The Birdmen Guide to the Galaxy
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<====== 8.12 AHost ======================================================>
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Not a thorough discussion here, but a subtile suggestion posted in the
alt.games.vga-planets newsgroup by Bi0Menace :
>I have a question i hope some will be able to answer.
>
>In AHost, it says : All birdmen freighters have a cloaking device.
>Defenition of a freighter in AHost is : A SHIP WITHOUT BEAMS
>So...... Is it possible for the Birdmen to buy a ANNIHILATION CLASS
>BATTLESHIP without beams, and be able to cloak ? (10 Torpedoes and a
>mass of almost 1000 KT)
Yes. They can also cloak a no beam Gorbie, a no beam SSD, a no beam Firecloud,
no beam Glory Devices, and (maybe) a no beam Loki (just heard this, so please
correct me if I'm wrong).
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<====== 8.13 The Killing Floor (TKF) ====================================>
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First, a quick definition of the add-on:
TKF resolves combat in VGAP using fleet battles; rather than the single ship
combat that we all know and despise. You need a separate viewer to view the
battles. TKF works on PHOST 3 as well as Host 3.22.015 and higher. Basically,
VCR combat is eliminated and replaced with a big dogfight of all ships at
once.
TKF changes totally the way that one must look at general strategy, and more
importantly, battle tactics. It makes the most fundamental changes to almost
every aspect of the game: ship building, combat, economic expansion,
diplomacy, ship trading... the list goes on.
TKF itself is divided into three distinct phases:
Cloaked Intercept
Ships vs. Immune
Ships vs. Planet/Ship vs. Ship
Any ships that are set to cloak-intercept will fight those targets FIRST,
before the rest of the battle. A DW set to pick off a firecloud out of a group
of cubes will fight the firecloud by itself, THEN fight the rest of the fleet.
Next, TKF looks at the attacking hulls to determine if the ship is immune to
NUK/ATT, such as anything klingon, rebel, or the empire's Imperial Assault. If
there are any ships in orbit of the planet they will fight no matter what
their mission. So your merlin will attack a falcon without mission kill or PE
rebels. Note that the defending planet or starbase does NOT fight in this
arrangement. This ships are intercepted before they enter the planet's
atmosphere, if you want to put it that way.
If the attacker survives the defending orbiting ships, they then fight the
planet if their mission is set to kill.
Battle order is of course redundant since everyone in a group fights, but
there are a few important things to note:
1. Multiple Primary Enemies. Fighting a war against the empire and feds
combined? Rather than setting mission to kill, keep your mission on cloak or
whatever, set one ship's enemy to Fed, the other to Empire. BOTH ships will
now fight either race. Add another ship with another enemy, and your 3 ships
will attack any of the 3 specified races.
2. Numeric Friendly codes: The F-codes now provide a basis for aggression in
combat, in a typical battle plan you want to send in your torp ships and order
your carriers to hold back and fill the skies with fighters. Numeric codes of
001-499 are aggressive, with 500-999 being varying degrees of defensive.
Non-numeric codes are interpreted as 500. As the Birds you can use this when
forming a battle group including red winds, yes, those formerly useless
carriers now have a purpose. Set the reds to 999 and your resolutes to
001-100. The resolutes will close with the enemy, with the fighters drawing
the beams away. Minesweepers should also be set to defensive positions. And
for God's sake, remember to set your freighters to 999. No one likes to see
their LDSF leading the cavalry charge...
2a. When assigning f-codes to carriers, bear in mind that the aggressive and
defensive settings are transferred to the fighters. The carrier will hang back
regardless of number code, but a carrier with a setting of 999 will launch a
defensive screen of fighters - they will be more converned with dogfighting
other fighters or picking on whatever comes close - a setting of 1-499 will
have the effect of the fighters ignoring smaller ships and concentrating on
the biggest thing the enemy has. They also seem to know a weak ship and will
target it. An example: Attacked by the Colonies, he brought along a few
Gemini's as resupply for the Virgo's, and had them hang back. My carriers,
setting 001, avoided the Virgo and wasted the Gemini's first.
Now on to the tactical changes:
The first big change: Cloak Intercept
Two words: Cloaked Intercept. Two more words: No Survivors.
The first phase of combat is the Cloak Intercept phase; that is, all ships
that have a cloaking device, that intercept a ship, will be dumped into the
combat "meat grinder" before all other ships. What does this mean for combat?
It means... that you have more options in combat than any other race.
Resolutes get a huge boost from this, as if they didn't have enough of a
boost already, because they can pick apart the fleet during the combat phase.
Say you have a swift heart scout around a planet, and lo and behold, there
are two heavy carriers. You know that if you just send your three Darkwings
in, they will be nuked. So, you decide to intercept one of the heavy carriers
with all three Darkwings. Those three get to decloak, dump their cargo into
the gut of that carrier while taking minimal damage; and then work over the
other carrier and the planet.
That's just one of the many applications of cloakers... there are still the
standard applications: Minelaying, terror attacks, tow splitting a fleet, but
now they can intercept and swarm targets in a more favorable combat arena.
Cloakers have always been a precision instrument.
The Wolfpack tactic is now just as valuable to the Fascists and Lizards as it
once was to the Pirates. If you don't want to have to fight that other nasty
carrier, just tow what you do want to fight out of orbit to a waiting
wolfpack; and if you want to, you can split your fleet (you're a cloaking
race, you can do that), and tow both carriers to waiting ships. Your options
under TKF are just that much easier.
Ships in general:
The Resolute is an excellent ship to use with fleet combat; it is the primary
component of a Romulan fleet, and fills a place that even the Darkwing
cannot. 7 beams and 3 torps, combined with a very, very large fuel tank make
it a ship to be feared in standard combat; but in fleets, this ship is no
less than frightening. It can cloak intercept ships and direct firepower to
an extent that, when combined with the heavy firepower of the Darkwings
backing them up, could make the Romulan enemy look somewhere else for a
fight, as well as having a fuel tank that will take it pretty well anywhere
in enemy territory. Advance cloak is just the icing on the cake; it can sit
and wait for an ideal target, or await fuel/torpedo resupply.
The Darkwing is a very very very nice ship, especially under TKF. It is a
cloaking battleship. It can cloak intercept. It can fight, in teams, ships
that really should not be fought against in teams. Two or three Darkwings can
fight very well, providing they only have to fight one ship, and cloak
intercept can do just that. Set two Darkwings to intercept that Nova, and
watch it go boom, and then the Darkwings can take the support ships with
little trouble. This is a very dangerous ship when you have fleet combat
available; use it wisely, and build lots of them. Its only crippling factor
is the small fuel tank; but this can be made up for somewhat with a Resolute
escort; no other Bird cloaker has a larger fuel tank.
The best way to wean yourself off of VCR combat is to experiment with a few
simulations in TKF. The old "one-two" punch combo's no longer apply. The days
of a Cygnus w/Mark 8's + 2 patriots stomping everything are over. Try this
combo in a TKF game, say, against a resolute or DW, and watch those three
ships get blown out of the sky. Then again, a 6-pack of moderately equipped
birds-of-prey can do a number on any large ship, maybe still losing the
battle but doing ridiculous amounts of damage as well.
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Places to check when you're looking for more even more info.
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<====== 9.1 Romulans in VGA-Planets =====================================>
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* The latest issue of the free VGAP magazine 'The Planeteer' (issue 9)
included an article about the Birdmen. Not as large as this guide, but you
might as well read it too.
* There are not many WWW sites that have VGAP tactics and that are frequently
updated. If you're desperately looking for new ideas, I would recommend Ted
York's site and/or my site. The current URLs are:
Ted's : http://www.teds-universe.com/~goldman
Timo's : http://www.chem.vu.nl/Studenten/kreike/vgap.html
Other options include posting a question to the alt.games.vga-planets Usenet
newsgroup, and/or sending a message to an expert Birdmen player listed below.
* I've heard there is a Birdmen Homepage being created... The author will be
Dave Howard (Duckster2u@aol.com) and the URL will be:
Check it out!
* For a thorough discussion of the weapons in VGA-Planets I would recommend
the 'Master at Arms' paper written by Jan Klingele. It was published in two
parts in issue 9 and 10 of The Planeteer. This paper, and also the issues of
The Planeteer will be available on my site.
(http://www.chem.vu.nl/Studenten/kreike/vgap.html)
The current homepage of The Planeteer is at http://web.ukonline.co.uk/undead/
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<====== 9.2 Romulans in Star Trek =======================================>
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There are some sites on the Internet that carry information about the Romulans
in Star Trek. There is a lot of good info about the Romulan history and
language. Those sites are also the places to check for new Birdmen picts...
* The Romulan Home World at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/2333/index.html.
Information about the Romulans by Romulan lovers. Collection of links to
other Romulan related sites. Dictionary! for naming your ships!!!
(English-Romulan and Romulan-English). History of Romulans - read about the
nasty Orion Pirates!
* The Romulan Star Empire at http://www.homeworld.com. Non-profit
organisation. Roleplaying site for real Romulan fans. Mailing list and
meetings for members. Send a message to info@homeworld.com for an automated
reply, for questions and comments mail to: rse@homeworld.com.
Note: the site seems to be unaccessible...
* There's a site that's related to the RSE at
http://www.ts.umu.se/~ltcinge/Scandia/
called 'Base Scandia'. This site has
info about the RSE and useful links to other Romulan/Star Trek sites. Too bad
the picture gallery can't be accessed... :-(
* at http://tos-www.tos.net/tos/romulan/romulan.html
TOS TrekMUSE, Romulan Empire
Good site! Large, still maintained Dictionary. Chronology of Romulan History.
Of all sites I've visited, this one has the most links to other Romulan sites.
* Original homepage of the Romulan Roleplaying Guide at
http://www.math.grin.edu/~sarantit/rom_rp.html.
* The Romulan International Empire at http://unix.mclv.net/staff/death/rie.html
* The Romulan Web at http://www-iwi.unisg.ch/~sambucci/romulus/
* The Romulan Empire at http://macgyver.pr.mcs.net/tos/romulan/romulan.html.
Featuring the Romulan Roleplaying Guide.
* Eeeeeh, site: http://tos-www.millcomm.com/trek.html
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161,397 characters, 23,956 words and 2,960 lines!
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<====== 10.1 Credits ====================================================>
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*Thanks to all the co-authors - without their help this guide wouldn't be this
complete! In random order:
[1] Josep Lluis Aguilo <hiper@dinky.bitel.es>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies.
[2] Ricardo Carvalho <cometa@cc.fc.ul.pt>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies.
[3] Georg Heyder <106027.30@compuserve.com>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies.
[4] jw <jacqg@dds.nl>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies
He also wrote the Tantalus addon part.
[5] Mark Wilmot <mwilmot@gol.com>
<markrendl@aol.com>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies.
He also contributed to the sections of the
following host addons: Fhost, Nemesis, Borders
and RacePlus.
[6] MaGs <andersson@geocities.com> <mags@wineasy.se>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies.
He's got his own site at:
http://www.users.wineasy.se/mags
[7] Adam Lloyd <75130.2016@compuserve.com>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies
[8] Charles Bloom <cbloom@mail.utexas.edu>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies,
both in TimHost as PHost games.
He's got his own site at:
http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~cbloom/index.html
[9] Travis Schneider <tschneid@rogers.wave.ca>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies.
He also wrote the sections of the following
host add-ons: Fhost, Starbase+, Tachyon, Nemesis,
Jumpgate and Portal, and contributed to the
Phost section.
[10] Andrew Sterian <asterian@eecs.umich.edu>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies
and especially in Phost games.
He's got his own site at:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~asterian
[11] Jan Klingele <jhk@compuserve.com>
Specialist in devious Birdmen strategies.
For me as the editor it was almost an impossible job to edit this guide: to
include all submissions in their original state, to include all references to
the authors of the submissions. Be sure that every one of them has written
two or three times as mush as you might expect when browsing through this
guide and looking at the references.
Thanks guys!
Mail them all at once to say thanks!
* Thanks to Kai-Uwe Clauswitz <clauswik@Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>
for providing
the ASCII art pict of the Romulan Logo.
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<====== 10.2 Questions ==================================================>
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If you have any questions about his guide, please send them to me. My current
e-mail adress is kreike@chem.vu.nl. If you have questions about playing the
Birdmen, you can try any of the expert player listed at the 'Credits' section
above.
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<====== 10.3 Additions ==================================================>
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Additions to this guide are welcome, if not very welcome. We are aware this
guide isn't complete, it won't be completed and it can't ever be completed
simply because both host.exe and phost.exe will keep changing, and new addons
will be created. Please send all additions and bugfixes to me at my current
e-mail address: kreike@chem.vu.nl. I'll gladly update the guide.
Right now the guide could use information about eliminating the Federation,
the Fascists and the Rebels. Altlist 3 and 6 are also frequently used but not
discussed in this guide. Maybe some info about different game setups: custom
races (Where to spend your credits on), custom starmaps (in general), and
different game scenario's (Disunited Kingdoms, Ashes of the Empire, Capture
the Flag etc.)
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<====== 10.4 Updates ====================================================>
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You can always find the latest version of this Guide at my homepage: the Elite
Site. The current URL of the site is:
http://www.chem.vu.nl/Studenten/kreike/vgap.html
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<====== 10.5 Complaints =================================================>
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I would like to redirect all complaints and annoying messages concerning this
Birdmen Guide and the Birdmen in general to the 'Lenin BrotherHood', a group
of VGAP players that love the Evil Empire. You can find their official
homepage at the time of writing at URL: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/3524.
Why? They just shouldn't have put that 'infamous recipe for the Cooked
Birdman' on their site - it did hurt my feathered soul very deeply! :-)
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<====== 10.6 Distribution ===============================================>
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* This Guide will be available on the NET free of charge. The twelve of us
we created the guide and we should get the bucks. Since we're not charging
anything, neither should someone else.
* You may distibute, copy and publish (parts of) this guide by every means you
can imagine as long as the contents of the guide remain unmodified and our
names remain included.
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<====== 10.7 Version History ============================================>
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v1.0 March '97 Initial release
v1.1 September '97 Fixed some typos and incorrect information.
Extended chapter 9. Removed the linebreaks that
caused some Windows-based apps to crash.
Added more paragraphs to chapters 4, 6 and 7.
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* This guide has been written on my fabulous, fantastic and famous Power
Macintosh 6100/60.

The
PowerMac!
If you do like this guide, you'll probably be infected by a Macintosh virus,
i.e. the I-like-Macintosh virus :-)
(I guess these words truely will be my last...:-)
Amsterdam - May 1998,
Timo Kreike
kreike@chem.vu.nl
http://www.chem.vu.nl/Studenten/kreike/vgap.html
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