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'Galactic Command: Echo Squad SE' - v2.10.08 Patch Available NOW

by Rainier on June 9, 2008 @ 12:00 a.m. PDT

Galactic Command: Echo Squad SE puts the player in the cockpit of an Echo fighter, where they'll lead the Galactic Command squadron in massive scale aerial and space combat engagement. This patch improves multiplayer performance, and fixes a problem with auto-save when on planet.

Get the Galactic Command Echo Squad v2.10.08 Patch off WP (48mb)

v2.10.08 (06-05-08)

1. FIXED: Problem with auto-save when on planet

Multiplayer:

1. Various performance tweaks; especially with laser related collision detect on planets

v2.10.07 (04-30-08)

1. Updated the game commands, manual & tutorial PDF files to reflect changes in this version.

Also added specs for the other two (of four) fighters which are flyable in future episodes and DLC.
2. Reduced the planetary egress altitude from 14K to 12K feet for those having trouble getting a handle on how to coax their craft to reaching a high altitude. There is no trick to it. See the updated section 6.6 of the game manual for some tips.
3. Enabled CTRL+S support which auto-saves the current game state to slot #9. It does this without you having to completely quit the game to the main menu. Note that ALT+S remains unchanged, as this gives you more control over the save game slot, naming convention etc.
4. All save game ops will now prompt Y/N before proceeding. This is for those of you who keep hitting ALT+S instead of ALT+T.
5. The saved games listed now have the game date/time stamp.
6. Further simplification of 3D cockpit.
* Added NID/TRS menus to COMMAND/SYSTEMS menu. Can now change modes using the mouse/controller
* Removed icons from cockpit MFDs. Text indicating the NID and TRS modes is now only displayed at the top left corner of MFD#1.
* Removed all redundant VDD modes. Now it only supports the single [Video Link] mode

SSR - System Status Relay icons moved to bottom of cockpit so that they are always visible
SMD - Stores Manifest Display mode is obsolete as no scenario requires you to inspect a target's cargo
ACM - Advanced Campaign Mode data already appears in the HUD and in the orders display
RTM - Radar Target Mask moved to COMMAND/SYSTEMS/RADAR TARGET MASK menu with toggle boxes

7. Minor revision to how data is processed prior to being recorded in the COMMLINK log
8. Revised the FSAA buffer handling to safeguard against crashes or exiting when a higher FSAA setting is used in Config. If the video card does not have enough memory, then it will run with FSAA and HDR disabled.

This was done because in some cases, using high value FSAA values would later result in a crash due to insufficient video memory. Due to the large amount of runtime FP16 surfaces, Config has no way of knowing how much VRAM is later needed for the currently selected screen resolution. e.g. selecting 8x or higher FSAA while running the game at 1280x960 will most definitely result in out of memory anomalies (screen tearing, missing textures etc) and a possibly flat out crash.
9. Revised handling of roll/yaw mode on joysticks for better compatibility with older sticks.
10. FIXED: clip distance when drawing the infra-red missile camera in VDD/VID was being incorrectly set, causing smaller objects to not appear in it.
11. FIXED: adjusted burn, speed and range text in VDD/VID when drawing the missile camera due to overlapping existing text.
12. FIXED: player character injury was sometimes being improperly set. This sometimes caused a premature damage condition which immediately ended the game instead of playing the external camera "death" transition.

It must be noted that when your craft takes combat damage, so does your alter-ego. As a result, your alter-ego may sometimes die from injury even if the craft is not sufficiently damaged to be destroyed.

v2.10.06 (04-09-08)

1. Added violations (VIO) info to the cockpit HUD.
2. Added medals count to the orders display
3. Added campaign theatre info to the cockpit HUD. This gives an at-a-glance look at the scenario timers without having to use the VDD/ACM mode.

T - Theatre
S - Start time
E - End time
N - Next scenario start time

4. Added native support for 1280x800 and 1920x1200 16:10 widescreen display modes.

NOTE:This will delete your configuration file, thus creating a new default one. So be sure to set your Config options again.

5. Increased the minimum docking range from 1km to 10km
6. Increased Commlink log size delete prompt from 32K to 1MB
7. Changed COMMAND menu save game texts to: "QUIT & SAVE WITH RESUME" and "QUIT & SAVE WITH RESTORE"
8. Time will no longer have passed when you dock and re-launch.

When you dock (to perform repairs, re-arm etc) the world is still being updated. So if the total repairs time is, e.g. 30 mins, when you launch, that amount of time would have elapsed. In some cases, if you had a lot of repairs and you dock towards the end of the current scenario operations, when you launch you may find that the next scenario is already in progress. You can still check for orders you may have missed, but there is a possibility that you may also miss some specific instructions which could get you taken off active duty eventually.

With this revision, even though the elapsed time is still calculated, this time is no longer elapsed when you launch. So if you dock at 21:00, when you launch, the time would be closer to 21:01 than 21:30 (assuming the repairs/rearming took thirty minutes).

In effect, we're just dumbing down the game even further because normally, due to the game's real-time processing nature, this behaviour is normal and thats how the game engine was developed to behave.

9. The ability to select component repairs stats in Logistix has been disabled.

This used to occur when you click on a fighter component as this calls up the engineering work order. This is part of our underlying game engine that is not needed in the GALCOM due to the singular REPAIRS button which does a batch repair job in a single click and saves time (so you don't have to select each damaged component to repair). Normally, in order to save on repair time (see above), you would just pick the most important components to repair, then launch. This would minimize the time you spent docked and thus ensures that you don't miss much of the on-going fleet operations due to time passing.

10. FIXED: When using the mouse as the flight controller, axes were swapped if you also had a joystick plugged in and joystick swap roll/yaw was enabled in Config
11. FIXED: When you dock, the REPAIRS button is not active once the current date/time has been calculated and displayed. You have to switch to WEAPONS, then switch back and click the button before the date/time is displayed.
12. FIXED: Some minor widescreen (mostly) text display issues in various areas.

v2.10.05 (03-24-08)

  1. Some Config setting revisions:
    • FSAA is now set to DISABLED by default
    • TEXTURE FILTERING is now set to ANISO NORMAL by default
  2. Can now swap the yaw/roll on two-axis joysticks by pressing and holding SHIFT
  3. FIXED: gamepad roll was reversed
  4. FIXED: Config wasn't showing 16x FSAA option in some cases. Note: The available FSAA options are determined by (a) the set game resolution (b) the amount of video memory on the card
  5. FIXED: Sometimes the 2D cockpit image of the comms speaker was not being displayed. This was due to the HDR revisions in the previous update to prevent the cockpit gun and armor status icons from being affected by HDR.

Multiplayer:

  1. Removed CAREER button when joining a server as the career cannot be changed
  2. FIXED: weapons loadout background wasn't being cleared resulting in extra lines of missiles being shown.

v2.10.04 (03-21-08)

  1. Small optimizations to the cockpit and other graphics rendering code.
  2. Cockpit gun and armor status HUD icons are no longer affected by HDR rendering. So they are now easier to see.
  3. Revised handling of HDR and FSAA settings to work around issues with some nVidia cards.
    • Note that if you have HDR on in Config and the card (e.g. ATI X800, X850 etc) does not support it, then the graphics engine will not use HDR.
  4. FSAA settings in Config now goes up to 16x. Also, only FSAA modes supported are available.
  5. Updated page 1 of the keyboard commands due to removal of CTRL+J command
  6. FIXED: If the video device resets (changing resolution/FSAA/HDR/etc...) while a volume texture (explosions etc) is being stream loaded, the game could crash.
    • Since you can't do any of these things during gameplay, this was a remote event.
  7. FIXED: HDR config setting was sometimes being read from the config file before the actual file was initialized, resulting in some incorrect values.
  8. FIXED: changing the HDR or FSAA settings sometimes wasn't causing any changes to the device until the game was restarted.
  9. FIXED: FSAA wouldn't work properly in some cards due to not supporting FSAA in FP16 render targets. This could cause some rendering artifacts. Game now disables FSAA if HDR is enabled on such video cards.

Multiplayer:

  1. FIXED: console server was trying to use vertex buffers. This could potentially cause a crash.
  2. FIXED: orbiting objects (stations, ODS) were jumping around a little when flying close to them.

v2.10.03 (03-14-08)

  1. Updated pages 23, 45 of the game manual
  2. The SWAP ROLL/YAW AXIS option in Config now works with sticks that have an independent X axis (twist).

    I have no idea why anyone would want to swap this but apparently some folks are so used to doing it the WRONG way that they are just used to it. I put the blame squarely on other space combat developers who started doing this crap way back when.

    Listen guys, that X axis was introduced in order to allow rudder (which control yaw) controls in flight sims. Thats why most sticks with a twist axis use it for yaw. The default roll of the joystick is standard.

    I really do think that you folks need to un-learn this improper way of flight controls and do it the correct way. If you insist on using yaw as your default joystick axis, you will be extrememly frustrated during combat in my games because the NPC pilots - who do it the proper way - will completely 0wn you time and time again.

  3. You can now abort Config button mapping by pressing the ESC key.

v2.10.02 (03-08-08)

  1. FIXED: The orders text display in the first mission shows "ECHO 01 and 02" instead of "ECHO 00 and 01", though the commander's audio instruction is correct.
  2. FIXED: The TACOPS option in the COMMAND menu was emulating ALT+S instead of the recently revised ALT+T. The ALT+T hotkey to activate TACOPS still worked fine however

v2.10.01 (03-07-08)

  1. Maintenance only release due to DRM compatibility issues. If your current version is 2.10.00 and you got the game from Gamers Gate on the day of release, you need this build. To check your game version, start the game and look on the right side of the main menu.

v2.10.00 GOLD BUILD (03-03-08)

Game completed and released to manufacturing and digital distribution.

The player’s Echo fighter squadron of fighters has been assigned to the WildStar battle fleet led by the GCV-Excalibur in operations against the Insurgent uprising. As an Elite Force Pilot and leader of the Echo fighter wing assigned to IIS starstation in orbit around Titan, the player’s fighter wing is tasked with leading a series of defensive and offensive missions against the Insurgents occupying Sol territories. The player commands a different fighter in each episode.

Missions take place in space and on the surface of planets and range from basic escort and recon missions, to highly engaging and dangerous tactical strike missions. This Second Edition version scheduled for wide public release, is based on improved versions of the original GameTap exclusive version. The graphics engine, all 3D assets have been upgraded to the latest versions used in the upcoming sequel Talon Elite title. This represents a drastic and dramatic improvement over the older version of the game.

Features :

  • New DirectX 9 based high definition space terrain rendering engine with support for Shader Model 2.0 and various high end effects such as motion blur, tone mapping, High Dynamic Range lighting, per-pixel lighting, texture filtering (e.g. Anisotropic), anti-aliasing (FSAA), environment mapping, normal maps and various shader based special effects.
  • Native support for 16:9 and 16:10 widescreen monitors with native 1280x720 (720p), 1920x1080 (1080i/p) and 1680x1050 resolution support.
  • High definition planetary terrain rendering engine supporting very large surface areas. Technologies include reflections, volumetric clouds, dynamic 24hr time of day effects (including realistic star constellations in the night sky), dynamic weather patterns (snow, storms etc), many mission specific populated areas etc.
  • Massive space and planetary game world containing an entire galaxy to explore with eight star systems, approximately fifty planets and moons with several containing populated areas. Also supports seamless transition from space to planet (and moons) and vice versa; with hardly noticeable loading times.
  • Revised GUI interface. Completely mouse driven and with various keyboard hotkeys and support for gamepad controllers.
  • In game PDF document viewer which makes the keyboard commands, game manual and tutorial documents available at all times.
  • Native support for most analog game pads (e.g. Logitech Dual-Action)
    as well as XBox 360 controller for Windows (with rumble support!).? Large asset database including over fifty space crafts, various planetary vehicles, crafts, buildings etc.
  • Advanced AI engine with NPC orders system for player’s squad.
  • Advanced flight dynamics engine, complete with new, fully functional 3D fighter cockpit displays.
  • Advanced mission system with real-time adjusted variables based on AI which ensures that the same scenario always plays differently. Unprecedented replay value!
  • Multiplayer client-server engine supporting up to thirty-two players with in-game server browser.
  • Multiplayer game types include standard deathmatch and base wars. Players can choose one of two fighters to control in both space and on planets.

Galactic Command: Echo Squad SE will be available via digital distribution portals such as Direct2Drive and Gamers Gate later this week and in North American retail stores in April.

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