-Theme Hospital FAQ- (0.1) Colin Snover Thank you for downloading this FAQ. This will hopefully help you mak- e the perfect hospitals and win the game. This FAQ comes in three sections. 1. The FAQ 2. Tips 3. Codes and Cheats 1. T H E F A Q Prologue So, the last shreds of your already pathetic life are slipping away. Your diet of late has consisted of whatever non-perishables can be kept within arm's length. Your lower back is throbbing. Your mouse hand is cramped and clawlike from overuse. Your eyes, glazed and scratchy, look like a "before" picture for Visine. If all of this sounds a bit too fimiliar, stay calm. The bloody Brits from Bullfrog have made a THEME HOSPITAL addict of you. And juu- ust when there was a light at the end of the tunnel, along comes a patch that adds new features! The only possible cure? To win. Part I: Admissions When you start any new level, especially Level 6 and higher, it's very important to scan the layout of the hospital, along with the town map. On hi- gher levels, additional buildings you purchace may be connected to the main h- ospital, so it's very important not to block off future hallways with treatme- nt rooms. At more difficult levels, you should alter the game speed to Slow dur- ing the initial building phase, so that you can set up the basics of your hos- pital without the distractions of emergencies or impending epedemics. While you're building, your less-talented doctors can acquire new and better skills under the advisment of a consultant. Because doctors are on the job market for only a limited amount of ti- me, you'll want to hire all available physicians at the beginning of the game- especially surgeons, researchers, and psychiatrists- and place the ones with minimal skills in the training room. Always be on the lookout for good for good employees, especially those described as "careful and dependable in an emergency." Don't worry about having too many doctors at first; they'll be needed when you have eight different treatment clinics up and running. Hospital layout is important. On every level, it's a good idea to be- gin with at least- at LEAST- two general practitioner's (GP's) offices, since all patients must be seen there first. You'll also want to put at least one pharmacy as near as possible to the main entrance to the hospital. Many emer- gencies require immediate treatment from either the pharmacy or psychiatry, so make these rooms easily accessible, with plenty of nearby seating. Arrange your rooms so they can be handled by the fewest possible staff members. For example, one nurse can effectively manage the ward, the pharmac- y, and the fracture clinic, if these areas are grouped together. During an e- mergency, drop a doctor or nurse into the proper treatment room to save time. If they have a poor "attention to detail" rating, they will often ignore pages asking their assistance. Also, watch for occasional bugs such as people getting stuck in a doo- rway. If you suddenly don't see any of your handymen, check the various door- ways for a pile of them, and then use your pinchers to pull them out. Part II: Treatment Once the hospital is laid out according to your liking, increase the speed of the game to it's fastest setting, "and then some more." This will s- peed up the training of the junior doctors and bring more patients in the doo- r. Also, go to the research screen and increast the priority of diagnostic m- achinery, while decreasing specialization until later in the game. During emergencies, slow the game down until you see where the emerge- ncy patients need to go and to ensure that the appropriate doctors or nurses are in place. When an epidemic breaks out, vaccinate all infected patients b- efore sending them home. Not doing so will result in a very large fine. Spe- aking of cash flow, be sure to click on the statuettes that appear at times on each level- you'll see nice bonus rewards for good perfomance. Part III: Group Therapy Grab the THEME HOSPITAL patch from http://www.bullfrog.co.uk/theme_ho- spital/th-patch.zip. This not only treats some of the game's minor bugs, but also adds three diffuculty levels and a multi-player mode that supports seria- l, modem, and IPX network connections. Multiplayer pits you against up to th- ree human hospital managers in a battle for patents, reputation and cash. Ga- meplay is essentially the same, with the added elements of bidding for expans- ion buildings, recruting other gamers' staff, and planting nasty litter bombs in your opponents' hospitals. Here are some tips for getting ahead of your opponents in multiplayer mode. Before doing anything else, view the doctors available for hire. Your opponents will be hiring from the same pool, so you should ideally hire all of the good ones for yourself and leave the dregs. If they get the good staffer- s, wait until the game gets rolling, then liberally poach your opponents' sta- ff. If you click on a doctor who's unhappy, he'll make an outrageous pay dem- and of his current employer. If it's not met, he'll come work for you. Eith- er you end up with a new staff member or you opponent ends up with higher cos- ts. A win-win situation. But pay close attention to your own staff's satasf- action level or you may find this tactic being used against you. When placing litter bombs, look for a narrow, horizontal hallway. Bo- mbs are hardest to see here and are more likely to go off before your opponent can find them, because there's no option to peek through obstructing walls. Hold bombs in your hospital for as long as possible, then drop them off, givi- ng your opponent less time to discover them and drop them back into your hosp- ital. ¯ 2. H i n t s MORALE BOOSTERS... In diagnostic rooms, wards, and facilities you can add plants, fire extinguishers, and extra furnitur- e to increase the morale of the staff and the over- all value of the hospital. Don't bother making tr- eatment clinics too elaborate- little time is spent here. ON THE LEVEL... If there's a level that you just can't get past, you can use a command-line switch to force THEME HOSPITAL to go directly to a certian level. If you're running the MS-DOS version, simply start the program using HO- SPITAL -Lx, where X is the number of the level that y- ou wish to start. This procedure also works in the Windows 95 version, but it's a bit more complicated, as you have to modify the command contained in the program's icon. First, click the right mouse button on Windows 95's Start bu- tton, and choose Explore. Work your way down the dir- ectory until you find the THEME HOSPITAL icon (by def- ault it will be in C:\Program Files\Bullfrog\Hospita- l\). Now right-click on the icon and choose Copy. R- ight-click again and choose Paste. Right-click on the new copy of the icon and choose Pr- operties, then click the Shortcut tab. At the end of the Target line (which should read something along the lines of "C:\Program Files\Bullfrog\Hospital\Hospita- l.EXE"), add a space and then -Lx, where X is the lev- el number you want to play. (Note that the portion y- you add should be outside the quotation marks.) Now you can just double-click that icon to go directly to the chosen level. To alter the level, simply repe- at the procedure above, changine the level number aft- er the L. Or, make multiple copies of the icon and s- et a different level for each one. BLOWUPS HAPPEN... In later levels, equipment explosions can destroy m- achinery and render rooms useless for the rest of t- he level. Be sure to have plenty handymen with mac- hine repair as their priority. ¯ 3. C o d e s a n d C h e a t s This area will (hopefully) be updated in future editions of this FAQ. If you're suffering from an epedemic of losses, you can always cheat. To enable the cheat mode, you must enter a code into the fax that appears eve- ry once in a while. (If your starting, just build a reception desk w/ a rece- ptionist and a general practitoner's office, and when the hospital opens, you will be notified of the first person entering via the fax.) When the machine appears, enter 24328 on the fax machine keypad and click on the Send (large g- reen) button. Then, by pressing Shift+C you get 10,000 smackers, Ctrl+C will complete all of the research, Ctrl+M will go to the end of the month, and Ctr- l+Y will complete the year. After that, you DO need to respond to the fax no- rmally. Also, if you enter the number 7287 on the keyboard, and then press t- he Send button, you will go to a rat-shooting level, after you win the current level. ® This FAQ is (c) 1997 Eon Entertainment. All rights reserved. May be freely distributed until text has been changed in any way unless permission from C. Snover at Teevee20@aol.com.