The Patch!

[Annette]

News Release For Immediate Release


Version 1.1 Weird Worlds Patch Beamed Up!
Patch Now Available For Critically Acclaimed Weird Worlds!


Hampstead, NC, 22 December 2005

Fellow Earthicans, Digital Eel and Shrapnel Games would like to announce the release of
the official Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space patch. The patch brings the retail
version of the game to version 1.1, and includes both brand spanking new game
enhancements, and an assortment of bug smashing. Here's a partial listing of what fans
can expect when the patch is applied:

* NEW! Scoring based on the difficulty level.

* NEW! Enemies without guns now flee like the cowardly sporgborks they are!

* NEW! Various command line and in-game options have been added.

* NEW! Lots of cool new things for mod-makers.

* (Fixed) Hitting F1 in combat twice kept the game paused.

* (Fixed) Fighters can be rammed.

* (Fixed) Lifeforms can now be found on frozen planets.

* (Fixed) Mod banners not falling back to default folder.

* .and much more!

A complete listing of the changes found in the version 1.1 patch can be found on the
download page, which is located here:

www.shrapnelgames.com/digital_eel/weird_worlds/6.htm (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/digital_eel/weird_worlds/6.htm)

Simply download the file and run the executable! It's quick and easy, and your game
will thank you for it.

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space is the sequel to Strange Adventures in Infinite
Space, which was possibly the first game to bring all the thrill of an epic space saga to
your desktop in under twenty minutes. Weird Worlds of course delivers the same
grandiose gameplay as its predecessor, and it still only takes about twenty minutes to play
(though now players can choose to shorten or lengthen the time), but now space is so
crammed with new things you'll understand why it has to be infinite to fit it all in!

New encounters, new lifeforms, new technologies, new starships, new events, and a
whole warpcore load more can be found in Weird Worlds. Combat, while still avoiding
the number-crunching intensity of Star Fleet Battles, is deeper, and is an amazing
spectacle to behold. Heck, the whole game is an amazing spectacle to behold, but don't
take the word of your friendly neighborhood PR person (trustworthy and handsome he
may be), check out some of the accolades Weird Worlds has recently received.

Game Industry News (www.gameindustry.com) rated it 4.5/5 and had this to say:

".WWRIF makes a perfect gift for just about anyone who likes space and science
fiction, even if they are not a hardcore gamer. Anyone can appreciate the literary humor
found in the game. And the simple gameplay is easy to learn and difficult to master, like
any great title."

And Game Tunnel (www.gametunnel.com) not only awarded Weird Worlds an Editor's
Choice award, but they also chose Weird Worlds to be Game of the Month.and they
didn't stop there! Weird Worlds was recently chosen by Game Tunnel as the 2005
Quest/Adventure/Platform Game of the Year! Here's what they said about it:

"As the coolest trip across the galaxy in the history of games Weird Worlds: Return to
Infinite Space is a sure-fire hit that should be in every gamer's library. It was a run-away
winner of our Adventure/Quest game of the year for 2005."

Let's also not forget that Weird Worlds is a finalist in the 2006 Independent Games
Festival (www.igf.com/) in two categories, the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and
Innovation in Audio. Winners will be announced in March, but really, how could the
genius that is Weird Worlds not come out on top?

For more information Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, or any of our other
amazing line-up of titles, please visit us at www.shrapnelgames.com (http://www.shrapnelgames.com)

[Zogu]

I juste patched my game. It went as smooth as a Zorg's head!
Thanks for the hard work, and for all the crystal fish. lol.

[Tanelorn]

Dittos. Thanks for updating the game. Community support = our love.

[Puke]

new for MODs: flexible dead/ asleep/ board/ capture flags on hulls (for mods)



hey, does this mean that we can now capture spacehulks? I tried to mod this before with the damoclese flag, and it worked to an extent. the problem was that after the captured hulk was killed in combat, it turned back into a hulk that couldnt be destroyed or re-captured. thus trapping the game in the combat screen.

does this also mean that hostile ships are potentially boardable and captureable in combat?

I guess I could just download the patch and see if its internally documented, instead of asking silly questions.

[Fingers]

Yes, you could make a hostile boardable ship with these flags.

[MrFantastic]

I think that the patch made it so all the fighters in the opening screen have little red trangles around them which i find disagreeable.

Was it lke that before? Actually were their fighters in there before? I dont think there were... maybe im going crazy.

[Puke]

theres always been fighters, with either green or red triangles, depending on what race they were. humans had green.

it occurs to me that FOF indicators may be obscure to colorblind males... i wonder if thats a big problem in the real world?

[Phoenix-D]

Well, the military tends to use -blue- and not green, which wouldn't cause that issue..dunno if that's why though.

[ZylonBane]

In the demo, I once found a Klakar trader orbiting a Black Hole. Is this supposed to happen?

[Fingers]

The Klakar are well equipped with the best of gizmos... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Phoenix-D]

Notice how, they, for example, teleport to your location instantly..

Speaking of, I wonder if it'd be possible to 'borrow' the music box function to make a race of traders that take time to arrive?

EDIT: it is. I haven't found a way to make a warning box appear yet though..

[ZylonBane]

Heh, yeah, now that I think about it they can fly right over black holes, so they'd pretty much have to have an anti-graviton shunt.

Still, the game should probably check to make sure it's not putting a Klakar on a black hole. If that trader has the only shunt on the map, he'd be completely inaccessible.

Something else I'd like to see added to any theoretical next patch-- If you order one of your ships to attack an enemy ship, and the enemy ship is destroyed, have your ship continue to where its target ship WAS, instead of just stopping dead in its tracks. I can't tell you how many ships I've lost this way.

And add FIRE to the enemy ship context menu. Doesn't make sense that I can fire at an empty point in space, but not at a ship.

[Brainiac4]

I usually just fire right in front of the enemy ship, but I agree that adding a FIRE command to the enemy ship menu would be nice.

[Fingers]

The Klakar won't appear at a black hole by default, but you can summon them there, or they might jump there in the event of a nova or vacuum collapser going off.

[TaoLibra]

ZylonBane said:
add FIRE to the enemy ship context menu. Doesn't make sense that I can fire at an empty point in space, but not at a ship.



Yes, please! "Attack" and "Ram" both require my ship to move, and I frequently prefer that they sit still and shoot from right where they are.

Also, I would very much like to have back the movement option that SAIS had, where you could click on the enemy ship, drag away, and set a "waypoint" — telling your ship "Go here, THEN turn toward the enemy ship," and when they got too close to the enemy they'd turn back to that waypoint again and repeat the same movements.

I miss that a lot, particularly with regard to fighters, because it allowed you set up an attack run that the fighter would follow over and over. Now the fighters just stupidly circle right on top of the enemy, usually too close to even fire.

[rocky8311]

(Long post, sorry )

No, what would be REALLY great is a Hotkey for FIRE instead of just a mouse popup menu. It's a pain to use the fire command in the heat of battle; I tend to pause just to make sure I'm not too late with the mouse command b/c yeah, the destroyed ships coasting in to ram you is a problem. It doesn't often harm me anymore but it's really annoying b/c selecting fire with your mouse takes a few seconds.

But another problem is that while your ships don't follow through and detonate a destroyed hulk that's coasting into them, they also ought to stop attacking a ship if it's totally disabled and not moving.

I can't tell you how many times I would have won a battle with a bunch of Tan Ru b/c I couldn't get my ships to stop firing missiles at a disabled ship (all weapon/item/etc slots grey, totally immobile, but still some green on the "health"? bar) and move on to a more imminent threat. It doesn't seem to be a problem with other weapons installed on my ships, but it just seems like if one's ships would consider greyed out enemies a non-threat, such battles against groups would be easier to win.

Even when I manually target my weapons in the direction of another ship, it seems like my ship continues to fire missiles at the disabled one even though the disabled ship is further away

Also, I think 'attack' doesn't work as one would expect. Instead of actually firing on the ship, it seems like you just follow it while firing on whatever ship is closest along the way.

[Spaceman]

Resolution independant ship and nav selectors, nice. I like how they initially appear bright and then fade to a more reasonable shade. The brackets are all right-angles though, how about some curves(like the derelict)?

I've seen ships suddenly double their speed a few times now, what's going on there? It seems to happen when a ship is headed towards another, like the avoidance code is bugged. I have avoidance turned off.

[Tanelorn]

for rocky, the 'heat' of battle is no longer the 'heat' of battle when you his 'spacebar'

[rocky8311]

Wouldn't hit spacebar if it didn't take like three seconds to manually fire...

[PvK]

more like the twitch of battle...

Personally, I would have lost interest without the ability to pause. If I want an action arcade game, I'll fire up one of those, about star fighters... starships have crew so that they don't suffer from delays which one guy on a Windohs PC has.

[Puke]

seriously. the pause ability makes the game. i especially use it for manual point defense. if it was an arcade action game, you would have direct cursor / mouse control over your ship. maybe move with cursor, target with mouse. but this isnt that.

[Foosnark]

I pause all the time to give orders, or to take out incoming fire with beams... but I'd still like a hotkey for "fire" since it's one of the most common activities http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Puke]

and by cursor, i meant keyboard. im an idiot.

[eelektrik]

So uh, did the patch lower the ammount of times you encounter the Horlage of Primordious or the Yellow Kawangi? I believe Ive only seen either once in my entire time playing, but my friend runs into them damn near half the time and he never installed the patch. And he still managed a higher score then me without the patch that supposedly made scores scale to your difficulty.

[Shadowcat]

IIRC the patch won't enable you to get you higher scores than before, but it will (correctly) make it harder to get them on the easier settings.