========================================================================== * Forwarded by Roman Zhukov * From: "Stefan Reuther" * Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 12:53:05 +0100 * Subj: [phostdev] [Announce] PHost 4.0 & 3.4d ========================================================================== Hello, PHost 4.0 is finally available (and its companion, 3.4d). It took longer than we thought, but we hope it's worth the waiting. WHAT'S NEW? First thing first: PHost 4 is a hosting program for VGA Planets 3.x. We have no intention to make a hosting program for Planets 4. + 999 SHIPS. PHost now supports up to 999 ships. The actual limit is configurable in pconfig.src. + NEW SHIP ABILITIES. Ship abilities (hullfunc) can now be assigned individually to each ship. There are five new ship abilities (Unclonable, CloneOnce, Ungiveable, GiveOnce, Level2Tow). + SENSOR SWEEP. Sensor Sweep now also finds mines and wormholes. + EXPERIENCE. Ships (and planets) now gather experience while they work for you. Experienced ships fight better than novices. This was the main reason for the delay, but it was too cool an idea to be left out :) + COMBAT. Ship list designers can now build "death rays": weapons that ignore shields and hulls and just kill crew. Colonists on a planet can now survive fights. + DESIGN RACES. Racial abilities and special missions can now assigned independantly. If you wish your Jem'Hadar race to be able to pillage as well as take 150% damage, you can now get it. + CONFIGURATION. The configuration got cleaned up and simplified. Some options were removed, some were added. + COMMUNICATION. There is a new TRN command for use by client programs, to store their auxiliary data. Some command processor commands can now be externalized to implement command restrictions (things like PONEALLY). + DOCUMENTATION. The documentation has been re-written from scratch. It is not yet complete, but we're making progress. When finished, it is intended to also replace the 3.x documentation. The new documentation is intended to cast light on all aspects of the game. All changes are shown in more details on . COMPATIBILITY You can upgrade from PHost 3 to PHost 4 at any time in the game, but there's currently no way back. When you use PHost 4, your add-ons must support that. The most-recent CVS version of the PDK supports PHost 4.x and PHost 3.x, requiring almost no changes to your code. You can just link against the new PDK and rest in peace. The new PDK should be able to handle all future versions of PHost. Otherwise, when you upgrade according to the instructions (see config/upgrade.src), your 3.x game will continue unchanged with 4.x. When you do not use Experience or Death Rays, combat can be played with any PVCR 3.x, as well as PlayVCR, PCC and EchoView. If you use the new features, you need to upgrade PVCR. PVCR 4.0 supports all PHost versions. The most recent PlayVCR also plays PHost 4.0 combat. Upgraded versions of PCC, EV and the PDK are in the making. So far, no publicly-available client-side program explicitly supports PHost 4.x. The next PCC version will support it, and I'll try to update VPA as well. To get this straight: you can still play PHost with planets.exe alone, and we have no intention to change that. But a client which shows you whether your ship is a Greenhorn or a Veteran is better than one which doesn't :-) PHost with more than 500 ships can be played with any client that supports HOST999. We will support PHost 3.x as long as possible. PHost 3.4d and 4.0 are based on the same code base. PHost 3.4d is 100% compatible to the previous 3.x versions. You can upgrade to 3.4d anytime you wish, and downgrade again, too. STATUS PHost 4.0 is beta. Not all new parts of it have already been used in "real games", and those which were used were not perfect from the first line on, either. When you want to use PHost 4.0, be aware that it may contain bugs (although I can't remember a PHost version which had no bugs so far :-) Wimps can wait for the "final", "non-beta" release which will be called 4.1. Others please try 4.0 (or 3.4d) and report your findings. WHAT'S MISSING? Several things have been proposed for PHost. For example, I think we should have ION STORMS. A recent proposal on the newsgroup was to extend the SUPER REFIT mission. We want to improve COMBAT as well (some more orders instead of just "NTP"). You can expect several such changes in the 4.0 line. Currently, not all 4.0 features are communicated to the client, one notable missing thing is information about special ship abilities. LOCATION All PHost 4.0 downloads. All PHost 3.4d downloads. PHost 4.x documentation. PHost 3.x documentation. So now go on the streets and bring this message of joy to the masses, Stefan -- PHost is powered by schnitzelmitkartoffelsalat. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: phostdev-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ========================================================================== http://www.phost.de/phost4doc/new4.html What's New in PHost 4 The Portable Host Version 4.0 Jump to Table of Contents Index Introduction Player-Visible Changes Version Numbering 999 Ships Ship Abilities Sensor Sweeping Anonymous Games Towing Combat Experience Design Races Hosting Changes Configuration Cleaned Up Technical Changes New AUXDATA Format New UTIL.DAT Records New TRN Command Minor Changes Command Messages Languages Upcoming Changes Ion Storms More Control Miscellaneous Introduction This file contains all the important changes in PHost 4.x compared to PHost 3.x and earlier. This file does not claim to be 100% complete. PHost 4 contains some rather intrusive changes, to rules and otherwise, so that one could possibly talk of PHost 4 as a different hosting program. But actually, PHost 3.x and 4.x are based upon the same code base; when technically possible, some of these changes are also made available in a 3.x PHost. We will continue to maintain the 3.x series as long as possible. In a nutshell: PHost 4 contains all these things that make it too different from PHost 3 to share a common version number. To get this straight: PHost 4 is a hosting program for VGA Planets 3.0 or 3.5, as a replacement for the Host program 3.x. It has nothing to do with the game "VGA Planets v4", which is something completely different. Back to top -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Player-Visible Changes Version Numbering Prior PHost versions were numbered 3.2.1.9, where 3.2 is the version of the Wisseman Host they try to emulate and 1.9 is the actual PHost version. Because this causes confusion (to what part does "PHost 3.2" refer in "3.2.3.2"?), and because the two hosts have rather diverged anyway, we decided to drop the first two places of the version number. PHost can be set up to emulate almost any 3.x host, but still gameplay has noticeable differences. 999 Ships PHost 4.x supports up to 999 ships. The actual ship limit can be configured in pconfig.src (NumShips). When all players use appropriate client programs, you can use this to delay the ship limit a bit. See under NumShips for more information. When there are less than 500 ships in the game, PHost generates files compatible with all client versions. Actually, PHost 4.x will always write "Host999-style" result files. None of the known unpack programs have problems with this. However, recent Winplan versions will always unpack results as if they were made by Host999, producing bogus scan reports, so this also works around that problem. PHost allocates ship Ids so that Ids above 500 are only taken when there are more than 400 ships in the game. This way, players can start the game with an "old" client and update later. Ship Abilities PHost 4 introduces per-ship hull functionalities. Originally, ship abilities were tied to particular hulls (i.e. hull 105 always is the Merlin ship). PHost 3.x allowed you to make these race-dependant (i.e. small freighters only hyperjump when owned by the Rebels). PHost 4 goes a step further and allows to define these things separately for each ship. This allows some more realistic play: when you capture a Rebel ship, it will hyperjump for you, too, and when Rebels capture a small freighter you built, it will not jump. In addition, it makes possible an add-on that allows you to buy additional capabilities for your ship. There are now a number of new functions which need per-ship abilities: ships can be CloneOnce (and get Unclonable when cloned), likewise GiveOnce and Ungiveable. This can be used to make ships more valuable, and to implement additional rules (i.e. "you can't trade ships that are heavier than 400 kt"). There is now also a Level2Tow which wins all tow conflicts. Sensor Sweeping Originally, you had to use sensor sweep to find foreign planets, mine sweep to find minefields, and WRS to find wormholes. The sensor sweep mission now does all of these. This is to simplify game play. For some things, you do not even have to scan in order to see them, so it makes little sense having to perform three different orders to see the others. If you do not like this, turn it off by setting ExtendedSensorSweep to No. The original missions still function. To actually sweep or scoop mines, you still need mine sweep, of course. Anonymous Games PHost now allows all means of communication to be configured out. Since ever, it was possible to disable messages, alliances, remote control, etc. The last means of communication, ship names, can now also be turned off. When AllowShipNames is set to No, players will only see their own ship names; foreign ship names will be suppressed. This feature is also available in PHost 3.4. Towing The alternative towing rules have been changed. The ship's movement distance now has a greater impact. Before, a ship's tow strength was 163*(Engine Contribution) + (Distance Factor). Now, the formula is (Engine Contribution) + 19*(Distance Factor). In particular, ships with, say, 3 engines can now tow a four-engine ship in some cases. The distance factor now also considers fuel on the ship. If your fuel suffices for 40 ly only, your distance factor will be 40, even if you have a gravitonic warp 9 ship. The actual factors can be changed to emulate the old way (TowStrengthEngineScale, TowStrengthDistanceScale), the fact that fuel is considered can not be changed. This change is also available in PHost 3.4b. Combat Battle order (numeric friendly codes) is now also considered for intercept attack. Previously, ships fought in decreasing Id order. This change is also available in PHost 3.4b. PHost can now be configured so that colonists survive when a planet has been conquered in regular combat. After all, most of them are civilists. The ColonistCombatSurvivalRate specifies the percentage. However, colonists will get unhappier by ColonistCombatSurvivalRate / 2 points after combat. Because this option has the potential to severely change gameplay, it is only available in PHost 4.0 and later. Ship list designers can now create Death Rays. Those ignore all shields and just kill crew. Hence, a death ray is well-suited for capturing enemy ships. A death ray is one having a "Bang" value of zero. The same goes for torpedoes. Combat is affected by experience. Experienced ships fight better than inexperienced ones. Otherwise, the battle mechanics did not change. When you use neither the Death Ray feature nor Experience, you can continue watching your combat using an older VCR player. Experience Ships and planets get experience when doing things. Experienced units are better than inexperienced ones in certain aspects. In a nutshell: Experienced units fight better Experienced ships have a smaller risk of running on a mine Ships gain experience by moving, doing alchemy, fighting, and training Planets gain experience by fighting Just sitting there and doing nothing also gets you a little bit experience Full details are on the Experience page. Design Races In order to allow more possibilities for design races, the special mission of a race is no longer tied to the other race abilities. Using the PlayerSpecialMission option, you can assign any mission to any race. Together with the other arrayized options, this allows for some very interesting races to be configured. Back to top -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hosting Changes Configuration Cleaned Up The configuration was cleaned up. One of PHost's most distracting points was that huge configuration file. You don't need a university degree to play with PHost -- but do you believe that in the presence of 300 configuration options? Now, some of the very rarely-used options have been dropped. Others have been made optional so the average host need not bother with them. Ship-list specific parts can be separated out into a separate file that goes with the ship list. All in all, this allows for much shorter game configuration files. Some options are no longer accepted: The older obsolete options (ColonialFighterSweepRate, ColonialFighterSweepRange, RaceTaxRate) previously only gave a warning; now they are no longer recognized at all and yield an error. AllowMeteorMessages makes little sense; when a meteor hits your planet there's no reason to not tell you. Besides, you were getting util.dat records even when this was off. CPEnableMessage is no longer supported. The ability to send messages is controlled solely by the AllowPlayerMessages command. It makes no difference to the recipient of a message whether it was sent using the message command or not. Turning off AllowPlayerMessages no longer disables rumors as well; if CPEnableRumor is still on, rumors can be sent. Back to top -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technical Changes PHost 4 introduces some slightly different file formats. Older PDK add-ons will not work with it until they are recompiled with a PDK that supports PHost 4. Once that is done, the add-ons will function equally well with PHost 3 and PHost 4. Add-ons that do not use the PDK must be ported. New AUXDATA Format The format of auxdata.hst has changed. Actually, that's the driving reason behind the new version number: doing new things in auxdata.hst means we need a new number, and to implement 999 ships and per-ship abilities, we need new auxdata things. auxdata.hst is now divided into chunks, much like utilx.dat. This means it can now be extended without breaking existing programs. When you update a program for PHost 4, it will most likely work with everything that follows. New UTIL.DAT Records We've been adding many new util.dat records. The ultimate goal is to have one record for every sub-space message you get. New TRN Command PHost now accepts a new TRN command, number 62 "SendBack". This command causes PHost to place an enclosed record in your util.dat. Client-side programs can use that feature to store auxiliary data. Back to top -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Minor Changes Command Messages The command message parser was revamped. The two goals were to simplify add-on command messages and to simplify automatic generation of command messages. There is now a special syntax to address a message to a particular add-on (foo: command). This was done in the hope that new add-ons will accept that format. Recent PDK versions contain a function that simplifies the implementation of such parsers. There is no longer a line length limit. This only gets in the way when programs write messages. You can write long commands yourself by continuing them on the next line, starting with a "+" sign. Some commands can be externalized. These features is also available in PHost 3.4b (externalisation: 3.4d). Languages Many of the messages PHost sends you look a bit bumpy, because they are historically grown and are intended to match Tim's messages bit-by-bit. This is important for programs that do message scanning. Unfortunately, there are many programs that need this, VPA 3.51 being the most popular of them (version 3.61 finally uses util.dat). That's why PHost 4 introduces a new language file NewEnglish which has most messages revised, typos and ugly grammar fixed, and layout improved a bit. You can select it via the Language config option and the language command. Unlike the original English language, we don't have to maintain compatibility with anything for this file. Piotr Winiarczyk has contributed a Polish language file. These changes are also available in PHost 3.4c. Back to top -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming Changes PHost 4.0 is not the end. We're awaiting a few more major changes. Ion Storms Ion storms are the major HOST feature still missing from PHost. We're planning to add Ion storms to PHost, using similar (but not 100% identical) rules than HOST. More Control Some things have been proposed to give players more control over their units. For example... Super Refit should allow you to specify what parts to plug in some advanced battle commands, companions to the NTP friendly code starbase extended missions Miscellaneous PControl needs a face-lift. It would be nice to have a "hconfig"-type program. PHost should translate character sets, so that Winplan players can easily communicate with DOS players, and that messages come out right. As you see, there's enough stuff left to last for a while... Back to top -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This document is maintained by The Portable Host Project (support@phost.de). Last updated 02 March 2003.