Silent Storm

Silent Storm/Sentinels is a great game. I haven't played it for quite some time, but it still resides in a cozy little corner of my hard drive somewhere just waiting for me to revisit.

Sorry I can't answer your question but I do agree that an XCOM/UFO: Enemy Unknown revival would look very good using the same engine.

The version of it that I played was so buggy as to make the game almost unplayable. But it was too bad because there was clearly an extremely solid game behind all the horrible bugs. Always meant to try out a later version of it.

Wow, crazy you should mention S2. I just reinstalled it on Monday, and had run into the same problem.

As to your question: It is possible to get around the problem without fussing with memory every time. You will need the 1.2 patch, a hex editor, a program to verify md5sums, and a specific cracked exe. I cannot tell you where to find any cracks, and I dont condone their use. However, JoWood has not offered any support for this issue since it came to light years ago, and I dont know of any other permanent solution.

First: Patch the game using the retail to 1.2 UK patch.

Second: Find the crack. It has an md5sum of 3da8d20d30f99ee441af14730d5158e8. You need to use that exact crack. Replace the .exe with the cracked copy.

Third: Using a hex editor, locate this offset in the cracked .exe:

00009BA0   1C C4 3C 00  83 C4 04 E9  01 0D 00 00  3B C7 74 2E

Change that 74 to EB, and save. The file should now have an md5sum of 78e7523ee377815f0454071993a7a594.

Fourth: Play!

The game will no longer have any issues with larger amounts of RAM. I would also suggest saving that .exe if you uninstall the game. You might need it again in 5 years

I have bought and played all their games in this vein (including Night Watch). Does anyone know if they will be releasing any more games with this engine, whether in this series or another? (Aside from HOMM 5, which allegedly uses the same engine, but obviously in a different way.) This has got to be my favorite turn-based tactical engine of them all - and I'm open to hearing about decent substitutes.

There are a few rumors, but little else. I do believe, though, that I read the Jagged Alliance 2 remake was using an updated form of the engine. JA2:R, though, is going to use a puasable real time mechanic, rather than straight turn-based. Think along the lines of UFO:A series, or even the BG, Icewind Dale, and NVNs games.

Somewhat off topic, but this game is off my radar - and hearing that boast, now I'm interested. 

What's so great and is there anywhere I can get this digitally?  Checked steam and impulse - nothing there.  Saw it on amazon for $99.99 (eg HELL NO). 

$99.99?? Yikes. Check other amazon sites, the UK one lists it for 7£.

This is one of those golden oldies. I've picked it up occassionally, and it stands the test of time. Last a year ago, roughly; played it for a few weeks straight.

Basically, it has everything you want from such a game, and in my opinion, it is superior to JA2+, but don't quote me on that.

Decent graphics, for the age.
Stealth.
Machineguns.
WW2 setting... with sci-fi.
Can play an axis or allied team.
Destructible terrain - in a meaningful way. You can blow out a wall with explosives and enter/exit through that.
Mines, traps, ambushes.
Plenty of memorable individual characters with their own voices and quotes.
Lots of missions and also random encounters.
Special abilities per class, much like how Diablo 2 skills work. (Not so spectacular, of course, more along the lines of 'hearing better' than 'summon skeleton'.).
Create your own hero. (The boss). Choose name, looks, gender, nationality, voice, class.).
Aim at specific body parts.
Critical hits and effects (deaf, bleeding, etc.).

It is not without its flaws, in particular, there is one weirdness - while skills increase based on what you do, they increase faster for those NOT in the team (resting in the base) than the ones on combat missions, and it gets kind of strange to do things just to increase the skills. (Run laps around the entire map, shoot at walls, etc.); also, engineering is very difficult to raise. There's mods out there that fix this, though; while I can't dig them up right here and now you should be able to.

Why not try to get support for a Vista/Win7 compatible release on GoG.com?

Best regards,
Steven. 

What's frustrating is that it is impossible to apply the aformentioned hex data fix to Sentinels.

ty Khardis. 

Ok I have the game running now thanks to Louist.

Anyone know how to change the resolution so I can run widescreen 1920 x 1080. I looked at the .cfg file and looked for .ini settings.

Any help would be great. I found it under a folder called cfg

go to you installation directory.

mine is e:\Games\SilentStorm\cfg\

there you should see : autoexec.cfg

                                 config.cfg

                                 input.cfg

along with 3 other files but you don't need to modify anything except config.cfg

find setvar gfx_resolution and change it to your monitors native width. I set mine to 1920. It has worked so far but I haven't played through any missions yet. Didn't really help. As far as I can tell 1400 x 1050 is as high as this game allows. Sentinels on the other hand does go higher.

Also if you go into the games install directory there are files there that you can install that allow you to change certain areas of the game. Improved backstab, headshots should kill, and always critical.

It adds to the gameplay in different ways but I like head shots should kill.

I've sadly never played Sentinels, so I hadn't even considered that. Actually, I'm a little surprised the expansion didn't have a fix for the issue. But then, JoWood doesn't have a great track record of fixes and support. Or at least not for any of their game's I've bought.

I don't know, but I'll have a look.

Funny you didn't get that karma I sent your way Louist.

Thanks any more help would be great.

Just started a new game with a german scout. so far have done 3 missions just using the scout. Will get the mod to remove the panzerkleins and see if I can complete it.

So far alot of fun but it may become impossible.

There is a mod to remove the Panzerkleins? That may just be the most wonderful news I have heard in... well, a while, anyway. Hugs for you, DariasDruss.

Hey, how did increasing your screen res go? I haven't had time to look into it. I did spend some time playing, though. Still a fine game, though I've noticed some quirks. Lockpicks are far too rare, the bench-warmers gaining skill points at almost double the rate of my main soldiers..

Ah well, still good!

I tried changing the resolution through the .cfg file but as far as I could tell it just stayed at the 1400 x 1050 res. No difference I could tell.

I will look for the way to remove the pazerkleins. I played it once before like that was alot better.

Ok here you go.

A mod and a link to a mod tool for adding and removing mods like the no panzerklein mod.

It is a list of S2 mods. Very very few.

http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?cid=33

Danke.

http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/Silent-Storm-f34.html

A good forum for Silent Storm

Since this is some trouble shoothing section for Silent Storm (which I re-installed last week)  Here's my beef:

I installed the game, started an Allies campaign.  I did 2-3 missions wiht 2-3 random encounters, saved and quited the game.

Come next day, I start up the game, and notice that my saved game is no longer there.  Even the autosave enter/exit missions are outta whack, being the autosave from my first game, in which I did nothing but the first intro mission and somewhat started a crew before restarting (Had a soldier, made an engineer the seocnd time around)

Anyone have an idea/solution what can be done with that?

Side note: Gator FTW!

Check your folder called save in you install folder.

Sometimes it makes a different folder for saves. You can take the files and transfer them to the default folder under save.

SilentStorm/save/default

Thanks Druss.  I,ll try it tonight or tommorrow night (as tonight is Star wars D6 night bwahahaha)

Another possibility, though kind of an oddball longshot: I've noticed with at least one game that Windows 7 will change the game save directory based on whether or not the game is run in Admistrator mode, placing the files in your documents folder. If the game doesn't know to check there, it doesn't see the files...

I've noticed this with the older title Realms of Arkania 2. When I run the game as an administrator, the savegames are placed in Documents/My Games/Realms of Arkania/somesuch. (Or there abouts) But when I run without Administrator privileges, the savegames end up in the Program Files(x86)/GOG/Whatever... folder....

So.. yeah. Odd issue. Maybe that's what your seeing, or maybe It has something to do with DosBox, or GOG, or just RoA2... Who knows.