Carriers at War ™
March 3, 2008 v1.02.2

Welcome.

Thank you for playing Carriers at War™! We are always looking for ways to improve your gaming experience. For the latest information on the game, please go to the Matrix Games web site at www.matrixgames.com.

Below you will find the latest and greatest information on Carriers at War. Information in this document supersedes that in the official game manual.

Troubleshooting:
Ensure that your system meets the minimum system requirements. These are found on page 9 of the manual. Also, ensure that you have the latest video and sound drivers available for your system and that you have upgraded to the latest version of DirectX from Microsoft. The vast majority of reported problems are resolved by upgrading all drivers and DirectX to the latest versions.

If you are still experiencing problems with the game, please contact support@matrixgames.com or post in the Carriers at War Support Forum at www.matrixgames.com. Please provide as much detail on your issue as soon as possible.

To obtain optimum game performance, close all other applications before beginning a game.

V1.02.2 March 3, 2008
• Fixed Crash when placing an artificial sighting before any sightings are visible.
• Fixed Crash in editor when creating a new scenario and going to the squadrons screen.

V1.02 January 23, 2008
New Scenario
• Tarawa, a complete new scenario that covers possible Japanese reactions to the US invasion of Tarawa in November 1943. This scenario comes complete with mystery variants, so you can never be sure what forces are opposing you, or what their plans will be.
Game Changes
• Separated landbase names on the map to better cope with the situation of multiple landbases in a single hex.
• Added a 3 second pause after the last plane leaves the strike screen before the next report is shown (if the Wait for Click option is off).
• Added help text landbase orders.
• Added text to the profile of carriers being attacked that have planes arming and/or fuelling to let the player know of any extra damage.
• Added an extended range icon to squadron displays to let the player know that a squadron is ineligible for a strike because the strike is too far away. Also ensured that these calculations are made correctly in all circumstances.
• CAP now lands at the end of the Dusk hour, not the beginning, and CAP planes that happen to land after Dusk is officially over will not suffer landing penalties.
• Added Utility Windows to the game. These windows are customizable by the user, and appear above the map and to the left of the time and game speed windows. There is an area in the Options Screen to control them. A Utility Window FAQ is included with this patch with more details.
• Made minor changes to various scenarios.
Game Bug Fixes
• Fixed a problem where crippled taskgroups were not eligible for surface combat
• Fixed a problem with cohesive strikes ordered using the right click on map menu and a related problem where the TG included a carrier that was
incapable of air operations.
• Fixed a problem with planes cycling through stations after a strike
• Fixed a display bug where plane totals were sometimes not updating correctly when a strike was being assembled.
• Fixed a display bug where occasionally ships that had been already sunk would show as not sunk in the combat screen
• Fixed a minor bug where gamelog text entries would be incorrectly displayed until the gameclock had run for 5 minutes.
• Fixed a display bug where fighter bombers would sometimes not have their armament shown when their strike wing was being displayed.
• Fixed a display bug where ships in combat could sometimes show damage animations before being attacked.
• Fixed a display bug effecting shadows and debris of planes in the combat screen.
• Fixed a bug where damaged planes that actually crashed while returning from a strike were shown as being destroyed in the combat screen.
• Fixed a rare hang bug that could occur when flicking between cohesive/noncohesive strikes and different targets while assigning squadrons
• Ensured that ship and plane reports always update correctly every 5 minutes.
• Prevented right mouse clicks on map orders window as being misinterpreted as destination orders.
• Fixed a problem where planes that actually died while on a CAP mission would still be shown in the total of planes available for CAP.
• Fixed a problem where floatplane fighters carried by capital ships would be counted as available for CAP
Editor Changes
• A number of changes have been made to the Editor. These improve the layout of data and include extra help text and info displays to help scenario creators.
• Stopped many Editor crashes when confronted with incorrect data, and substituted error messages to provide much better feedback to scenario creators.
• Added a resource search control to speed up locating resources.
• Added a number of functions and resources to enable creation of new countries.
• Increased the size of some textboxes and allowed for extra text entry.
Editor Bug Fixes
• Fixed a bug which prevented entry of large numbers for AA and DP guns for ships.
• Fixed an occasional crash when adding new submarines.
• Fixed a number of bugs when deleting or copying/pasting WarRoom actions.
• Fixed some display and text handling problems.
Options Changes
• Added the Max Autosave Space option in the Other Options section to specify the number of megabytes that autosaves may occupy. When the limit is reached, older autosaves are deleted so as to keep within the limit. Set the save limit to 0 if you don’t want any limit on Autosaves.
• Added the Utility Windows options area to enable users to choose which
windows to show, and in which order.
• Added the internet stats options area to allow users to set details allowing them to upload their game statistics to the internet. Internet stats will only include in-game details such as side scores, number of ships sunk etc.
Editor Tutorial Scenario
• The framework of a new scenario, Cape Matapan, has been included in the ‘Cape Matapan’ folder. This scenario has a complete OB and AI, but lacks
various graphics. An Editor Tutorial and template files accompany this scenario framework and explain how to integrate the various graphics into the game. The WarRoom cards in the scenario AI have been heavily commented in order to further explain their functions. We hope that this will help the user community better understand the CAW scenario creation process and the result will not only be a finished Cape Matapan scenario but the production of other scenarios as well.

v1.01 June 8, 2007
Features
• Added a Random option to the WarRoom list in the singleplayer setup screen. When the Random option is chosen you won’t know which variant you are playing and you will not be allowed to view reports which would allow you to easily identify the composition of enemy forces, and therefore which variant is in effect. The Victory Point margins are also hidden until the end of the game.
• Added a large number of variants to the Coral Sea scenario in order to better exploit the new Random WarRoom feature. Extra variants for other scenarios will be added in the future.
• Added a 'Suspense' option for combat. When Suspense is chosen, the results of an air/naval attack will not be reported on the combat screen until after the attack animations have played.
• Added an Exit Map option to the Task Group on-map orders window. This will allow Task Groups on any map edge hex to exit the map, rather than being cornered by map boundaries. Exited Task Groups cannot return to play, but are counted as surviving for Victory Point determination.
• Added new Anti Submarine Warfare routines. Escorts will now have a chance to attack and sink enemy submarines that have attacked their Task Group.
• Changed the way that damage affects the speed of a ship. Each point of damage caused has a chance to cause a speed reduction. Once out of combat,
the ship will automatically attempt to repair this damage, however not all damage may be repairable and the ship may suffer a permanent reduction in maximum speed as a result.
• Added a mouseover window to squadrons in the arm fuel area of the Carrier/Landbase Air Operations screen showing the numbers of Fuelled/Unfuelled planes.
• The program now attempts to detect when an unsupported graphics setting has been made and warns the user.
• Added an option to continue playing the music when combat starts.
• The music and sound systems automatically disable themselves if no valid DirectSound drivers are found.
Fixes
• Fixed several crash bugs
• Fixed a bug where fighter squadrons on arm/fuel orders wouldn’t consider themselves eligible for CAP.
• Fixed some issues which meant that is some situations squadrons could move through the arm/fuel cycle too quickly.
• Fixed a bug where squadrons on landbases would not always be damaged when the landbase was attacked.
• Escorting or Supporting Task Groups will now be better at keeping the correct station on the Task Group they are accompanying.
• Fixed a bug where the randomness of the number of ships in a sighting wasn’t being correctly implemented. Task Group sighting reports will now have variability of both ship types and ship numbers, as designed.
• Fixed a bug where occasionally a strike could get caught up in the arm/fuel cycle and not progress.
• Fixed a bug where landbases that had Cargo Points delivered to them by both sides, (as in the Wake Island scenario), would get confused about how many cargo points each side had delivered.
• Fixed a bug where submarines could attack sunk ships.
• Fixed a bug where planes that flew to an alternate base of operations would be counted as kills for enemy Victory Point purposes.
• Fixed a bug where AI Task Groups that had fled the map could be attacked.
• Fixed a bug where CAP planes were delivered too much fuel.
• Fixed a bug where the Cancel Strike button wouldn’t always be shown for a strike in progress.
• Fixed a bug where ships that had fled a surface combat could still attack.
• Fixed a bug where non-night trained squadrons could occasionally fly at night.
• Fixed a bug where the on-map orders window would be shown for landbases even though it was turned off in the options.
• Made minor interface/help text changes.
Editor
• Fixed a bug where squadrons could become corrupted on the ships editor screen.
• Fixed a bug where the forecast screen would cause a crash with new scenarios.
• The WarRoom names and briefings are now read in automatically from old scenarios.
• Made some layout changes to make the Editor more user friendly.

v1.00
The following info clarifies some matters and explains game functions that were introduced after the manual was finalized.
• The manual has an error on the game requirements page 9, Windows 95 and 98 are not supported by Carriers at War™
• The manual doesn’t make clear that aircraft have a shorter range when attacking targets at sea as against fixed targets on land. This to account for the fact that extra time will have to be spent searching for mobile targets at sea.
Kamikaze pilots only have one range, as they do not have to make a return journey.
• Resign option now in for single and multiplayer
• We have added a resign option to multiplayer games, accessed through the game menu. In Multiplayer, if a player resigns the clock is advanced to the end of the game and his opponent is automatically awarded a Decisive Victory. In
single player, the AI is awarded the victory but the human player can examine forces on both sides, now that the game is ended, to see what really happened and where he went wrong.
• The Victory Screen has been redesigned to make it easier to understand. Now each side’s Victory Point display shows all the points it has earned and the reasons for those points. In addition, a popup has been added to the top of the display that shows the Victory Point margins for the scenario.
• The squadron info now shows much expanded information about the condition of each plane.
• Just to clarify, a ship will sink when all fifteen of its damage bars have either fire or permanent damage.
• An option was added to turn off the display of the On Map Orders menus, as experienced players probably don’t need them.
• A right click option has been added the Plane Info box to the right of the Squadron Picture display. The option toggles between showing operational
squadron details and historical plane data.
• When a strike is launched it targets a particular enemy Task Group and this Task Group is referred to in all combat reports about the strike. Your pilots have a tendency to freelance, can often attacks ships from Task Groups other than the nominated target. However, the combat screen and combat summaries will refer to the Task Group that they are supposed to be attacking.
• In the Air/Naval Combat Screen, if the wait click option is on, the Spacebar as well as a mouse click will now advance the combat.
• Although we don’t actively prevent users from doing this, choosing windowed mode on a display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 is not a good idea, as there isn’t quite enough room.
• Strike combat summaries will not list kamikaze aircraft as casualties. You can rest assured though that all kamikaze aircraft that make it as far as an enemy Task Group will be killed.