Battlezone Forums

Hey Battlezone Community!

I've recently registered for this forum as I'm in need for some advice / problem solutions regarding the installing process of Battlezone 2 Mods, primarily Forgotten Enemies.

I have browsed the web and this forum for a similar topic but did not find anything in this specific direction described below, so I hope you do not mind if I start open a new topic herewith.

To get to the point: I've been playing Battlezone series since my teenage years, and recently after years past, I wanted to play BZ 2 once again with all those cool Mods (e.g. Uler, Fleshstorm, and especially FE) anew.
Problem: Although BZ 2 is running flawless (expect music sounds lacking) on my PC, I cannot manage to install the Mods, --escpecially FE-- in a way that they run and work.


--> result: game and mods worked great, but there's only one problem: I was a really good player years ago, but I am not able to win the single player campaigns in FE and Uler due to the new AI and aim code incorporated in the 1.3 patch. Enemies are too strong for me, aim to well, attacking groups in campaigns arrive to early, play too aggressive. I know that for you vets the new AI serves as a cool challenge, but for me who hasn't trained for years, it just spoils the enjoyment (btw: I even tried FE in easy mode...still no chance).

Therefore, I tried to install FE in the old 1.2 version, because as I played FE this way once, it was difficult, but manageable.

Now the problem is, that I can't run FE on 1.2. 1st Issue my PC has is, that it seemingly doesn't recognize when I update the basic game with 1.2 (even after restart after installation): The FE installer always tells me that I haven't the 1.2 version installed on my PC, although I DID update it.

My install order: BZ 2 basic game (german version) --> patch 1.2 (i tried both US and german version) --> Fe installer (the full installer used, I am pretty sure it must be the correct one made for 1.2).

In this install order, FE won't start, if I click on the Mod's shortcut .exe. Only the standart game then starts.

Questions:
1. Could you give me advice on how to successfully install and run BZ 2 with FE in the 1.2. version?
2. Could you moreover even give advice for a correct install order on how to install basic game on 1.2 version plus all the bigger mods like FE, Fleshstorm, Uler, ...?

Any hint or support would be really great, cuz, as I said, I'm an old fan of the series, but don't know much about the technical stuff regarding the mods. I just love to play this awesome campaigns you guys have created!

Any hint would be highly appreaciated--
Cheers and thanks!

Here's my computer's technical data:

Packard bell Easy Note MH 36
4,00 GB Ram working memory
2, 00 GHz Processor
Windows Vista with service Pack 2

First off, do NOT link to pirated copies of BZ2. Downloads of BZ1/2 are piracy; only CDs -- look on Amazon or Ebay -- are legal at the moment. I would remind everyone to go vote on Gog.com for them to carry legal copies of BZ1/2 if you haven't already.

For best results, you should install BZ2 from the CD you own. If you are fighting with the installer see the sticky topic about working around the BZ2 CD installer. You should install BZ2 several times, once for each patch, maybe even once for each patch with a mod that tries to take over everything (like FE does). Alternately, you can install from the BZ2 CD into a folder, and never touch that basic install folder. Then use Windows Explorer to copy/paste that folder, and apply patches/mods to the duplicated folders.

-- GSH

Hello GSH,

I am very sorry if I have linked sth. wrong, this wasn't my intention! As I said, I am a fan and of course, I do legally own BZ 1 and 2, and always have so. As far as I knew, the package I used contained the 1.3 patch and the mods only, which were shareware -- and I only installed it on top of my basic game of BZ 2 which I installed from my original CD, as you recommended.

I will look for the topic you referred to and try again. Thank you for your fast response!

best regards,

Cerberus

Can you confirm that it's actually 1.2 opening a multiplayer session in stock 1.2 and seeing if MPI maps are available? They were added in 1.2, I believe. Additionally, TLI should work in 1.2 ('target lead indicator', when you press the 't' key to target an enemy craft, shows where to aim)

Another thing to note: 1.2 and 1.2FE were made in an era before Vista and UAC. By default, users dont typically have permissions to write directly into anything that's in 'program files' without elevating their privileges which is why when you run some apps they will cause a UAC prompt to appear which allows the user to elevate that program's permissions. 1.3 is different in that once it's installed it doesnt try to write into its folder in program files, it will save personal configs, logs, and other things in My Docs/My Games/Battlezone II under Vista and later. That said, I wonder if there's some permissions/UAC issue.

And of course you cannot downgrade...So the Dl'ed version with 1.3 cannot be patched with 1.2. Always best to install from CD and then apply only the patches required to achieve your desired state.

Hey there,

thank you very much for your input. I have made progress meanwhile. @ Zero Angel: I think you are right, there seemingly was an issue by installing the mod in "program files": I re-installed, patched and modded BZ 2 based on my original Game-CD in C:\games\ and now, FE is running. So far for the good news.

Bad news are, that I now got problems with unbinded keys, like the user already "katana" described in this post here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1873&p=32032&hilit=escape#p32032

I will post this further issue under the discussion linked above, as I assume you guys want to have the posts ordered under the respective topics. Any help welcome, as always.

Some tips that could help resolve your issues.

- Never use all-in-ones. There are several of these available and those that we have reports on have unpleasant issues hiding under the surface, normally with compatibility or merged pak files.

- Only patch upwards. Downgrading from one version to another isn't possible.

- Either install from disk or use a zipped from-disk installation. Installing a pre-patched version could cause you issues with redistributables.

Further, I think FE's installer is trying to find your BZ2 installation from the registry. If the entry there points towards a 1.3 install, you'll get errors like the one you're seeing. The two solutions to that are a) find the key and change it (someone else will have to tell you where it is) or b) uninstall BZ2 from add/remove programs and install a 1.2 version instead. You can have multiple versions, just install FE before you install any others.

For AH's last point there was a BZ2 directory changer for a while, it might be on bzscrap.org now, it used to be on bzscrap.com .

Cerberus wrote:Bad news are, that I now got problems with unbinded keys, like the user already "katana" described in this post here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1873&p=32032&hilit=escape#p32032

In 1.2 you 'could' be presented with certain keys not being set or simply not function (whatever the reason). As linked by myself in that topic, NewKeys fixes that as it does have all keys set. (It at least worked for me and many others.)

bz2dir is a likely suspect.

@ Red Spot: Thanks. With newkeys, the Esc button works and opens the main menue ingame. However, I still got problems with the missing Space-button. I once again tried to set mouse settings on default, but it doesn't seem to help. Any ideas?

The original control setup in the game isnt very robust. An example is when I was trying to play 1.2 on my laptop, the IR Blaster (built-in reciever for the laptop's media remote) driver kept intercepting the "~" key (console key) so I couldnt use the console until I removed the driver for the IR blaster. Not sure if this problem occurs with other software like a keyboard's driver software or anything like that, but it might be worth looking into if you can't find any workarounds.

Cerberus wrote:@ Red Spot: Thanks. With newkeys, the Esc button works and opens the main menue ingame. However, I still got problems with the missing Space-button. I once again tried to set mouse settings on default, but it doesn't seem to help. Any ideas?

The spacebar is set from a file within the .pak-files (iirc). It seems your installation is bonkers. Can you confirm you actually have *.pak-files in your game directory?

If he didnt have pak files then bz2 wouldnt load at all, since the base assets (e.g. the shell backgrounds, models, textures, sounds) would not exist.

@ Red Spot: I now made a complete reinstall on my other PC that runs with Windows XP.
- BZ 2 official CD, patch 1.2 US beta, FE full installer for 1.2. Game and mod are running. However, I have the same problem with missing keys, despite attempts to set mouse or keyboard settings on default. NewKeys only solves the problem with the Esc button, which immediatly works well. Space-button is not binded, still. Seems not to be a vista-only problem. Well, maybe it isn't meant to be. I don't know.

And regarding your question: Yes, I got *.pak files in my game directory. I count 6. bumps, data, fedata, lgtex, mdtex, smtex.