Second Front Readme

Files included in this archive and destination locations:
2F-readme.txt   (this file, place anywhere)
2F-strat.txt    (strategy guide, place anywhere)
SecFront.vp     (place in root FS2 directory)
emptymsg.wav    (place in ..\data\sounds directory)
generic.wav     (place in ..\data\sounds directory)

First off, if you want to see all the command briefing animations, yet you've not installed any to your hard drive, you'll have to do some serious CD swapping.  Each given mission uses animations from one CD or the other, never both, but I inadvertantly ended up swapping back and forth between missions.  At any rate, here's a chart:

Mission 1:	CD3
Mission 2:	CD2
Mission 3:	CD3
Mission 4:	none
Mission 5:	CD3
Mission 6:	CD3
Loop mission:	CD2

Rather than doing all of that CD swapping, I recommend moving tango1_fs2.vp from CD2 to your hard drive, then play with CD3 in the drive.  It just makes life easier.

When playing Second Front, you will want to uninstall any MODs that you might be using, especially ones involving a different ships.tbl and/or weapons.tbl, as they will override certain tweaks that were necessary for balancing the campaign.



*Known Bugs*  (Possible spoilers)

Some campaign briefing stages have text cropped off when the game is run in 640x480.
	Workaround:	Set your resolution to 1024x768 for the command briefings, then
			change it back for gameplay.

Sometimes when ordering the support ship to depart, it will not jump back in when calling a new one.  (Some missions span a long distance, so even though it's a code bug, it seems appropriate to mention.)
	Workaround:	Open your communication menu and abort the rearm request, then call
			the support ship again.  For some reason, ordering the support ship
			to depart in the first place does not cancel a pending rearm
			request.

In the first mission, sometimes the Omaha's beam inexplicably misses its target, delaying further events in the mission.
	Workaround:	Fend off the fighters a little longer.  The Omaha should continue
			firing until it lands a hit.

In the forth mission, the GTA Wind never explodes.
	Workaround:	You probably didn't destroy the escort fighters fast enough.  You
			only have a window of a couple of minutes to get this done, so don't
			mess around.

In the fifth mission, the GTI Chimera doesn't fire its main beam.
	Workaround:	You disabled all of the target ships too far away from the station.
			Pat yourself on the back and live with the consequences.

In the third and fifth mission, there are times where fighters follow me but do not attack.
	Reason:		It's a cheap way of making you live longer.  You'd thank me if you
			tried the missions without those respites.
	Workaround:	You don't want one.

When attempting to replay the fifth mission through the mission simulator, the briefing gives me the stages for both success and near-failure in the forth mission, then when the mission starts, I see the escorting cruisers and corvettes, despite the fact that the GTA Wind succeeded in destroying them in the forth mission.
	Reason:		When playing through the mission simulator, the
			"is-previous-goal-true" operator does not run its check properly, so
			the game assumes failure of that objective when determining what
			ships should arrive initially.
	Workaround:	Well, FS2 is open source now, so you could fix it yourself.  Besides 
			that though, you just have to consider this mission incompatible
			with the mission simulator.

The sixth mission seems tacked on for no apparent reason other than to be really annoyingly difficult.
	Workaround:	Wait a while, and all shall be explained.  Either that, or I just
			wanted to leave you hanging; I've not decided yet.
			Oh, and about being annoyingly difficult, it is the last mission.




Second Front has been brought to you by BlueFlames.

Special nonthanks to my beta testers, who never got past the third mission.  Nonthanks guys!  You made me play missions four through six thirty more times that I would have had to and delayed release by over a year!