Hi,

I'm still making the new version. But here is a glance at what the new
plaintext version will look like, semiauto converted with Lynx. I don't
know if I can eliminate those [] from the links.


alt.games.vga-planets FAQ

[1]http://www.akseli.net/~akseli/vgap/alt.games.vga-planets.html
(HTML)
[2]http://www.akseli.net/~akseli/vgap/alt.games.vga-planets.faq (text)

0 Preface

0.1 What is this document anyway?

This is the FAQ for alt.games.vga-planets. It's nowadays compiled,
edited, and partly written by [3]Akseli Mäki, with assistance from:

New FAQ:
Stefan Reuther, Andreas Huettner, Lucas Di Pentima, Matthias
Degenhardt, Thomas Klebes

Old FAQ:
Athman Boukhaoua, Ludger Buenger, Jeff Bolden, Kevin Chorzelewski,
Chris Croughton, Lord DarkDruid, ^Hawk^, David Knudsen, Daz Gedye, The
GateKeeper, Hinnerk, Jurjen Niezink, Jesper Nielsen, Sean Kimball,
Kenneth & Albena Melin, BANE, Mark Wilmot, Pim Tijmensen, Rob Bos,
Quaz, Strooper, Tony Evans, Stephen Simms.

The FAQ has at various times been in the keeping of Roger Burton West
(who started it in 1992), Gary Grothman, Gordy Pine and Mark Wilmot.

The HTLM version of the FAQ is made by Andreas Huettner.

0.2 Where should I send comments, corrections and additions?

Please send these to [4]vgap@akseli.net. Be as verbose as you can :)
This FAQ can only be improved through commets of others. It would
really be nice if other people would like to write some sections to
this FAQ too, as I don't have time to write everything I can come up
with.

0.3 Latest changes

Only URL fixes.

0.4 What's in this document?

Table of contents

0 Preface

[5]0.1 What is this document anyway?

[6]0.2 Where should I send comments, corrections and additions?

[7]0.3 Latest changes

[8]0.4 What's in this document?

1 What is VGA Planets?

[9]1.1 Introduction

[10]1.2 Other similar games

2 How can I discuss Planets on the Internet?

[11]2.1 Where?

[12]2.1.1 Newsgroups

[13]2.1.2 VGA Planets on IRC

[14]2.1.3 Mailing lists

[15]2.2 Useful topics

[16]2.3 Problem topics

3 How can I get started?

[17]3.1 Where should I download?

[18]3.2 What should I download?

+ [19]3.2.1 Client
+ [20]3.2.2 Host
+ [21]3.2.3 Computer player

[22]3.3 How can I run my first game?

4 How can I play against other people?

[23]4.1 How should I find a game?

[24]4.2 What sorts of host exist?

[25]4.3 How about technical issues?

[26]4.4 I'm getting hammered! Should I drop out?

5 What's this "Registration" thing?

[27]5.1 Why should I bother?

[28]5.2 OK, how do I do it?

[29]5.3 Can I share a registration code with a friend?

+ [30]5.3.1 What if I want to play two races in the same game?

[31]5.4 Should I register for DOS or Windows?

6 How about hosting my own game?

[32]6.1 Why shouldn't I do it?

[33]6.2 Why should I do it?

[34]6.3 How do I go about finding players?

+ [35]6.3.1 How should I specify skill levels?

[36]6.4 How about writing a new autohost?

7 What are extension programs?

[37]7.1 EchoView

[38]7.2 RandMax and RandGen

[39]7.3 Tanascius tool

[40]7.5 Battle Simulators& Viewers

+ [41]7.5.1 CCBSim
+ [42]7.5.2 BSim
+ [43]7.5.3 Tanascius Tool's simulator
+ [44]7.5.4 VPA's simulator
+ [45]7.5.5 PCC's simulator
+ [46]7.5.6 EV's simulator
+ [47]7.5.7 KFView
+ [48]7.5.8 PVCR
+ [49]7.5.9 PlayVCR

[50]7.6 Obsolute programs

+ [51]7.6.1 Interceptor
+ [52]7.6.2 VPUtil

[53]7.7 VPMagic

[54]7.8 SendTRN Pro

[55]8 Alternative host program PHost

9 What are add-on programs?

[56]9.1 Wormholes

[57]9.2 Exploremap

[58]9.3 Wrap/Sphere

[59]9.4 FHost

[60]9.5 The Killing Floor

[61]9.6 The Dan&Dave add-ons

[62]9.7 RAW!

[63]9.8 Atomic Host

[64]9.9 Jupiter

[65]9.10 Tactical VCR

10 What are computer players?

[66]10.1 SpaceLord

[67]10.2 The Q

[68]10.3 Admiral

[69]10.4 Dominate

[70]10.5 CPlayer

[71]10.6 VPC_Play

[72]10.7 ACP/Omega

[73]10.8 Kattivik

[74]10.9 DPlayer

11 What are alternate data files?

[75]11.1 How should I use them?

+ [76]11.1.1 Dos Planets
+ [77]11.1.2 WinPlan
+ [78]11.1.3 Other clients

[79]11.2 Maps (altmaps)

[80]11.3 Ship and weapon lists (altlists)

+ [81]11.3.1 PLIST / PLIST2
+ [82]11.3.2 TLIST

12 What are some basic tactics?

[83]12.1 General

[84]12.2 How should I play race X?

[85]12.3 How should I fight against race X?

13 But what does (X) mean?

[86]13.1 Glossary

[87]13.2 Ship abbreviations and nicknames

[88]13.3 What about hosting order?

[89]13.4 What can zero-fuel ships do?

[90]13.5 How does FCode battle order work?

[91]13.6 My fighter (or fuel dump) just exploded! Plague hit my
planets!

[92]13.7 How fast can a damaged ship go?

[93]13.8 What about Borg and the starbase native tech bonus?

[94]13.9 What are the overall proportions of minerals in the game?

[95]13.10 How do tow conflicts work?

[96]13.11 Race Names

[97]13.12 How can I find out more about obscure Host features?

14 What about writing my own add-ons?

[98]14.1 Kero van Gelder's page

[99]14.2 The PHost PDK

[100]14.3 Planets Toolkit

[101]14.4 The Planets Programming Webring

15 Different VGA Planets Clients

[102]15.2 VPA

[103]15.3 JVC

[104]15.4 JVPC

[105]15.5 VGA-Planets 68k

[106]15.6 GWP

[107]15.7 DOS Planets

[108]15.8 Winplan

[109]15.9 PCC

[110]15.10 VPA

[111]16 Final notes

1 What is VGA Planets?

1.1 Introduction

VGA Planets is a graphical, multi-player, play by computer, space war
game. This game simulates combat in space between galactic scale
empires. The game emphasises colonisation of space and the development
of the planets that you will find, colonise and/or conquer. How well
you develop these resources will determine what kind of starships
(freighters and warships) you will be able to produce and how well you
will be able to defend your space and attack your neighbours.

This game is designed to be a strategic and tactical game of warfare,
but you will also need to be able to build an economy and service your
empire. With a well developed strong economic base you will have a
greater potential for winning the game. As the leader of your empire
you are responsible for all of the decisions that effect your growth
and production (excluding, of course, being attacked by your
neighbour). You will decide how to best develop your planets with the
resources available to you. You will decide what type of starship(s)
to be built at your starbase(s). You are the mastermind behind your
race and you are in a race to see which empire can first conquer the
universe.

VGA Planets is designed to be able to handle from two to eleven
players in a play by mail (electronic mail) game format. The game is
designed to be played as a Net or Bulletin Board System (BBS) game (as
long as file transfers are permitted and available), although it can
be played solely on one computer. Many of the Net players are playing
using E-mail. You can also play (more slowly) by sending discs through
the post, exchanging them by hand, or even switching seats on a single
computer.

VGA Planets was written by Tim Wisseman. The official VGA Planets 3
WWW site is [112]http://www.vgaplanets.com/index.htm

1.2 Other similar games

Since VGA Planets became successful, it has spawned a great many
imitators, including Stars!, XPace, Kozaar, Probe 42, and a host of
others. The alt.games.vga-planets newsgroup is not the place to talk
about them. You might want to try:

comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.misc

comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic

rec.games.computer.stars

rec.games.pbm

Then there are games similiar to VGA Planets, such as Reach for the
Stars, Galaxy, Master of Orion and Space Empires.

alt.games.vga-planets is intended for discussion of VGA Planets
version 3.

It should be mentioned, that nowadays Tim is working on VGAP 4. It is
fundamentally the same game, just a lot more complex. Some people who
used to play version 3 have tried and switched on to version 4. It
really is an entire new game, no matter how good you are in version 3,
you are a newbie in version 4. VGAP 4 has it's own newsgroup,
alt.games.vgaplanets4.

2 How can I discuss Planets on the Internet?

2.1 Where?

The three main ways of discussion of VGA Planets on the Internet are
this newsgroup, alt.games.vga-planets, and the #vgaplanets IRC channel
on EFNet. Then there are several mailing lists available too.

2.1.1 Newsgroups

The main one is called alt.games.vga-planets. That should be
sufficient information for you to subscribe to it. Pretty much any
decent ISP has it on their newsserver. If your ISP doesn't have one,
there is one well mainteded free newsserver at
[113]http://News.Individual.NET. Or there is Google Groups, a WWW
newsgroup archive at [114]http://groups.google.com. You can find old
postings from there.

There are few other VGAP newsgroups too:

fido7.vga.planets (Russian)

maus.spiele.planets (German)

2.1.2 VGA Planets on IRC

The most popular IRC channel for discussing VGA Planets is #vgaplanets
on EFNet; There are other VGAP channels on other IRC networks. I have
seen them, but they don't seem to be active. So pretty much the only
VGA Planets IRC challel is on EFNet. There are usually 10 to 20 people
there. For more info look at pages
[115]http://www2.rosenet.ne.jp/~ryo123/vgap/irc/irctext.htm and
[116]http://tinyurl.com/2x4wq (link to Google Groups)

2.1.3 Mailing lists

VGA Planets - A list for VGA Planets players and hosts in English:
[117]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vgaplanets2/

VGA Planets Hosting, a list for hosts in English:
[118]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vgaplanetshosting/

German: [119]http://www.stcplay.de/mailman/listinfo/vplmailing

PHost developers list English:
[120]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phostdev/

Spanish: [121]http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/vgaplanets/

VPA mailing lists(I'm unsure about if it works or not. Someone who
knows could tell me..)
[122]http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=45201.

A similiar list for PCC is at
[123]http://www.coollist.com/group.cgi?l=pcc-users

There is a mailing list for Autotroll hosts. To subscribe send email
to [124]imailsrc@thelastdomain.com. Leave the subject as blank, and on
the body write "Subscribe ATUserList yourfirstname yourlastname",
without the quotes. Note, I'm not sure if this mailing list exists
anymore.

2.2 Useful topics

Advertisements for games. Don't bother to post to the newsgroup saying
"I want to play" - most hosts don't have time to check every post to
see if it matches what they want. Read the "players wanted" and apply
for a game that interests you. (On the other hand, EFNet#vgaplanets
almost always has some host on, or someone who'll recommend a host to
a newbie, and help him through whatever sign-up procedure (if any) the
host might have.). There is also a well maintained webring of hosts,
see [125]http://www.webring.com/hub?ring=vgaplanetshosts&id=9&hub

Discussions of tactics, unusual host features, and so on.

Announcements of new add-ons. Note you should never post binary files
to this newsgroup - no matter how important you think they are!
Remember that some people have to pay for their news feeds, and most
newsservers drop all messages with attachments anyway. Binary files
(if it's not readable in plain text, it's a binary) should go to your
own web site. If your ISP doesn't offer you any webspace, contact me,
I will probably offer you some webspace for VGA Planets related
material.

(Since the overwhelming majority of people on the newsgroups use plain
text they would appreciate you posting in plain text, not HTML -
particularly since HTML takes up more space, and therefore takes
longer and costs more to download. Plus many newsreaders don't support
HTML articles. If you use Outlook Experss or another package that
allows posting in HTML by default, please go to options and set
messages as plain text.)

2.3 Problem topics

Some topics come up with great regularity on the newsgroup. You would
be well-advised to stay out of such discussion - most of the people
involved aren't going to change their views anyway. :)
Some of these are:

PHost is terrible / PHost is wonderful

Where can I find a cheat program?

Tim is a bad programmer / No he isn't

VPA is great / VPA is terrible and shouldn't be allowed

WinPlan is the future of Planets / VPA is better but should be
allowed WinPlan features

I want the registration code for Planets without paying Tim

VGAP 4 shouldn't be just for Windows 32-bit / Tough luck, it's going
to be

You should use your real email address in newsgroups / No it only
gets you lots of spam

3 How can I get started?

You'll need a computer or something that works like one. :)

If you have a Mac or a Unix machine, you are not lost like in the
past. There is a native Unix client called xk. There are two
functional Java clients. See clients section for more info about
alternative programs to play with. There is also a Atari client.

3.1 Where should I download?

Via the web: the Planets home page is at
[126]http://www.vgaplanets.com

There's also:
Via FTP: the Planets home archive is at [127]ftp://ftp.vgaplanets.com
There is also the original main Planets archive at
[128]ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/pc/msdos/games/vgaplanets/ but, alas,
this appears not to have been actively maintained since mid-1997. In
general, though, where a link is not given, this is a good archive in
which to look.
Many modern as well as old files can be found from my own file
archive, available both in FTP as well as HTTP. Currently there are
about total of 250 MBs, over 80 directories, in 650 files. See
http://www.akseli.net/~akseli/vgap/file_archive.html (Who's computer is this?) or
ftp://ftp.akseli.net (Who's computer is this?) (anonymous login, please *use your* email address
as password!). The WWW page contains links to other file archives as
well.

3.2 What should I download?

You will need a client program (Planets 3.0 or WinPlan 3.5) and a host
program; I also recommend that you obtain a computer player, for
practice games.

3.2.1 Client

For DOS get [129]ftp://ftp.vgaplanets.com/version3/
For Windows get [130]ftp://ftp.vgaplanets.com/share/ or
[131]ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/pc/msdos/games/vgaplanets/Shareware/Wi
ndows/

If you find the interface on the standard clients unpleasant to use,
don't despair; There are several third-party clients to use. See
clients section.

3.2.2 Host

You will get a version of Host with these downloads - but it's not the
latest, which most people prefer to use. At the time of writing, the
latest official host was Host 3.22.046, which can be found at
[132]ftp://ftp.vgaplanets.com/host32/hst32246.zip

Also there is host 3.22.047, which is unofficial. It adds a Loki and
glory device check after auxbc phase. Some hosts use it. It can be
found from [133]http://www.vvh.kiev.ua/files/host3/hst32247.zip

You'll also need the updated host utilities, which are at
[134]ftp://ftp.vgaplanets.com/host32/hstsup32.zip

Just copy these over the programs you installed from the original
download.

3.2.3 Computer players

There are many computer players around; the recommended one to start
with is Spacelord. It can be downloaded from
[135]http://www.vvh.kiev.ua/files/c_play/spl_v307.zip

(See the CPlayers section for more information.)

3.3 How can I run my first game?

So, you've got all these downloads unpacked. What next? Read the
documentation, and then try playing a test game against the computer.
For a full set of batch files to do this in either DOS or Windows,
take a look at:
[136]http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arena/2626/new-play.htm

4 How can I play against other people?

The best way to learn about Planets is to play. Try a couple of solo
games against computer opponents first - then dive in to the real
thing!

4.1 How should I find a game?

At some point in your VGA Planets experience, you'll want to join a
game with other human players. You can play with a few people who live
in your neighbourhood (or workplace) for a while, but you'll find that
nothing can beat the thrill of testing your skill against others, who
have their own tactics and strategies.

In order to do this, you can either join a game that a hosting site is
offering, or you can start your own game on the Internet. Joining a
game is far easier than starting your own, and is the recommended
choice, specially for new players.

There are several ways to find games looking for players. The most
obvious is on the alt.games.vga-planets newsgroup: just look for
"players wanted". It might be as well to avoid "replacement" positions
- taking over for another player who's dropped out - as beginners
usually find these positions to be difficult to play; they do make
excellent practice after you've played a few games, however.

Another way to find a game is via the web. There are several lists of
players looking for games, and games looking for players; however,
these are very often out of date. Better is to look for hosting sites,
including the autohosts noted below.

An excellent source of games is an autohost system. There is Robo
which is a pay-to-play host. Then there is NAVGAP which is free. There
is also Spaceport Andromeda which has a tournament games and few
others. There are two public autohosts around too, AutoTroll
[137]http://autotroll.sourceforge.net/ and PHCc
[138]http://www.planetmaster.de/cci.htm. Most hosts are running either
of these software, but some have written their own. In basic usage
they usually function the same, differences come with advanced
functions like sending your RST to your ally.

Robo: [139]http://www.robomaster.com/

NAVGAP: [140]http://www.home.aone.net.au/neilgrigg/navgap.html

Spaceport Andromeda: [141]http://www.spaceportandromeda.com/

Planetsserver [142]http://www.planetsserver.com/

Gishost Düsseldorf (German)[143]http://www.gishost.de/

PBEMZone (German) [144]http://www.pbemzone.de/

EchoCluster [145]http://www.echocluster.com/

RCWorld [146]http://www.rcworld.de/

The Last Domain [147]http://www.thelastdomain.com/vgap/host/

To find PHCc hosts go to [148]http://www.planetmaster.de/pmkph.htm. To
find AutoTroll hosts go to
[149]http://www.webring.com/hub?ring=autotrollhosts. To find generic
hosts use [150]http://www.webring.com/hub?ring=vgaplanetshosts.

4.2 What sorts of hosts exist?

There are a great many VGA Planets hosting sites (commonly called
hosts) on the Internet, but you'll notice that they can all be grouped
into two different categories: Manual Hosts and Automated Hosts.

Manual Host operators are people who have taken the straightforward
route to hosting - they use their E-Mail program to send and receive
turns, and they copy any turns that they receive into their
appropriate directories by hand. Hosting is done either through a
batch file or by running the HOST.EXE itself. These hosts dedicate
their free time to the work involved in running their hosting site.

Automated Host operators, on the other hand, have an automatic host
system to make hosting less work. The degree of automation varies on
every such host, from the host who has batch files written up to
automatically copy turns from the mail directory to his game
directory, to the host who's written an entire computer program to do
his work for him.

(Ironically, both types of hosts usually end up spending as much time
with their hosting sites - only their focus is different).

If you are new to VGA Planets (or are new to E-Mail), you should
either:
1. Join a game being run by a manual host, or
2. Sign up with an automated host that requires you to play a sample
turn.

This will make sure that you know how the host wants TRN files sent to
it before you join a "real" game (with deadlines).

Generally, you'll find that automated hosts are more reliable and
punctual, while manual hosts are more forgiving of mistakes. All
players are advised to try different hosts, and find out for
themselves which mothod of hosting they like best.

The easiest way to find a host site is to visit just about any VGA
Planets web page. Nearly all of them have a list of links, and there
will almost always be a number of hosts on them.

4.3 How about technical issues?

To play a game over the Net, you need a desent email program which
sends normal email attachments.

The compression standard seems to be Zip (or PKZip, or WinZip -
they're all compatible). Most hosts send RST files compressed; TRN
files are sent to the host uncompressed. I know of no host that wants
his TRN files compressed.

Info-Zip: freeware command-line (de)compressor
[151]http://www.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/

WinRar: shareware Windows (de)compressor
[152]http://www.rarsoft.com/ (my favourite)

Winzip: shareware Windows (de)compressor
[153]http://www.winzip.com

PKWare: shareware command-line & Windows (de)compressor
[154]http://www.pkware.com

4.4 I'm getting hammered! Should I drop out?

At some point during your games, you'll find yourself in an apparently
hopeless position and be tempted to drop out. Think carefully before
you do:

It forces the host to try to find a replacement player.

It makes you look like a bad loser.

And playing on to the bitter end can be fun. Instead of building
mega-ships and crushing all before you, try to slow down the enemy
advance; make an alliance with someone else and pick at him in a
coordinated way. Try weird strategies: you've got nothing to lose.
You'll learn more about Planets this way than by playing winning games
in the same way every time.

5 What's this "Registration" thing?

VGA Planets is a shareware game. If you like it, you are encouraged to
register.

5.1 Why should I bother?

There are as many reasons to register as there are people who play VGA
Planets, but one of the primary reasons is that of replayability, and
plain old value for your buck (preemptive apology to those who don't
use the 'dollar' as their unit of currency). Many 'flash in the pan'
cinematic production games, like those that are released in droves
around Christmas every year, on CDs with fantastic graphics, great
sound, and requiring computers that 50 years ago could have been used
to run NASA with enough CPU capacity left over to run a small third
world country, simply cannot compare to VGA Planets in one field:
replayability.

How long is it, realistically, before many people simply get tired of
playing the same scenario again and again, against the computer over
and over? With VGA Planets, you play against real people, in scenarios
that are constantly changing, people who are constantly getting better
at their game, tactics and strategies that will be totally different
in every game you play. That US$15 (or US$20 for Winplan) will pay
itself back many times over as you get better and involved in more
games. You will receive in exchange for that 15 measly dollars
hundreds of hours of satisfying (and sometimes infuriating) gameplay,
as well as the support of a large gaming community who have gone
through the very same learning process.

When you've got a real victory under your belt, you will wonder how
you ever got by without it. Dancing on the grave of a human opponent
cannot be compared with watching a computer incompetently manage
itself into the ground. If you don't register, that feeling will
probably never come as you get washed repeatedly by other, registered
races.

After all, it's only 15 or 20 dollars!

In more pragmatic, perhaps even cynical, terms: in the shareware
version, you can't build parts above tech level 6 (unless your
starbase has a higher tech - usually because you have a useful native
race on the planet). To get up to tech 10, you need to register. You
also can't use several special features (building torpedoes away from
a starbase, for example).

Note that the Host program is freeware; it's only the client that
needs to be registered.

5.2 OK, how do I do it?

Complete ordering instructions are at
[155]http://www.vgaplanets.com/store.htm.

In brief, write to the author, at:
Tim Wisseman
P.O. Box 204
North Fork
CA 93643-0204
USA

Planets 3.0 for Dos:
US$15 (USA/North America) - US$17 Foreign Air (US$15 Surface)

WinPlan 3.5 for Windows:
US$20 (USA/North America) - US$23 Foreign Air (US$20 Surface)

Remember to make all cheques payable to TIM WISSEMAN. There is a good
currency converter at [156]http://www.xe.net/currency/

For further details and other merchandise check out the order forms at
the official WWW page: [157]http://www.vgaplanets.com

European residents can also contact European distributors:
STC Computerservice Tobias & Co. KG - [158]sales@stc-kg.com
DOS Planets: 15 euros
WinPlan: 20 euros

BTMicro [159]https://secure.bmtmicro.com/vgaplanets/

5.3 Can I share a registration code with a friend?

In short, no. The VGA Planets client program (for both DOS and
Windows)is shareware, and as such must be registered with Tim... the
sharing of registered copies of the program is not only immoral, but
illegal, and not fair to the people who have sent the money to play.
(see above) Still, if that does not quite convince you, there is also
the Tim Continuum, which is activated automatically when cheating is
detected from the player end, and matching registration codes are
considered cheating.

5.3.1 What if I want to play two races in the same game?

Not a problem. Play them both, but run Maketurn for both at the same
time. It is specially important, that if you modify the other race,
you must run maketurn again for both races and send both files to your
host.

5.4 Should I register for DOS or Windows?

There are some differences between the DOS and Windows registered
versions. DOS Planets registration in severly limited in THost games.
Note that many alternative clients have same features as Winplan. I
recommend getting Winplan reg.

6 How about hosting my own game?

6.1 Why shouldn't I do it?

New players to the game take note: Bottom line is, VGA Planets is a
very complex game... As a strategy game, chess can hardly compare in
the raw number of possible outcomes... and, to keep the game as simple
as possible in the beginning stages, hosting is one of the worst
things you can do. It will force you to think about parts of the game
that really should be left unthought-about. As far as new players
should be concerned, RST and TRN files are black boxes. As far as you
are concerned, your game host chews up the RST files and spits out the
TRN files without any effort at all.

New players should concentrate on their game play, not on the
technical aspects of the game.

6.2 Why should I do it?

New players at VGA Planets have no better resource in VGA Planets than
to create small locally-hosted games of their own... and for several
reasons. It allows you to test out strategies and tactics and get
experience in their use without having to use them in a critical
situation - this helps avoid much difficulty in the future. If you are
secure in how robbing a ship works, for instance, you will do much
better in a real-game situation.

If you know how to host a game, you have knowledge that other people
may not. Knowledge is power. Knowing how the game works and is set up,
knowing that the host program works a certain way can not help but
work to your advantage.

Being able to run and test concepts with a test game is very, very
useful... and can save you having to ask questions in a newsgroup. It
also allows one to be absolutely sure about some obscure point without
having to be surprised with it in battle... for instance, one of the
FAQ authors found, quite accidentally through a sim game that you can
in fact lay minefields on top of each other... providing that the
minefield belongs to an ally. Toss in the fact that you can lay
minefields in another races' ID, and voila, instant double, triple
density minefields.

And finally, because it's fun. Almost everyone learned how to play by
getting friends to play in a small local game. Some of us even drew
our unsuspecting siblings into a game... and had a blast (argh...
must... not... pun...) blasting their ships out of the sky. If you
have an afternoon to kill, start up a game... you can set up a batch
file to handle the host sequence, set up a computer player, and play
60 turns in 5 hours! Better than an afternoon in front of Quake any
day. ;).

6.3 How do I go about finding players?

When posting a game announcement to the newsgroup, you should include
at least the following:

* Host version
* Registered Planets required?
* Hosting schedule
* Will Host run early if all turns are in?
* Is Host playing?
* What skill level? (see below)
* How should players choose races?
* Game end conditions
* What add-ons are in use?
* What changes from default host config?

6.3.1 How should I specify skill levels?

Well, use common words. Like rookie, advanced, average, good, expert.

6.4 How about writing a new autohost?

Go for it! It's a good way to learn a lot about how Planets works, and
it can be a lot of fun. You really should consider creating a free
autohost program which other people can use as well.

7 What are extension programs?

While the two clients written by Tim allow you to interact fully with
your race during the game, you often find your desk littered with a
thousand notes about what ships were doing, which planets you were
attempting to colonise and what the enemy was up to. Also, when you're
new to the game, or you're many turns in to a game, some of the tasks
can be a bit repetitive and time-consuming.

To solve both of these problems, you can get software which interacts
with your turn, displaying information gathered together, remembering
information from turn to turn, carrying out repetitive tasks,
estimating things, updating things, and generally keeping your desk
clear. Here are a few of the more common ones....

7.1 EchoView

EchoView is a Windows program that assists you in playing your turn by
storing a turn history, including messages, ships, and planets. It
stores all the information that you come into, and allows you to input
information that you have gleaned from other sources. It will support
alternate data files, will combine allied RST files on to the map, has
a minefield simulator, built in message interface, and will
automatically show ranges on the map at warps 1 thru 9, write HYP
circles to the map, scan messages for planet information, and provide
full RANDMAX support. There are not many players who don't use
Echoview if they can. Echoview supports PHost pretty well.

[160]http://www.nefo.med.uni-muenchen.de/~echoview/

7.2 RandMax and RandGen

RandMax performs three main tasks:
* Building factories, mines and defence posts according to your
instructions
* Setting tax rates on planets to maximise income and population
growth
* Randomizing friendly codes, to prevent enemy passage through
minefields.

However, this requires the writing of a script file to control these
actions, which can be nearly as tedious as doing them by hand. RandGen
is a partner to RandMax (although written by a different author),
which looks through your current planets, analyses the mineral
content, the natives, the temperature, etc., and then generates a
control file for use by RandMax.

Many people would never use RandMax without RandGen; it's almost as
tedious as doing it manually anyway. RandGen is a very useful
counterpart to RandMax, and makes RandMax a far more useable tool.

Of course, RandMax (even in conjunction with RandGen), will probably
never be able to manage your economy as well as you could with
concentration and patience, but in early games it gives you the chance
to think about other things, and learn other strategies. In a large
game, it's also extremely helpful not to have to check every planet
each turn. EV allows you to change most things in the INI file though
it's own interface.

[161]http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~neffets/Randmax/Files/binary.html

7.3 Tanascius tool

Tanascius tool is a collection of few utilities for THost games. It
has a battle simulator, evolution unit to manage buildings and taxes
and take advantage of warpwells and hide long waypoints as well as
check for some common mistakes. It can be used to calculate costs of a
imaginary ship. It has calculators for waypoint and fuel usage, ground
combat, minefield sweeping, laying and crossing, as well as
calculating buildings allowed by X amount of clans. And if you made a
mistake, it has a undo feature if your client doesn't have one.

[162]http://www.tanascius.com

7.5 Battle Simulators & Viewers

Battle simulators are a means to simulate battles to get an idea of
the possible outcomes of a battle before you have to actually stake
your game on it. They are very useful in a variety of situations...
for instance, if you expect to be fighting a starbase, and only a
starbase, and you have only a few ships available, you might run a few
battle simulations to find out the optimum battle order for minimum
losses/maximum win. They are also very good to get a feel for what
kind of ships are the most useful in a game.

7.5.1 CCBSim

CCBSim is a very modern and fast battle simulator supporting both
THost and as well as latest PHost. The only "flaw" in is is that it
doesn't support multiship VCR systems like The Killing Floor and
Tactical VCR.
[163]http://phost.de/~stefan/playutil.html#ccbsim.
I really recommend CCBSim for your favourite choise of simulator, if
you need an external simulator.

7.5.2 BSim

BSim used to be the best simulators available. It's still valid and
some people use it, because instead of simulating the battle on
itself, it runs host to simulate the battles and generate reports of
the results.
[164]ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/pc/msdos/games/vgaplanets/util/battles
im/bsim22.zip

Though I'm not sure how latest PHost version it supports. I'm pretty
sure it doesn't support the latest PHost versions, but I could be
wrong.

7.5.3 Tanascius Tool's simulator

Tanascius tool has a pretty good battlesimulator too. For one on one
simulations it wields exact results, for multiship battles it takes
average results. It only does THost battles.

7.5.4 VPA's simulator

Accessed from within VPA by pressing F5, it is a basic simulator that
can take actual ships from your game and pit them against other ships.
It is useful mostly because it is fast and on-the-fly, but does not
have the advanced features of Bsim or some other dedicated simulators.
It does not support simulating PHost combat, although it can view one
using PVCR.

7.5.5 PCC's simulator

This has the same functionality as CCBSim. However since it's
intergrated to PCC, you can easily select ship(s) from your fleet, and
add some enemy ships and see how well your ships fight. It can also
write back changes to battle configuration (like FCs) back to the game
data so that if you tweak battle order and ammunition, you don't have
to write the changes back your self.

7.5.6 EV's simulator

EV's simulator is about as fast as CCBsim. It simulates both PHost and
THost battles. Technically, it uses PACT DLL interface to do the
battles.

7.5.7 KFView

The Killing Floor Viewer can simulate a battle involving up to 500
ships from all 11 races at the same time, fighting all at once in a
out-and-out bloodbath. KFView is a great program to while away a few
hours, and very versatile. To avoid confusion, KFView can simulate
battles that are handled by the Killing Floor addon, and nothing else.

7.5.8 PVCR

PVCR is VCR player for PHost games. It doesn't simulate battles.

7.5.9 PlayVCR

PlayVCR is a new VCR player for both THost and PHost. It designed to
feel good and be portable. Binaries are for Windows, and source is
included so that you may compile it for other platforms. Currently it
doesn't simulate battles, just views them. The graphics and sounds are
pretty good.

7.6 Obsolute programs

These programs can be safely considered obsolute. They might be
completely replaced by better programs, or give incorrect results or
something of the like. They are mentioned here because they once were
good programs to have around so they deserve to be mentioned, and also
so that you may know that they aren't useful anymore.

7.6.1 Interceptor

Interceptor is based on old host versions and won't correctly predict
ship destinations with any modern host version. There is absolutely no
reason to use it anymore. Although, if you think you have one, please
tell me :)

Interceptor scans the enemy ships you've spotted, and calculates their
likely origin and destination points. You'll get a listing, something
like:

003/008 Who: Fed XY: 2008, 1156

Warp 1

Heading: 260
ID# 54 Name: Georgia Hull: LARGE DEEP SPACE FREIGHTER
Devices: None NetWeight: 8/1800 kt
---POSSIBLE DESTINATIONS --------- ---------
-------------------------------------------- ---------- ---------
-----------------------
Target Name Prob Distance Turns

X

,Y Heading
Projected
P450 Cevius 40% 123.97 123

1886

,1134 259.78
2007,1155w
P429 Muracha 20% 342.44 341

1673

,1085 258.03
2007,1155w
P441 Morning Star 20% 301.23 300

1710

,1112 261.60
2007,1155w

Projected

destination.... 1.41 1

----

,---- 260.00
2007,1155w
---POSSIBLE DEPARTURES --------- ---------
-------------------------------------------- ---------- ---------
-----------------------
Depart Name Prob Distance Turns

X

,Y Heading
*P170 Atlantia 2 70% 141.06 140

2147

,1180 80.20

Closest armed ship:

ID53 at 72.14 LY

For a race like the Privateers this is invaluable: if you can match
position without using the Intercept mission, you can use Cloak
instead, and switch straight to Rob next turn without warning. This
can also be generally useful, particularly if you're using DOS
Planets.exe, in which it is not always easy to spot enemy ships...

7.6.2 VPUtil

VPUtil might be useful even now, since it's text mode program. However
it should be possible to go with PCC or VPA instead.

VPUtil is a non-graphical utility, written by Jan-Peter Dijkstra,
which enables many new functions:

1. fast unpacking/compiling, vputil un/cp -w<dir>;
2. handling of more than 50 scanned ship targets, for use with VPA;
3. managing your resources, vputil mm -w<dir>;
4. uncompiling your turn; if you have already done your turn but you
would like to change some things later, if you only have your
result and your player?.trn, you can get back your given commands
by doing the following:
+ unpack your result (vputil un -w<dir>)
+ copy your player?.trn to the same dir
+ uncompile your result (vputil uc -w<dir>);
Don't forget that you'll need your registered planets.exe version.
5. You can generate reports with it, which will give you an overview
of your empire. Various possibilities, ranging from a list of your
planets to a list of all the engines and what fuel they consume;
6. You can watch the battles with it, if you have VPVCR as well.

Vputil and VPVCR can be downloaded from the fu-berlin site.

7.7 VPMagic

The "Ultimate" VGA Planets Organizer. Handle all your VGA Planets
Libraries, text files, games, help files, utilities and more. This
program is actually "Your One Click VGA Planets" -- It's Magic :-)

7.8 SendTRN Pro

Works with all hosts. This program adds to the functionality of
WinPlan, DOSPlan or Batch Files. When you click on Make TRN in Winplan
your TRN file is automatically emailed. In Dosplan and Batch Files
SendTRN Pro will add the necessary code to AutoSend from DOS. New
Functionality enables endTRN Pro to be called from any batch file
meaning it can be used by DOSPlan users now. If you play at a host
that needs special Subject Lines this is for you! Features include:
Web Update, Over 20 built in AutoTroll Commands, Log Files and more.

8 Alternative host program PHost

PHost (Portable Host) is an alternative to Tim's host program. It is
written in C rather than BASIC and keeps more data in memory, and
therefore runs significantly faster than Host; it has also been ported
to a wide range of machines.

PHost is very configurable. It can be made to work very much like
Tim's Host (though not identically - Tim hasn't released all the
details of how Host works). It can also be made entirely different.
PHost has tons of features which aren't in THost.

Note that there is a continuing (and rather pointless) controversy
over whether PHost should be used at all, whether it's better or worse
than THost, and so on. Please don't get involved; it only clutters up
the newsgroup.
[165]http://www.phost.de/

9 What are add-on programs?

Addon programs are designed to extend and enhance the VGA Planets
gaming experience. They are primarily designed to answer the age-old
question "What if..."; "What if there were several wormholes spread
out over the cluster?", "What if the Borg had a tractor beam that
could span 100 light years and snatch a ship from the grasp of an
enemy?", "What if battle were resolved with fleets, instead of one on
one dogfights?", "What would happen if the Birdmen could cloak their
planets?"

Some people prefer the 'pure' gaming experience, because there are
fewer variables involved; while others prefer to have as many addons
as possible in the game. Games with default settings and no addons are
called as vanilla games.

9.1 Wormholes

Wormholes are 'tunnels' in space that provide convenient shortcuts
across long distances. Some wormholes are smaller than others, and
cannot accommodate ships of a large size, while some are unstable, and
may end up sucking your ship into the unknown. Still others may have
tollgates at their entrances placed there by their discoverers.
Wormhole programs make the use of these possible, and they vary in
some respects, for instance, they may simply suck in everything at
their location and move them to the other end, or they may require a
friendly code to enter them. They might require you to scan for
wormholes, or give you the information automatically.

9.2 Exploremap

Thomas Voigt, 1996. This program limits the player's view of the
starmap to allow some mystery in the game; you will only be able to
scan/see/sense the planets that are within a specified distance from
your ships and planets. The host can configure whether or not to let
you see all planets within range, or have a chance of detecting them
depending on the ship/planet doing the scanning. Your host, if s/he
uses Exploremap, will send you a new XYPLAN file every turn with the
most recent map.

9.3 Wrap/Sphere

Sphere simulates, in a rather poor sort of way, a true closed
cluster... that is, a map in which a ship going off the edge of the
map appears on the other edge of the map. VPA, EV, PCC and JVC can
show those maps as they truely are. (Topological nitpicker's note:
this is actually a toroidal universe, not a spherical one.) You cannot
scan beyond the edge of the map unless you have a ship there, and ion
storms cannot travel across the edge, so it isn't as seamless as you
might like. However, the primary purpose to installing Sphere or Wrap
is so that no race has a safe little corner to hide in, no one can
have their back to a wall at all times. You've got to watch in all
four directions, no matter where you are in the universe. More room to
expand is just a bonus. PHost has internal support for sphere maps,
and it is better than Sphere addon.

9.4 FHost

Don't get confused - this has nothing to do with the regular Host
programs (THost and PHost); it's not another new host, but rather a
normal addon like lots of others.

Well - maybe not as normal as all that, for FHost introduces a real
new kind of warfare into Planets. No more do you have to rely on
standard combat; instead there is the option to fly advanced fighter
missions from your battlecarriers or fire cruise missiles from your
torpedo boats. Both can be done over a host-set range, often more than
50ly, so you actually don't have to engage the enemy anymore; large
bulky death stars can be shot down by large task forces of smaller
ships, without even getting a shot off at the "David"s. Additionally
Fhost comes with an integrated jumpgate option and some other minor
abilities.

There is a lot to be carefully read and even more old tactics to be
abolished once you enter a game using this addon, but it can give the
game some extra spice once you are tired the standard version.

9.5 The Killing Floor

The Killing Floor (1997, Dale Pope) is an addon to VGA Planets (Host
version 3.22.016 and above) that uses a newly built-in feature to
replace the VCR combat system with a more realistic fleet battle
system. It is an extremely radical departure from single ship combat,
far more intuitive than the original.

The Killing Floor home page is at
[166]http://root.novylen.net/vgap/tkf/

There you can view the documentation online, as well as linking to the
KF info page, where there is a more detailed examination of strategy
and tactics in fleet battle.

Fleet combat allows the use of multiple ships during combat.

Unfortunately, the Killing Floor viewer must be registered (US$6) to
be used to its full capacity, although since the host program is
freeware, battles will still happen without your being able to view
them.

The Killing Floor is in beta 5 as of January 1st 1998. Registration
includes all future versions at no extra cost.

9.6 The Dan&Dave add-ons

These add-ons are well-known and popular; they are also severely
crippled in the shareware versions, bulky, and (according to some)
prone to bugs. (Though maybe it's just that D&D admit their bugs more
quickly than other people.)

Some of them seem to work very poorly with DOS Planets, and in some
cases are nearly unusable (particularly Jump Gate and Asteroid). On
the other hand, many WinPlan players consider them essential for an
interesting game.
[167]http://www.solarflaregames.com/dnd/index.htm

RacePlus: offers many new racial and ship abilities; these include a
Lizard chameleon device, native government modification for the Feds,
and a gravity well generator for the Gorbie.

Starbase+: allows starbases to lay and sweep mines and transfer money
between each other, and allows the Medium Deep Space Freighter to
transport ship components.

Tachyon: allows a decloaking system to be built into ships.

Jump Gate: allows construction of jumpgates, which allow cheap and
fast travel.

Asteroid: introduces wandering asteroids, which can be mined for a
high-power fuel. And they can be towed to planets, where they impact
the planet and wield minerals to the ground and surface.

9.8 Atomic Host(Ahost)

Ahost is an addon to the VGA Planets host that, through the use of
friendly codes, puts in several more planet and ship abilities.

For instance, all Small Transports get a "Probability Jump" device,
allowing them to transport to a random point in the Cluster. All races
can lay moving minefields (with momentum and heading, like an Ion
storm), and exchange planets; there are also spies, Bird cloaking
shield (on all Bird ships), new planetary buildings, (stadium, theme
park, mining research center) subspace anomalies, new alchemy ships...

Original Ahost was by Michael Jordon. A new, better freeware
replacement by Wolfgang Merkel is ABHost, at
[168]http://switch.to/unity/. ABHost doesn't support anomalies, but
there is another replacement addon that does them.

9.9 Jupiter

Jupiter is a combination of Nemesis and Gryphon from Oleg Shvartsman.
It is shareware and full version costs 15 USD. The shareware version
works for the first 20 turns.

Latest version is 1.07a (June 12, 2003)
[169]http://www-personal.umich.edu/~oshvarts/addons.html

9.10 Tactical VCR

Tactical VCR v2.x is another mass combat system, which uses specific
tactics, speeds and primary target sets for each ship. By using
varying tactics fleets will be better able to engage the enemy in
battle and survive. Ships are no longer be required to go in and slug
it out at point blank range until they are dead. Tactical VCR 2 has
many improvements from the first version. Among these are a graphical
interface, simulator to test tactics, and a large configuration
system. The simulator is currently in open testing to determine if it
is creating battles properly, and to see what needs to be updated or
enhanced in the interface.

Tactical VCR v1.x is freeware, and Tactical VCR v2.x shareware. Both
can be found from [170]http://thewarroom.tripod.com

10 What are computer players?

Computer players are utilities intended to be run by the game host,
which fill in for absent players - ideally just for a couple of turns,
but sometimes for longer. They are also very good for learning the
game.

Unfortunately, to make up for their lack of good strategy, all of them
cheat to some degree. Spacelord is the most "honest" of the currently
available cplayers; It can't cheat, even if it would try to. Dominate
author has tried to make it not to cheat, but at least in theory, it
can.

Some cplayers may not work with PHost. Dominate should work, and
SpaceLord should work too, with the NoVCR fix.

Currently the best cplayer is considered to be Spacelord, though the Q
comes pretty close, too.

All of these cplayers are freeware. Currently none of the cplayers are
actively worked on, at least that I know of.

Many of these can be found from
[171]http://www.akseli.net/~akseli/vgap/file_archive/+host%20utilities
/+Cplayers/ or [172]http://www.vvh.kiev.ua/files/c_play/

10.1 SpaceLord

SpaceLord by Soeren Andersen, Vigo von Harrach, Dietmar Schuster and
Daniel Murphy is a Cplayer that can't cheat, because it is client
side. That is, it reads a RST file and produces a TRN. It is the
latest and should be best of Cplayers. Sometimes the Q can perform
better, though. I've seen to to sit in the middle of space with no
fuel to move around, and not enough wits to arrange refuel via other
ships.

10.2 The Q

By The Sharenet Trolls. Extensive, documented cheats (free fuel,
information). Costs US$15 to register, otherwise only plays races 1,
2, 10 and 11. Very powerful in "aggressive" mode.

10.3 Admiral

By Kenneth A. Strom. Cheats not documented, but apparently not major.

10.4 Dominate

Not cheating cplayer, by Cliff McKeithan. Excellent for learning the
game.

10.5 CPlayer

By Tim Wisseman. The first one; massive cheats and poor logic, but if
it hadn't been for Tim's releasing the source code there probably
wouldn't have been any others.

10.6 VPC_Play

An improved version of CPlayer, converted to C by Miika Kasangas. Not
a whole lot better than CPlayer.

10.7 ACP/Omega

By Mike Stonig. Cheats are documented, and are not used to excess.

10.8 Kattivik

By Jean-Marie Clement. Cheats are documented.

10.9 DPlayer

By Daniel Tracy. Minimal cheats. Defensive, and quite good.

11 What are alternate data files?

Because VGA Planets stores much of its information in external files,
it's possible to replace these with new data.

11.1 How should I use them?

11.1.1 DOS Planets

DOS Planets does not support multiple data file sets. It can be used
on alt data, though. There are several ways to arrange it, the best
nowadays, is to have one Planets directory for each game. So you will
multiple copies of all of the files. There is a more streamlined
sollution but it requires more knowleadge. Suffice to say, see the
data.exe in Penguin shiplist editor packet.

11.1.2 WinPlan

Just put the alternate files into the relevant VPWORKx directory. The
only catch is if you want to use the "ships" program, which relies on
the dat files found in your main winplan directory. See the DOS
section, above, for how to write a batch file to handle this. Nowadays
Winplan supports multiple BMP file sets. For game 1, put the pictures
in BMP1 directory, and so on. The picture sets must be complete, if
Winplan doesn't find the file on the BMPx directory, it won't go look
it from the main BMP directory.

11.1.3 Other clients

Other clients work like Winplan, just copy the data files into the
game directory.

11.2 Maps (altmaps)

The standard starmap does not have a really "fair" distribution of the
planets. In some places, planets are grouped close together, while in
other locations ships have to travel vast distances to reach the next
planet. Most alternate maps provide a more equal distribution of
planets.
Other maps may use several clusters of stars, a circular universe, or
other design modifications to make the game a little more interesting.
And for an ExploreMap game, of course, it's a bit pointless to use the
standard map.

11.3 Ship and weapon lists (altlists)

In the opinion of many people, the current ship list is quite
unbalanced; it favours some races over others. The Bird Men, for
example, don't have a decent heavy carrier, and the Fascists' heavy
battleship can't stand up to most of the others; and some ships don't
seem to be worth building at all. Altlists can help to redress this.

It's also fun to play around with possibilities. What would happen if
the Feds had the ability to produce a cloaking light cruiser? How
about a heavier version of the Gamma Bomb, to capture enemy ships?

11.3.1 PLIST / PLIST2

This list was designed especially for the "alternative combat" model
in PHost. Excellent in that role; don't even try to use it with THost.
PList2.4 includes also a light and heavy version of the list.

11.3.2 TLIST

By Matthias Degenhardt and Thomas Klebes. Alternative shiplist based
on the original shiplist. Worthless or weak ships were redesigned and
races well-balanced. TLIST works perfectly with THost and PHost
standard combat. Nevertheless the alternative combat VESAC(C) is
recommended for this list.

12 What are some basic tactics?

This section could easily double the length of the FAQ; the collected
knowledge and explanation of 'basic tactics' from several different
points of view can be devestatingly large to say the least.

Tactical information can be found on many (if not most) VGA Planets
web sites.

12.1 General

There are four very basic tactical concepts that you should be aware
of, that go far beyond VGA Planets...

First, knowledge is power. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Know
your enemy's strengths and weaknesses. Try to use your strengths
against your enemy's weaknesses.

Second, the principle of economy. You have to be able to build a
strong base from which to produce the machinery of war... without
which, you will not be able to defend yourself, you will have no
diplomatic negotiating room, and you will certainly not be able to
attack.

Third, the principle of concentration of force is the one that will
make, or break, your Plan to Take Over the Cluster (henceforth the
PTOC)... you have to get as much of your military where you need it
when you need it... and to do that you have to make use of the fourth
basic principle:

Fourth, anticipating your enemy: You have to have a good intuition
about what the enemy might do next, what trick they'll pull out of
their bag... that sort of thing. It comes with experience, and some
have it better than others.

OK? Knowledge, Production, Concentration of force, and Anticipation
are the keys to your game.

12.2 How should I play race X?

A lot of race quides can be found at
[173]http://www.xs4all.nl/~donovan/guides/index.htm

At the end of the page there is a zip file containing all the quides
for offline reading.

Feds
You are the good guys... act like it. You have what other races
want... Loki, terraformers, medium ships.

Lizard or Gorn
A unique combination of brute force and sneaky effectiveness. Ground
attack and cheap heavy-medium ships, as well as a robust, brutally
effective economy... You can conceivably wipe out an enemy with a
fleet of LCCs in their territory. Act like it.

Bird Man or Romulans
Surprise attacks and lots of sneaking around. Not much brute force,
lots of sneakiness. The Resolute and Darkwing are the two greatest
bang/buck ships in the game. Hide, hide, hide, strike where least
expected, use down and dirty tactics to keep the enemy out of your
area.

Fascist or Klingons
You are the Klingon Empire, the scourge of the galaxy. Merciless,
honorable, and brutal. Go on the offensive from turn one, don't get
caught on the defensive. You have the most versatile fleet in the
game, but it does not lend itself well to defence. Klingons are
considere a weak race by many.

Privateer or Orions
Rob/Steal/Gang up/Sneak/Hide. Don't stand and fight, you'll lose.
Steal as many enemy ships as you can and use them against the enemy -
save your own ships for stealing more. Concentrate on short-sharp
attacks to gain equipment and resources. Use diplomacy to gather
support - the pirates have a lot to offer allies and a lot to worry
enemies. Privateers are considered hard to play race, and strong
amoung beginners but weak againts experts.

Cyborg Assimilate everything in sight. Send out probes to stake out as
much territory as possible in as little time as possible. Build a
Firecloud net, take advantage of chunnel to build up a huge economy
and move around the Borg Fleets of Doom. Concentrate forces. You will
be hunted down from first contact. Playing Borg turns well can take a
lot of time, but they are considered powerful.

Crystalline
Mine/Mine/Mine. Trap the enemy in your webs and then make off with
their craft...

Empire
Full-blown Imperial power. You are the brutal dictators, capable of
taking planets intact with your elite combat troops, getting
intelligence information without leaving your chair; build starbases
to make fighters cheaply (they'll pay for themselves quickly
cash-wise) and diplome a lot to survive 'till the endgame. You have
the potential to be one of the most powerful races... properly used.
Empire is considered weak, due to their lack of true fighter building.

Robotic Produce a lot of cheap fighters, heavy ships, and many
minefields.

Rebel Produce a lot of cheap fighters, heavy and cheap ships, have
best hyperdrive ship in game so mark out your turf quick using them.

Colonial
Cheap fighters, nice carriers, best on the attack because of
anti-minefield abilities. Colonies is considered to be good race for
beginners.

12.3 How should I fight against race X?

Read the enemy race tactics guides, noting in particular what they
have to guard against.

Fed
Very well balanced race that doesn't have any real weaknesses (or
strengths). Intercept his Lokis if you own any cloakers (but be aware
that most experienced players will use them as a bait). Otherwise,
just refer to the basic tactics.

Lizard Lay MANY little overlapping minefields or attack him directly.
He can't stand up to a ship to ship fight with most of the other
races. Put LOTS of colonists on planets with starbases.

Romulans He relies heavily on his cloakers. So, lay MANY little
overlapping minefields and increase the number of defense posts on
your important planets (make sure you've got enough fighters on your
starbases). Can't be decloaked by Lokis in Host v3.22.021 and later,
so don't waste resources building them. Watch your planets' FCs and
change them every turn as a defence against his Super Spy Mission.
Have your highest ID planet set a universal minefield FC, as long as
the planet FC can't be changed by Romulans. If it can, you might have
a problem as if he can control the code, he can effectively pass
through your minefields.

Fascist Building many defence posts etc. on your border planets is
useless. Instead, place a medium sized ship (or a big one, if you can
spare it) at every planet to protect them from pillage and ground
attacks. His capital ships are rather weak and should be no problem
for most of the other races.

Privateer
Lay MANY little overlapping minefields. Their most important ship will
blow up after one hit. Ground attacks from cloaked ships (preferably
Lizard, Klingon) are also very effective. NEVER leave your freighters
unescorted. Lay MANY little overlapping minefields. Lay MANY little
overlapping minefields.

Cyborg
Attack them at the very beginning of the game (Before they have their
cube fleets). Hunt down and kill their FCCs. Don't try to defend a
planet, you don't have a chance against their fleet. Instead, remove
all fuel and money, tax the natives to hell and move away. Attacking
from two points simultaneously is almost pointless.

Crystalline
Block his expansion by putting strong ships at every planet on your
border (His ships are no match for most of the other races). Then
advance slowly while sweeping any web mines you encounter. Don't try
to use a hit & run tactic on his homeworld, you will run dry after
some hundreds of light years.

Empire
Take out the Imperial Assault ships; worry about Gorbies. Keep moving;
his heavy ships are fuel hogs. Keep him guessing about where you are;
you can't hide your planets, but your ships should be cloaked and/or
planet-hopping.

Robotic Equip your ships with powerful beam weapons for mine sweeping.
Ground attacks from cloaked ships (preferably Gorn, Klingon) are also
very effective (if your ships get through his minefields).

Rebel
Building many defence posts etc. on your border planets is useless.
Instead, place a medium sized ship (or a big one, if you can spare it)
at every planet to protect them from a rebel ground attack. Otherwise,
just refer to the basic tactics.

Colonial
They don't have any special ability other than brutal strength in
battle. Use your own abilities to fight them (which might be effective
ground combat, cloaking ships, a mine laying bonus, etc.).

13 But what does (X) mean?

13.1 Glossary

There is a extensive glossary at
[174]http://www.phost.de/phost4doc/glossary.html. Below is a short
one.

altmaps
altlists
altspec

Non-standard maps, ship lists, and weapon specifications respectively.
Some hosts reconfigure the default settings for these things, and are
referred to as altsomethings. Standard shorthand.

Capital ship
Any ship with beams, torpedo tubes and/or fighter bays. As opposed to
a freighter.

Client program
The software that you use to play your turn; these programs allow you
to set waypoints, view planets/ships/starbases, and send messages,
among many other things.

DosPlan
The original DOS-based client program, Planets 3.0 (planets.exe).

EV / EchoView
Echoview is a Windows utility designed for use with Winplan games to
store and display detailed information about them, for use in PHost or
THost games. Echoview is described in extension program section.

FC
Friendly Code (originally just a means of making temporary alliances,
now used to activate many special functions); can be set individually
on planets and ships.

Host
The person in charge of running the game. This person sets up a game,
decides on game settings, listens to user complaints and problems,
brings in the TRN files and sends out the RST files, stores the game
on his/her computer, and in general does the dirty work for a VGAP
game. They deserve your undying thanks. To 'host' a game refers to the
commitment of being a host for the duration of a game. This definition
of the term is not to be confused with the host program.

Host Program
Host programs process the game, moving ships, setting missions; in
essence executing all the commands that you have made in the process
of your turn. There are two host programs, THost and PHost.

maketurn
Refers to the process of putting all your commands to the Host program
into a TRN file.

Newbie
BANE put it best: "newby /new:bee/ n. an early podling form of VGAP
gamer. The Newby is extremely vulnerable to predation by the more
evolved form of VGAP gamer. I am truly sorry that any new players to
VGA Planets are saddled with this little label until they have a few
games under their belt; however, it is really just part of the
culture. I had to deal with being a 'newby', everyone has to do it
sometime. The only cure is to play, play well, and ask lots, and lots,
of questions."

PHost
Portable Host, originally by Andrew Sterian and others. See the PHost
section of the FAQ.

RST file
The "Result" file you receive from the Host. This stores all the
information for one turn of play.

Stale turn
A TRN file that can't be processed by HOST because it is outdated.

THost / TimHost x
The original Host program by Tim Wisseman. Host is the core of the
game; processing game information and sending new information back to
the players. x denotes a version, such as 3.22.046, which is current
at the time of this writing. The term "Thost" or "TimHost" is used
primarily to denote "Tim's" host program, as opposed to the PHost
project.

Tim
Tim Wisseman, author of VGA Planets. This person deserves our eternal
adulation, for programming this game. (OK, maybe not that much... he's
a pretty nice guy though.)

TRN file
The compiled file of all your commands for a turn.

Turn
One complete cycle of play in VGAP, in which you receive your RST,
play your turn, and return your TRN.

unpack
Refers to the process of 'unpack'ing an RST file to get at the turn
information for use by the client program. VPA and DOSPlan require the
"UNPACK.EXE" program to do this. Other clients have inbuilt unpack
function.

VGAP
VGA Planets!

VPA
An alternative client program. See the clients section of the FAQ.

WinPlan
The Windows-native client program for VGA Planets, version 3.5.

XYPLAN.DAT / XYPLAN
This refers to the map file; it stores the locations of all the
planets on your map. You can change this file to make a custom
universe.

13.2 Ship abbreviations and nicknames

When reading the newsgroup, you will constantly be confronted by
obscure references to strange things... people gloating over something
called an MCBR, persons going into speeches about why something called
a "Nova" is better than a "Bio". It's an inevitable occurence in a
game positively riddled with names like "Nova Class Super Dreadnought"
or "Meteor Class Blockade Runner" for its ship classes.

Fortunately, there's a fairly simple explanation. First, you need
something called a shiplist... which lists all the standard hull
names.

People will generally refer to ships by the first word of their
name... for instance, "Nova Class Super Dreadnought" becomes "Nova",
"Meteor Class Blockade Runner" becomes "Meteor.

Failing that, many people will refer to ships according to their
initials; for instance, the Meteor becomes the MCBR, the "Blockade
Runner 4" becomes the BR4, and the Lizard Class Cruiser becomes the
LCC.

In even rarer circumstances, the name of the ship will be chopped up
into even shorter blocks... for instance, the Instrumentality (or
ICBS, or Instrumentality Class Baseship) is generally referred to as
an "Instru", the Kittyhawk (KHCC, Kittyhawk class carrier) is
shortened to "Kitty".

It's all fairly self-evident once you know the ships that they are
talking about... it's just confusing at first.

Some common ones:
LDSF/SDSF/MDSF: Large, Small, and Medium deep space freighters.
Merlin: Merlin Alchemy Ship.

13.3 What about hosting order?

Actions happen in a clearly-defined order. Knowing this can be vital
to your success. This order is below. There a is really great host
order at [175]http://www.xs4all.nl/~donovan/help/ordered.htm. PHost
has a little different host order, the documentation can be viewed at
official PHost site. Below is THost host order by Donovan Mul. But the
HTML version in the link above is much better, because Donovan has
written helpful decribtion about each phase. He also has virtually all
the related formulae and algoriths. You can download the host order
from his site and place a link to the local version to your desktop.
At least that's what I do. I'm currently writing a host order which is
mostly same thing as Donovan's and I'm adding order of action from
several addons to the same packet. It's currently a work in progress,
you can find it from my site.

Update of clientside-actions:



+ own cargotransfers
+ planetary structures built
+ starbases built
+ alliance codes checked
+ jettison from ships
+ lock towbeam
+ Cheat detect
+ Cloak
+ AuxHost1.bat
+ AuxHost1.ini
+ Meteor shower
+ Sensor sweep & bioscan
+ Loki first decloak
+ Cloak fail
+ Superspy deluxe (Fcode change)
+ Minefield fcodes established
+ Lady Royale generates MCs
+ Most Mission 9, in order of ID:

+ Rob
+ Hiss
+ Build fighters (incl. 'lfm')
+ Repair Self (Borg)
+ Dark sense

Cargo drop (ship - planet)

+ including Imperial Assault
+ including Ground Combat

Transfers (ship to foreign ship)

Beam transfer fcodes (by ID)

+ including give ships (gsX)

Planets beam up money ("bum")

Gather missions

Alchemy

Lay mines

Lay web mines

Ion storms:

+ move
+ join
+ decloak ships
+ damage ships
+ drag ships
+ new storms formed
+ affect minefields

Mine sweep/scoop

Mine decay

Mines destroy mines

New minefield fcodes established

Web drain

Starbases fix or recycle ships

First build new ships

Clone ships

Super refit

Force a surrender at starbase

Mass check, repair & mkt

Towing ships move

Cobol Ramscoop makes fuel

Warpwell calculation

Most ships move (Incl. HYP)

Cobol Ramscoop makes fuel

Warpwell calculation

Intercepting ships move

Cobol Ramscoop makes fuel

Warpwell calculation

Glory device ships detonate

Firecloud chunnel

Loki second decloak

Starbase Primary Orders

Starbases build 'free' fighters

Starbases dump parts (dmp)

Mass check, repair & mkt

New natives appear

Colonise ships

AUXBC.INI

Loki third decloak

Glory device ships detonate

Mass check, repair & mkt

Ship vs. ship combat

Borg gather debris

Mass check, repair & mkt

Ship vs. planet/base combat

Minefield fcodes established

Terraforming

Structure decay

Fascists Pillage planets

Rebel Ground Attack

Happiness change computed

Supplies produced (inc Bovinoids)

Taxes produce MCs (if HP > 30)

Borg assimilate natives

Population growth (if HP > 69)

Overpopulation dies/eats supplies

Amorphous worms eat clans

Riots

Civil wars

Mines produce minerals

Trans-uranium mutation

Second ship build

Mass check, repair & mkt

Superspy / Explore

Make score log

PBP Messages

Auxhost2.bat

Auxhost2.ini

Mass check, repair & mkt

Dump old messages

Count UFO's



Save Host data

Update time stamp

(Donovan's VGA Planets Helppages, updated 18-08-03, 3.22.047)

13.4 What can zero-fuel ships do?

Ships without fuel can not be attacked by other ships. By default,
such ships can move a small distance each turn, unless they are
extremely heavy. The better your engines and the smaller your ship,
the further you can move without fuel. An empty Neutronic fuel
carriers with Transwarps can move 81 LYs without fuel.

Ships without fuel can be captured by Privateers or Crystals if towed.

Ships without fuel are unable to perform most missions. They can
however do the following: Beam Up missions, Alchemy functions, and
fight vs vs planets set to NUK.

13.5 How does FCode battle order work?

The ship with the lowest ordering value fights first. Any all-number
friendly code generates an ordering value. A non-numeric FC (e.g.
"34X" or "fjl") has an ordering value of 1000, as do planets.

In PHost, that's all you need to know (except that planets with an ATT
or NUK friendly code have a default ordering value of 0, so you'll
need to set their friendly codes to numeric values, or set your ships
to negative values, to fight before them. Only PHost recognises these
negative values.)

In THost, planets have an ordering value of 1000, but a bit more
thought is needed when two ships meet. The ship with the higher
ordering value gets the left side. If the ordering values are both
1000, and one ship has a higher mission hostility (Mission=Kill >
Primary Enemy > no special setting) then that ship gets the right
side.) If the ordering values and missions are equal then the ship
with the higher ID gets the left side. This provides various bonuses
specially for carriers, due to a problem in the pseudo-random number
generation system.

To make up for this left-side advantage, ships have a 60% chance of
getting an additional 360kT hull mass (and hence less damage per hit)
if they are:
1. fighting carriers
2. 140kt or more in mass
3. on the right side

Though note that if they are already 320kt or more in mass, this will
not further reduce damage from fighters, only from beams.

This sometimes compensates for the left-side advantage, sometimes not.
There is no simple system for determining the advantage in any
specific battle; therefore, it is recommended that you simulate any
upcoming battle extensively to determine which side offers an
advantage.

13.6 My fighter (or fuel dump) just exploded! Plague hit my planets! I
lost
minerals and money!

That may well be a Tim Continuum strike. Host found evidence that
you've been trying to cheat - this could be because you used the same
registered copy of the game as another player, or because your turn
file got corrupted in transit - or, of course, because you cheated.
VGA Planets is a game of skill, not cheat codes... a game of
knowledge, smarts, cunning and diplomacy, not a game of "who can build
up unlimited weapons the fastest". The most common reason for this to
happen is a bug in Winplan. In short, when you got a starbase build
hulls window open, do not change the planet or starbase to another or
the bug will happen.

There's nothing you can do about it, except maybe try to persuade the
host to run that turn again. Small hosts might do it, but most big
hosts won't. I once had a great game even though TimC striked me two
times, due to a fault of the host person.

TC messages include:

Credits have been discovered to be counterfeit

Fighters have caught fire and exploded

Starbase fighters have disappeared

Supplies have been tainted

Fuel/Tritanium/Duranium/Molybdenum dump has exploded

Fuel/Tritanium/Duranium/Molybdenum has vanished

Colonists have died of plague

Colonists have vanished

(The "plague" message may also be generated by The Tantalus Machine,
one of the modes of the Ref package.)

13.7 How fast can a damaged ship go?

This is determined solely by owner's race and the % damage taken by
the ship.

Damage Lizard Damage Speed
0 - 19

0 - 59

9

20 - 29

60 - 69

8

30 - 39

70 - 79

7

40 - 49

80 - 89

6

50 - 59

90 - 99

5

60 - 69

100 - 109

4

70 - 79

110 - 119

3

80 - 89

120 - 129

2

90 - 99

130 - 139

1

140 - 149

0

13.8 What about Borg and the starbase native tech bonus?

A Borg building starbases over Humanoid, Amphibian, Siliconoid or
Ghipsoldal worlds will receive the tech bonus only if there are
unassimilated natives remaining on the world at the time the base is
built. However, even if the Borg is unregistered, the tech levels will
NOT drop once all natives are assimilated; they remain at 10.

13.9 What are the overall proportions of minerals in the game?

For the Master program that comes with TimHost, it averages out to: 6
Trit : 7 Dur : 3 Moly. For PMaster and Amaster (part of the PUtils
suite), it can be set in the configuration stage.

13.10 How do tow conflicts work?

If there are 2 or more ships at the same spot with TOW mission, Host
finds the towing ship with the lowest ID. Then it checks if the
waypoint of towee is more than 81 ly away. If it is - Host compares
'towing strength' (warp factor, roughly) of the tower and towee
(according to docs). If the tower is stronger, it performs the
mission, warp of towee gets reset to 0. If the towee is stronger or
equal, mission fails, tower's mission gets reseted from 'TOW x' to
'TOW'.

If waypoint of towee is less than or equal to one month's travel,
tower always wins.

This process continues until the towee is successfully towed or there
are no more towing ships.

13.11 Race names

There are basically two sets of race names. The original Tim used, and
the one others mostly use. Original in Federation, Lizards, Bird Men,
Fascist, Privateer, Cyborg, Crystalline, Empire, Robots, Rebels and
Colonies. The more used ones are Feds, Gorn, Romulans,
Klingons,Orions, Borg, Tholians, Empire, Cylons, Rebels and Colonies.

13.12 How can I find out more about obscure Host features?

Check Siberian Snake's Undocumented Host Features list:
[176]http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arena/2626/vgapbug.txt (not
really up to date, but it may contain some good ideas)

14 What about writing my own add-ons?

This is an excellent idea! While there are a lot of add-ons available
already, there's no reason not to produce more - no-one's obliged to
use them, after all.

However, you may have some difficulties, in that the file formats used
in VGA Planets have never been officially documented. However, several
intrepid programmers have made inroads into the jungle...
See [177]http://www.nic.fi/~akseli/vgap/links.html#programming for
links about programming in VGA Planets. A must read site is Stefan
Reuther's [178]http://phost.de/~stefan/filefmt.html planets
programmer's page. He has disassembled pretty much all VGA Planets
file formats. Of course there are a few of development kits to go
around too.

14.1 Kero van Gelder's page

Kero van Gelder has a fine selection of Planets programming
information, including extensive source code in C and links to most of
the other resources.
[179]http://members.chello.nl/~k.vangelder/vga/

14.2 The PHost PDK

PDK 2.x only works with PHost 2.x. It is distributed in binary form
only which means you can only use it with a compiler of the right
sort. Since PHost 2.x uses the native file format on platforms other
than 16-bit DOS, the PDK must also match these. That is, PDK 2.x/Win32
works with PHost 2.x/Win32, but does not work with PHost 2.x/MS-DOS or
PHost 2.x/Linux. Since PHost 2.x/MS-DOS uses the same file format as
HOST, PDK 2.x/MS-DOS might also work with HOST (not 100% sure about
that last one, but the docs claim it).

PDK 3.x only works with PHost 3.x, and is distributed in binary only.
Therefore, it also only works with a compiler of the right sort.

PDK 4.x is essentially the same as PDK 3.x, but includes source.
Therefore you can use any compiler you like. Within the 4.x line, HOST
compatibility was explicitly added, so this PDK should work with HOST.

The latest PDKs can be found from PHost site,
[180]http://www.phost.de/.

14.3 Planets Toolkit

Roger Burton West has made a VGAP Programming Toolkit in for DJGPP(C).
This comes in source form, and contains all the functions needed to
write player or host utilities. Note that this is not complete - but
it does appear to work.
[181]http://www.geocities.com/the_vagabund/addons/#toolkit

Roger Burton West is no longer working on the toolkit, last update was
18th of April 1998. However Kenneth Strom aka. Relic has made some
updates to the toolkit, his newer version can be found at
[182]http://members.tripod.com/~TheWarRoom/myaddons.html

There is a Delphi program called Automatic Development of Planets
which includes a development kit called ADK. See
[183]http://www.thelastdomain.com/adp/. There are few other Delphi
programmers still around, too.

14.4 The Webring

The webring of VGA Planets programming is at
[184]http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?home'0=vgapcoding

15 Different VGA Planets clients

Nowadays there are quite many clients to choose from. If you are a
beginner, you should try playing with shareware Winplan. If you are
used to playing with DOS Planets, you should really get PCC which has
very similiar interface, but tons of new features. You don't need to
use new features at all, you can play with it same way you played with
DOS Planets. If you find Winplan or DOS planets both acward to use,
there are alternatives with different type of interfaces. Perhaps next
you should try VPA which has a unified view, meaning the starchart and
ships and planets are displayed at the same screen. There is also JVC,
a JAVA client which has similiar interface like in VPA. For *nix users
there is XK, which also has unified view. People who have DOS planets
registration code can use JVPC, another JAVA client. There is a client
for Atari computers called VGA-Planets 68k. Then there is GWP, GNOME
War Pad, which also has somewhat unified view. There there are two
other clients, PDV and iclient, but at the moment all that is known
about them is the URLs. All alternative clients are free, except the
Atari client. In the description of the clients first the interface of
the client is generally explained. The interface of DOS Planets and
VPA are described in detail as they are the root of other interfaces.
For others the major differences are described. After that are
explained the pecialities of it, including the advantages and
disadvantages. At last a conclusion is drawn for what sort of player
the client is probably suitable.

Winplan & Dos Planets SW [185]http://www.vgaplanets.com/share.htm

PCC [186]http://phost.de/~stefan/pcc.html

VPA [187]http://vpa.sourceforge.net/

JVC [188]http://www.jvc-client.com/

JVPC [189]http://jvpc.sourceforge.net/

xk [190]http://yagibdah.de/

GWP [191]http://gwp.lunix.com.ar

PDV [192]http://vvh.kiev.ua/files/client/

iclient [193]http://sf.net/projects/iclient

VGA-Planets 68k
[194]http://home.t-online.de/home/martin_eggers/vgap68k1.htm

Delta Force has short information and auxiliary files of the four
mainstream clients [195]http://www.delforce.cjb.net/
as well as some screenshots. For other clients check their own
homepages, I think most have some screenshots and auxiliary files.

15.2 VPA

VPA uses a unified view of space rather than planets.exe's set of
screens, maintains a database of past turns' activity, and generally
provides a clear picture of what's going on. Some people have found it
somewhat difficult to learn at first, but players rarely go back to
their old clients once they've figured it out. (Many former WinPlan
players have stated that they prefer it, even though it's a DOS
application. Though many players hate VPA for it's own style of
interface. I'm one of the latter.)

Note that if you're converting from WinPlan, you'll need a copy of
resource.pln; you can either download the DOS Planets package, or get
one of the alternative graphics files off the net.

Sonic Hedgehog has set up a page with an introduction to the use of
VPA:
[196]http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arena/2626/use-vpa.htm

15.3 JVC

JVC is a JAVA client written by Lars Dam. It should run on any machine
under JAVA virtual machine. The interface is same kind as VPA, though
IMHO better than VPA's. JVC can work as shareware, or registered
client, both from Winplan or DOS Planets reg codes. The JVC is aimed
more on THost games, though it should work on PHost games as well.

15.4 JVPC

JVPC is a JAVA client by Kero van Gelder. It requires DOS Planets reg
code, and doesn't work with Winplan reg files. It's mainly intended to
be used in PHost game, thougt it should work on THost game. This one
is designed to work with PDAs.

15.5 VGA-Planets 68k

This program is native Atari client.

15.6 GWP

GNOME War Pad (GWP for short) is a Linux client written in C. It's
being developed based on the GNOME desktop technologies, so it's a
requirement to have GTK+ and GNOME libraries installed to run it. Its
UI design is meant to be "starchart centric", similar to VPA client,
to always give the user a global view of the game.

15.7 DOS Planets

This is the first client developed by Tim Wissemann for VGA Planets
3.0. It is the oldest client for VGAP 3.0. Dosplan runs as the name
say it, under DOS. When you start Dosplan you come into the main menu
where you can access general functions like reading / writing
messages, view combat records or look at the score table. From the
main menu the player can access four different screens: starships,
planets, starbases, starchart. The starchart delivers an overview of
the echo cluster. Own ships/planets and foreign ships are visualized.
From the starchart you can switch to own ships, planets and bases. A
report about the planets´ resources is also available from the
starchart. On the starship screen it is possible to give orders to
your ships. On the left side and on the bottom of the screen
information about the selected ship is displayed. You can see how the
ship is equipped, what the ship has loaded in his cargo, and so on. On
the upper right side a portion of the echo cluster which surrounds the
ship is visualized. By clicking on this small map the player can set a
waypoint for his ship or switch to another ship. Other orders like
changing the friendly code or loading cargo are given by typing a
hotkey on the keyboard. The planet and base screen is similar to the
starship screen: the information about the planet or base is displayed
on the left side and on the bottom of the screen. The small map on the
upper right side shows the surroundings of the planet or base. The
player can give orders to his planet or base by typing a hotkey on the
keyboard or he can use the small map to switch to other planets or
bases.

After describing the general interface of Dosplan we can ask us the
question: What is special about this client, what are his main
advantages or disadvantages, what can motivate a player to use this
client? First, certain advantages and disadvantages result out of the
seperated view of Dosplan. As Winplan has perfected the seperated view
due Windows possibility to have open several screens at the same time
the pros and cons of the seperated view are discussed in the Winplan
section. But back to Dosplan, reasons to use this client could be that
it runs under DOS, has small system requirements and also runs very
fast on older hardware. Also feelings of nostalgia can arouse when
using the "first" VGAP 3.0 client. On the other side this old client
has come into years and has some drawbacks when compared to modern
clients. First, player may run into problems using this client on
modern operating systems, because of some lack of DOS compatibility.
Second, Dosplan was produced only with THost in mind and therefore
does not directly support PHost functions (for example extended
missions, reading of util.dat, and so on). Extended missions, for
example, can only be given by using the message-system of Dosplan
which is not a very user friendly style. A third criticism is the
insufficient visualizing of the echo cluster: On the starchart you
cannot see bases, minefields or enemy ships orbitting planets. The
client does not provide a zoom function and is not able to save any
history data of earlier turns. Therefore you are forced to use a lot
of additional tools that provide the functions the client itself is
lacking. At least you need a tool for visualizing and organizing data,
a tool for hyperjumping, a battle simulator and preferable a tool for
economy management. The last drawback is that the client is not
developed anymore and so will not be adapted to changes made in living
hosting solutions like PHost.

So for whom could this client be suitable at all? First of all: for
newbies. As mentioned Dosplan does not have so much functions as other
clients, but this can also be an advantage for new players. A new
player could be overwhelmed by the complexity of a client like VPA and
will not even try to learn the game. But the reduced functions of
Dosplan together with the relative simple interface can make the entry
to the game for a newbie easier. Later on those players can advance
with no problems to more powerful clients like Winplan or PCC, because
those clients have the same interface architecture. Dosplan can be a
favorable client for players with very old hardware and which are
accustomed to Dosplan´s interface and do not have the motivation to
learn a new one. On the other side alternative client solutions exist
that are very similar to Dosplan and also run on old hardware like
early PCC versions. So at last I would only recommend Dosplan to new
players who wish to learn the game. But nevertheless those players
should switch later on to more powerful clients.

There is at least one known bug in DOS Planets, if your ship has 1%
damage, it won't display it. This can make a difference if damage
prevents cloak is set to 0%. Also remember that even 1% damage would
prevent a SSD performing an imperial assult. Then there are several
limiting features. One is, that with DOS Planets alone you can't set a
long waypoint. The maxium waypoint you can set is limited from 140 LYs
to 212, depending on angle. This is a problem with HYP ships as well
as gravitonic ships. I think there are utilities to help set HYP
waypoints, but I don't know about gravitonic ships. Another thing is
visual contacts of enemy and allied ships. DOS Planets can only show
information of the 50 closest ship contacts. Everything else is, I
recall, being reported as unknown ship. I'm not so sure but I think
you get the owner of the ship even for those unknown contacts. DOS
Planets won't display exact information about the density and amount
of minerals on the core of a planet. If will give textual
represantions of both. But the actual data is there, and can be
accurately viewed with any external viewer.

15.8 Winplan

After writing Dosplan Tim Wissemann coded a second client for the MS
Windows operating system. Some new functions were added Dosplan did
not include: a new trn-format (v3.5) and ufo-data which 3rd party
tools could make use of. Beside that Winplan´s interface was enhanced
in several ways in comparison to Dosplan´s.

When you start Winplan you can now choose between eight different
planets directories in which eight different VGAP games can be played.
In the main menu a battle simulator and a tool for automatic economy
management were added. The starchart now visualizes more data and is
more interactive. The player can see minefields, starbases, enemy
ships orbitting planets, ion storms and ufo-objects. Planets can be
painted in a certain color. For example you can assign "money-planets"
a yellow color while assigning "mineral-planets" a brown color. To
planets and ships a note can be added. It is now possible to draw a
hyperjump circle in the starchart which is making hyperjump-tools
superflous. At last a zoom-function was added. The starship screen is
nealy the same as the one of Dosplan. One main difference is that in
Winplan the player can set auto waypoints and tasks. This way he is
able to plan routes for his ships. The small map visualizes all the
data that is also found in the starchart. The planet and base screen
nearly does not differ to the one of Dosplan beside the undo-feature
which was added.

Now what makes this client special? First, the client now runs under
the Windows operating system. This way it is possible to have open
several windows at the same time. This makes it easy to use the client
together with 3rd party tools, because you can switch from window to
window. The whole architecture of Winplan is based on seperate windows
where you can work on. This can be seen as an advantage or as a
disadvantages: it can be a good thing to have seperated screens for
the different aspects of the game (ship screen for navigating ships,
slanet screen for the economy, and so on) to not get overflooded with
information and as a consequence loosing the overview. On the other
side seperating the different aspects of the game into different
screens can also lead to a loss of the overview, because you only see
the seperated aspects of the game, but not an integrated view. This
integration has to take place on your mind and can be a complex
cognitive task. One other disadvantage of Winplan´s seperated view is
the handling which is sometimes quite complicated. Often a lot of
clicks and screen changes are needed to give simple orders. An
interface architecture like the one of Winplan does need a powerful
intuitive Starchart which can give the player a feeling for the
overview in one glance. It is my impression that Winplan does not
provide such an intuitive starchart which is in my opinion one of the
main drawbacks of this client. But back on the positive side it should
be noted that the client visualizes all important basic informations a
VGAP player needs (minefields, ufo-data, and so on). The client in
general was made more interactive which can help the player to
remember important aspects from earlier turns (for example notes can
be added to ships or planets). Unfortunately Winplan does not provide
a history-function which would be very helpful by giving the player a
feel of the ongoing game and serving as database. This is one reason
why additional tools should be used together with Winplan. The tool
Echoview can serve as an improved starchart and database for Winplan.
More powerful battle simulators (for example CCBsim) and economy tools
(for example Randmax, Tanascius) than the one integrated in Winplan
are also available from the 3rd party programer scene. An important
plus of Winplan are its nice graphics when replacement pictures are in
use. The graphics of Winplan can serve as eye candy and further
motivate a player. Winplan was coded for THost. Although the client
supports more functions of PHost than Dosplan does (for example
extended missions) it is not completely PHost-compatible. Data like
fuel consumption is not calculated correctly in PHost-games. Therefore
Echoview is a must-have when playing PHost-games with Winplan. Also
you need an alternative combat viewer (for example PlayVCR) to view
PHost-battles. Unfortunately Winplan is not developed anymore so
changes to the client to eliminate the drawbacks will not be made.

So what sort of player should choose this client? One type can be
players that get motivated by a nice looking interface. It simply can
be more fun to send ships into battle that you really see as a picture
than only sending some "green dots". Then players may favor this
client that are accustomed to have open several windows at the same
time. This can be player that use a lot of 3rd party tools or players
who like to have seperate screens for the different aspects of the
game (reduced complexity). This may be the case when a player is able
to integrate the information from different screens into one whole in
his mind easily. Winplan can be good choice for pure THost-players.
PHost-players need additional 3rd party tools. So when playing
PHost-games often other clients which fully support PHost may be a
better choice (PCC, VPA).

There is a known bug in Winplan which can cause Tim Contiuum strike.
See
[197]http://groups.google.com/groups?ie=UTF-8&as_umsgid=lk0srt8efa63pq
svcolhi5gocne1bur38r@4ax.com&lr=&hl=fi for details of how it's
triggered, and see
[198]http://groups.google.com/groups?ie=UTF-8&as_umsgid=n9pifu079g496r
lmgqoor9q4vr98c6rufk@4ax.com&lr=&hl=fi for how to avoid triggering it.

Another bug is in the auto-waypoint feature, it corrupts some of the
waypoints, if you really want to use the feature, then see following
URL for a unofficial patch to Winplan that should fix it. Be very sure
to read and understand the documentation before you apply it.
[199]http://www.phost.de/~stefan/planets/apatch.zip

And last, there is a bug in Winplan that it won't show details of one
specific enemy ship when you see over 50 targets. Viewing the game
data with something else like EV will show you the ship details. Those
above are the bugs I know that effect every Winplan player. However
there is another one that seems to effect some, and most not. When it
happens, you can't open your RST file with Winplan because it crashes
every time. You can unpack it, but not view it. Most people have
reported that the crash happens when you try to enter your password.
Most people have reported the bug in Win2000 or XP, but at least one
has reported it with Win98. Unfortunately there is no clear
information why it happens to some, while not to most. I'm trying to
investigate the matter, but it might be hard since I've never seen it
myself.

15.9 PCC

Planets Command Center (PCC) is a 3rd party client developed by Stefan
Reuther. Its interface architecture is based on Dosplan. You even
could call it "Dosplan 2" as it really has the look-and-feel of it.
Similar to Dosplan PCC runs under DOS. But PCC 2 which will be a
complete rewrite of PCC will be running on all modern operation
systems.

Now a short description of the changes and additions made to the
interface of PCC in comparison to Dosplan or Winplan. In general you
can say PCC´s interface works nearly identical like the one of
Dosplan. PCC has integrated all of Dosplan´s/Winplan´s functions.
Those functions are mentioned in the description of Dosplan´s and
Winplan´s interface so i will not repeat them here. Additionally the
author added some more features to his client. PCC contains a built-in
script language. With this you can write scripts or use the available
scripts to automatically process some of the often given orders. This
way the player is able to automatize gameplay. The starchart was made
more interactive: the player can draw directly on the starchart and
add comments to those drawings (for example markers, circles, lines,
and so on), different labels for planets/ships can be selected (for
example name, id#, mined minerals, and so on), objects drawn on the
map can be selectively switched on or off, waypoints of ships can be
set directly on the starchart, objects can be marked and assigned to
certain groups to apply general orders on them (for example via a
script). The starchart also holds more information: the player gets
extended information about minefields (for example percentage for save
travel, beams needed to sweep the minefield) and ion storms (for
example moving forecast of ion storms). The information that is gained
about planets (for example resources, natives) and about ships (for
example equipment, history of movement) is saved and can be accessed
in later turns. At last PCC has a detailed online-help implemented.

Now what are the advantages and disadvantages of this client?
Everything that was said about the pros and cons of the seperated view
in the description of Winplan also holds true for PCC. A strong plus
of PCC is the possibility to automatize gameplay. Also some of the
drawbacks of Winplan were eliminated in PCC: the starchart is more
interactive and the history data is saved. Nevertheless it should be
said that the history function is not very dynamic as you cannot
really see directly on the starchart how the game developed from turn
to turn. The client is fully THost/PHost compatible so it can be used
reliable with both hosts. Also the battle simulator works for THost
and PHost. Therefore PCC can be regarded as very complete client,
because most 3rd party tools are not needed as PCC has all functions
built-in. The only additional tool a player could need would be an
economy tool as the built-in economy automization of PCC is not that
powerful. PCC owns an excellent online-help that answers nearly every
question that could arise when using the client. The possibility to
add external html-files (for example the Host-documentation) makes it
very easy to find an answer for game-relevant questions. The graphic
can be regarded as moderate. But for PCC replacement pictures are
available. One last advantage of this client is that it is developed
further steadily and is adapted to changes made to living hosting
solutions like PHost. My main criticism to PCC is that its handling is
like the one of Dosplan/Winplan sometimes quite complicated. Often you
need a lot of screen changes and clicks to get the information you
want or to apply certain orders.

PCC is especially an appropriate client for players who are playing in
both, THost- and PHost-games as the client is able to calculate data
correctly for THost and PHost. As the client is very complete players
who do not like to use a lot of different tools to make their turns
may find PCC a good all-in-one solution. Also player who liked the
Dosplan interface, but disliked the Windows ("too many windows") or
VPA interface ("too messy") will be most probable be happy with PCC.

15.10 VPA

VGA Planets Assistant (VPA) is a client first developed by Alex Ivlev
who later gave the code of VPA free as open source. So the newest VPA
versions are developed by various authors. From the beginning on VPA
used a completely other approach for visualizing data as the clients
by Tim Wissemann. Instead of a seperated view it used an integrated
view where all data is visualized on one screen. The client runs as
PCC under DOS.

When VPA is started the player comes directly to the starchart which
is the main screen of VPA. The whole map is visualized on the left
side while on the right side all information about the currently
selected object is displayed. On the starchart VPA displays planets,
bases, ships, minefields, ion storms, ufo-objects, own drawings and
temporarily hypercircles and calculated minefields. Minefields can be
calculated by number and type of torpedos used. The player can add
marker, circles, lines and comment those drawings. All objects can be
selectively switched on or off. The starchart is also zoomable.
Whenever an object is selected on the starchart the appropriate
information is displayed on the right side of the screen. Then the
data displayed on the right side can be manipulated by typing a
hotkey. For example to build some mines on a planet the player has to
click the planet on the starchart. Then all the information about the
planets appears on the right side. Now he types an "m" and then types
in the new number of mines he wants to have on this planet. Waypoints
from ships are set by selecting the ship and then clicking on the
destination directly on the starchart. VPA presents similar to PCC
extended information about some objects like minefields (for example
number of beams needed to sweep the minefield). VPA saves all the data
from earlier turns. The built-in history function allows to go back to
earlier turns. The game-situation of those earlier turns is then
directly visualized on the starchart. So by going to an earlier turn
and then step by step going back to the current turn the player can
see how the game developed from turn to turn. By typing hotkeys, the
message board, the battle simulator which caculates THost-battles,
statistics, minefield-calculation and search-functions can be
accessed. A short online-help which displays the available hotkeys for
VPA is also built-in.

Special about this client is at very first the integrated or unified
view interface. Because all data is visualized on one screen the
player can get a good overview of the game situation. As a criticism
it could be said that visualizing everything at the same time on one
screen could lead to a cognitive overload, so that it is simply "too
much at one time" and the player therefore loses the overview. But on
the other side VPA has some features built-in that to avoid such a
situation (for example the zoom-function or the possibility to switch
on or off certain data objects like minefields and so on). One of
VPA´s big advantages is the history-function. Combined with the
unified view interface it is possible to dynamically see the
development of the turns directly on the starchart. So the player
cannot only get a good overview over the current game-situation, but
also over the complete development of the game. VPA has a fast
handling, because a lot of orders are given by hotkeys and everything
is manipulated directly on the starchart or on the information bar
displayed on the right side. The downside of this method is that
players do have to know all those hotkeys. It really needs some time
and motivation to learn all the hotkeys and to get accustomed to the
interface. VPA is a pure functional client. Nearly every place on the
screen is used to display information or to be useful in some way. On
the downside there is no place to display motivating graphics. But it
is a personal matter of taste if this functionality is regarded as an
advantage ("lots of information") or as a disadvantage ("ugly looking
interface"). The interactivity of the client is very high:
data-objects can be selectively switched on or off, own commented
drawings can be placed on the starchart, minefields can be calculated
and directly visualized on the starchart. VPA is THost and PHost
compatible. It can be regarded as a relatively complete client.
Nevertheless, a battle simulator (for example CCBsim) and an economy
tool if desired is still needed. VPA is the only client that is
developed open source. It is also steadily adapted to PHost. One of
the main disadvantages of VPA is as mentioned before the lack of
motivating graphics or sounds. This is an interface for purists. It is
a matter of taste if it is fun to send only "green dots" into battle
or not. It may be a difficult task to acquire new players for VGAP
when presenting VPA as interface. It simply does not look fun. The
other disadvantage is the complexity of the handling. When the
handling of VPA is learnt well by a player it can be quite fast, if
not then playing with this client can be a frustrating task.

So what sort of player will get happy with this client? Players that
want to have functionality in the first place and that regard nice
graphics as something which is not necessarily needed. Second, players
that favor an integrated view over a seperated view. This should be
tested by each player individually. Some player may get a better
overview with a seperated view, other ones with the integrated view.
VPA is probably not the ideal client for a newbie. Clients like
Dosplan (reduced functionality) or PCC (detailed online-help) might be
a better choice.

16 Final notes

To find VGA Planets sites on the web, try the VGA Planets Web Ring,
at:
[200]http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?home'0=vgap

Last updated: 30th of August, 2004

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There are 11 type of people in the world.
Those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who are.
www.akseli.net/~akseli/vgap