Buck Rogers - Countdown to Doomsday
 

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review and Download

This was one of the first RPG's I played when I was a kid, and I loved it.
Kinda ruened fantasy RPG's for me... oh well. But I can't play it! When I create a character and try to save him it says "Failure to save 3" and kicks me to the main menu. Any ideas to fix this?

This is the thing about SSI games, they're too picky on paths when games are installed.

According to this line in the buck.cfg file;
C:\DOOMSDAY\SAVE\
And the contents of the zip file, you need to directly unzip the game to c:\

As for the game, I love it. Needler guns are the absolute best, aside from rocket launchers. :)

Also I think my favorite part would be the bit where you investigate the ship that you then end up owning.
________
Iolite Vaporizer

Or change the cfg, thats what i did and it works. Anyway, the review says that every race has its own qualities. A manual or at least a list of what every races qualities are as an extra would have been nice. At least i didn't saw any explanation when creating the characters.

I'll look for it myself but it would be better to be able to download it from here directly.

Edit:
For anyone interested, a text version of the books that came with the game can be found at Lemon Amiga

Scanned PDF - and much bigger- versions of those can be found at replacementdocs. The one with the description of the races is the ~10MB log book.

Somthing that also works with the Save error is mounting the game in dosbox to the c drive.

F.X.

Game date is installed/unpacked to D:\games\doomsday

in dosbox you then type

mount c d:\games
then
d:
then
cd doomsday
then
start
Dosbox then emulates that the game is installed to the root of the c drive
and that fixes the save game error without having to mess with CFG files.

I remember the ship to ship combat was simplistic but very fun. I really enjoyed this game and it was one of the few RPG's of this type I actually saw to completion. The skills were incredibly interesting compared to the D&D games using the same engine. :laugh:

hi can anyone explain in reallly simple terms how i can get the game to save?
i'm using win 2000 pro. i'm getting the save error 3 message.
to load the game i'm just double clicking on start.
i'm using win rar to unzip it, and it really doesn't give me the option to specify where to save the program it just unzips and i drag it to my desktop or c directory etc.

any and all help is greatly welcomed.

thanks!

First off you should really try and use the DOSBox for emulation. The game wasn't tested for 2000pro compatibility (sorry).

You might wanna try and configure the folders the game creates (but not sure if those will work in Win 2000pro).

ok now i'm really going to sound like a noob...but dosbox? i see it here and have downloaded it? anyone willing to give me a quick crash course?

Here ya go:
A beginner's guide to DOSBox

Or you can try:
DOSBox for dummies

According to statement in the reveiw as the game is the first RPG that doesnt take place in medieval or fantasy world - well, I am sure that you played 'Fallout' Sebatianos:)

Fallout was released in 1997... or did you mean Wasteland?

In almost every thread we get this type of message -to save hours of man/woman time, isn't it about time people on this site got off their DOS BOX and put in the readme about front ends like D.O.G. of Re-DFEND, etc?! We live in a click with the mouse world, not as DOS command world that DOSBox gives you. Surely clicking on a tab then clicking browse then going to the drive/folder to set the executable and setup and then clicking on another tab and browsing to the drive and then clicking on 'drv' to show it's a hard drive or 'cd' to show it's a CD drive in order to mount the necessary drive(s) is a darn sight easier for a noob then telling them to mount c c:\ then type 'cd' (for Change Directory mind you - not 'Compact Disc'!) then to mount e e:\ -t cdrom, etc etc.

It is only snobbishness that stops the FAQ on this site to include front end information rather than exclusively DOSBox information!

As I say, at least 6 messages in every single game review thread on this site is about someone saying they can't get there head around the DOSBox commands and all that's offered is 'we need more info' or 'go to the config file and do x' to which the reply is 'where is the config file? and on it goes.

So let's have some info in the FAQ about front ends, and let me read messages about the game concerned rather than 2 or 3 people trying to get a gamer up to speed on those weird, non intuitive DOS based DOSBox commands!

I use a front end, and it makes DOS gaming a pleasure rather than a technical thing.

I guess you mean the old text based game - It's Planetfall, not Fallout (Fallout is too young)... It's really dificult to say which games are RPG and which are adventures, but text based games tend to be more adventures than RPG.

and about Wasteland (the one that Horseman mentioned), it's an RPG with "modern themes" as well, but it starts off as medieval and you get into present, future... later on in the game.

im completely stuck on the second mission, the spaceship part. i have some parasites killing off my crew...i went to level 6 and found the medic room and theres a machine that says it will operate and take the parasites away and then theres three options like reprogram, talk to and shoot machine or something. no matter what i choose and who i choose to do it with, i fail and my members just start dying off. im really getting discouraged to the point ill never play it again which i dont want. any help?

The Buck Rogers games rule!! I've always loved SSI games, but yeah, Buck Rogers was something special..

Do any of your characters have the programming skill? I think that's how I passed that part, but it's been forever since I played it.

I remember I used to make my own cheats for this game. If you open your saved game in a text editor and makes changes to it and save it, all your inventory items turn purple and do completely random things. Through trial and error you can give yourself things like rocket launchers that fire 20x a turn. It's like being a mad scientist or something, I had as much fun with that as the game itself.

Just start it and type mount c {local game folder path}. You can toggle processing speed using Ctrl+F12 and Ctrl+F11. Go to your newly created C: drive and start your game. Works like a charm :)

PDF copies of this games documents are now on replacementdocs - enjoy!

This was an amazing game. I wish they'd made more sequels. SSI was the Bioware/Black Isle of the 80s and early 90s. It took the Gold Box system to a whole new level and it worked flawlessly.

I'm not into RPGs, but Buck Rogers in an exception. I haven't gotten very far into the game yet though. :)

An interesting exploit I found on this page:

save problems
 

I got the game to run, but as I make up my 1st team member, there is a save error. Anyone know how to fix that?:mhh:

Did you use DOSBox (yet another link)?

Hi,

I have some questions, if I may ask.

1. How can you win battles against heavy cruisers? It seems impossible to me.

2. What are the crucial skills for the party?

3. Which skills are to be avoided or not used in the game?

4. Are Non-Warrior specialists, except the Medic, even necessary? Since all skills(except the medical skills) can be learned as General Skills, I don't see the point of the Non-Warrior classes. I guess there is a 10 point bonus for career skills, but that doesn't look like much to me.

5. Is there any way to increase your initial attribute scores? The Log Book shows the modifiers for up to a score of 22.

6.Is it a bad idea to train my Warriors in weapons other than the Needle Gun? I've read it is by far the best weapon. I'd like to use Monoswords and Heat Guns instead.

I have played this game only on the Genesis/Mega Drive before and the DOS version differs very much.


Thank you.:hello:

Doesn't anybody know an answer to any of my questions?

Thanks.:hello:

Maybe I can help?
 

Another walkthrough for Countdown to Doomsday
 

Players of the Sega Genesis version may be familiar with the following walkthrough for this game:
http://c64.tin.at/_single_files/buck...omsday.sol.txt
Even though it's not for the PC platform (and not even for the C64, as the link would imply), it's actually not a bad walkthrough, especially for the optional missions (which tend not to get covered in other walkthroughs). The details for a lot of things won't match exactly (from what I've read & seen, the Sega Genesis version is somewhat cut down & simplified compared to the PC version), but the overall gist is still the same, and the author ("Dancin' Homer") has a good sense of humor.:3:

Whoa! I was just cleaning my boxes and was wondering where the heck are the log books! :P

Good thing I remembered abandonia! :D (As if i'd forget it! I log in every day! :P)

help
 

I'm getting the save error 3 using the DOS box whenever I try saving a character. Please help!

Either:
Open the BUCK.CFG with a text editor and change C:\DOOMSDAY\SAVE\ to C:\SAVE\


Or:
Mount your drive C one directory higher, i.e.

>mount c [path to directory DOOMSDAY]

instead of

>mount c [path to directory DOOMSDAY]\DOOMSDAY

then enter

>cd doomsday
>start


[edit]
For option two, if you are drag'n'dropping the START.EXE onto the DOSBox icon, just drag'n'drop the directory in which the directory DOOMSDAY is onto the icon instead, and then enter the commands after then enter.
[/edit]

Thanks! Option 1 using notepad worked.

Annoying Sound Effects
 

Does anyone know a way to kill the sound in this game? There doesn't appear to be a settings menu. Perhaps there is a way to turn off the volume in DosBox?

to turn sound off in dosbox type nosound=true

I seem to be stuck in this game. I'm told to investigate a Mars colony on Gradivus Mons (I think that is what it's called). How do I find it? I've been to every planet and every astroid base. Any help?

Somewhere in the North East I thought from the Desert runner village on Mars, it's not on the asteroid, it's a RAM base on Mars, Tuskon will tell you how to get there.

Thanks. I did already manage to find it after I posted earlier. The wording confused me. I thought it was a Marsian base somewhere other than Mars.

I was able to finish this game two months ago.

Excuse me, I have a question
 

I never got one thing - if the venusians are basically identical to terrans in stat bonuses and available professions, BUT in addition have a -1 penalty to charisma and dexterity, then why would anybody want to choose them as characters? I didn't find anything about it in the logbook. :what: