Starship Tycoon   - User Guide and FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions - Starship Tycoon

1. Game fails to start or crashes immediately.
   In this case your machine probably failed to initialise our 3D engine. If you are playing Starlines INC, Starship Tycoon or Planetary Defense try these steps:
   
   1) Open the file 'config.muf' inside the 'data' directory in the games installation folder. You can edit this file using windows notepad (it's just a text file).
   
   2) Change the line that says ColorDepth=32 to ColorDepth=16 then save, and try the game again
   
   3) Change the line that says IsWindowed=0 to IsWindowed=1 then save, and try the game again. 4) Add a new line to the [prefs] section saying SafeMode=1 then save, and try the game again
   
   If the game still does not run, then you should firstly check you have the latest video card drivers for your machine. Starship Typhoon only use DirectX7, so you won't need to update your version of DirectX.
   
   
2. Game crashes during gameplay.
   The most likely cause of this is another application running on your machine. We strongly recommend checking your machine for spyware or viruses. You can get free programs like AdAware or Spybot to check your machine. It's also worth rebooting and checking the game still crashes after a reboot.
   
   If the game still crashes, then you might have found a bug in our game. We do our best to ship our games as bug free as we can, but occasionally bugs slip through. We STRONGLY recommend you email us with any information you have on what happened. We might ask for you to send us some debug files from your PC to help us track down the bug. Again, use the email button on the left of the screen.
   
   
3. Is there any combat in the game?
   No, Starship tycoon is a business simulation. You aren't building a war fleet, but a commercial empire! That's not to say that you won't occasionally have trouble with vandals at some of the more seedy and dangerous starports though.
   
   
4. What's the deal with StarLines INC?
   Starlines INC is the original title of Starship tycoon. ST is a much better and improved version of this much older game, also made by Positech. Starship tycoon has a completely rewritten graphics engine, random maps and many many more improvements.
   
   
5. Why does it matter if my ships suffer breakdowns?
   There are many reasons. Firstly each breakdown is going to affect the speed of your ship, and in the case of fuel leaks, your fuel efficiency will drop (this can prove expensive). Also, the crew will get upset if they work on a ship with multiple faults, and the more problems your ship has, the more chance of a critical drive failure which could strand your ship in space for some time. Also, if your ship carries passengers they will also be upset.
   
   
6. How can I make my ships go faster?
   The speed of a ship is dependent on the ratio of ship size to engine power. Not all engines are the same efficiency, you tend to get what you pay for. Also note that some ship components weigh a lot more than others. Its possible to build quite fast ships, but they will tend to be smaller than the large cargo hauling vessels. Note that passengers like to travel on fast ships.
   
   
7. Are there cheat codes for the game?
   Yes there are but we don't publish them so you aren't unfairly tempted to use them before you have enjoyed the game! if you REALLy want to know them, email us using the form on our front page.