August 16, 2005

 VGA Planets 3 

Echoview
1.2.24 beta

PCC
1.1.11

Randgen
1.4.11

Randmax
2.5f

VPA
3.62c

WinPlan
3.52.025

 VGA Planets 4 

Host
 4.000.193

Planets4.exe
4.000.059

Delphi Tournament - Ed Robinson

There have been some changes to the setup of the Delphi Tournament.
One of the main changes is a map that will be used through all levels.

There are also some changes in scoring system. Check the website for all details.

Note: These changes only apply to new games. The Beta-games that are currently running will still be bound to the old rules.

PList 3.0 - Matthias Degenhardt

PList 3.0 is now available:

Generally PLIST 3.0 bases on PLIST 2.4: same races, same ship types and equipment, similar race specific shiplists and basically same pconfig.src. However, due to several new PHost 4.0i features PLIST 3.0 became quite complex and sophisticated. Therefore, balancing the strength and playability of the eleven races was really challenging. We did our best to design a fair list.

 For download and list of new features: The Vagabond

Check - Stefan Reuther

Stefan Reuther just made a new util to help players check their turn:

Check (please excuse the unimaginative name) is a turn checker. Unlike most programs of this type, it operates on client files.

This program aims to help people whose turn is rejected by their host. The most-often given advice in such situations is to redo the turn, because you usually do not know exactly what is wrong. Check tries to locate inconsistencies in your game directory and give you an exact identification of the problem.

You can download the util on stefan's player util page.

Newsletter - Ed Robinson

A new VGA Planets newsletter is available to read, you'll find it here.

New Games - Peter

As news is slow these days I would like to point out some games that are ready to receive players:

RcWorld
Navy Contest 3, most planets at turn 80, addons: TacticalVCR2 
Echo Map 22, VGA Planets V4 game.

Star Port
Vanilla 2, Open end.

Circus Maximus
Paradise Lost, Starbase+, Sphere & TLIST 1.1 HW Extra Rich, Custom Map, High  Pop, High Money Starbase at HW & 2 Ships Game runs 3 times a week or  when all turns are in. Invasion Scenario - Captures HW's,  points are cumulative. 1st player to 100 points wins.

Prophecy, Mods: FHOST, CB-List Shiplist, Starbase+,  Clans.  Custom Map, Rich HW, High Pop,  High Money.  Starbase at HW w/ 2 Ships.  TimHost 3.22.46   Game runs 3 times a week or  when all turns are in. Winner has the most planets @  turn 100

Jupiter's Shadow, Mods = Jupiter , Starbase+, Sphere. Custom Map, Rich HW, High Pop,  High Money. Starbase at HW w/ 2 Ships.   TimHost 3.22.46  Game runs 3 times a week or  when all turns are in. Game ends @ trn 100 or if  a winner is declared.

No Frills, Stock Echo Cluster map, Rich HW,  High Pop, High Money. Homeworlds in a large classic circle.  Default Settings. Starbase at HW w/ 2 Ships. TimHost 3.22.46  Game runs 3 times a week or  when all turns are in. Player with most planets at turn 150 wins.

Echocluster
After a long time we got some news of Dirk Schroeder:

New games are being added within the next few days.
Thanks for all the players who all the time gave me and still give me so much support, I am not going to disappoint you!

This is good news. We hope Dirk will keep up the hosting next to his busy life.

New BMP's - Circus-Maximus.com

Circus-Maximus.com brought the news of updated .bmp files for Dan & Dave add-on's:

While talking to Dave Killingsworth right after we did the Developer Profile in March, he asked me if I was interested in updating the .bmp files for the Dan & Dave add-on's. The fruit of that labor is now complete, and if you're inclined, you can download and add these bmp's to your WinPlan bmp folder.

You can find the new bmp's at Circus-Maximus.com in their download-section.

PCC - Stefan Reuther

A new version of PCC is out. PCC is a cliënt program wich you can use to play VGA Planets with. If you are curious what it can do and how it looks then go visit the authors website.

Changes in v1.1.11:

The most important new feature is that it can now display auto waypoints directly on the map, like it already can display normal waypoints. 

In addition, there's a bunch of bugfixes and improvements. For example, you can now recall a ship's cargo room from the ship history screen, which is very handy if someone stole you a freighter. Another thing is that the mission selector now honors the AllowExtendedMissions setting. 

The previous versions could accidentially generate turns with a red status (with beam up multiple, and with Undo on the ship build screen), or crash (message display). Therefore, everyone should upgrade. 

Together with the CCFonts release 3a, PCC now supports cyrillic characters (cp866). Another feature appreciated in Russia is that PCC now can create cactus-shaped markers.

Delphi Tournament - Peter

With the ending of Alpha X, the first series of Alpha games in the Delphi Tournament are finished.
Congrats to all winners and good luck in Beta.

To give an impression how succesfull each race was, here is a list:

The rank a race ends a game with is added to the rankingpoints.
The lower the rankingpoints the better.

Delphi Tournament - Peter

Alpha XI of the Delphi tournament has ended.

VPA - Stefan Reuther

VPA 3.62c has been released. It fixes a number of bugs and implements some feature requests. 
Thanks for this release go to Bernhard and Christian.

Changes in 3.62c:

- many feature requests satisfied (clock: shift-C, reset waypoints of ships in warp-wells: ctrl-Z, new mistake warnings, warp-circles: shift-W) 
- bogus-score-in-turn-one problems should be fixed 
- minfield handling improved + config dialog (ctrl-o) 
- Added command line switch /BGI to support third party BGI drivers. Syntax is /BGI:drivername,driverdir,bgimode. E.g., if you copy your BGI driver named svga.bgi to your VPA directory and you intend to use it's mode number 5 say: /BGI:svga,,5

PHost - Stefan Reuther

Some news from the PHost-website:

Added Linux/PPC versions of current PHost. Added separately-downloadable mission.ini into download section.

Circus-Maximus - Peter

A new website has been launched!

This sure is the best looking VGAP-site around.
Next to the news, info, bio's and forum they also host games.

Head over to join one of their games or just to admire their website.

  Delphi Tournament - Peter

New alpha-games are ready to join at Battlestar Command.

Alpha is the first level in a five-level tournament. Get over there and see how far your planeteer-skills will take you.

Newsletter - Ed Robinson

 The quarterly VGA Planets newsletter is available to read, you'll find it here

Delphi Tournament - Peter

Alpha VI game has ended.

5 New Beta games were made for the winners. 

Delphi Tournament - Peter

Alpha VII and VIII have ended it's battles: Here are the results.

The race victories has been changed. The rank of each race at turn 60 is now added instead of the score.

Delphi Tournament - Peter

Another Alpha-game has ended: Alpha IV. 
The results, highscore and race score have been added to the Delphi page.

We can expect Beta-games to begin soon.

Delphi Tournament - Peter

Alpha V of the tournament has ended. The results, highscore and race score have been added to the Delphi page.

Delphi Tournament - Peter

Alpha I of the tournament has ended. The results, highscore and race score have been added to the Delphi page.

Winners of Alpha I:
Torsten Rieger
Samuel Tolson
Merlyn
Kevin Chorzelewski
Horatio E. Campten

Delphi Tournament - Peter

Alpha II of the tournament has ended. The results, highscore and race score have been added to the Delphi page.

Winners of Alpha II:
Gilles Bourgeois
Robert Teichmann
Mike Gibbons
Bob Parkes
Brian van de Laar

Computer player test - Peter

The Computerplayer test is back and has been completed!
Now all cplayers have been tested and the results are in.

Have a look at this big test.

Akseli's website - Peter

His website has been around for a while but I didn't have a link to it.
Now I do.

Great tactics for the pro's and ofcourse the official VGA Planets F.A.Q. for the newbies.

Delphi Tournament - Peter

Congratulations go to the winners of the Tournament game Alpha III:

Larry Sloan
Glenn Watson
Daryl Norval
Michael Horak
Rick Arndt

Good luck to you all in Beta!

Updated scores and results can be found at the Delphi-page.