Starbase Gamma - VGA Planets 4 Beta Status

As mentioned previously the beta is very playable now and can be used for games.

Game Components

The latest versions of the invidual game components are available from either the Version 4 homepage or the VGA planets ftp site.

Latest Changes

planets4.exe (Version 4.000.033 - Not released yet)

Fixed: Factory control slider bars' arrow mouse clickable hot spots are not centered on the arrow buttons

Fixed: Factory and Government center's slider bar values way too big and coarse to be useful

Fixed: When typing in a new friendly code or command code the hot keys are active on the last letter

Fixed: Crash! Click outfit pod -> template (Crash happens if there are more than 40 diferent ship hull types in the game)

Fixed: Crash! Open data grid maximize the data grid and close it with the x box (windows close button)

Fixed: Crash! Launch a pod and click the file button right away and the program crashes

Fixed: Farms on maximum climate worlds not showing that they will be making food

Fixed: When you are allows to give orders for another race it the build ship screen shows your own ship hull list instead of your allies' hull list.

Fixed: Overview screen's popup slider window can crash if too high a value is typed in

Fixed: The quick pick object targeting window is too narrow in size, it makes it hard to read the near object list

Fixed: Worlds with climates that are right on the edge of what climate my race likes are reported to be too cold

Fixed: Race ownership numbers for object not appearing on space command screen sometimes there is not enough room for them to show up

Fixed: Ship hull select screen tells me that I do not have enough metals when really I just do not have enough money

Fixed: Sometimes the tech increase buttons do not save their settings and no tech upgrade happens

Fixed: Crash! Unchecking enemy, friendly and neutral on the data grid and clicking the sort method drop down box causes a crash

Fixed: Income estimates are wrong do to the changes in the tax rates made in host

Fixed: The build new ship screen is not clearing when switching from player to player

Fixed: I build a new ship using the quick build screen and no metals are removed from the base or ship

New: Ship switch that allows ships to repeat their mine laying turn after turn until they are out of ord units

New: Planets4.exe now knows that transporting stuff between a ship and any object that I own makes no sensor image noise

New: Race map highlite if you select any map object belonging to another race all other objects belonging to that race are also highlited in orange to help you see all other objects belonging to that race quickly

New: Race stats screen lists fighter craft stats and ground assault unit stats

New: The reserve resource settings for a base are only active when they are turned on. The switch to turn on the reserve levels is on the reserve setting screen. Any base that has that switch off will be ignored by auto pilot ships.

New: The reserve level settings can be saved into and loaded from one of the 4 memory banks

New: The quick build screen will not list alien plans, if you do not have a base or ship that is able to build that alien hull

New: ID numbers of scanned systems (planet not yet seen) are displayed on the map

New: Ship data screen lists ship stats like cloak fuel burn and combat bonus ratings of the hull

New: Armor costs 1 mc each and uses 0.01 Duranium each and has a mass of 0.01 kt

New: The transporter limits can be turned off to allow a ship to be ordered to beam on or off more stuff than it can currently hold or has

New: Spy screen displays the estimated new spy mana that will be gained next turn

New: Tech upgrade screen displays a total of all incoming government center transfers of cash

New: Data pad now shows the number of enemy lifeforms on a base (colonists, troops, crew, and high guard

New: Option: do not show movible objects as map memory object (wings, ships, and pods)

New: Ships can fix their armor with repair units ( 5 repair units fixes 1 armor unit )

New: Ships can replenish their armor by ending movement over a base they own or a friends base with a friendly code that matches the ship's friendly code. The replenish switch must be on and the base must have armor plating in stock

New: Exotic tech. Costs a fixed amount to get the tech and a maintance cost that must be paid every turn to keep the tech.

New: When viewing logs that belong to another race the texted of the log will be dispalyed as blue text

New: Base overview screen, the build new building boxes are color coded grey when you do not have enough tech to
build the structure

Unable To Find: Canceling a construction pod launch from pending orders is not returning to me my molybdenum and tritanium

Looked At: Notepad can be drag to the side of the screen and lost.
(Problem was caused by the data grid screen, when the data grid is maximized the main screen of planets4.exe looses
its child window scroll bars and windows outside the visible area are lost. The problem appears to be a windows
/ grid control related problem. The only fix I can find is to not allow the data grid to maximize. )

planets4.exe (Version 4.000.032 - September 3 2000)

Fixed: The quick ship build pops up when you select an object. Happens after the quick build screen has been opened and closed.

Fixed: The quick ship build screen displays super weapons on ships that have none when the ship in question has a shield type 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. (Harmless display error)

planets4.exe (Version 4.000.031 - September 2 2000)

Note: This release is to fix one really a big irritation. The vanishing planet problem. Planets4.exe has a few problems left to fix, but they are very minor compared to the vanishing planet problem.

Fixed: The map memory error. When you scan a planet and it is loaded into map memory and then fly a ship with its scanners off within 25ly of the planet, the planet vanishes without a trace. Move the ship away and it comes back!

New: When you delete a quick build ship plan, it does not come back. You can import the plan of the currently selected ship or all ships.

host.exe (Version 4.00.063 - January 1 2001)

Fixed: Jump point device ships not taking nearby ships with it when it hyper jumps

Fixed: Unable to exchange hull plans between two ships that each have a plan loaded in memory

New: Any time you form a new base on a planet by beaming down race members from your ship the new base will have the attack mode KILL KILL KILL

New: Any time a new base is formed with an assault pod the base will have the attack mode KILL KILL KILL

Same: Any time a new base is formed with a life pod the new base will have the attack mode PEACEFUL

New: All fighters have a chance of taking out the base shield generator. Per shot there is a 1 in 100 chance for missiles and a 1 in 1000 chance for a beam weapon to take it out. The Enforcers have better odds of taking out the base shield. They have a have a 3 in 100 chance for missiles and a 5 in 1000 chance for beams.

New: Having your mine sweeper device turned on makes 50 units of sensor image noise and reduces your scan range by 50%

New: Command code "NCH": Any ship with this code will not enter a warp chunnel or jump point

New: If a ship's intercept target is lost the ship will switch to following the escort target

New: If a ship's escort target is lost the ship will switch to moving to its waypoint

Unable to find: If you fire a super weapon in battle all battles from then on send a super weapon was fired message
even if there was no super weapon in the fight.

Unable to find: New ships autoload fuel leaving the base with negative fuel levels

host.exe (Version 4.00.062 - December 15 2000)

Fixed: Host sometimes slows down and makes almost no progress when a combat event takes place with a cloaked ship in the area. . .

Fixed: The 3 Birdmen masters are sending confusing messages when they did nothing at all

Fixed: Small weapons mistakenly have the shield and armor drain ratings of large weapons
(This caused ships with many small weapons to be way too powerful)

New: Full support of exotic tech added (Requires planets4.exe version 4.000.033 to use)

New: Transporters only make extra sensor noise when transporting cargo to another race's base or ship

host.exe (Version 4.00.061 (Epsilon) - November 19 2000)

New: The Epsilon Galaxy has 688 planets and is 3000 lightyears across, just slightly bigger than the echo cluster. The Zeta Galaxy was just too big.

host.exe (Version 4.00.061 - November 18 2000)

Fixed: Crash in v4host.exe while making new RST files when there are more than 100 VCR files for a single player

Fixed: Ships towing other ships sometime drop ship being towed near waypoint course changes

Fixed: Outfit pods launched into orbit around the base's planet did not have its thrusters on, they just fall back down onto the base the same turn they are launched.

Fixed: Default Minefield maximum radius changed from is only 20 (Changed to 55)

Fixed: If a fighter wing's mother ship is killed in combat the wing sometimes ends up at (0 , 0)

Fixed: I get a log messages saying natives have joined the base by way of the space port, but they never show up

Fixed: If a ship that has docked pods is destroyed in combat the pods do not seem to undock with the dead ship

Fixed: The Dust off device and Incarceration beam were making pods and placing them in the ship's FIGHTER BAYS , (it is unknow what effect that was having)

New: Minimium fighter wing limit upped to 100 wings per player (was 20). If you have a total of 200000 crew in your whole empire you can have up to a 300 fighter wings. (One extra wing per 1000 crew)

New: When a fighter factory on a ship fails to make a new wing due to the wing limit you get a log message telling you why the device failed to work

New: You can no longer see pods and wings that are docked to a ship, including cloaked ships

New: Ship: Cargo can be transfered to and from a ground base belonging to another player if their friendly codes match.

New: Ship: Cargo can be transfered to and from a ship belonging to another race if their friendly codes match

New: Ship: Cargo can be transfered from base or other ship if the ships doing the transfer has a friendly code that matches the target's universal friendly code

host.exe (Version 4.00.060 - November 4 2000)

V4host.exe rewritten to bypass a compiler defeat that can cause a random page fault in kernal32.dll. Ground combat code was moved from v4host.exe to v4hostx.dll.

host.exe (Version 4.00.059 - November 2 2000)

New: Ghipsodals take contraband when they are attacted to a base (1000 Ghipsoldals take 1 kt Kerria Crystal Contraband)

Fixed: A ship laying a minefield uses too much ord when laying a minefield that is bigger than the max minefield radius

Fixed: Base shields still being shot at by ships that can not do any damage to them

Fixed: All natives vanishing from planet when a base is destroyed by amorphous natives

Fixed: Ground bases ending up with more troops after combat (Neg units killed)

host.exe (Version 4.00.058 - October 27 2000)

Fixed: All Cyborg ships and bases capturing nearby enemy Cyborg ships! (All ships and bases acting like they had a king!) Some players are losing contact with up to 20 ships a turn!

Fixed: Warp chunnel ships loosing their chunnel device after using it (If you lost the device host will restore it)

Fixed: Non-moving ships hitting mines (Ships have an escort or intercept target)

Tested: Cyborg Cube ships assimilating enemy bases with the assimilation beam
Results: Works great, as long as "Attack Ground Targets" is off. Otherwise the base gets blown up in combat.

New: Super Laser safety, When the super laser is used outside of combat to destory a planet, the planet MUST be the ship's kill target and the laser must be turned on.

New: Tax rate bonus and penalities based on racial traits removed from host. (Colonist tax rate happy bonus and penalities based on racial traits still in place. The tax rates have been changed

Income Rates:
40% Ultra Conservative
45% Conservative
50% Liberal
65% Enslavement
55% Complex

Humanoid	1X
Bovinoid	2X
Reptilian	0.25X
Avian	2X
Amorphous	0X
Insectoid	3X
Amphibian	1X
Ghipsoldal	0.1X
Siliconoid	0.08X
Chupanoid	0X

host.exe (Version 4.00.057 - October 26 2000)

Fixed: Cyborg King not assimilating any native race other than the humanoids

New: When a native amorphous worm attack kills a base all the amorphous natives are placed on the planet instead of being destroyed

New: The Birdmen plasmatron assault craft acts like a mine and smelter and have no negative side effects on colonists and natives

New: The Birdmen plasmatron decreases the enemies ground assault attack powers against Birdmen assault craft by 0.5% each with a limit of 50%. They only effect enemy assault mechs and fighters.

New: If the Birdmen have over 10 million colonists, total, in their empire, they have a chance of stealing enemy universal friendly codes

New: The Birdmen are not hindered by enemy high guard on enemy ships when attempting to steal ship plans

New: Birdmen bases have a stealth rating of 20, normally bases have a stealth rating of 800

New: Birdmen Anti-Cyborg nanovirus device New: Mind crusher device makes scanner noise

New: World crusher makes scanner noise New: Darkwings and Resolute Class ships are immune to tachyon scanners

New: The Super Laser can destroy any planet just by setting the planet as the kill target and parking over it, other empires will detect the weapon being fired

New: Cyborg assimilators collect 0.1 mc per enemy colonist taken (Except: Birdmen)

New: Ships with a super weapon will not target a shielded ground base with anything except its super weapon and will only do so if the base is a kill target or the attack ground target switch is on

host.exe (Version 4.00.056 - October 20 2000)

host.exe (Version 4.00.055 - October 18 2000)

Changed: The combat power boost that cloaker ships get at tick 26 does not pump power into the super weapon

Changed: Gimpsoldal engine production changed. They will make one of each engine type if happiness is over 75 and there are more than 50000 of them. Engine production maxes out at 16 of each engine type with a population of more than 2 million and a happiness of over 110. If Gimpsoldal happiness if over 110 and you have 200000 Ghipsoldals you get 16 type 1 and 16 type 2 engines and 1 of everything else. At 300000 Ghipsoldals you will get 16 of type 1, 2, and 3 and one of every other type.

Changed: Cyborg assimilation powers increased. 1 to 20000 cyborg colonists can assimilate one native each. The number that they can assimilate each decreases at a constant rate from 1 to 0.2 as the Cyborg population inceases from 20000 to 100000.

New: Enforcers are not attacked by Insectoids untill after turn 6. No Insectoids will be on their homeworld

Removed: If a player misses 15 turns the race is given to another player. (Overwhelmingly unpopular)

host.exe (Version 4.00.054 - October 17 2000)

Fixed: World crusher not working when kill target is a base and not a planet. No log message telling the shooter what happened.

Fixed: Fire at ground targets off, but the ship still fires at ground targets

Changed: The Cyborg King causes a 800% increase in colonist growth rate on the planet he is on. (Was 400%)

Changed: If a ship is captured in battle it is no longer considered a minor conflict

Changed: Combat vectors more important, ship starts in a path along the attack vector

Changed: Cyborg Assimilation Beam can take a max of 250000 enemy colonists a turn

Changed: Chupanoids and Amorphous natives are NOT allowed on your homeworld for the first 4 turns

New: Enforcer Hawking retraining centers convert up to 300 enemy prisoners into troops a turn, when working they use 5 food 1 supply and 1 med each. They use nothing if on and there are no prisoners.

New: The Enforcer Bomber can target one building type using the base command code "b01" to "b30" The codes corraspond with the order of the buildings listed on the base overview screen. Each bomber destroys 1 building. Thirdy bombers destroy 30 cities or 30 farms. Bombing happens when the base is in attack mode deep ground patrols or better.

New: Enforcer small and large ship weapons do 4X system damage and kill only half the normal number of crew members.

New: Enforcer super weapon "Laser - Taser" does NO hull damage to target ship.

New: Enforcer arrester unit captures 500 colonists, 350 crew and 5 troops a turn, each.

New: Victims of a Enforcer ground war attack are 3 times more likely to surrender. Normally surrender takes place if the victim is outnumbered 3 to 1 after first phase of fighting. All races surrender if they are simply out numbered by the Enforcers.

New: Cyborg King can take over ONE enemy Cyborg ship that is within 10LY of the base he is at or 25LY of the ship he is in, if the enemy's King is more than 300 LY away.

New: Enforcers are eaten alive by Insectoid natives. One Insectoid will kill 100 colonists before being killed. One Insectoid will kill 50 crew before being killed. One Insectoid will kill One trooper before being killed

New: When a super weapon is fired in battle all empires will detect it and the know location of the blast

New: New natives can appear at public space ports where there are zero of their type on the base or planet

New: Cyborg get +1 engine tech if their king assimilates a population of 100000 Ghipsoldals (Or more)

New: If a Humanoid or Ghipsoldal see any ship of Cyborg design, belonging to any race, there is a 50% chance they will send a distress call to all empires requesting help.

New: In a ground war between the Cyborg and any other race besides the Lizards, Crystals or another Cyborg; 30% of the defeated Cyborg colonists will be reclaimed as colonists. The Birdmen can reclaim 50%.. Cyborg killed by Assault units or fighters will NOT be recovered.

New: If you have more than 50000 Ghipsoldals that have a happy rating of at least 75 they will make 4 of each type of ship engine. If you have over 150000 with a happiness rating of over 110 they will make 16 of each type of engine (the maximum).

New: If a player misses 15 or more turns their ships, wings, and bases will be given to another race. The race with the with the highest happy index gets the bases, wings, and ships. Happy Index = a sum of the happiness of all colonists on all worlds with a population of more than 100000. You get 4X happy index if your race is of the same type as the one that is surrendering.

New: ASCII score file, keeps a running total of points for all 30 players. Not sorted. ( nameofyig.asc )

New: Grouping code added to combat movement, ships on the same attack vector tend to group if they have simular stand off ranged, will tend to attack same target

New: Ships start moving in a straight line to the center of the combat map, will decide on the best target and do a quick break to leap at the target at around tick 140. Ships start with a slower rate of movement.

New: Cloaking ships get to fire first (Only if in range) Get power bank energy at tick 25, 141, 310 and 4000

New: Power banks dump energy into all the weapons at tick 141, 310 and 4000. Before the extra power was only being dump injected at 310 and 4000

host.exe (Version 4.00.053 - October 01 2000)

Fixed: Default max size of minefields is only 20LY radius! (Changed back to 50LY)

New: Ship Device: Draconian Solar Gamma Ray: The device kills half of all Carbon based and Robotic life on all bases under the ship including natives. Device works through base shields. Gamma rays destory all food, farms and medical units on the bases. (Planets4.exe release 32 will list it as Device 9)

host.exe (Version 4.00.052 - September 29 2000)

Fixed: Host crash!
Cause: When a player used the Reticulian Light Beam with no empty pod bays the host could sometimes crash, found by: Don Friesen, Robo's faithful human

host.exe (Version 4.00.051 - September 28 2000)

New: Siliconoids produce ord for crystal players. 100 Natives produce 1 Ord per turn. Max of 10000 Ord per planet.

New: Infernerators heat planets by 20 points per stress unit used. If climate is above 90 the unit will heat the planet to 100 for free, no stress needed. New: Crystal homeworlds have a +5 HD stress delta

New: The Crystal X field can steal a max of 500 repair units per enemy ship per turn

New: The minefield destablizer can one destroy one mine per turn. Works 80% of the time.

New: Host Configure Program ( HCONFIG ) added. It can be accessed from HOST.EXE. The FIG file that it produces is a plain text file. You can edit game settings ( FIG file ) with a text editor and host will be a able to read the updated values.

New: Scoring System added. Scoring system produces a HTML score file as well as sending scoring messages to the players in game. Scoring system can be turned off. Score can be made non-public. You can pick the score needed to win Points you can score: -1 If you are at war with anyone after turn 25 +1 For every active empire that you are not at war with after turn 25 +1 For each planet with a population of more than 1 million +1 For each planet with a population of more than 5 million +1 For each planet with a population of more than 10 million +1 For each native that votes for you +? For special race based bonus points (None active at this time) +7 For being the "King Of The Hill" You must have the only ship at a special planet after turn 25 Any of the above can be turned off in hconfig. The king of the hill planet is any planet the host names. The number of king of hill victory points can be changed in hconfig.

host.exe (Version 4.000.050 - September 22 2000)

Fixed: Ship plans at bases being deleted with the message that "Crystal ship plans vanished!"

Fixed: Pods not landing when there are large numbers of pods over the planet. (Note: This fix should also fix odd intermittent failures of minefields, ship devices, towing, transfers, race traits that interact with nearby objects, and only some ships ending up in a fight when there is a large number of ships that want to fight. The error was in some very important code that allowed objects to find nearby objects for interaction.)

host.exe (Version 4.000.049 - September 20 2000)

New: Output of Crystal Hyper Lathe's molybdenum increased Each HD Stress point is turned into: 200 Ord 10 Food 3 Megacredits 1 Supply 8 Duranium 2 Tritanium 5 Molybdenum 3 Neutronium

host.exe (Version 4.000.048 - September 19 2000)

New: Stormer ships (any ship a stormer owns) have special shields that are highly resistant to photon torpedoes. A hit from a photon torpedo only drains 5 shield points from a stormer ship (normal drain is 90). All other weapons cause a normal shield drain.

New: Crystals can not own ship plans from other races. New: Boring fights have been replaced with a message. (Any fight that does not have at least one object blowing up)

New: The message file (*.MSS) is repacked to save space once every 10 turns.

New: Ships that enter combat are automatically detected and scanned by the other ships entering combat

New: Traveling through a web minefield causes a ship to become more and more visible to enemy scanners.

New: Any ship owned by a Crystal player can travel through a web minefield without any danger of hitting a web mine.

New: Any ship built by a Crystal player can travel through a web minefield without any danger of hitting a web mine even if owned by a non-crystal race.

New: Crystal shields take 3 times normal shield drain when hit by ord firing weapons (Any ship owned by a Crystal player)

New: Crystal shields take half normal shield drain when hit by non-ord firing weapons (Any ship owned by a Crystal player)

New: When a Crystal shield is hit by a non-ord weapon half the energy that it took to fire the weapon is absorbed into the Crystal ship's weapons.

New: Crystal X Field ( planets4.exe sees it as: Device 8 ) Steals repair units from all ships, bases and pods within 50 LY. Can steal a maxium of what the ship's repair hold size is. If the repair hold is full it will still take a full measure of enemy repair units and destroy them. It will take from all other empires, including ones that you are not at war with. The device will capture any enemy ship within 50 LY that has more than 99% engine damage. Device will erase all ship plans in ships, pods, and bases within 150 LY.

Fixed: Ion cannon range was set to 40 by mistake, it should he been range 200.

Fixed: Cyborgs turn enemy ground units and fighters into their own host.exe (Version 4.000.047 - September 14 2000)

New: Contraband market price system adjusted. Less downward pressure on prices. More upward pressure on prices by high colonist populations. New: Much harder to get spy mana points. ( It takes 300 points to try to steal an enemy ship plan, A fed player can only produce 12 spy mana points a turn max, so they can try to still plans once every 25 turns if they save all their spy mana points. )

New: If a ship has at least 1 high guard range onboard and an enemy trys to steal your ship plans there is a 75% chance the attempt will fail. New: During a ground attack Lizards kill enemy colonists, troops, and crew at a rate of 30 times normal. This DOES NOT apply to boarding actions in space.

New: During a ground combat attack colonists, troops and crew kill Lizards at 1/2 the normal rate. Assault craft and fighters kill Lizards at the normal rate.

New: Cyborg can now assimilate humanoid populations of between 0 and 99,999 with their cyborg king in a single turn. (They used to require a minimium of 100,000)

Fixed: Pod docking problem. Pods are not docking with ships that fly by the pod. The ship must start movement next to the pod to be able to dock with it

Checked: Only Cyborg can use an Assimilation Beam: Yes, that is already the case.