Hi there! Welcome to the SimLife README.TXT file. This file includes additions to the manual as well as hints, a small Q&A portion, a few "cheats" to help you out, and much, much more! I. UNDOCUMENTED KEYBOARD COMMANDS Holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the left or right species scroll buttons on the dashboard will scroll the species by a page instead of scrolling by a single species. Shift-clicking on left/right species scroll buttons will move highlight one species. Holding down the Shift key while opening a graph window will not close any other graph windows open at the time. (Normally, SimLife only allows the user to have one graph window open at any time.) Holding down the Shift key while selecting Reconverge Species in the Simulation/Technical menu will reconverge only plant species. Holding down the Ctrl key while selecting Reconverge Species in the Simulation/Technical menu will reconverge only animal species. II. SYSTEM-RELATED INFORMATION -> MS DOS 6 Disk Compression and Virtual Memory. Permanent swap files must be set up on the UNCOMPRESSED portion of the disk. Failure to do so may result in a corrupted swap file with many interesting effects. The most notable of which are frequent lock-ups! Consult your MS-Windows user manual for additional information on swap files. -> The Transparency or Mask Color. When editing the animal or plant icons in the Biology Lab, Magenta (color 13) is used as the transparency or mask color. This is different from the DOS and Macintosh version which use White (color 0) as the tranparency or mask color. The transparency or mask color is the color that will become the background when the icon is displayed in the Edit Window. -> Transferring Files Between Macintosh and Windows SimLife Saved Worlds, Zoos, Plants, and Animals from the Macintosh version of SimLife are compatible with the Windows version of SimLife and vice versa. When taking Macintosh files to the Windows version, you must transfer the files via modem. Copying the files to an MS-DOS disk with any of the popular programs that allow the Macintosh to read MS-DOS disks will not work--not even with Apple File Exchange (bummer). When taking files to the Macintosh or DOS version of SimLife you must save the file is the Standard SimLife palette by unchecking the Windows Format check box in the save dialog. SimLife Windows uses a different set of colors from SimLife DOS or Simlife Macintosh so failing to do this will result in strange color shifts in the animal and plant icons. -> Fast Machines, Small Hard Disks, and Huge Games Saved game files can get VERY large. In the process of testing, we have generated saved games over 11 megabytes in size. Needless to say, it can take quite some time to save and load this much information. Plan ahead. Get some coffee. Remind your family that you're still around. Huge games also can take forever to process. Unless you are running a very fast machine, we recommend that you do not run Medium or Large worlds at all. We have witnessed situations where it can take between 15 and 30 minutes PER TICK (this is even on 486/33mhz machines). If you wish to make changes to your world when it is working this hard, click on the Pause button (you may not see it do anything until the next tick comes around). Once it is paused all of the menus and options will be available to you without delay. If it is taking too long, go to Change Physics and reduce your plant limit or animal limit to gain speed. Also, the simulation pauses at midnight to update information. Be prepared for this to take a little while if you are heavily taxing the system. Don't be fooled into thinking that the program crashed. III. SCENARIO INFORMATION -> Building a New World While Playing a Scenario Building a new world while playing a scenario will not exit or restart the scenario. The only scenario this has any real bearing on is the March Of The Mutants, where the simulator will re-populate the world on a yearly basis. To quit a scenario completely, you can either start a New Game, Load a Saved Game, or Quit SimLife entirely. -> A Little Terminology Confusion In most of the program and manual, SimLife organisms are called Organisms. Sometimes in scenarios, the word Orgot is used as an overall name for Artificial Life Organisms. And then again, there is an individual animal species in SimLife that is called Orgot. Just letting you know that you have the right to be confused. Sorry. -> Orgot Names in March Of The Mutants In order to make tracking the progression of your mutants easier, the names assigned to newly created mutant orgots contain useful information. The first letter of the species name will be either a "P" for plant species or an "A" for animal species. The numbers following are the initial creation date of the creature followed by its position on the Dashboard (separated by a period). Thus, the orgot "A123.4" is an animal created in the 123rd year of the simulation that occupied slot number 4 on the Dashboard when it was created. IV. INCLUDED FILES Along with the game files, there are also a couple of directories full of delight. One is the Orgot directory, filled with various plants, animals and zoos (collections of plants or animals). Make sure you keep a good backup of these on a floppy disk, since everyone has a tendency to modify the plants and animals on the hard disk and then want the old ones back. We've also included a directory of saved games that show how you can use the SimLife simulation to simulate stuff other than life. Each of these saved games has a small description in the GAMES.TXT file. V. A LITTLE Q&A This section is by no means complete, but it should help. We thought we'd try to stick in a few of the questions that we had a hard time with. Q. Why do my orgots sometimes seem to get stuck in one spot? A. Orgots have genes that limit their movement across the terrain. The most common problem is that an orgot will get stuck on a mountain or in a valley and if it does not have its climb gene set, will be unable to escape (even to follow the carrot). Q. Why don't my orgots follow trails like bloodhounds? A. Orgots will break away from a trail if they get thirsty or hungry for another animal. Try using the Variables Window on the orgot that you think should be following a trail and see how its food and water levels affect its trail following. Keep in mind that trails are dependent on an animal's Stealth gene. The lower an animal's Stealth is, the more likely it is to break branches, leave footprints, or leave a scent when moving about. Try changing an animal's stealth and observe the trail it leaves in the map window. A less stealthy animal's trail will be a solid line, while a more stealthy animal will leave a broken trail. On the pursuer's side, Vision and Persistence are the most important genetic factors, as well as the animal's Attract gene. The higher an animal's Vision is, the more likely it is to see a trail and be able to follow it. The more persistent it is, the less likely it will be to lose the trail or give up on it. Q. Why doesn't my plant sprout when I increase its age or size in the Show Variables window? A. Plant sprouting is not a function of its age or size. A seed can stay in the ground for years before conditions are good enough for sprouting to take place. It is the season, temperature, and moisture that cause sprouting. If a seed gets too old without sprouting, it will die. VI. CHEATS SimLife has many "cheat" commands that can be used to modify or improve the experience. Where caps are requested, you will need to hold the Caps Lock key rather than the Shift key to avoid bringing up some of the other keyboard shortcuts. -> Typing WEIS turns the raise/lower Altitude tool (on the Edit Window Control Panel) into a raise/lower Soil Depth tool that allows you to change the soil depth in the same manner as you would change the altitude, rainfall, or temperature. -> Typing WALL will turn the Barrier tool into a Wall tool and all barriers into walls. Flying animals may fly over barriers, but not over walls. -> Typing WIPE will erase all statistics, trails, history information, and such. This can be very helpful when making changes in a situation where you don't want the old data mixed with the new. Think of it as the History Eraser Button.