed.
7) A ship with no primary weapons would not be able to fire - fixed.
8) AI not taking Angular Velocity in to account when firing - fixed.
9) Romulan fast disruptors not doing enough damage - fixed.
10) Empty incoming hail box that can't be cleared - fixed.
11) Turn rate curve is incorrect - fixed.
12) Ships beyond sensor range are given away by a mouse hover - fixed.
13) Romulan Warbird is too weak - fixed, added additional hardpoint to rear (in addition to fixes elsewhere-in Romulan weapons).
14) Reduced the chance of detecting a cloaked ship with probes from 25% to 15%.
15) Pressing the B key or clicking on the Fire Heavy Weapons button drops a nuclear mine - fixed.
16) If a weapon is destroyed, it indicates "cycling" - fixed.
17) Base Assault and Planetary Assault missions are too easy - fixed.
18) Defiant and Scimitar UI less than optimal - fixed.
19) The Defiant hull cost is too low - fixed.
20) The Ion Cannon is not distinctive - fixed.
21) Borg Cube collision causing multiple problems - fixed the cube is now just an ordinary ship - no collision.
22) Reduced strength of the pulse phaser over range and brought the plasma torpedoes in line with the new pulse phaser numbers.
23) Added distinctive beep to incoming meta message.
24) SFC now supports multiple maps of the same type.
25) It will now randomly pick from all available maps of a type (Open space, Asteroids, Nebula and Black Hole) to determine map for tactical.
26) Added new weapons arcs for starbases only.
27) Starbase only weapons increased to max range of 60.
28) Pulse phasers - reduced chance of shield piercing to 1 in 10 from 1 in 6.
29) Special weapons now display damage drop off correctly in the tactical radar.
30) Helm Officers being killed with performing EM does not stop you from stopping EM.
31) Ships explosion damage now based on health of warp core and total warp power output.
32) MP Games update the Player count correctly now.
33) Refit Screen: The purchase list no longer resets to the first item each time you buy our remove a item.
34) A host machine address is now removed correctly. NOTE: saved addresses will have to be re-entered.
35) Mixing of Tech Between races now no longer allowed by default.
36) Fixed Disrepute being counted twice after a battle.
37) Fixed Transporter panel bug where the panel drew over the weapons panel.
38) Fixed Transporter Panel not refreshing the contents of the target ship correctly.
39) Fixed bug in speed bar where the client fails to update the other clients on the change in speed when an impulse engine is repaired.
40) Shields now regenerate faster.
41) Fixed targeting sub system bug that allowed crewmen and officers to be killed before internals were scored.
42) ShuttleBays made tougher.
43) Fixed lockup when AI's try to capture ships under certain circumstances.
44) Fixed bug where the keyboard command could ping turn on Anti-Cloak on ships that did not have anti-cloak.
45) Fixed bug where keyboard command of "steady as she goes" did nothing.
46) Cloak can now be repaired.
47) Amount of random damage going to engines is too high - fixed.
48) Klingon mission 'Obedience' crashes - fixed.
49) Unable to complete Borg mission 'Status Quo' - fixed.
50) Probes cause friendly ships to be detected - fixed.
SERVER FIXES
01) The percentage of Disrepute distribution now is a float from 0.1 to 10.0 in the Character.gf.
02) Handle SmartHeap exception so a dialog box does not appear
03) Rework GameSpyConnection logic to safely close down
04) Protect callbacks from being deleted while in use.
05) Improve performance of callback protection (aka The Movement issue during testing)
06) Introduce new external LogViewer system to improve Server performance.
07) Upgraded to SmartHeap 6.02
08) Removed unused variables in AI.gf, Ship.gf, Character.gf
09) Max ships in review by empire increased (for bidding)
10) Officer population is now a ratio of the humans, not of ALL characters (previously way too many officers)
11) Broadcast option on the server (#4), message will go out to all people online
12) Option added to server (Database.gf:[FileDB]/AutoSaveDateTimeStampedRate). If set to a value > 0, this controls the rate at which AutoSaves are instead saved to a directory named with the current date/time. This allows AutoSaves to be automatically set aside, just in case. They are in the format "/YYYY-MM-DD_HHMM", for example: "/2002-12-25_0800". Default rate is once per hour.
13) When a player logs off, they now have their "in tactical" flag cleared. This had previously caused players to be "stuck" on the server, unable to move.
14) If leader is attacked while moving to the next hex, but before the members are moved with the leader - the battle still commences with all members. Likewise, if a fleet member is attacked in this case - battle still occurs with all.
15) Simulated AI battles (those without humans) now have a 5% effect (vs. former 20%)
16) Decreased odds of Battleship's appearing
17) AI no longer replenish stores no matter what hex they are in (now only in friendly base hex)
18) AI now attempts to repair their hulls whenever they pass through a friendly starbase/planet hex.
19) Internal handling of engagements more memory efficient
20) Info messages are now clearer as to creating fresh engagement and adding to engagement (with ID)
21) Under high loads, an engagement could be advanced more than once, with unknown results (major bug)
22) Simulated AI battles are dismissed if they become invalid (defender died, etc.) while waiting to be simulated.
23) Borg now repair their hulls as soon as they report a battle
24) When server starts up, it looks at both "Auto Save" and "Exit Save" and uses the latest. It also indicates what it is doing, so you will know if it's a fresh database start.
25) Server will handle and correct a "CD Key In Use" error if it occurs and the player lost the key legitimately (server crash, etc.)
26) Option added to server (MissionMatching.gf:[ForfeitModifiers]/DeathIfFailedToJoin), if set - player will suffer a battle death if fail to return to the server after a battle (Alt-F4, crash, loss of net connection, etc.)
27) Option added to server (Economy.gf:[Auction/Ship]/CanBenefitFromDowngradingShip), if set - player will gain prestige when they trade in their ship for a lower valued ship.
28) Updated to GameSpy's latest SDKs (12/12/2002).
29) When someone joins or leaves a fleet, every human in the hex is notified and has their view refreshed
30) If a player chooses a mission such as scan, that does not involve others, they are protected from being attacked while in the mission. This prevents a cheat where players were being auto-forfeited while in battle and suffering a loss of prestige.
31) Rank is now advancing once again.
32) A German player can log onto any server and see only German messages from the server, while English players will see English. Of course chat remains in whatever language they are speaking. The language of the player is noted when they create a player on the server. All information sent to that player will then be in their language.
33) Fixed: Server option MaxAIsPerEmpire was creating AIs for empires that didn't exist.
34) Added server security support for ItemRules.gf
35) Option added to server (MissionMatching.gf:[Fleet]/LeaderCannotBeLowerClassThanMember), if set - no one can join a fleet if they are a higher ship class than the leader, except everyone can join a freighter.
36) Info Server now updates GameSpy every 10 seconds, instead of every second.
37) OSVersion9x.dll's are now removed!
38) Improved internal thread synchronization resource usage.
39) AutoSave rate changed to 5 (every 10 minutes).
40) Option added to server (Database.gf:[FileDB]/BackupPath), if set - special date/time backups are saved in a separate directory for easier maintenance.
41) Database saves that are created in other directories can now be copied into the root of /Saves and still work.
42) We now report "numplayers" to GameSpy as the # of logged on players.
43) Economy server can now run at a different rate than every turn, because the closing of bids is now run on the Database server turn (always every turn). Economy server turn rate reduced to every 5 turns.
44) Changed HailMission's listings under MissionMatching.gf to support a LIST of missions for each type, instead of only one. This allows modders to add as many special scripts as they would like. The system randomly picks from these lists, so you can increase the odds of a particular version by increasing the # of times it's in a list. For example, if someone creates a bunch of variations on the Meta_Hail_Planet mission, they would all be listed under [HailMissions/HailPlanetMissionTitles].
45) Option added to server (MissionMatching.gf:[Fleet/Maximum]). This list controls the maximum # of a given ship class in fleets. There can only be one Dreadnought class ship in a fleet, for example. Or only 2 Heavy Cruiser's.
46) Officer progression rate in multiplayer reduced by 80%. This is controlled externally now in (Score.gf:[LevelUp] and [SpecializedLevelUp]).
47) Option added to server (Score.gf:[Misc]/ChargeToDisreputeRate). This controls how much to charge to a player's disrepute if they are charged for a new ship when they die. The algorithm is a bit complex, so bear with me. Its primary purpose is to lessen the sting of dying in battle, but prevent cheating by stripping a ship and then purposefully dying in battle. When a player dies and the server is set to charge them for their replacement ship (Score.gf:[Misc]/ChargeForReplacementShip), the server calculates the trade-in value of their new replacement ship. This amount is to be charged to the player. ChargeToDisreputeRate is the percentage to charge to disrepute instead of prestige. The remainder is charged to prestige. If the player has disrepute already, the system will charge disrepute only up to the amount that was to be charged to disrepute and the remainder will then go to prestige. An example:
a) Player dies and is charged 10000 prestige for their new ship.
b) ChargeToDisreputeRate is set to 80%, so 8000 goes to disrepute and 2000 to prestige.
c) Player already has 5000 disrepute. So they are charged 3000 more disrepute, with the extra 5000 going back to prestige.
d) Player is then charged 7000 prestige. If they did not have disrepute already, it would have been 8000 to disrepute and 2000 charged to prestige.
48) Whenever prestige or disrepute changes, player has their prestige/disrepute refreshed.
49) Server informs administrator when it is "AutoSaving".
50) When a player wins a bid for a ship, their old ship is destroyed.
51) Under SQL, support added to ban player based on their GameSpy name or their IP address, checked when they create a player or log on.
52) Corrected OLD bug that was not refreshing the player's view of the map correctly. Planets should visually change their race on the map as well.
53) When a server starts up, it reviews valid Save directories and loads the latest version and announces which one it loads.
54) Fixed: List of Dynaverse servers was not matching up with descriptions/etc.
55) Removed more unused variables from various server GF files.
56) When a character logs off, it should always release the CD Key.
NEW FEATURES
01) ItemRules.gf can be modified to allow mixing of tech for mods and holds the default ships for skirmish games.
02) When Bidding on a ship, a pop-up panel requests confirmation.
03) The weapons officers weapon Tech skill now decreases the shuttle launch delay. The delay was reduced across the board also.
04) Removed the need to have two teams for a skirmish game.
05) Added Popup to inform players that bids in D3 are final.
06) You can now cancel repairs but you still lose the repair part.
07) Weapons and Sensors degrade in the same increments as their color (Green 100%, Yellow 80%, Red 50%, Black 0%)
08) Warp and Impulse engines degrade gradually but also auto-repair at approx. 3% per turn
ADVANCED USER TIPS
To increase the resolution of the weapon arcs on the tactical display you may alter this line in the sfc.ini. The default number is 6. Higher numbers require more CPU power thus reduces framerate. Thus numbers over 10 are not recommended unless you have a high-end system. Numbers over 75 are capped to 75. Numbers under 6 are set to 6.
[UI]
TacDisplayRes=6
Topic: 1.01 beta patch out from activision (Read 27284 times)