Friday, June 12, 2015

Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy -> Hints, tips, shortcut keys


Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy was the first game I ever worked on in the games industry.  I joined Bluetongue Software (later Bluetongue Entertainment) in Melbourne Australia in 2000, and I was testing what we called STTA during development.




Last night, I caught up with an old friend from Bluetongue, and we got talking about the old games we'd worked on.  After he left, I dug out STTA, and fired it up.  It still plays fine on my modern quad-core Windows 7 machine, after installing the Starship Troopers 1.1 Nvidia Patch, which was nice!  It even supported 1920 x 1080 resolution (even though no such resolution existed when the game was released).


But I found I'd forgotten some crucial hotkey shortcuts, making even the first level of the game very challenging!

The player needs to destroy a bunch of bug holes, and to do so, you need to switch to your Artillery Weapons and Fire those artillery weapons!  But I couldn't find any way to do those actions through the normal onscreen GUI!  I remember this being a bit of a problem when we released the game.  And the manual didn't even have a list of hotkeys!

So I dug up the old hotkey page I made in 2000.  Here it is for your delectation.


Grab the full Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy Hotkeys list here!


A few special tips and notes below...

Crucial hotkeys

W - Toggle Weapon on selected troopers
F - Fire Artillery  (then click on target to fire there)
H - Heal / Repair  (Medic / Engineer)
S - Stop  (stops all troopers from doing whatever they're doing)

Selecting Troopers

I also like to be able to save custom selections for groups of troopers.  Just use CTRL and Click to select some troopers, then hold ALT and press a number key to save that selection set.  Then you can just press that number any time while playing, to select those troopers again.  (By default, "1" is row 1, and "2" is row 2, etc).  

"~" is also very handy, as it selects ALL troopers.


You can also tap SPACEBAR to shift the camera between different groups of troopers, which can be handy if faster soldiers run off ahead of slower soldiers for example.


Trooper Attitudes

Also, crucial, are the Z, X, C, V keys which change the "attitude" of selected soldiers (Berzerker, Aggressive, Controlled, Stealth).  It changes the way they respond to nearby enemies, how they respond to move commands, and how visible they are to the enemy. 

"Z" makes troopers berzerker, meaning they'll run off and attack nearby bugs (which can make them "disobedient" and not follow move commands very ceremoniously, but it does make them effective at killing nearby bugs without having to issue specific orders.

"V" makes your soldiers stealth (and slow), helping to get past enemies undetected.


Equipping Units with Gear

Equipping units in the squad load-out phase can be confusing, mainly because different units have different abilities and limitations about what they can carry, based on things like (from memory) their rank and armor suit type.  

The main thing you need to know is... You can generally try to add a secondary weapon or item to the troopers, and you'll generally want to put a bunch of rocket launchers on as many troops as possible, to blow up bug holes, and destroy big enemies.

Troopers can carry a missile launcher and a laser gun, for example.  You can then toggle between those weapons as needed during play using W while the unit is selected.

Note that by default, you can see the troop face portraits in the bottom right.  But it's generally more useful to toggle that display to show their active weapon, instead!  That way you can see more clearly who has what equipped during gameplay.  F11 will toggle between faces and weapons.


Tac Map

F10 cycles through the TacMap modes (full, small, off).  I'd recommend just making it the largest size.  You can also click on the map directly to issue move orders, which can be very handy to send units right across the map.


58 comments:

  1. Do you know how to get this game running for windows 10? The Nvidia patch fixes the menu issues, but the game will fail when attempting to load a mission.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Leon, unfortunately I haven't had any experience trying to get it running on Windows 10. I would have thought (hoped) that it would work fine.

    Perhaps you should try running the game from a different directory. Perhaps the pathname is too long, or there's too many spaces in the path, etc.

    Trying putting STTA into the root of your C:/ for example, and see if it works there. Or in C:/Games. Would be keen to know how you go.

    All the best!

    - Murray

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your response Murray, I will attempt this and report back.

      Kind regards,
      - Leon

      Delete
  3. Hey that's awesome, that's my first STTA Support email in about 16 years! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately I am still unable to play. When attempting to load a level I will get the 'Starship troopers terran ascendancy has stopped working' notification from windows.

      I wanted to ask, when I apply the patches, I notice that the D3D.dll file will overwrite the previous one, so for example if I add the full patch, then Nvidia patch will overwrite it. If I apply the Nvidia patch first, then the full patch will overwrite the nvidia patch and I can't navigate the main menu again.

      Am I applying the patches incorrectly?

      Thank you again for your assistance.
      - Leon

      Delete
    2. Do you have a way to perhaps test it on a friend's computer, running Windows 7, or Windows XP? :) That might be a good way to see if the game is working as expected on those systems. And then, if it does, you'll know that you can try the same process on your Windows 10 machine, and narrow down the variables of the problem.

      This was the old support email I used to send out to people, about applying the patches...

      ===============================
      Try installing the 1.1 patch first.

      Then the NVidia patch after that if you are using a NVidia card.

      IMPORTANT:
      To install the patches, first make sure you have WinZip installed (www.winzip.com). Then you just Right-Click on a patch, and select "Extract to..." from the drop down menu that appears.

      Then browse to your \stta folder, and press OK. By default, this will be found at
      C:\Program Files\Microprose\Starship Troopers\stta. It will sometimes ask you whether you want to over-write some files. Always select "Yes".

      If that still doesn't work, you may wish to try a fresh install of the game, and try applying the patches again, in case it was something that went wrong during the patch application.

      ===============================

      Delete
    3. I just installed it again myself, on my Windows 7 computer, and I just ran version 1.0 (the default install) and it works fine. I have an AMD graphics card, though.

      Delete
    4. Hey Murray,

      I believe my GTX980M is responsible for this fault, despite the Nvidia patch it is not enough. I have no idea where to begin trying to figure this out so I'm throwing in the towel. Thank you so much for your support thought. I guess the Bugs won this time.

      Kind regards,
      Leon

      Delete
    5. This is one of my all time favorite games. I've been trying to play it for years now. Could never get it to work on Windwos7... It works great on Windwos 10.

      - Install the game.
      - Unpack the 1.1 patch, copy the files from it, to the main game directory... the fonts too. I just overwrote the folder.
      - Run the game in WindowsXP Service Pack 3 mode, with admin rights.
      - It will ask for CD to be in a DVD drive. I have the original so I do that. Buy you can also use DemionToolLight and mount an ISO.

      I'm running Win 10 64x and Radeon HD 7950 with latest drivers. Game run in 1080x192 perfectly... although I'd like the menus to be a bit bigger, butwhatchagonnado? I'm very happy!

      I wanted to play this game for years. Few weeks ago I installed windows ME on my virtual server so I could install the game. I found the CD but before I did that, decided to try one more time. Works!

      Delete
    6. Awesome to hear you got it working again! :)

      I was playing again recently, and found some pretty frustrating things about the game! I wish we could go back and change them. Like, walking for miles and miles and miles, then having to defend that fort against all those crazy bugs... man, that's hard! And if you have to do it again, you have to walk all that way again, and it's pretty boring! :)

      But overall, I'm proud that this was the first game I worked on!

      Enjoy!

      Delete
    7. I have no idea how you achieved that Sebastian.
      I do the following:
      - Install the game.
      - Unpack the 1.1 patch, copy the files from it, to the main game directory... the fonts too. I just overwrote the folder.
      - Run the game in WindowsXP Service Pack 3 mode, with admin rights.
      - Game has graphical problems. black bars above and below the menu screen can't click on anything.
      - Install the Starship troopers Nvidia Patch
      - Game works! Menu Works! Briefing and squad selection works!
      - When I try to start the mission - Crash to desktop
      every
      single
      time...

      It would appear to me that the Radeon cards don't have this issue. and the Nvidia fix (which worked at the time) doesn't work with current Nvidia cards.. that's the only logical conclusion I can come up with.

      I need to find someone who knows about Nvidia issues with older games and what the work-around must be, this is so frustrating!

      Delete
    8. I think you are right. The last time I ran it, I was running it on a Radeon card, and it did work (on Windows 7, I think).

      I'm now on Windows 10, using a Nvidia 970, and I can't get it to work.

      Delete
  4. Hi,

    great game! Playing it again after several years but i have one question to it...while playing i was wondering if it would be possible to re-work some or all models which are in the game but honestly i have no idea where the in-game models are stored... any idea? :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tomas, I'm not too sure. I seem to remember that maybe the models got "kinda zipped up" into a proprietary "Toshi" format (the name of our engine at the time).

      I can't remember whether people tries to mod the game, or anything. So, sorry, I don't really have any useful info!

      I did a quick search online, and I don't think anyone has really had any luck modding this game, except perhaps hacking some save game files to let you have stronger units or something.

      It was kind of a shame we packaged it all up so well! It would be nice if people could have messed with it a bit more over the years. :)

      Delete
    2. Hi Murray,

      thank you for your reply. Its really a nice feeling to "speak" with someone who was developing the game!

      I did a large research through google before i asked :) with the same findings as you which is quite sad. The game and the universe is great, it deserves some enhancement but due to the lack of any modding possibilities its impossible unfortunately.

      Anyway, thank you again for your reply and best wishes from Slovakia :) Tomas

      Delete
    3. My pleasure!

      I was playing it recently, and I got up to the mission where you have to capture a bug specimen, then go to that military base which then gets attacked by tons and tons of bugs!

      It's so frustrating, because for so long, basically nothing happens (you just run around for ages), then you die at the base, and have to do it all again.

      Bad game design! :) Although, it certainly does raise the tension!

      Delete
    4. Hi Murray,

      i have played this gem yesterday and got an Windows error at the end of one mission... hell no :). Anyway, i have also decided to give one more shot for the "moding" options here and found some very disturbing things, at least for me.

      1. The textures are saved as *.ppm binary files which is obvious from the header of the image (P6 255 RGB) but not all. Some of the images are having P7 inside the header which should point to *.pam format but to be the *.pam format its missing some information. I cant figure out why some of the textures are one format and the others a different one.. no sense, hell no. Of course, there is a nice tag in the header: File created by Blue Tongue Software's PPM Photoshop format plugin :), by all textures. However, the P7s are impossible to open :(. Nevertheless, the texture are very small (256x256) is the biggest one but mostly 128x128 and fitted to the models. Thus, if the model is square, the appropriated part of the texture features this deformation :).
      2. The *.pdo format of the models is again something i cant handle. No program which i know can open it and the header is absolutely empty and therefore no information about what the hell is this. Makes me sad.
      3. There is no sense to change either the texture or the model, you have to change both to make from that as much as possible.
      4. Without some "SDK" i dont think that its possible to mod this in any reasonable way.
      5. I have checked some other games the studio made with the “TOSHI” engine but only STTA has the *.pdo files…
      Any chance that someone has some “past” tools to be able to edit this gem? For example, release some SDK, everything, don’t know.. something at least :)

      Happy new year by the way :) Tomas

      Delete
    5. Hi Tomas,

      Considering that the game never got a sequel, it's a real shame that it was so hard to mod. It would have been awesome to see people go crazy with it, adding in extra content, and being able to up-rez textures and models, etc more easily.

      I personally never knew much about the formats for the texture files and other data storage formats.

      I remember the artists talking about .ppm this and that at the time, but I never knew much more about it.

      I also never took any of the source code, or exporters home. I guess it must be on the hard drives on some of the dev team somewhere, although possibly not.

      I wonder if someone has that Photoshop PPM plugin.

      I know we were using 3D Studio Max at the time, so I guess everything was build in 3DSMax and exported through a custom exporter, and perhaps the textures were exported direct from Photoshop.

      I'm pretty sure STTA had it's own pipeline for the models and textures, and the next game we made was Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, and it kinda had a whole new engine, from memory, with a new exporter for the dinosaurs and buildings, etc, from 3DSMax.

      I might check around a few people to see if anyone has the exporter for 3DSMax or Photoshop. :)

      - Murray

      Delete
    6. Hi Murray,

      thank you for your answer!
      There are some Photoshop plugins for PPM but they cant recognize the "P7" format and neither linux or anything i tried and therefore it has to be something really custom :)
      Getting these plugins would be totally awesome and any other information. And I totally agree, a sequel would be awesome for this game. Shame that the FPS shooter which came after this was a mess.. . but I would prefer anyway a strategy like game as this one rather than an FPS shooter.
      Finger crossed :)

      tomas

      Delete
    7. :) I'll see if I can dig anything up!

      Not sure how I'll go, but I'll reply here if I get anywhere. :D

      Delete
    8. Hi Tomas, I've rustled something up. :)

      It is the PPM plugin for Photoshop. You will most probably need to use an old version of Photoshop (circa 2000) for it to work. I'd be curious to know how you go!

      PPM Photoshop plugin
      http://www.muzboz.com/Dump/STTA_PPM.zip

      There's also some very simple code to load "Bluetongue .ppms".

      They were passed along to me with the comments:

      "The PPM's seem very straightforward and the P7 seems to refer to alpha channels if I'm reading the code right, there doesn't seem to be any fancy compression on them."

      "Regarding the model/animation exporter, that thing was a nightmare! From memory it piggy backed the Microsoft .X exporter then grabbed the model from graphics memory once the .X viewer had done it's thing. An artist on the team upgraded their GFX card and it broke exports from his computer! Madness, that exporter needs to be left under whatever rock it crawled under once the project was finished!"

      Hehehe, so the exporter doesn't seem to be around.

      I guess see what you can do with the PPM plugin! :)

      All the best.

      Delete
    9. Hi Murray!

      thats completely awesome!

      I have loaded the plugin and its working perfectly! The P7 was the confusing part of this, as a magic number for the PixMap it was pointing to something else but at the end it was the same thing just a bit adjusted… great. Overall, the artwork is great, some textures are awfull :D but a part of that is great!
      I have tried to change one picture related to the training mission inside the interface folder. The engine is generating cache files for each texture, this has to be deleted so the engine can generate a new one, and yeah, its working. The interface is defined in a *.b2d file “Blue Tongue 2D file”, for example for “train*.ppm” there is a window of 512x128px where each train*.ppm has a size of 128x128px.

      D="TrainingSelectIcons" 512 128

      I can change the train1.pmp to 256x256px and increase the window for 640x256px. Like this the new image is loaded properly, however, the *.b2d is defining space for the ppm file for 128x128px and therefore the final image is squeezed down.

      B3="train1" 177 1 0 0 128 128 0 0 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 1.000000

      I guess that this is because the GUI has a fix size and everything is fitted according to that. And thus, I can change the textures but I have to keep the original size to avoid re-scaling or I will find a way to increase the size of the GUI, however, I have no idea where the GUI is generated. I believe that in-game its generated separately, will see :)

      As for the models, Jeez, the exporter seems to be a huge mess :D anyway, it’s a shame that the models cant be edited… now.. I hope to get around this somehow. I mean someone has to know how to do the reverse engineering on it :), really hope so.

      Thank you a lot! If you will find more info or documentation or anything related to this which could help me don’t hesitate to and throw it on me :)

      tomas

      Delete
    10. Hi Murray,
      i started my journey of endless Photoshop editing :) and so far so good, however, this is a long road to reach the finish line but i dont rush at all. The plugin helped a lot in this case, without that the Alpha CH textures would remain the same
      .
      Anyway, i have found several things, some of them below:

      - The textures are really great, very low res, but really nice in most of the cases. Some of them are awful but most are lovely.
      - Textures are mostly in 64x64, 128x128 or 256x256 – the last one is used for effects or GUI, the rest for objects.
      - UV mapping is sometimes a mess but can live with that. Problems start if I cant recognize the positions of the texture and have to guess, UV coordinates would made a difference.
      - Best results are on large objects like terrain – here is see great improvement :).
      - All textures can be changed but the final result also depends on the model / object.
      - Looked a bit inside the compiled code – and it includes hilarious comments :), not much to see there but its fun.
      - Found a way inside the script to add bugholes to the map (any type) and similar. The scripting is pretty open, however, without documentation I still don’t know what every parameter means and can do.
      - The models are incredible low – poly, that’s a shame, and missing any depth. This is the drawback – better textures are nice but without any depth or more polys it will not make such difference.

      I will share something in the moment I will finish “a chapter” :), but it will take some time. Iam still playing with the thought that there is a way how to edit and replace the objects or terrains to something nicer – don’t know how much the engine could take. Any chance that someone has the object exporter plugin hidden somewhere? or you think it’s a dead end?

      Its really pity that the engine and everything connected to the game wasn’t released as “open” for playing around. There could be a lot of things, apart I can do right now, which could be changed and improved, really pity.

      Tomas

      Delete
    11. Hiya Tomas,

      It'll be great to see what you get up to with those textures. :)

      Funny to think that the highest res game object is 128x128! That's crazy, considering nowadays texture sizes (2048x2048 or so).

      So, are you able to up-size the textures at all, or are you stuck with the size they are at already?


      I wasn't paying that much attention to the code and tools when we were developing STTA. I was 20, and it was my first job in the industry, and the game was already at around Alpha stage.

      Part of me wishes that I had just zipped up a copy of the source code and tools, etc, for posterity sake. But I didn't. And I'm not sure who else to ask, so I think we're at a dead end there.

      But you never know. Over coming weeks and months, I'll definitely bring it up in conversation if I happen to bump into any of my old colleagues, but it's quite rare that I do.


      All the best!

      Delete
    12. When I played through, I couldn't get past the bit where you trapse across the desert for AGES, then end up in a fort which gets besieged by heaps of bugs.

      It was really frustrating that it was such a long and very boring jog to the fort, because if you had to try over and over, the whole lead-up was just really pointless and boring.

      I wish that level had been just the same, but without the big travel distance at the start. I'd happily do the fort battle over and over until I got it, but the start section took like 5 - 10 minutes of just running across the terrain.

      Do you have trouble with that bit Tomas? Or are you not really up to there?

      Delete
    13. That level is one bit where, I wonder whether you could edit the Level Script so the player just starts right near the fort, or something, to vastly improve that mission. :)

      It'd be great to build some sort of "improved version of the game" with improved textures, and some tweaks to the game balancing and levels, and let people grab that as a ZIP or a PATCH.

      Delete
    14. Hi Murray,

      well, almost 20years ago the resolution was a kind of standard i guess. With the game resolution of 800x600, textures with 128x128 are kind of hi-res :). Nowadays is nonsense but back in the gold-age of games it was nice. Anyway, i can upsize them but it wouldnt make any large difference and - Photoshop can do the scaling much better than the engine, i guess, but it would be low-res in high-res :), therefore i have decided to re-do the textures from scratch but keeping the original artwork and style, as i like it. It appears that the UV mapping coordinates are relative, unlike the GUI which is static, and thus it can nicely fit it to the model. Here something i have already done (comparing the up scaled texture, to the original small one and the new one):

      http://stta.3d-sphere.com/texture-compare/compare-effects-01.jpg
      http://stta.3d-sphere.com/texture-compare/compare-pows-01.jpg
      http://stta.3d-sphere.com/texture-compare/compare-terrain-01.jpg

      Yeah, zipping the whole dev folder for this with all the tools and documentation would be very handy right now :). New textures can make the difference but an appropriated model would make a huge difference. I really crossing my fingers that you will find something soon or that someone will just tell you: sure, here is it :D ... i dont know if there is a possibility to reverse the stuff and create a new plugin according to that.. will ask i guess. Last time i did some reverse-engineering on a BIOS file it took me 6months, however, I was able to inject a new block and hack the ACPI table to release the MXM II slot there – kind created an computer which is only of his kind. But this is above my skills… Maybe I should read the credit list and pick up some names to contact :D.

      Iam not sure about the starting position, wasn’t searching for this so far, but all scripts are human readable (some are connected to something) so theoretically it should be possible. Will see, I need to try what everything you can place on the map expect the ammo pod and bugs, maybe the level can be optimized with more stuff and bugs :)

      That’s my intention, to mod it and release it to the folks :). My workflow is a bit chaotic right now, jumping from that to that… but I have decided to go level by level mainly because I need to see how the texture will fit (sometimes it’s a mess).

      tomas

      Delete
    15. Those textures are looking cool!!

      Can't wait to see what you do.

      I'll update you if I can find out any more about the exporter. :)

      Delete
    16. thx!

      Yeah, i will do some ingame screenshots (if the kay mapping is working) for better comparison. Will see how long it will take me to get an "Alpha" version of this - will release it straight after :) and keep you updated (there is lots of work, tons)

      ohhh,, that would be nice Murray! Thx... (finger crossed)

      Delete
    17. Hi Murray,

      iam successfully fighting with the textures!, and very slowly re-doing them. I have to admit that i have learned a valuable lesson by creating a new animation for the Tanker. I dont know who but someone decided to use 16frames for this animation instead of 25frames. This means that the animation is not fluent if you will not try really hard... nightmare...

      Anyway, some screens:

      http://stta.3d-sphere.com/texture-compare/effects-01.jpg
      http://stta.3d-sphere.com/texture-compare/effects-02.jpg

      I have also spent 1day for looking on the *.pdo and *.ter models. I mean, it was year 2000 and the textures were and are not baked with the model, it’s a just a model damn… and it looks very similar to *.3ds but its not the same… it has to be way to convert it back to Max and then back to *.pdo. The same applies for the *.ter files. No luck so far.

      Next to this I also looked on the LZ, the position where the platoon starts. Found the entry defining the point but couldn’t change it.. at least I couldn’t change it in a way it would make sense. The scripts are connected between each other and without a tool its impossible to imagine how the connections are made.

      Tomas

      Delete
    18. Hi Murray,

      I was a little bit busy with other things but planned to come back to this as soon as posible. I got stuck at one part but now I can say that I have made some progress :). See below the screens:

      https://stta.3d-sphere.com/texture-compare/compare-ingame-01.jpg
      https://stta.3d-sphere.com/texture-compare/compare-ingame-02.jpg

      As well, for anyone that cant run the game. Try to use dgVoodoo v2.75.1. Copy the dlls from MS folder in the package and set-up the profile.

      enjoy, Tomas

      Delete
    19. Nice one Tomas!

      Those textures are looking really good. :)

      I really wish that there was more easy modding that you could do to the game, as it seems like you could really run with it. :D

      I've always thought it'd be great if other aspects of the game could be improved.

      The last time I played the game, I stopped playing when I hit this mission.

      Mission: Royalty I
      https://youtu.be/AqiSXvN4kR4?t=86 (play thru by someone on YouTube)

      The player needs to spend about 25 minutes getting to Fort Whiskey, just doing quite tedious bug cleanup as they go.

      Then when they arrive at the Fort, all shit hits the fan, it's basically a big trap / ambush, and if you die, there's no option except to start the entire mission again, and repeat the 25 minutes of fairly-boring lead up walking around the level.

      Shit hits the fan...
      https://youtu.be/AqiSXvN4kR4?t=1804

      This Fort battle would be really fun if the player had more chances to experiment, fail, try again, etc.

      But with a fairly banal 25 minute lead up, this largely ruins the "try and try again" that is often needed by players in this mission.

      I'm not too sure how I would improve that if I was a modder.
      I'd probably just try to move the start position way closer tot he fort, and make it a shorter mission.

      If one wanted to keep the mission a longer play-time, perhaps the player needs to clear up the whole level after successfully defending the fort, to get the team out to a Retrieval Zone safely or something, on the other side of the level.

      Delete
  5. Hey Murray

    Got around wanting to play SSTA again, Got the patches and it loads fine. Using windows 7, Only issue i have that can't seem to fix is the text.

    In the settings menu aswell as in the unit selection, The text that shows stats ect don't appear.

    Any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think that it works best with an AMD graphics card, and not a Nvidia one.

    Are you using a Nvidia card?

    I'm not too sure how to get it working with Nvidia card.

    If anyone out there knows a good way to do it, please share here! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yea, I'm using Nvidia.

      If no one knows how to fix it, Then it is fine. After all it doesn't ruin the game.

      It is more of a personnel annoyance than anything else, But thank you for at least getting back to me Murray.

      SSTA is still a fantastic game despite the minor flaws of trying to get it to work haha. But it is worth it, Studying Game development myself i do want to make a SST game or a re-make of a existing one.

      But of course there is legal matters which are daunting.

      Delete
  7. It'd be great if someone DID know how to play it with proper text rendering with a Nvidia card. Seems to be a common problem, which is a shame.

    I was playing through it a few months back, and the long, boring level, with lots of walking, and then the massive base-defense bit at the end was where I had to stop. It was so hard to get past it, and then waste such a long time just getting to the base to try again!

    Shame to have such a difficult level have such a long, boring lead-up.

    Also, I find the controls/process for catching a bug specimen to be super confusing.

    They are my biggest gripes with the game! :)

    But yes, I was enjoying it apart from that!! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a great game Murray, the long walks I find add some realism to the fact that the Mobile Infantry had to really 'hump' from point to point after their deployment, makes them feel all the more vulnerable too.

      I still cant get the damn game to run so when I have some spare cash I am going to pick up any old laptop with a HD Radeon of some kind and jump right back in to the war! Have you played the First Person Shooter Starship troopers? that's a lot of fun too.

      Delete
    2. Hiya Ginsu Moose,

      Yeah, a Radeon card seems to work better. Hope you can get it working! Great to hear some people enjoyed it enough to go to such lengths. :)

      I never played the FPS game of Starship Troopers, it looked pretty cool! I should check it out one day!!

      - Murray


      Delete
  8. Having the same Nvidia problems for now but I played the hell out of this game growing up. One of my favourites which I hope to stream and show people soon thanks for the wonderful memories from this game good sir.

    If the mission you're talking about is Whiskey Outpost the easiest way I find to do it is once you reach the base ignore the Colonel for abit and just line everyone up along the wall and man the turrets. Camera facing the gate you want soldiers focused on the far left corner, the right side of the front gate and 2 guys at the back just to deal with that spare bughole, then you can move them up front with the others. Doing that I've never had a breach in the wall and you get some nice XP for getting the colonel out, hope that helps!

    Got alot of fun memories I wanna relive again hunting down every last possible bug, also heard that you can mod the files in game too to increase the craziness so I'll be sure to do that if I can get it running. Thanks again for being part of this game man.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just an update but I finally managed to get it working a week after the above post. For some reason this time the Nvidia patch just worked. I don't know what I did different outside of the usual recommendations. But the Full and Nvidia patches do work flawlessly... Eventually. One thing I like about some of these old games is pushing the numbers of bugs too. It really changes things up when a bughole can throw out 50 bugs, although your nuke gunners tend to level up like crazy. I'll try and find more answers anyway to see if I maybe ticked something different. I've tried like 15 years to get it working? And it just finally decided to. Don't know what to say beyond that. Good luck troopers!

      Delete
    2. That's awesome to hear! Great to know it can be done.

      ENJOY!

      Delete
    3. Great... OK I will try to get it working once again.

      COME ON YOU APE'S! YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER?!

      Delete
  9. My pleasure!

    And thanks for the good tips of winning that level. I'll have to try it again some time with your advice on hand! :D

    ReplyDelete
  10. I picked up a second hand HP laptop, the game runs fine. Finally after a couple of years I can play again!

    You probably already know this, but with notepad you can edit the amounts of bugs and even types of bugs in each mission, I now have dozens of bugs swarming my platoon, its great.

    Thank you for trying to help me prior, hope more people enjoy this classic.

    Regards,
    Matthews

    ReplyDelete
  11. So, I'm aware that it's now been a year since the last reply, but I found this while googling, and thought I'd leave a comment. The solution I found to running the game with a modern Nvidia card (1070) with Windows 10 was actually simple - you just need a third-party program, as seems common with older games. Download 'dgVoodoo 2,' follow instructions regarding install (just drag-drop relevant files into the main Starship Troopers Terran Ascendancy directory, alongside the game's executable file. Specifically, you have to move dgVoodoo2Cpl.exe, dgVoodoo.conf, and all the .dlls from the MS/x86 folder)

    After doing so, make sure to right click > run as admin on the dgVoodoo2Cpl.exe, then set it up as you want it, including the 'DirectX' tab. I selected ATI Radeon 8500 in the videocard options, I haven't tested any others yet.

    After saving that, simply run the game. Absolutely *do not* install the Nvidia patch, or you'll just crash to desktop loading the missions. Only install the 1.1 patch if you need it, and nothing more.

    You may need to run the game as admin, but not in any compatibility mode.

    Assuming you did this all right, and I remembered it all right, it should work fine.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Nice one! Thanks for dropping by and writing up this advice. :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. I finished game almost two times on Nvidia using "Hybrid-Patch" solution after prolonged test-trial sessions, to this day found no better solution:
    Here me out to save yourself some time:

    After hours of tests and edits my theory is, developer tried to fix crashes of game on certain hardware and broke GUI, all v1.1 files does it on normal and Integrated both Nvidia and AMD graphics!
    v1.1 always removes texts, briefings and tooltips are fine, but stats and pieces of menu are removed and those are important from time to time.
    Edits .b2d files located in "fonts" folder gave no results (in short those contain coordinates used to "find" needed letter or number from "font,fonts and verdana" files located in fonts/textures that are essentially a pictures with alphabet on them).
    Not only that, but during my tests even v1.1 Nvidia patch still produced graphical glitches on both menu and in game (on textures), so i assume its linked to vram or such as menus is also "build" from textures and those act up - thing is Nvidia patch failed to.
    Behaviour is not changed by neither No-Cd or mounted image approach. Changeing "font,fonts and verdana" files located in fonts/textures between v1.0 and v1.1 will not fix GUI either.

    Finnaly i returned to my solution from years ago...hybrid patch.
    You see... v1.1 exe files break GUI because they stop using "font.b2d" and "fonts.b2d" files and use "Fonts_eng.b2d" and "Fonts_ger.b2d" (that one if installed on GERMAN verion) instead...and either those have problems i was unable to fix or exe itself.
    It's apparent when you remove linked files ("font.b2d" and "fonts.b2d" used by v1.0 or "Fonts_eng.b2d" and "Fonts_ger.b2d" used by v1.1) game will crashed. We also know v1.0 had no GUI problems but crashed while loading missions or glitched constantly.
    Also that Nvidia fix is not 100% effective on all hardware and v1.1 break GUI even on AMD.
    If we want to have fonts we can't use "Fonts_eng.b2d" and "Fonts_ger.b2d", and if we can't use those we can't use v1.1 exe files either. New files in "Fonts" folder change nothing other than allowing v1.1 exe to run so its usless. Then theres "D3D.dll".
    Playing with "D3D.dll" i found it's v1.0 .dll and Nvidia v1.1 .dll crash with v1.0 exe...but not v1.1 .dll and it worked with v1.0 exe (legal and No-Cd). Thus..."Hybrid Patch".

    v1.0 exe, v1.1 .dll ...apply No-Cd, adds or edits to Fonts folder not needed. This gives full GUI text, almost no crashes, rare visual glitches of menu or in mission that are fixed by restarting mission or reloading menu (depending which you encounter),
    DO REMEMBER v1.1 Nvidia Patch did also produce those glitches with same frequency.

    There is also solution with dgVoodoo 2 (like v2.62.1 [27.09.2019]) that allows to scale resolution higer but without effecting HUD to "Shrink" and with this person could play v1.0 without any glitches and full GUI text's to, but i find applying it cumbersome and game running slow.
    If you find a better way, make some mods (textures and sounds are possible... stats are more test-trial linked, but equiment choice and bug holes are simple.) you can let me know. Here is link to some mod instruction on modding:
    http://www.cheatbook.de/files/starst.htm
    I currently test all possible settings on "Holes"...looking at all the files there is quite a lot and i have few interesting ideas, but without editor weapon and attrib files are mistery except rising exp.

    Have Fun!

    P.S. If anyone need i can upload A PACK for him with all my resources and...'stuff'. Yhing is what i lack is WORKING STTAEdit also known as Pyrowolfs_STTA_Editor. I found rar on one old site but it was corrupted, i know there are people who have it but could not find them anymore and Pyrowolfs resources web page is offline. Thanks!

    ScarabParamit
    23-10-2019
    SanSui@Protonmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hey man, hope you're still reading the comments:
    I've reinstalled this game a couple of days ago (windows 10)and it ran wonderfully for a couple of days, but since yesterday, with nothing changed at all, the game runs at about half the framerate.
    At first I thought it was a level problem but even old ones and the tutorial run slower.
    I've tried reinstalling it and all the combinations of Vgvoodo, 1.1 and Nvidia patch, but nothing changed.
    I haven't updated windows or the drivers either.
    Do you have any idea of what could be causing this?
    Are you aware of any external folder that may contain corrupted or bad files that might slow the game down?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi G,

      I have no idea what's causing this, sorry.

      When I played ST:TA most recently (some years ago now), it seemed to run fine, but I gave up on that level where all the bugs ambush the base at the end of the level, and I was so frustrated I rage quit. :)

      So, I didn't play into the later levels, and I also haven't played recently, so I'm not sure!

      One would think that if it was working fine before, it should keep working OK, especially seeing it is so old now, you'd think it'd be doing a cool 60 frames per second all the time.

      If you figure it out, feel free to post your solution here for anyone else that it might help. :)

      GOOD LUCK!

      Delete
  15. Hi Murray the game is my absolute favorite RTS, the way the troopers and bug act in terms of AI is just phenomenal. Especially for a game as old as ST:TA.

    I replay it every year and despite it being a bitch to get working it functions perfectly once it does at any resolution.

    The only thing I do to get it working is install it fully, apply 1.1, apply NVIDIA patch and apply STT_UK_11_nVidia and for ANYONE else asking for support on how to get this working.

    Make sure u launch SETUP before every game and select your resolution to prevent it from corrupting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice one, and thanks for your tips to help other players! :D

      Delete
    2. What is this "STT_UK_11_nVidia" you are referring to?

      I can get the game to work, at least it seemingly does, but I don't have text in certain areas and keep trying various fixes

      Delete
    3. LtDank add me on Discord Doc O'Mitchell#0500

      Perhaps I can help you.

      Delete
  16. It's amazing people are still finding and playing this game... I'm one that played this a long time ago and every couple of years get the urge to try again... I think the last time I tried I was able to get everything working but this time I'm having trouble with text after going through a bunch of fixes above.

    Anyone have any ideas? Something I might be missing that fixed text for you guys in the game? Thanks! @Murray you should definitely be proud of this game! The demo is out for new game but I'd rather try to get this working ha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great to hear you still enjoy the game LtDanK. :D

      I'm not really up to date with advice on getting it working!

      I hadn't heard of Starship Troopers: Terran Command, so thanks for bringing it to my attention! Was just having a look now on Steam.

      They've now sorta remade Starship Troopers (my first game), and recently remade "Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis" in a new form (my second game).

      Seems I am old enough to be part of the source material for the remake era!

      If you get the game all working for you LtDanK, feel free to write up here how you got it working for anyone else to learn from in future. :D

      Delete
  17. A few years ago, in a screenwriting class of mine, I used "Terran Ascendancy" as the perfect example of successful and skillful solving of the danger of the "adaptational trap". I told the students of the challenge of adapting books, the challenge of adapting films as games... and then pointed to the double challenge that "Terran Ascendancy" had faced. First, there was Heinlein's novel to adapt, and *then* there was the film - already a separate adaptation, with a myriad of its own changes. All in all, a potential nightmare of a situation, as far as adapting goes!

    I discussed how "Terran Ascendancy" succeeded in taking the concepts from the book's universe and the concepts from the film's universe, and not only combining them into a brand-new entity that held together and worked splendidly, but also expanding upon them with its own unique and immersive story and approach. I used the game as the rare example of finding *and* completing a perfect solution to this immense challenge... :)

    (I don't know if any students ever went to play it, but if they did, I could certainly tell them how my kid self dug through the game's files around 2002 or so, to gleefully discover that it was possible to mess with the bugs' parameters in the level scripts, too... :-D)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love this!

      Nick Hagger was the Lead Designer, and in charge of narrative, and I think he did a great job blending it all together, and making a story and campaign that took in the source materials and made a nice RTS experience. :)

      All the best Jaromir!

      Delete