
              GAME EXPANDER PLUG
                                       F O R   E S C A P E   V E L O C I T Y !

                                (Second Update Information)



				This update to the plugin was largely ment to be a maintenance update, where (hopefully)
           most bugs are corrected, the game components are somewhat tweaked to better reflect my
           ideas of how I ment them to be, some adjustments of the balance of power and that sort of 
           things. However to make it worth downloading, some new stuff is added as well. It is 
           possible that there will be one more update to the plug, but that should be the last one.

				As there are lots of small changes here and there, I won't list them all here (also I don't
           remember all of them offhand). The more major things that are changed or added are:

	¥ PLANET DOMINATION - In previous versions of the EVGE, lots of planets would
                       surrender without a fight if you demanded tribute from
                       them. This is not the way it was ment to be, and hopefully
                       all those planets have been fixed so their defense fleets
                       appear properly. Also, if you dominate planets, you'll
                       have to face a somewhat nastier foe than the regular
                       Bounty Hunter Kestrels we all learned to know and love :)

	¥ STARSYSTEMS       - I had planned a bunch of new systems for this version, but as
                       EVEdit (which I use to place out the systems) is extremely
                       buggy with large plugins, those have to wait before they are
                       added. There are however 7 new systems added which are related
                       to a mission.

	¥ SHIP CHANGES      - Some of the ships (both standard and EVGE added) have had their
                       specs somewhat tweaked to better live up to the performance I
                       expect from them when interfacing with other ships. Most notable
                       here are the Confed Frigate, Confed Patrolship and Rebel Cruiser,
                       Alien Attack Fighter, Alien Battlecruiser and Alien Commandship.
                       The Orion Cobra Interceptor has also been heavily altered.Others 
                       have been slightly altered too, but those are the major ones. 
                       The Bird of Prey have also been "altered" so it will
                       actually use its torpedos and beam when computer controlled.

	¥ NEW SHIPS   					 - There are a number of new ships added to this update too. Those
                       are the Alien Marauder (mission-related, very powerful), the
                       Predator Battlecruiser (new alpha proxima capital ship), a
                       remake of the Bird of Prey and a completely revamped Polaris
                       Barracuda fighter (the old graphics looked horrible...).

	¥ WEAPONS/OUTFITS		 - Some of the weapons have been altered to better reflect their
                       intended strength and operation. The foremost example is
                       the Black Lightning, which was far to powerful before. Turret
                       bolts have been somewhat speeded up to make them track better.
                       The Mass Driver has also been altered and put to heavier use.
                       There are also a number of new weapons and outfits added, which
                       include the Disintegrator (alien weapon), Hellfire torpedos
                       (alien weapon), Plasma Torpedos (Predator weapon), Alien
                       attackfighter bay (used by Marauder), weapon miniaturizer
                       (mission related outfit). 
                       
	¥ MISSIONS    					 - Two mission suites are added to the game, one anti-alien
                       mission for the Orion Union, and an Alien mission suite
                       (you work for the Aliens) which appends to the old Alien
                       Ops mission (which you used to get out of the Maia system.)
                       More was planned, but I ran out of inspiration. If anyone
                       who likes to make missions has any good ideas and want to
                       make missions for the plug, you are welcome to do so.

	¥ SOUNDS/GRAPHICS		 - There are a nmber of new sounds added to the plugin, both
                       related to new weapons, and which replaces some old sounds
                       which I found boring. :-)
                       On the graphics front: Two new planetary landing pictures
                       are added as well as new ship graphics for the Alien Marauder,
                       Barracuda and Predator Battlecruiser.

	¥ GENERAL/MISC   		 - Lots and lots of smaller bugfixes are also made. These include
                       correction of my bad english. Many thanks to Ray Hachey and
                       David Parker for doing this. A number of fleet types (fl‘t)
                       and AI personalities (p‘rs) have also been added to add to the
                       variety of ships you may run across. This has also made it
                       easier to run into pirates and aliens. Make sure you stay
                       within Confederation space until you have a ship which is
                       capable of running away (of fighting) to make it easier to
                       stay alive. Aliens and pirates will not show up in the
                       Confederation core worlds.
 

				Of course I have probably forgotten a whole bunch of changes this wide update will introduce to
           EVGE, but you should eventually discover them... ;-)
                      
				This document only covers the second update to the EV Game Expander plugin. For more info
           about the rest of the plugin, read the ReadMe files for the original EVGE plugin and the first update.


ATTENTION: It is strongly recomended that you start with a new pilot file when
												 you play with the updated plugin. This is also true if you had a
												 previous version of EVGE installed. Due to changes made when updating
												 the plugin, and some slight reconstruction of things, this is necessary
												 if you want the plugin to work fully the way it is supposed to work.
												 You may think it is hard to start over, but due to the way EV works,
												 there is nothing else to do. To make it a bit easier for those who
             don't want to start from scratch, I have included a "new" pilot file
             (Captain Scumdog) which equips the player with a spiced up Kestrel
             to start with instead of the shuttle.

Some Sample graphics of the new ships:

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                                The Alpha Proxima Predator Battlecruiser.

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                                The Polaris Alliance Barracuda Fighter.

