~Earth Siege 

Info on how to bypass the levels that are affected by a bug in the 
game.


Bombs loading Campaign 8, Mission 4.

Here's the info for the procedure that I used. If you're at Campaign 
4 Misson 8, save all the files from the \SIERRA\MTECH\CAR 
subdirectory, this will be the *.CAR, *.MEC, and NAMES.LOG files. 
These will be needed later. Now re-install the Earth Siege game from 
the original source. The bug does indeed, exist only in the 
Expansion pack. Copy the files that you saved from wherever into the 
new \SIERRA\MTECH\CAR subdirectory, which should be almost empty. 

Now here comes the rough part, resume the career which was at the 
mission level that could not be loaded, play this to completion. If 
you are not successful, reload the saved files again and get back 
out there and kick some butt. It took me, two tries and the second 
time I was real lucky and got to the base without ANY opposition! It 
can be done (that's what the saved files are for). 

After successful completion save the same files to another 
subdirectory or diskette. The *.CAR file for the name that you have 
just played is the one that you want. The listing of CAREERS starts 
at 0 and goes to whatever, just select the corresponding file. Now 
if you load the Expansion pack and call up the stats on that file, 
you will find its' dificulty level set to BRUTAL. 

Now since you have this file loaded in the game and somewhere else 
we don't have to worry about losing it, if not do so now. I can't 
stress this enough, patching files is not always successful, so back 
it up. 

Load the file CAR_*.CAR into DEBUG by:

C:\DEBUG
-n <d:>CAR_*.CAR    <enter> where <d:> = DRIVE
-l                        <enter>
d100

This should display the first 128 bytes of the file, now there is no 
way for me to tell you how to identify this file specifically, just 
make sure that you have the right one. Now eleven bytes have to be 
changed. So: 

e100 <enter>

should get you an xxxx:0100 00.xx (you won't get the xx's) type in 
01 and hit the SPACE BAR. If you hit enter it'll dump you back into 
DEBUG. You'll have to keep count becaue DEBUG won't, so you should 
be at the second offset. Hit the space bar again which will put you 
at the third offset and here we want to change the byte from 03 to 
00. Hopefully you have the idea, because I'm going to append the 
whole thing in one shot. 

xxxx:0100 change 00 to 01
xxxx:0102 no change
xxxx:0103 change 03 to 00
xxxx:0104 no change
xxxx:0105 change 00 to 01
xxxx:0106 no change
xxxx:0107 change 02 to 03
xxxx:0108 no change
xxxx:0109 change 01 to 02
xxxx:010A no change
xxxx:010B change 04 to 07
xxxx:010C no change
xxxx:010D change 06 to 05
xxxx:010E no change
xxxx:010F change 07 to 06
xxxx:0110 no change
xxxx:0111 change 05 to 04
xxxx:0112 no change
xxxx:0113 change 0B to 09
xxxx:0114 no change
xxxx:0115 change 08 to 0A
<enter>
d100 again and check your input

-w <enter> save the file over the original. The reason for back-ups 
is apparent. 


Load this file over the one in the \SIERRA\MTECH\CAR subdirectory. 
Execute ES, go to CAREERS, check the STATS on the file, and if 
everything went correctly, the difficulty setting should be 
TRAINING, about as easy as it goes. If this is not waht you want 
then create a new career file with the name and difficulty setting 
you desire, save it somewhere else, and delete it. Create another 
with the same name and the BRUTAL setting. Run COMP against the two 
with the output redirected to a file, and then check the file to see 
what has to be changed. You'll only be interested in the first 22 
bytes. Then input the changes in the above manner. 

This if successful will allow you to play the missions after the 
bugged one and is working on my system in two seperate careers, oone 
of which is in BATTLESET2, so it doesn't affect anything there. 

I haven't come up with anything else, spent the whole weekend 
working on systems in the lab. And besides, I rather be playing than 
playing with DEBUG!! 


~Info obtained via the Internet.

