Last Updated:  04/17/2000

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Man of War 2 Patch

(Version 1.024)

PROBLEMS FIXED IN THIS VERSION:

- Fixed problem where valid IP addresses were being mistaken as invalid.

REVISION HISTORY:

(Version 1.023 beta)

-This patch is largely intended to act as a tool to help track down the multiplayer sync problems that some players have been reporting.  The following additions have been made to this end:

1) Executable Comparison
- When a client joins a server his executable will be compared to the server's.  If his executable differs from the server's a message will be broadcast to all players in the game. The client will remain in the game leaving it up  to the host to determine if the client should be removed from the game or  not.   Note that loss of syncronization is almost guaranteed if a client plays with a different version from the server.  THIS IS NOT A BUG, and either represents a corrupted or hacked version of the game.  We cannot do anything to keep players in sync when their game is in this state.
2) Syncronization Checks
-Syncronization checks now occur during the game.  If a client loses syncronization at some point during the game the server will broadcast a message informing all the players of the problem.  The client will not be removed from the game.  If loss of sync messages are broadcast by all clients simultaneously, it is likely the server has gone out of sync, and is probably the source of the problem.
3) Debug Files
-When a client loses sync a binary dump of the game world will be performed on both the client and the server machines. The debug files follow the following naming scheme:

    <c(lient)/s(erver)>-<player name>-<game number>-<time>.dbg

    example:
    Client Debug File:   c-ryan-1304-9604032.dbg
    Server Debug File:   s-ryan-1304-9604044.dbg 

These files will be beneficial in us fixing any issues that arise with regards to loss of syncronization and it would be appreciated if they would be forwarded to Strategy First tech support: support@strategyfirst.com

 (Version 1.02)

Note: All changes made in previous "beta" patches and listed below in the Revision History section have been made "official" with the 1.02 patch.  Additionally, the following changes have been made in version 1.02 which have not appeared anywhere else:

PROBLEMS FIXED IN THIS VERSION:

-Fixed problem where copy-protection notification pop-up would appear behind other windows and wouldn't initially be visible to the player.
-Fixed problem where the sound of the sea would eventually stop playing during a scenario, and never come back.
-Adjusted which sea sounds are played, and their relative volumes based on what the current weather conditions are within the game.
-Eliminated screen flicker when a pop-up is closed on the main game screen.
-Enhanced proxy-server support so that it is compatible with more proxy-servers.
-Rewrote client and server SFI matchmaking code to deal with SFI matchmaking service being down.  Alternate methodology has resulted in the SFI matchmaking service being back up and running with application of this patch!
-Fixed oddities with scrollbars attached to list-boxes within the game.
-Fixed various bugs in multiplayer code that should result in more stable multiplayer games.
-Greatly improved the way the AI handles formations.
-Made small change to Lissa scenario to correct a problem with an incorrect flag being displayed on one ship.

ADDED FEATURES IN THIS VERSION:

-Weather conditions now have an impact on the frequency and amplitude of the bobbing of your own ship.  Frequency of bobbing was also reduced overall.
-Added functionality to make Man Of War 2 Heat.net enabled.  Please consult www.heat.net to find out how to play Man of War 2 over Heat.
-Added DirectPlay lobby support as part of Heat.net support.
-Added in a new stand-alone or "dedicated" game server which will allow players to set up a machine to act as a host whether they are there or not, and without having to actually participate in the game.  The server can also be set up to automatically start a new game when one is completed pretty much automating the whole process of hosting games.  Dedicated servers may also be set up to act as 'chat rooms' which may be accessed through the SFI matchmaking service.  Amongst the advantages to running a dedicated server is the ability to specify any number of players up to a maximum of one hundred and fifty in a single scenario. Please consult 'Dedicated Server Readme.txt" for more details.

 (Version 1.019 Beta)

PROBLEMS FIXED IN THIS VERSION:

-Fixed problem where ships that exploded after they surrendered would briefly fly their original colors before sinking.
-Increased initial smoke density and volume of sound effect when a fire breaks out on your ship, as smaller fires were hardly noticeable.
-Fixed problem where pop-up at end of scenario would occasionally display that the player was victorious when he was not.
-Edited online help text, and added in text for controls that didn't have any assigned.
-Fixed bug that prevented character information from being accessed from the tactical map during a single player game.
-Fixed bug where scenario defeat or failure pop-up would not appear if the player was already viewing the "do you wish to continue viewing the battle" pop-up.  This would cause the game to go on indefinitely if the player chose to continue watching the battle.
-Fixed bug where you would occasionally hear the crew respond to orders after your ship had struck its colors and you were in the third person camera view.
-Changed the way the "must survive" objective works, as it was working in an identical fashion to the "must escape" objective.  Now, a must survive objective is considered to be satisfied as long as all of the ships covered by it are still functional.  If all other objectives for that side are completed, and the must survive condition has not failed, that side will be considered victorious.

ADDED FEATURES IN THIS VERSION:

-Added in a new, and much louder sound effect for explosions.
-Added in the ability to manually specify a target for you guns.  In order to do so you must change the line in mw2.ini that reads "manual targetting = false" to "manual targetting = true".  With this feature enabled ALL gun fire must be performed with a target selected.  Trying to fire the guns without a target will result in the order to fire not being issued at all.  Also, if you have a target selected and it does not lie in the firing arc of the guns you wish to fire, or is out of range, your guns will not fire.  This is intended as a feature for advanced users only and it is suggested that novice players stick to the default automatic target selection until they are familiar with the intricacies of the game.  Having said that, it should be noted that using manual target selection in a multiplayer game may offer distinct advantages over not doing so, especially when dealing with a "target rich" environment.
-Re-enabled ability to set objectives as secondary within the scenario editor and added in the functionality to the game to process these objectives (which no previous version had).  Secondary objectives are considered for the purposes of determining whether a side has lost or not (a side is considered to have lost as soon as it fails a single objective, whether primary or secondary), but not for the purpose of determining whether a side has completed its objectives, and won (in order to "win" a side must complete all its primary objectives, as long as it hasn't failed any secondary objectives, this will result in the side immediately being declared victorious).  The objectives function in this manner to allow scenario creators to set up scenarios that end as soon as one side or the other achieves its objectives, for example:
Side A: 
Objective 1: Destroy ship X of the enemy fleet (primary)
Objective 2: Ship Y of you own fleet must escape(secondary)
Side B: Same objectives as side A but with X and Y reversed.
In this case, as soon as ship X or Y is sunk (or strikes, explodes, what have you) the enemy side satisfies its primary objective of sinking the enemy ship.  Since secondary objectives are not considered when determining victory, the enemy side is immediately declared victorious.  On the other hand, the side who lost the ship will fail its secondary objective of escaping with said ship.  Since secondary objectives are considered for mission failure, and since failing one objective results in overall failure, side B immediately loses.  Since the victory/loss states of both sides have now been resolved, the scenario will come to an end.
Again, because of the complexity of the above logic, this feature is intended for advanced users only.  Novice scenario creators are recommended to stick with primary objectives until they fully understand the way objectives work in Man of War.

(Version 1.017 Beta)

PROBLEMS FIXED IN THIS VERSION:

-Fixed problem with map in ship selection screen not always centering on the appropriate ship.  Fix also applies to automatic rotation of 3D viewpoint to focus on a ship, and distance at which ships may be grappled.
-Refined firing arc code to allow targeting of ships that would have been blocked by the old code.  Line of site is calculated in a much more precise manner than it used to be, but only the closest enemy vessel within the firing arc is still considered (this will be addressed in the next patch).
-Minimized size of APL.SFL, mainly to reduce the overall size of the game for the upcoming demo.  Owners of the retail version should also save on a few megs of disk space with this fix.
-Improved DirectX version detection code as some versions of  Windows were reporting version information differently than the test machines.
-Refined the code for loading in of scenarios so that scenario files created with various versions of the editor are properly handled.  Also removed some code which dealt with pre-release versions which are no longer in use.
-Scenario Editor now ignores clicks that close pop-ups with regards to the rest of the interface, as this was a bit of a nuisance.
-Scenario Editor now only displays objective fields that pertain to the displayed objective in order to reduce confusion.
-Fixed problem in the Scenario Editor where the dimensions of the map that was numerically displayed was actually twice that which it should have been.
-Improved the labels on some of the more ambiguous buttons in the Scenario Editor.
-Reduced the number of "map lines" that are displayed for smaller maps, leading to a less cluttered look.
-Made various miscellaneous internal changes in preparation for putting together the demo.
-Fixed rounding errors in the ship display panel and the telescope view which lead to an incorrect number of guns being reported under certain circumstances.
-Fixed the centering of the 2D map within the ship selection screen so it now initially centers on the ship closest to the center of the battle.
-Fixed problem with 'back the sails' order not functioning properly when triggered by a keyboard shortcut.
-Made the menuing system more robust, removing a sporadic crash bug in the ship selection screen.
-Corrected sporadic crash bug that occurred when exiting a scenario.
-Fixed the objectives code to make assessment of victory more consistent.
-Moved language file from mw2.ini to new lang.ini file in preparation for foreign translations.

ADDED FEATURES IN THIS VERSION:

-Added in ability to assign new flags to ships in the editor, and added the corresponding functionality within the game to display these flags.  The new 'nationalities' that correspond to these flags, are pirate, and four generic nationalities that display red, blue, yellow, and green flags.
-Added in destroyed version of the anchor control for after it has been cut loose.
-Added in 'Average gun size' field into scenario editor which will allow players to specify gun sizes other than the default in custom scenarios and campaigns.  It should be noted when creating scenarios that this number represents the average, and not the heaviest gun size carried by a vessel.  For example, the Large Ships of the Line within the game default to an average size of 24 lbs.  Even though historically they may have carried guns up to 42 lbs., this would always be combined with many smaller guns which would bring the average size down.
-Added in ability to specify player-created background pictures for the introductory text in custom scenarios.  All such files should be placed in the 'custom' folder in 256 color .PCX format with color register 0 being set to full black (RGB value 0, 0, 0), and color index 255 set to the color of the text that will be scrolling on top of the picture.  You can then simply specify the .PCX you wish to use within the scenario editor in the usual manner.  Note that this feature is totally unsupported and is there only for those brave souls who wish to experiment with it on their own.  However, if this proves to be popular we intend to add in support for user .WAV files for the scenario intros, as well as the ability to package such files with player-created campaigns.

(Version 1.014 Beta)

PROBLEMS FIXED IN THIS VERSION:

-Fixed problem introduced in previous patch that caused ships that were set to withdraw on a heading of their own choice to always try to head north instead.
-Fixed multiplayer bug introduced in last beta patch where server would crash after five minutes of play if SFI matchmaking wasn't being used.
-Ship info panel on the 2D map now accurately reflects the number of guns left in operation (This was responsible for a ship with 0 chaser guns still being able to fire them).
-Made additional changes to the way the cut-scenes work in the hopes of solving the problems some people have been having with them.
-Fixed problem with custom scenarios with no specified scenario introduction displaying the intro for the last scenario played.
-Problem introduced in last patch where ships would start at anchor in some of the original scenarios has been fixed.  Because of this, scenarios that were created with the editor in the last beta patch that assigned anchor states will have to be loaded into the editor, and the states reassigned, for them to work properly. 
-Adjusted placement of clock on the 2D map so that it won't overlap the command tabs on the right hand side of the screen.
-Fixed problem in input code that was probably responsible for problem reported where instead of turning the player left and right, the arrow keys would occasionally cause the player to 'strafe' left and right in the 3D view.
-Modified input code with relation  to player movement in the 3D view to make it a little more sensitive to quick key-strokes.
-Put in additional tests to ensure that the player would not move around on the deck of his ship if the option to turn the player's ship off was selected.
-Stopped crew response to orders sounds added in with last patch from playing when ship is under 2 IC control.

ADDED FEATURES IN THIS VERSION:

-Implemented paste from Window's clip-board (CTRL-V)
-Added in ability to assign ship-board functions to hot keys.  Consult 'keys.ini' in your Man of War 2 folder for instructions on how to do this.
-Added in a audio response to turning over command to the 2 I.C.
-Added experimental firewall support.  To enable uncomment (remove '//')  "DirectPlay Port =" in the mw2.ini file and add the port number you wish to use.

Example:

"DirectPlay Port = 10000"

this will allow all DirectPlay TCP/IP communications to use port 10000.  To set up you firewall you should allow the following:

TCP Outbound on the port you chose
TCP Inbound on the port you chose
UDP Outbound on the port you chose
UDP Inbound on the port you chose

Initial connection for a Server is TCP Inbound
Initial connection for a Client is TCP Outbound

(Version 1.012 Beta)

PROBLEMS FIXED IN THIS VERSION:

-Fixed problem in the scenario editor that prevented reloading of custom scenario files after they had been saved.
-Fixed problem with ships always heading east when an AI state of Withdraw, or sail on this heading is specified in the scenario editor.		
-Fixed problem with setting depth of water in the scenario editor having no effect within the game.
-Increased validation of orders to increase multiplayer security.
-Increased delay between times when captain is allowed to speak to reduce overlap of speech.
-Fixed bug in AI code that was causing crashes when 'wind effects' option was set to anything other than historical (particularly in Trafalgar).
-Modified the mouse code so that clicking on the approximate location of a ship will select it.  This makes it much easier to select a ship at a distance, both for issuing orders and using the telescope.
-Increased delay before removing multiplayer messages from 5  to 15 seconds.
-Limited the number of multiplayer messages, and adjusted the positioning of them so that they never overlap interface items.
-Fixed problem with voice-over not playing for the first scenario in the John Paul Jones campaign.
-Changed display of estimated marines on board merchant/transport vessels to be a series of question marks to prevent the confusion caused by the previous estimate of 300 marines on all merchant vessels.
-Fixed problem with character evaluation at the end of the scenario not displaying the appropriate description for the player's performance.
-Stopped cursor in the in-game chat box from blinking when there is no text displayed.
-Fixed multiplayer message history (accessed via page-up and page-down) to not be cleared if enter is hit when the chat box is empty.
-Made changes to the cut-scene code that will hopefully solve the problems some players are experiencing.
-Made changes to the objectives code to fix problems with scenarios that had more than one objective per side being assessed properly.
-Fixed bug in SFI matchmaking service where spaces in player or game names could not be viewed.
-Players are now taken to the victory/loss screen in multiplayer if they quit the scenario AFTER they have become an observer.  Players who are still active participants must wait until the battle is over or until they are no longer part of the battle to be evaluated.
-Fixed multiplayer crash involving chat-box history.
-Reworked SFI matchmaking client side code for performance.
-Fixed bug in scenario editor that was causing a crash when cycling through the objectives by right clicking.
-Adjusted the collision model to eliminate the problem with ships becoming locked together after collisions or boarding.
-Reduced the effect of crew quality on ship speed to tone down the maximum speeds of some ships within the game (Particularly British vessels).
-Reduced turn rate of all vessels other than those with a poor sailing class.

ADDED FEATURES IN THIS VERSION:

-Hitting the TAB key while within the game now toggles the command panel on/off at the bottom of the screen.
-Revised functionality of anchor control.  Right clicking now cycles between raising, lowering and cutting loose the anchor.  Left clicking performs whatever action is currently selected.  The position of the anchor can now be seen by how much of the anchor icon is filled in.  Note: the anchor will no longer function if it is cut loose.
-Added in various crew responses to orders, and modified some existing ones.
-Added highlight to multiplayer chat messages to make them more visible. 
-Added ability to load Man Of War 1 custom scenario files into the editor.
-Added time of day clock to the tactical map.
-Added ability to allow ships to begin scenarios anchored in the editor (the AI has not yet been modified to deal with this though).
-Options screen now completely stops the playing of CD-Audio when the volume slider is set to its minimum level.
-Enabled assessment of objectives in multiplayer battles so that the game will now end when objectives have been met. (NOTE: Both sides objectives must be either met or failed in order for a scenario to end, so players wishing to design single-sided cooperative multiplayer scenarios should probably not assign objectives to the AI enemy fleet so that the game will end when the player side meets or fails its objectives).
-Added parameter 'no CD music' to Mw2.ini to disable CD music.  Values of 'true' and 'false' are permitted.
-Added parameter 'no cut scenes to Mw2.ini to disable cut-scenes.  Values of 'true' and 'false' are permitted.
-Custom scenarios in multiplayer are now compressed for faster download times.
-Added ability to see games in progress listed on the SFI matchmaking service.  Games in progress will have a red dot in their description indicating that they cannot be joined, while games accepting players will have a blue dot.
-Added in drifting for ships that are otherwise stationary, and not at anchor.  Drifting ships have a tendency to turn away from the wind unless they are backing sails and are not under an order to turn in the direction they would normally drift towards, in which case it is assumed the crew is actively trying to maintain the same heading.  While this may sound complicated, it is actually quite intuitive within the game and should allow for some interesting tactical maneuvering.
-Changed how getting 'locked in irons' works.  Ships that turn into the wind now have a tendency to drift and unless they are very close to the wind, slowly turn away from it.  How close they can be to the wind without becoming permanently locked in irons is determined through a combination of sailing class and crew quality.  Note that there is still no way to get out of irons in this beta patch (there should be one in the official patch), but it is MUCH more difficult to become locked in irons to begin with.
-Added proxy server support for SFI matchmaking.  To enable proxy server support edit mw2.ini and uncomment (remove the two leading back-slashes) from the following lines:

//proxy server = 
//proxy port =

and add your http proxy server address (or dotted IP proxy server address) and port number:

proxy server = myproxy.com 
proxy port = 80
