Star Blazers Mod

[Campeador]

The reflex cannon and its satellites were dangerous. The Gamilons are really wicked puppies!

The freezing screen of death. Yes, I have experienced the same thing during testing. Except that it happened to me in Minerva (I have never found the Battleship at Pluto it is random, but yes, you will certainly will find it at Minerva). It is random, sometimes I finish the game without incident. I have been chasing a possible cause for the problem. It has happened with the WMG and also with others weapons. It freezes exactly at the moment the ship explodes (and only with the gamilon battleship). The Gamilon battleship has more firing points than any other ship, it has 22 firing points. That is alot of "candy". I do not know if the combination of the graphics of the explosions in addition firing of the weapons of the other ship can cause an overload on the computer system ram or video. Just for testing, one time I reduced the firing points on the Gamilon Battleship from 22 to 19 and the error never happened again. Then again maybe I did not try enough times.
I also noticed that when I play the game start to finish, the game seems to slow down or becomes a little erratic by the time I reach the part of destroying the Pluto base. Ussualy I save the game at that point, quit and reload, and then it seems fine.
Yet it is still a puzzle to me, I have chech the code but I still do not see anything that may cause it. But yes it does happens the moment the ship explodes, on the last killing blast. And sometimes nothing bad happens!
If the problem persist I can always try to either reduce the firing points on the Battleship, or how long the WMG beam last, or the graphics on the explosion itself.
Can you save the game, quit, and then load the game again and then take the Gamilon battleship down to see if it still happen? Also does it happen when the ship is close or far away?

[Suicide Junkie]

It could be the WMG beam time...
If the ship explodes and dissapears before the beam is done, then the beam dosen't know where one of its endpoints has gone.

[Q]

My mistake it was the Minerva not the Pluto system!

It seems to be exactely what you have seen too. The ship shows a few hitpoints left, is starting to explode and the game freezes. At that moment I cant't do anything but restart the computer. I went back to the last savegame and tried again. With the wave motion gun it happend again with other weapons I could destroy the battleship without problems.
Well at least I know now that it is not my system which causes the problem and I could finish the campaign after all.

[Campeador]

Ok, report on testing on game feezing when Gamilon Battleship is destroyed.

First of all, the comments on my previous post reflected the problems I was having the first time I created the Gamilon Battleship. Back then there was an error on the firing arcs or slots, something, I cant remember now what it was. The point is that I had it corrected back then and then never had a problem since. It was such a long time ago...like 2 months ago, like 2 weeks before I released the game here the first time.
On the second uptate, none of that was afected, just improved the firing arcs on most of the Gamilon ships that were off. Still no changes in anyting that may cause an error.

Now to the report:
StarBlazers Mod 1.1

My system: Athalon XP 2.17 GHz, 1.00 GB of Ram. Video card: Radeon 9800 pro 128Mb Ram.

I recreated the Minerva mission, first I destroyed 2 Gam Destroyers and then waited for the battleship to show up. Around a range of 500 I saved the game. (Every time I missed to hit the Gam BS with the WMC, I reloaded the game) I fired the WMC 9 times, I hit the Gam BS 6 times, not a single problem. I fired the WMG at a range of 160 to 180, and at a closer range of 50 to 90, not a problem either. There were also on the screen 2 destroyers, 2 cruisers, and 4 of my fighters flying around also on the screen. All went well.

I decided to try it on my old computer:

Pentium III XP 700 MHz, 320 Mb of Ram. Video Card: nVidia Riva TNT 2 Pro, 32Mb Ram
(Boy was that a jerky ride...not as smooth as my newer pc)

Same as before except that I just evaded the two destroyers and waited for the Gam BS. I fired the WMG 9 times, I missed 6 times (provably because I had far less experience this time), I hit 3 times, destroying the Gam BS, at diferent ranges, It was slow and jerky as hell, but it did not freeze!

So I tried in two very diferent rigs, and found no problems. That was a combined test of 9 hits without freezing. What can I say now, make sure you have the latest video drivers, directx (9.0c), Media player(10). Maybe the problem is diferent from pc to pc since they all have diferent configurations. Also In my test I had the game loaded fresh in Minerva.

If you are bored enough, and have the time, just do the same test I did and let me know.