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@node "tech_changes"
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NEW_mandate eliminates the irritating 'spot checks' that occasionally
occurred when entering a starport, and which are part of the original
'copyright protection' of the game.  I decided that these interfere too
much with the gameplay, so they are now *gone*.


NEW_mandate abolishes the bug that has always afflicted class 7 and 8 drives
causing the internal tank to destroy its contents when attempting to refuel
a tank that is already full.  The fix now causes such an attempt to have the
same result as for other drives, destroying only the unit of fuel that there
was not room for in the tank, which thus remains full. The same also applies
to the new and more powerful drive types, as these all behave like class 8
drives as far as the internal tank is concerned, which means that their max
internal tank capacity is eight fuel units.  Note also that the 'Class 8'
drive description has been changed to 'Class 9' since that matches the range
of the drive, which is more important than its internal tank capacity.
(The last is actually controlled by "NEW_drive_fix", not by "NEW_mandate")


NEW_mandate abolishes a bug in the handling of Bulletin Board menus.
These menus have a special way of 'remembering' the scroll position, so you
can visit other menus without losing your position in the Bulletin board.
This is a very nice feature, which significantly eases the gameplay, but it
had one bug.

If you left a starport without scrolling the Bulletin Board back to the top,
then the Bulletin Board of the next starport visited could malfunction, if it
had too few ads to include the scroll position you were using in the earlier
starport.  This caused serious interference with the gameplay, as the only
way to see the ads would then be to spend time 'overnighting' in the port,
as the 'berthing charge' code would then reset the scroll position.

This has been fixed now so that the scroll position will be reset whenever
a Bulletin Board menu is entered that contains too few ads to include the
last used scroll position. Thus, you should not suffer this problem anymore.
This is done two ways, as I also added clearing of the variable at docking
or landing, to completely eliminate any remainder of this bug.


NEW_conbin_fix_1 and NEW_conbin_fix_2 correct a bug dealing with systems
having 'Contact Binary' stars.  Unfortunately other bugs still remain for
this star type, so trips to 'Beta Lyrae' still may not work properly.
(Work on that problem is in progress...)


NEW_dispute implements a new allegiance type, for 'Disputed Systems'. These
systems now become a mixture of all three older allegiance types, so that
ships of most kinds are available freely mixed here, and both the Federal
and the Imperial military forces can recruit agents here.  For other things
disputed systems remain 'independent, and that is still their 'official'
allegiance.  The availablity of 'mixed allegiance' ships for sale is also
dependent on 'NEW_make_ship', as this handles all ship availability stuff.
You can read more about the new political state of Frontier in the section
dealing with new @{"disputes" LINK "story_dispute"}.


NEW_drive_def defines two new engine types, not available in shipyards,
but only through 2 new Bulletin Board ads defined by NEW_build_BB, though
it also needs some subroutines of NEW_mandate and NEW_gen_sys_hist.
Additionally, some changes in NEW_hype_calc are needed to make these new
engines work correctly.  The drives are described in a separate document
section on these new @{"drivetypes" LINK "story_newdrives"}.


"NEW_make_ship" and "NEW_ship_data" make some new ship types available for
purchase, but only in Imperial starports as other regimes consider them to
be reserved for use by the armed forces and government trade monopolies.
The empire is 100% capitalistic, however, so anything is for sale there...
The new shiptypes are described in the document section on new @{"shiptypes" LINK "story_newships"}.


Additionally, "NEW_ship_data" fixes the design error of the Boa Freighter,
which caused the bottom gun turret to shoot into the hull of the ship, no
matter which firing angle was used.  It is believed that the original ship
designers missed this error, because the problem did not appear when a gun
in that turret was freshly installed.  It was only after the ship had made
a hyperspace trip that the problem would cause the gun to fire into the ship
when next it was fired.

NB:  This has nothing to do with the ability of a turret gun to hit the own
     ship when actually aimed at, or extremely near, a part of its hull or
     its external equipment.  That ability remains, and for a Boa Freighter
     the 'dangerous' area is when the turret is aimed aft at a declination
     in the range 0 through -10 degrees (approximately).  The ship contour
     ensures that no danger exists when aiming forward, nor when using the
     top turret (which has not been redesigned at all).


Additionally "NEW_ship_data" fixes an error in the 'rating' of ships for
evaluation by the 'ELITE federation' in crediting a commander with 'kills'
giving proper attention to how dangerous the killed opponent was. The code
for this shows exactly how it was intended to work, but some erroneous data
constants made it inoperative, causing (for example) a 'Cobra MkIII' to be
far less 'valuable' than a an 'Interplanetary Shuttle', even though the
latter is completely harmless...  Also, even disregarding those errors,
the heavy battleships were still only rated the same as the smallest of the
fighters, so that no extra advancement occurred fighting strong opponents.

This has been fixed, such that all small fighters have the same rating as
before, while heavier craft have increasing ratings, with the maximum for
a 'Long Range Cruiser' (the strongest ship existing) of 32 times the
minimal value.  Note that while the stationary LRC ships do not normally
attack the player, any attack upon them will release hordes of police in
Viper craft, determined to 'wipe out' the player.  Thus the high 'danger'
rating remains well motivated, even when the LRC itself does not shoot.


NEW_make_ship also modifies the types of ships you are likely to meet in all
kinds of situations (pirates, base defenders, traders, etc).  In general the
changes mean that the average ships you will meet are much heavier than in
the older FRONTIER releases, although all the lighter ships still remain.
The most important consequence of this is that you must expect attacks by the
pirates in much heavier ships than before, and that ships which previously
attacked as 'loners' now may attack in groups.  This is to be regarded as a
secondary effect of the general escalation of all conflicts in the game.


"NEW_crew_rules" applies several changes to the rules for crew interactions.
This affects the both what crew you need, and how to hire them...  You can
read more on this in the section on the @{"IGTU" LINK "story_IGTU"} (Intra-Galactic Trade Union).

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@endnode "tech_changes"
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