Unable to run ER simulations on TIE Fighter.

TyrNevius · Post by **TyrNevius** » Mon Oct 29, 2007 5:15 am

I'm running off the TIE Fighter Collector's CD. I followed the instructions for installation, made the back up of Battle1.lfd and replaced the one in resources ect. But the mission still will not play.

Is the fact that I'm playing the game through dos box a factor?

If anyone could help on this it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Post by **Jagged Fel** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 12:31 am

I need a little more information than that.
-Which simulation specifically are you trying to play?
-What OS?

TyrNevius · Post by **TyrNevius** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:27 am

I'm running XP home edition and attempting to play ERS-1.

Post by **Jagged Fel** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 10:57 am

Nothing wrong with the package itself, maybe DOS Box is interfering. Run TIE without it and see if that works.

Post by **Vortagh** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 1:01 pm

I can't see anything that would enable DosBox to interfere, seeing how it is just an emulator and runs TIE just like DOS would. I suggest double-checking everything, to see if you really put the lfd from the GE into your resource folder, or just the backup (etc).

TyrNevius · Post by **TyrNevius** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 5:05 pm

*salutes*
I want to thank you both for your advice.

Well it seems like DOSBOX might be the culprit after all. To run TIE I mount the cd drive and the game plays straight from the cd. Attempting to run it without mounting the d drive gives me a "please insert TIE Fighter CD" message (VDM sound does the same) and trying to run the game without DOSBOX altogether crashes my system as soon as the mission loads (although doing it this way does display the ERS mission at least).

If i try to run the game through DOSBOX w/ mounting the D drive then the game runs beautifully in full rich MIDI sound, but I can't play the ERS missions, it just loads the vanilla battle one.

The downloaded patch has also proved useless.

Much frustration.

I'm trying to play with the compatibility settings and have downloaded the Microsoft Application Compatibility tool, but I'm not terribly optimistic.

I'm starting to run out of ideas here. Any suggestions Sirs?

Post by **Jagged Fel** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 11:42 pm

it just loads the vanilla battle one.

That sounds like you aren't replacing BATTLE1.LFD in the \RESOURCE directory. That file determines which missions are played when you select the battle. In the battle selection screen it should be obvious that you have the GE sim loaded, as it'll say "THE GALACTIC EMPIRE" and "Imperial Navy Simulation #1"

TyrNevius · Post by **TyrNevius** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:32 am

No Sir, I am most defiantly replacing Battle1.LFD in the Resource folder. I've replaced it twice now actually. I mentioned earlier that running TIE without using DOSBOX at all *does* display the Imperial Navy Simulation. I can receive the appropriate briefing and can even see the T/A with the tractor beam.

The problem is, as soon as the actual mission loads it crashes my system. This happened when I tried to play the normal game as well, hence using DOSBOX. For what ever reason, DOSBOX seems to be using all the actual mission information from the CD. That's the only reason I can figure anyway since in the command line for mount the D drive is the command "usecd".

So at the moment I have two options; I can run TIE fighter and it will play perfectly but not any custom missions.

Or I can do every part of the custom missions EXCEPT THE ACTUAL MISSION! *smashes computer in frustration in suitably comical fashion*

You might be able to tell I've been mulling this over all day in class.

Post by **Jagged Fel** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:00 am

And you said the XP patch from LucasArts doesn't work?
The game installed to LucasArts\TIE95, right?

TyrNevius · Post by **TyrNevius** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:13 am

No sir it installed to my C drive as TIECD. Unfortunately for me the patch is for the X-Wing Collector's Series and not the Tie Fighter Collector's CDROM.

Post by **Jagged Fel** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:15 am

Ah, so you are playing TIECD and not TIE95. I'm afraid I can't be much help then, as we technically support TIE95 and I know very little about technical aspects regarding TIECD. I know nothing out of IDMR will work, and apparently missions won't work either. If you email me the first mission I may be able to see if there's a physical difference, but regarding TIECD that'll my last option.

Post by **Vortagh** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:56 pm

Other than being a bit different, TIE CD works in the same way. The battle.lfd and mission have to be there. If they aren't there, the mission won't load. Either because the battle.lfd is wrong and points to the wrong file, or because the mission isn't there (or because the mission has problems).

I remember that with XwA, one of the problems with getting missions to run was, that if the mission wasn't done right, it would crash the game. Either it would crash the game right away, or it would go through the briefing and THEN crash it while displaying the "loading" bar.

So, we have several problems here that could be the culprit:
a) it could be that the CD ROM version is a bit different. Maybe something in the mission won't work with the CD ROM version, cause it's not in it, or replaced with something else (like a different unit, etc). The only way to see if that can be changed is get a different version of TIE to you and let you try that way.

b) It could be that the battle is generally flawed, as mentioned earlier. However seeing how I have never heard of anybody complaining about this mission being borked - Jagged, did this one get a fix at any time? I can't remember working on ERS-1, but I once planned on re-doing all the old ones. Don't think I ever started though. Is there a server log to see when it was last updated?

c) It's the CD. I have TIECD somewhere here (and the Collectors Edition as well), but I cannot find it, so I cannot test it right now, but it MIGHT be, that TIECD installs all the game stuff- you know, resource folder, etc - but then gets it from CD anyways, which would explain why it would work first and give you the briefing and everything and then crash loading.

My suggestion: Try another version of TIE. Either get the Collectors edition (a buck or two on eBay), which has more missions and better graphics, or be all retro and get the 3 1/4 disk edition (got that one, too). The later one would make it a lot easier to run in DosBox as well, simply because you do not have to worry about mounting anything other than your C drive.

TyrNevius · Post by **TyrNevius** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:01 pm

Another version of TIE you say? Hmmm might be the thing to do. I do have 50 bucks in Amazon.com so at least it would be free.

Your Excellency, just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, you mean the TIE Fighter Collector's CDROM correct? Because that's the version I have and is giving me all the problems. I think there was another version that came bundled with X-wing but i'm not sure.

Given that, I was thinking of branching out game wise anyway, looking at X-Wing Alliance.

I was also curious Vice Admiral Fel Sir, if it was possible to modify the ERS mission to play on my type of TIE. I wouldn't ask you to do this for me of course but if you could point me at the program you used to create the game in the first place, and maybe some tips on the finer points of modification, maybe I could alter the mission enough so that it could run. At the very least I could probably learn how to make TIE missions.

Might work.

Post by **Vortagh** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:21 pm

You could always just get the old floppy disk version. It's a lot more "old skool" anyways, and then you should be able to transfer the new battles over.

Syrtaras · Post by **Syrtaras** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:31 pm

I stumbled across this thread and it intrigued me, so I got my precious original TIE CD from the shelf, installed DOSbox and after roughly 10 or so minutes of trying, I can hereby report that it works like a charm. :P

Here's what I've done:

In Windows, I created a directory called C:\DOS and mounted it as the C: drive in DOSbox.

With the command...

"mount d d:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -ioctl" (as for that "0" - if you have more than one CD/DVD drives, use "mount -cd" to check which number is assigned to which)

... I mounted my CD-ROM drive.

In DOSbox, I switched to the CD-ROM drive and launched the install.exe (maximum install, target directory: C:\TIECD, custom sound card setup, Soundblaster 16, Port 220).

Then went to see if the game works. It did. As such, I exited the game.

Then I downloaded ERS001, renamed the original battle1.lfd from the folder C:\DOS\TIECD\RESOURCE to battle1_old.lfd and then put the one from the ZIP in its place. I also placed the INS001m1.tie in the folder C:\DOS\TIECD\MISSION.

Fired up TIE again in DOSbox, everything works.

Questions? No? Thank you, I know I'm great. :P