Category:History

From PlanetsWiki

This is a compiled list of changes that Tim has listed on his Web site. Documentors can feel free to add "hidden" changes or clarify the changes.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213h

[edit] May 06, 2008

Note: This is a bugfix release that is (probably) not available as download from the official VGA Planets homepage.

[edit] Fixes

Fixed: Ship load error when opening an RST caused by a problem in RST creation. This is nothing that will harm the game files or your TRN files.

Fixed: Power Boost space combat issue. Normal (new) power boost for non BC/PBC LWs never triggered a BOOM! event. Now it should.

Fixed: Ship RAM space combat issue. Both old and new RAM! event use a damage power proportional to speed and mass. Old RAM! used 1/3 of speed parameter of rammer and hull mass of rammer. New RAM! uses the current relative speed (the scalar length of actual difference of velocity vectors) between rammer and rammed and the sum of both hull masses. As an effect the damage power now was ~10-50 times greater then before. So it was now tuned down by a factor of 0.1

Fixed: Error messages in the host log appearing for no valid reason.

[edit] New Features

New: None

[edit] Changes

Changed: None

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213g

[edit] May 01, 2008

Note: This is a bugfix release that is (probably) not available as download from the official VGA Planets homepage.
(Host 213f and Host 213g have been one release in Host 213g)

[edit] Fixes

[edit] Host 213f

Fixed: Host crash in VCR combat.

Fixed: An undocked wing with Do Not Launch enabled will be able to be a combat initiator again.

Fixed: When a wing docks mid-turn to a carrier and has Do Not Launch enabled then it will no longer be a valid combat initiator.

Fixed: Wings docked to a carrier were allowing combat to be initiated with them, always. Now it is only when they are visible to the initiator or set to aggressive mode with Do Not Launch disabled.

Fixed: When a wing uses auto-intercept to undock from a carrier and attack a target, it will become a valid combat initiator.

Fixed: When a wing uses intercept, escort, or a waypoint to undock from a carrier, it will become a valid combat initiator if is in aggressive mode.

Fixed: Privateers were able to be blocked by Transport Inhibitor, Federation forcefields, and system damage from their ship for boarding an enemy, but not for transporting their target's resources off. Now the same limitation is imposed for that.

Fixed: Filtered out "Last Transmission" messages that didn't have any useful content that were products of base merges, which you have the log in the merged base anyways.

Fixed: Filtered out the ship log spam that you get when you are transporting personnel to a friendly ship when they still have personnel on board. "Our crew visited with the crew of..."

Fixed: Various space combat changes/fixes.

[edit] Host 213G

Fixed: If you set a tow target for your ship and the ship's hull has no tractor beam rating on the hull, the tow target will not be cleared.

Fixed: Stand off fix.

[edit] New Features

New: None

[edit] Changes

[edit] Host 213f

Changed: When a ship is fully cloaked with defensive mode enabled and is unseen by the initiator then the Guard Base setting is ignored and will not pull the ship or base into space combat.

Changed: Growth rate penalty due to population has been reduced. Penalty factor = (100 mil - colonists) / 100 mil. Shareware players factor is 60 mil instead of 100 mil in this equation. 1M base growth at 99%, 5M 95%, 10M 90%, 20M 80%, 30M 70%, 40M, 60%, 45M 55%

Changed: Global Warmer, Global Icer, and Crystal Inferno Device require less than 60% control system, less than 80% hull damage and crew on board to operate.

Changed: At the start of the game (turns 1 to 4) Solorian bases with 10k colonists will change the star (instead of 10,001 colonists).

Changed: Various space combat changes/fixes.

[edit] Host 213G

Changed: When calculating a ship's tow score, the following will cause the score to be -1 (was previously zero): control system damage > 50%, no crew, no fuel. This allows hulls with 300+ hull speed and a valid tractor beam rating to tow ships under these conditions.

[edit] Changed/Fixed: Various space combat changes/fixes

Changed: Now the true allies set a player as hostile for their objects only if they have set this player as enemy.

Changed: Charging within a carrier. HGs decrease the time inside a carrier. Their influence was decreased. The the Borg Queen's influence in a Borg base was increased

Changed: Small wings can better decide when their weapons can be considered as charged.

Fixed: Weapons only fired on bases if "ground attack" was enabled. But as now "ground attack" only let bases be preferred targets weapons now refuse to fire at bases if "Avoid base" is enabled.

Fixed/Completed:

Target verifying, learning and allied informing process:

If an objects enters "agressive" then a the start it immediately regards the players which are set to be attacked in the client's ally menu as hostile and starts to fire on them immediately.

If an objects enters "defensive" then at the start then all players are regarded as non hostile. This means such object won't start fire at other objects and it does not move relative to other objects (but it follows its leader if it is a part of a fleet).

A retreating object won't start fire at other players but it tries to escape from players which are set to be attacked in client's ally menu.

If an object is coming under fire by an agressor then it marks this player as hostile and immediately fires back. It also informs the fleet so that other own object will also fire back.It also informs the true allies which are set to attack the agressor.

One can combine agressive|defensive x retreat to mix the two corresponding behaviors.

Fixed: In default flight mode (player does neither set stand off nor strike thru nor ram nor retreat) ships were set to stand off. The stand off range is set to 90% of the smallest LW & SmW range. Right now this could do only agressive ships. But a defensive ship should be able to do it, too. This is now the case. But if the stand off range is out of base IC range such ship wouldn't come into fire range for a base (because there is the rule that ships have to come that close to be allowed to fire their non super weapons at a base). So the stand off range is set to 90% of the base IC range but only if the ship is not ordered to avoid bases.

Changed: The differences between the mode depending used parts of maximum speed and acceleration are decreased. "Close to point blank" for fighters has now its own speed/acceleration profile.

New table for Mode Speed Acceleration

Guard base: 100%/60% 100% 1)

Flee: 100% 60%

Idle: 40% 40%

RAM: 100% 100%

Stand off: 60% 100%

CTPP: 80% 60% 2)

Strike thru: 100% 80%

1) 100% if outside base IC range if guard base mode is interrupted because nobody is shooting neither at the base nor at the base guards.

2) CTPP = close to point blank

Changed: Increased fighter maximum speed by 20%

Changed: If an object orbits arround the center due to lack of flight target or because stand off is interrupted for a while then if a hostile base is present it orbits now out of range of possible base defense weapons.

Fixed: Wings have chosen a bit too big stand off ranges. They now stay 10% below their ranges to be able to fire whenever their weapons are charged.

Fixed: Before a redocking is possible a certain time has now to go by.

Changed: A wing which is is undocking from a carrier during combat due to its "return home" needs some time to find new targets.

Fixed: Although a missile shot was caculated the shot was written into vcr file as beam shot. This causes the display only bug that missiles do not fire at wings.

Fixed: A variable confusion sometimes caused stand off to use a too low stand off range

Changed: Damage profile due to power boost BOOM! event:

Weapon damage: Randomly 0 - 100%

System damage: Randomly 0 - 100%

Hull damage: Randomly 0 - 25%

Shield damage: Randomly 0 - 50%

If the soft spot is hit: Additional random hull damage 0 - 25%

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213e

[edit] April 24, 2008

Note: This is a bugfix release that is (probably) not available as download from the official VGA Planets homepage.

[edit] Fixes

Fixed: Anti-Matter Maul cannot overload the ships cargo bay when it absorbs a destroyed object.

Fixed: Boarding laser ship log text.

Fixed: Enhanced stand off mode in VCR combat. More info here.

Fixed: Fuel, Ordnance, and Repair sharing is limited to the hulls cargo space again. (Host 213b error)

Fixed: Growth rate reduced if you are short on food. (Host 213d error)

Fixed: Growth rate reduction due to high population fixed.

Fixed: Host crash in VCR combat.

Fixed: Issues with combatants firing at bases.

Fixed: Removed static handling of Ion Cannon range in calculations to a dynamic method based on the HConfig value.

Fixed: Wing beam vs Wing fixed variable confusion that would lead to unexpected results or host crash.

[edit] New Features

New: If you have at least one high guard at a base, it has a 40% chance of stopping a Incite Disorder spy attack.

New: Show Lounge income displayed.

[edit] Changes

Changed Crewless ships have a scan range of 0.

Changed Global Icer, Global Warmer, Crystal Inferno Device require at least 1 crew on board to operate them.

Changed Home Guard wings default to Return Home mode.

Changed Some movement decisions about when to turn in VCR combat logic.

Changed Starting Solorian stars will not have a chance to get colder as they adjust during the first 4 turns.

Changed The ability of resupply pods to land on planets removed. The sorting of resupply pods to perform their transfers last removed.

Changed Wing firing rate adjusted (slightly more powerful). More info here.

Changed You will only receive a certain happiness or crime adjustment message when it actually changes.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213d

[edit] April 17, 2008

Note: This is a bugfix release that is (probably) not available as download from the official VGA Planets homepage.

[edit] Fixes

Fixed: Host crash in VCR combat.

Fixed: Units not hitting minefields when the direction of travel is towards the lower or left part of the map (i.e. had a negative vector length).

Fixed: Scavenger ship Omen Class Spec Ops Transport will now properly show up as a Medium Deep Space Freighter hull to everyone but the owner. It can now properly use the "NID" command code.

Fixed: Scavenger ship Pretender Class Q-Ship will now properly show up as a Large Deep Space Freighter to everyone but the owner.

Fixed: Colonists will eat food when the Shokazul Pulse is active.

Fixed: The calculation for undercities to counteract the negative effects of growth rate from cities didn't take into consideration whether or not the cities were full of colonists, so this screwed the results. For example, if you had 100 cities, 30 undercities and only 200k colonists, you would get no benefit from the undercities in this respect.

Fixed: Undercities would give their 1% bonus per undercity regardless of whether or not they were full of colonists. They now require colonists to be in them to provide the growth rate bonus. It is still up to 30 undercities / 30% bonus.

Fixed: When Robots are holding prisoners, their base needs to have at least 1 food to prevent the prisoners from dying from starvation.

Fixed: Gatling Phasors will only fire at wings when the "Sandcasters: Fire on Fighters" switch is enabled. The text for this will be changed in a future client release. Gatling Phasors will now correctly fire at ships, pods, and bases regardless of this "fire at wings" setting.

Fixed: Wings will hit more often (as they were meant to).

Fixed: If an object is set to attack bases and if target is a base then ignore the stand off range and try to bring the object into a range of 5 to the base.

Fixed: VCR display and report for beams & missiles from wing vs wing will only show those that actually destroy a fighter in the target wing.

Fixed: "Ram!" setting will do a better job in VCR combat at finding and moving towards a ship to ram.

Fixed: Enforcer ability to use their DOA-187x Bomber to destroy a target structure is fixed. It was never working before. It can only be performed in ground combat and the base that the fighters are in need to have the appropriate command code for targeting the enemy base structure.

Fixed: Ground Combat values are now limited to stay non-zero to avoid weird results.

Fixed: Crew combat values were not being properly evaluated for determining whether or not a base would surrender. They always counted as 0.

Fixed: Colonists happiness will not drop when there are no colonists in a base that is being attacked by amorphous worms.

Fixed: Privateers cannot trade hull plans to another Privateer via ship to ship transport. (I still need to review their ability to transfer between their own units. At first glance, it doesn't look broken.)

[edit] New Features

New: High Guard Rangers are displayed in the player message regarding Ground Combat.

New: When Ground Combat causes the defender to rush back to base, the new enemy forces are listed. This caused confusion when the display only stated that there were colonists, but they actually ran back to base to join the base where the troops, etc were.

New: When Amorphous Worms attack a base, you'll get a casualty count in the base log.

New: High Guard Rangers will run before a base is eaten by Amorphous Worms. They don't count towards keeping the base intact anyhow.

[edit] Changes

Changed: Adjusted the target weighting of bases in VCR combat when "Ground Strike" is enabled.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213c

[edit] April 10, 2008

Note: This is a bugfix release that is (probably) not available as download from the official VGA Planets homepage.

[edit] Fixes

Fixed: Host crash in combat firing super weapons.

Fixed: Disabled ships will not put power into their super weapons during a power boost in combat.

Fixed: Players 28 to 30 would not receive a super laser destroyed a planet player message.

Fixed: Amorphous natives would rarely die properly on a planet due to the use of the Eye of Madagon.

[edit] New Features

New: Added the ID# to ship to ship boarding messages.

[edit] Changes

Changed: Engine less ships should now move (very slowly). They have a vcr speed of 1 and a acceleration of 0.01 A vcr speed of 1 corresponds to a max hull speed of 0.25

Changed: Tweaked the fighter generator depending shot rate bonus. With a FiringFighter hconfig default of 50 every 50th fighter per type in a wing is allowed to fire per given tick. If the count falls below 50 then with a chance of count/50 the type is allowed to fire one shot at a given tick. This way the mean of firing fighter per type at a given tick is always count/50. Types with a generator > 10 gets an increasing chance of firing two more shots per tick.

Changed: A single 2nd wave object now should enter if there are no intact friendly or owned units. Meaning: If a party, i.e. a group of friendly objects of own and allied units, is only in 2nd wave then they enter immediately otherwise (if there are also friendly or own 1st wave units) they have to wait until all friendly and own 1st wave units are either destroyed or disabled. At tick 300 all still waiting 2nd wave object enter.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213b

[edit] April 09, 2008

Note: This is a bugfix release that is (probably) not available as download from the official VGA Planets homepage.

[edit] Fixes

Fixed: A tow rating of 0 will not allow you to tow 0 mass objects.

Fixed: Command Codes BDC, BDS, BDF/BDG will only display a message when something is actually transferred.

Fixed: Ground Combat is able to initiate again. This issue also caused Scavenger wreckage to fail to be gathered.

Fixed: In Ship to Ship Transfers, you will only get the "We have exchanged cargo with ship..." message when a resource actually changes hands.

Fixed: Jettison fuel will work now.

Fixed: Sharing repair and ordnance with a fleet will skip yourself.

Fixed: Ships won't create extra bases from transfers to appear in combat.

Fixed: The last scans of ships, bases, and wings at the end of the turn would not see the changed location of units that moved after movement (base chunnel, worm hole, jump gate, etc.).

Fixed: The Omega Pulse message showed the wrong number of turns.

Fixed: Various combat code fixes to be detailed later, which included anti-fighter issues and host crash issues.

[edit] Changes / New Features

New: Aczanny Security Device bonus added to VCR combat boarding attack/defense values. If an Aczanny ship with this active device is captured in combat then it will have a chance to self destruct.

New: Gatling Phasors can now fire at wings (they are somewhat effective, but not as much as point defense).

New: Mine Droppers go offline if control damage is over 50% or hull damage is over 80%.

New: Some crime logs will show the resulting value after it is changed.

Changed: Borlox Armor will not function on alien hulls.

Changed: Resupply pods will transfer their contents last, so life & assault pods and ships will create a base before they transfer. This keeps the stuff from ending up on the planet instead of the base.

[edit] What is new in Planets4.exe Version 4.000.065

[edit] April 03, 2008

[edit] Bug Fixes

Fixed: Runtime error when using the "More Map Options" function introduced in Client 64.

[edit] What is new in Planets4.exe Version 4.000.064

A new version Client 65 is already available for download!

[edit] April 01, 2008

[edit] Bug Fixes

Fixed: A Lizard player's captured prisoner count will not decrease while using the client.

Fixed: After podding Life Pods from a base, closing the Planets4 Client then reopening it, the population display would be incorrect. That is now fixed and it will accurately display the adjusted population.

Fixed: An issue where a D or E appears in a planet name would cause a variable overflow when the string is converted into a numeric value since 256D11 denotes 256^11, which is a very large number and 10E1000 is large as well.

Fixed: Base Command - Parts: Display of names of wings/mechs changed to be more visible according to their length.

Fixed: Base Command - Overview & Base Command - Stats: King's Palace and Metal Exchange would display the cash adjustment even when these structures didn't exist at the base.

Fixed: Base Command - Overview: Cleaned up the "Bad incoming planet DATA!" on some bases.

Fixed: Base Command - Reserve Levels: Neutronium Ore slider bar wouldn't change when the numeric value entered would change.

Fixed: Centaur Marketplace income corrected.

Fixed: Centaur Racetrack shows correct cash gain. It was using natives for its calculation instead of colonists.

Fixed: Consistency established for "systems" / "control systems".

Fixed: Disable Gravs button on ship overview screen will disable Nova Barbitics.

Fixed: FIG toolbar button will bring up a window with the latest HConfig options listed.

Fixed: Generators of tech levels 6 through 10 will now show their power output on Ship Command Data / Weapons.

Fixed: Groups / Ship & Wing - Nav - Relative XY fixed so that it doesn't create waypoints 2 through 6 if the selected ship/wing doesn't have those waypoints.

Fixed: Groups: "Remove" button will now appear regardless of what screen of objects you are listing for your group. Previously, the problem here was that you would have an object selected, but be on a different screen in the group and wouldn't have a Remove button.

Fixed: Groups: Misc - Match Fleet: This will no longer change the Fleet Leader/Escort Target settings unless you attempt to escort yourself.

Fixed: Groups: Misc - New Name: Previously if you didn't use the # or #r then a blank name was generated. This has been fixed.

Fixed: Display Filters: Hitting 'Display All' would not turn on the last 2 options.

Fixed: HQ: Spy - The amount of funds to put into spy spending corrected and the arrow buttons work properly now. The projected amount is correct now.

Fixed: Ship Command - Overview: Hyper ships disabling gravitonic minefields would sometimes cause the minefield to become unmanageable.

Fixed: In the data grid, viewing base resources, a heading for Repair was actually listing Food.

Fixed: Issue with Robotic Barbitics showing up as Nova.

Fixed: Labor Camps should show correct cash and supply gains.

Fixed: Med Units Transfer will no longer be enabled when launching a resupply pod.

Fixed: Metal Exchange output fixed to match new host code.

Fixed: Ministers - Base: Building single-item buildings such as Pod Launch Pad, Base Shield, etc wasn't working correctly.

Fixed: Ministers - Base: The 2nd configurable option to build at least x of a given building was using the wrong configured values. Using Edit to change them will now work properly.

Fixed: Ministers - Ship: "All ships with weapons attack" will change the attack status when there is any super, large, or small weapon on board. Previously, it would only change status when the first small weapon or first large weapon slot was filled.

Fixed: Ministers - Ship: Minesweeper on/off status bar will only reflect how many minesweepers actually changed status; not how many ships with minesweeper devices that you have.

Fixed: Ministers - Ship: New attack vector changes so that the status bar will reflect how many ships actually had to change status instead of how many ships you have total.

Fixed: Ministers - Ship: Super Weapon on/off status bar will only reflect how many super weapon ships actually changed status; not how many ships with super weapons that you have.

Fixed: Ministers - Base: Fixed the building of farms. It now takes everything into account properly and won't display the "Base Z save error!" message.

Fixed: Base Command - Switches / Military Space Port: The tech level progress indicator bars were incorrect for Hull Tech and Large Weapon Tech.

Fixed: Overflow issue with some object logs.

Fixed: Plasma Stream Enhancer on Lotus Class Pursuit Ship and Aurora Class Flagship will now show proper energy and ordnance drain when building a ship and on the Ship Command - Data / Weapons screen.

Fixed: Pod Cost for launch changed from a fixed amount of 25 to the HConfig amount.

Fixed: Quick Build for Dry-docks building ships when not enough resources are on the ship and the ship is performing a transfer fixed.

Fixed: QuickBuild display fixed to better suit the player needs in several situations.

Fixed: Resolved a possible client crash due to an array issue in groups.

Fixed: Rouge colonists were changed to Rogue.

Fixed: Selling contraband is limited to 10k per type in the client, which it already is in the host.

Fixed: UEA Redistribution Center resource gains corrected.

Fixed: When putting cargo on a pod and then you hit the Cargo Load button, it would clear all values that you already changed. No longer.

Fixed: When you are deleting old data from the space command, it will no longer jump to the top of the list when you delete the 2nd old data entry.

[edit] Changes / New Features

New: Added all new combat buttons to ships and wings including their inter-dependencies.

New: Base Command - Switches: Insectoid Nest displays useful statistics.

New: Base Command - Overview & Base Command - Military: New toggle to turn on/off the setting to Fire Ion Cannons at Disabled Ships. This feature to not fire at disabled can be enabled with a command code of DFD if you want.

New: Groups / Nav: Match auto-intercept.

New: Groups: Bases are now able to be added to groups and some commands are in place to be able to execute against all of them.

New: Groups: Base Group Micromanagement Tool. This routine will examine all ground bases in the group for needed resources and available resources determined by the reserve levels set for the ground base. The "needed resources" and the "available resources" include those presently at the base, plus incoming pods & ships and adjusted by pending pod orders. Range between the bases is ignored and is up to the player to define by what bases are included in the group. The "available" resources includes ship transfers above the base. This can cause problems since ship transfers occur after pod launching. The current version does not use chaining; described here. To get resources to the destination faster, "chaining" can be done to launch resources from a base that will be replenished by another nearby base, and so on back to the source. For example: base A has the resources and Z needs them, but they are further away than 1 turn of pod travel, so you look for bases in between A and Z that have the needed resource and are within 1 turn of pod travel between each other. A chain of the same pod launch from A to Y will succeed in supplying Z with the resource and leave the rest nearly unchanged. To use these new features, configure your base reserve levels properly and then use the Forecast button to preview what will be done and Execute to perform the actions. These are in the groups feature with a base selected.

New: Groups: Added "Remove All" button to remove all members of the selected group. Will pop-up an "Are you sure?" window.

New: Groups: Added "Remove Selection" button to remove any items in the Space Command list from the current group.

New: Groups: Added "Sort ID" button to sort the group by object ID.

New: Groups: Added "Sort Name" button to sort the group by object name.

New: Ministers - Base: New button to "Clear all structure builds", which will clear any pending requests for cities, factories, etc.

New: Ministers - Pod: Land empty pods at bases that they are at otherwise self destruct them.

New: Ministers - Pod: Metal to Yards configurable for radius and mass.

New: Ministers - Pod: Ore to Yards configurable for radius and mass.

New: Ministers - Pod: The highly configurable pod launching entry has more support for more items, but it is still not complete.

New: Ministers - Base: View on/off configurable through Edit to toggle the setting. Redundant item removed.

New: Ministers - Ship: - Minesweep, View, and Super Weapon settings can be toggled on/off using the Edit button. Redundant items removed. Super Weapons were only able to be turned off previously.

New: Options Window: Map Options button added which will bring up another list of options to be able to turn on/off certain range displays of things like: Gun Zero!, Pirates Cove, Tachyon Emitter, etc. Settings are saved so that when you open the client again, they will be the same.

New: Options Window: Option to turn off hotkeys so that you can't accidentally change a ship/wing speed while typing in its name or log. Defaults to off so that new players don't get a surprise. Setting is saved so that when you open the client again, it will be the same.

New: Players must now designate a "ship yard" instead of the code choosing any base with a military space port on it. A "Y" toggle is available on the Base Overview screen. This setting will be retained from turn to turn. The settings of the pods launched changed to use boost and dock instead of boost and drop so that you can set an ally's base as the anvil and get the expected results. The way that this command observes "reserve levels" was broken and is now fixed. Solorians can no longer attempt to pod neutronium ore.

New: Point in Space toolbar button changed to bring up a new window that will give you the ability to plot points in space using the following methods: mouse points (normal), x/y coordinates that you input, multiple points around the hammer at a given radius and specific distance between points, and multiple points from x1,y1 to x2,y2 in a grid pattern separated by a distance provided. You can also erase all points in space in the current space command selection from this window.

New: Quantity of ships+wings in the same location in space drawn on the map near the stack.

New: Resource Rings for Farmable planets. Under Misc.

New: Scan range put in text for Scanner building.

New: Ship support for Target Harmless Pods.

New: Space Command now has a little H and A that will launch separate Hammer and Anvil windows that will allow you to perform various functions against your objects. To use them, rubber band an area of space, then hit the H or A, what is within that area of space will appear in your new window. You can hit the other H or A to fill the list with the same items or rubber-band an area and hit the button to get new items. Both windows allow you to Add or Remove items from their windows separately. The Hammer window will allow you to create a new group from the entire list or from whatever you select within the list. You can also add to an existing group. The majority of the options work against the Anvil window: Intercept, Escort, Kill, Capture, Tow, Dock, Undock/Drop, and Transfer. You can select multiple Hammer units to perform these actions against 1 or more Anvil units. If you have multiple Anvil units then the Hammer units will split up the command against them. For example, if you have 6 Hammer units set to escort 3 Anvil units, then the result will be that 3 sets of 2 Hammer units will escort each individual Anvil unit separately. I know that it's not beautiful, but the functionality is there. VB6 is a bit limited here without going crazy.

Changed: Anti-Aircraft Gun building text changed to "Fires at enemy fighters. Does not use ordnance. Requires energy to fire."

Changed: Flee changed to "Retreat".

Changed: Flee option removed from being able to be changed in the Ship Overview.

Changed: Groups will now accept players that you are not at war with.

Changed: Ion Cannon building text changed to "Breaks blockades. Fires at enemy starships. Costs 10 ordnance per shot. Requires energy to fire."

Changed: Minefield displays changed from simply "Minefield # xxxx" to "Minefield #xxxx (type)(status)(action)", such as Minefield #1234 (G)(A)(D)" where minefield 1234 would be an (A)ctive (G)ravitonic, which you have set to (D)etonate. Types are: (B)arbitic, (G)ravitonic, (L)aser, and (W)eb. Status possibilities are: (A)ctive, (I)nactive, or (C)loaked. Action will only be displayed if one of these are chosen: (D)etonate or (SD)=Soft Destruct.

Changed: Ministers / Bases - When building factories, it won't allow you to automatically build more than your income will support.

Changed: Ministers: Pods - "Launch pods of metal to ship yard bases" changed to "Launch pods of 300+ kt metal to nearest ship yard bases", which more closely matches what it does. It will also only work on ship yards that are within 300 ly of the base with metals. The restriction that mineral mine buildings had to be present at the podding base removed. Players must now designate a "ship yard" instead of the code choosing any base with a military space port on it. A "Y" toggle is available on the Base Overview screen. This setting will be retained from turn to turn. The settings of the pods launched changed to use boost and dock instead of boost and drop so that you can set an ally's base as the anvil and get the expected results.

Changed: Ministers: Pods - "Launch pods of ore to ship yard bases" changed to "Launch pods of 300+ kt ore to nearest ship yard bases", which more closely matches what it does. It will also only work on ship yards that are within 300 ly of the base with metals. The restriction that mineral mine buildings had to be present at the podding base removed.

Changed: Ministers: Ship - "All scanners off" changed to "All ship scanners & running lights off" as that is what it really does.

Changed: Ministers: Ship - "All warships attack enemy" changed to "All warships attack enemy and disable flee" as that is what it really does.

Changed: Multiple Pending Orders can be selected (ctrl-click, shift-click, etc) and deleted.

Changed: Pod launches now have a Clone x1, Clone x5, and Clone x10 set of buttons to allow cloning of more than just 1 at a time.

Changed: Resupply Pod controls: Transfer Fuel, Transfer Ord, Transfer Sup., Transfer Repair, Transfer Med, Transfer Food, and Transfer Cash will always appear on the controls screen regardless if you have any on the pod so that you can pre-program the controls just in case something gets transported onto the pod.

Changed: Robot-owned barbitic minefields will be listed as N instead of B.

Changed: Space Command: Minefield Display in list will show a ? when the minefield is an enemy instead of always I(nactive).

Changed: The Map Bull's-eye (keypad '0') will no longer shut off whenever you move the map. On/off setting is available through the new map options page or by pressing keypad '0' to toggle it on/off.

Changed: When ally limits are active, you will not be able to turn attack off on a player unless you first enable the attack setting for another player.

Changed: When you click on the Base toolbar button when first opening your client, it will jump to the base with the highest population and lowest ID instead of just the highest ID.

Changed: When you click on the N (Planet Names) button, it will turn on planet names, but if you click it again then it will turn on Base Names and a third click will turn it off. Either Planet Names or Base Names will be displayed; not both. Like the planets, the base names will be in the color that pertains to the alliance level of that base, so that your own are in green, allies are in blue, and enemies are in red.

Changed: Wording for "Attack All Enemies" to "Aggressive". When not in Aggressive mode, you are in Defensive mode. "Normal" attack mode changed to "Defensive".

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213

[edit] April 01, 2008

While this being the latest official version distributed (from Tim web site), your should always use the latest host version it has fixed a lot of bugs, the latest version is Host 213h.

[edit] Fixes

Fixed: 2nd Crew Report displays correct prisoner count now.

Fixed: A combat initiator could find a pod docked to a ship and use that as an object to start a fight with, even though the ship it was docked to had attack off or was fully cloaked. Undocked pods can be targets now with Target Harmless Pods enabled (client 64) or Target Soft (client -63) for ships and wings as the initiator.

Fixed: A target of incoming fire will start to return fire if it was previously not configured to do so, as will all of the units from the same player.

Fixed: After the first combat with a base or pod, their next combat will be on movement pulse 199. Assault Pods are exempted from this.

Fixed: Fighters in an assault pod can form a new base on a planet.

Fixed: Fixed an issue where an ally with matching friendly codes of an ally's ship could not transport to/from the other ship.

Fixed: Fuel burn rate is recalculated after engine damage is incurred.

Fixed: GBA and GSA were doing some weird stuff, including destroying race structures that couldn't be given away.

Fixed: Gravity Well Generator not working sometimes. Most noticeably with a Coalition A. Odin Class Carrier.

Fixed: Ground combat kills forced to be non-negative to avoid weirdness.

Fixed: If a base is filtered from combat because it's planet isn't in the combat zone then the home guards of that filtered base will not be in the combat.

Fixed: If a Spindizzy incurs 20%+ system damage during movement then it will stop and the Spindizzy will fail.

Fixed: If a unit is not moving in a minefield (and isn't escorting or intercepting) then it's vector length will no longer cause it to hit a mine.

Fixed: If multiple Spindizzies violated the 5 ly planet radius in the same tick then only one would stop.

Fixed: If you try to create a new base from a ship and the game is out of object IDs then you will no longer lose your personnel from the transport.

Fixed: Improved the speed of ally checks in combat.

Fixed: Labor Camps owned by the EE producing too much money. (Host 212f error)

Fixed: Labor Mines were allowed to be overpopulated and thus produce more mining & money. (Host 212f error)

Fixed: Mobile Fighter Factories wouldn't build new wings if they didn't have the cost + 1 mc. Now you can have the exact cost.

Fixed: Native growth "Amorphouss" typo.

Fixed: New buoys come with garbled text. You will have to reapply the proper text to current/active buoys. (Host 212f error)

Fixed: New wreckage appears with garbled text. You will have to reapply the proper text to current/active wreckage. (Host 212f error)

Fixed: Outfit pod launches that have a 0 engine count but a valid engine type are cleaned up so that weirdness doesn't happen.

Fixed: Outfit pods may have an engine type, but a zero engine count in the "old" section, which would cause an Upgrade/Swap to fail.

Fixed: PD used against a Base Ion Cannon would not use ordnance where appropriate.

Fixed: Possible (rare) situation where a worm hole could be mistaken for a jump gate.

Fixed: Privateer Spy "Universal" typo.

Fixed: Problems transporting resources from a resupply pod.

Fixed: Problems with some actions finding all of the objects within a given radius to perform the actions upon.

Fixed: RCS type-3 fighters were still taking 1 fighter hit sometimes while moving through laser minefields. Also, their HG had a chance of dying. No longer.

Fixed: Robot prisoners won't die from starvation.

Fixed: Rounded partial mechs and fighters used in Deep Ground Patrols down.

Fixed: Scavenger wreckage gathering after combat would sometimes grab wreckage outside of its gathering radius.

Fixed: Ship fuel wasn't being exported from combat correctly. This only really mattered for Solorian ship captures.

Fixed: Ships with 100% hull damage were allowed to enter combat. Previously, only ships with 101%+ hull damage could not.

Fixed: The ship boarding combat report will show the proper amounts of passengers remaining on the enemy ship instead of lumping them together as "crew".

Fixed: The trimming of VCR files should work better now.

Fixed: There were issues with ships being able to transfer to/from a pod you own or that you are allied with unless it was docked to you and belonged to you.

Fixed: Virgo Light Speed requires less than 50% control systems damage and crew to be on board to be able to use it now like all other movement mechanisms.

Fixed: When a ship would get into combat, it's fuel would reset to the level at which it started movement at. Wreckage would have this incorrect amount as well. Anti-matter Maul would get this from a destroyed ship.

Fixed: When life pod is landing that you own and you have prisoners from another race in it that you are now allies with, the code would look for a base of that prisoner player within 150 ly of the base where you are landing it to put the contents of the pod. When this would fail the prisoners would vanish from the game. This has been changed to find the nearest base and upon failure, use the local planet (if you can; asteroid check) and if not look for another suitable planet within 150 ly. If none is found then the landing orders are canceled and the pod and prisoners remain intact in orbit.

Fixed: When wings refueled, the log message stated the incorrect object ID that it got refuled from.

Fixed: Wings & Pods will undock from their prior ship before docking to a new ship mid-turn, so that they won't appear as undocked when the player opens their RST.

Fixed: Wings would always initiate a combat; regardless of whether or not they were docked or had attack settings enabled.

Fixed: You can no longer transport to a pod and overload a pod with cash so that it exceeds its 1000 kt limit. 1000mc = 1kt.

Fixed: You gain 10 happiness (max 200) for a ship performing a transport to a base. Now it will make sure that something actually moved from one object to another before giving you the bonus.

Fixed: You will only get a transport log message when some resource actually moves from one object to another.

Fixed: Alchemy Forge will observe reserve levels of the base when taking supplies.

[edit] Changes / New Features

Changed: A ship cannot tow anything if its hull or engine damage is over 25%.

Changed: Assault Pods docked to a ship must have their Board Enemy Ship option enabled if they want to be able to be a target for combat initiation.

Changed: Checks put in to make sure that new pod launches don't exceed capacity. It won't affect anything, but in the future when/if other clients are available then this limitation will hold true.

Changed: Coalition Trade Triad requires that 50k colonists be present to quality as member of a triad.

Changed: Combat initiation still chooses an initiator and a victim, but a line is drawn between them and everything within 6 ly of the line is pulled into combat.

Changed: Exotic Techs for increasing scanning range is no longer applied to alien hulls except for Privateer-owned ships.

Changed: If a ship is fully cloaked, but the combat initiator has detected them somehow, they can enter combat with them.

Changed: IMT conversion of chupanoids to troops will start at a maximum of 5000 and then increase by 350 per turn thereafter.

Changed: Instead of a Worm Hole exiting situation leaving everything that enters it at coordinates (x+7,y+7), it can be in any direction from x-4 to x-7 and y-4 to y-7.

Changed: Mine Sweeper Array cannot function with hull damage over 80% or control systems damage over 50%.

Changed: New ships will launch with 2 fuel with the NOO Base Command Code or 30 if the base/ship has the available fuel on hand. The ships will also observe base reserve levels.

Changed: Public Space Ports will cost 10 mc each to operate even though the effective number of operating space ports may be less.

Changed: Removed some slow routines that would recalculate the mass of all objects every movement pulse. Instead, whenever a change to an object occurs, the mass is recalculated at that point. The fuel burn rate is recalculated after the mass is adjusted.

Changed: Ships/wings set for guard base will bring in an allied base into combat if it can provide support as well as its own.

Changed: Ships/wings that are set for Defensive Mode ("Normal" in clients <64) or Retreat ("Flee" in clients <64) will begin the combat without any enemies and will only return fire once fired upon. When fired upon, they will inform all of their units to open fire as well and any allies that are in the combat will open fire.

Changed: Siren HAARP affects friend and foe alike. It is an area of effect weapon that attacks and affects the minds in the area. It isn't selective.

Changed: The coordinates of a combat will be the point in space in between both combat initiator and the first valid target found. It was previously located at the initiator's coordinates.

Changed: Transports will not cancel unless there is nothing left to do or you performed a boarding action against another ship. The target ship of a boarding action no longer has its transport cleared, so it can reciprocate a boarding assault.

Changed: Victory Point Scoring for the following values are now configurable via HConfig between 0 and 500 instead of just being an on/off switch: VictoryPop1Million, VictoryPop5Million, VictoryPop10Million, VictoryNativeVote, VictoryNotAtWarVotes, VictoryAtWarMinusOne. In other words, you'll get the value set for these as victory points instead of just 1 VP.

Changed: When a wing that is docked to a carrier auto-intercepts a unit then it will automatically be set to escort and dock with the carrier so that when the auto-intercept is destroyed, that it will return to the carrier unless it finds another auto-intercept target.

Changed: Wing base value for hitting a minefield increased from 15 to 25.

Changed: You no longer get a full scan of all participants in a combat unless you include at least a ship, wing, base or an assault pod.

New: 20k loops have been controlled a bit by maintaining a pointer to the highest object ID in existence. This makes hosts runs with few objects run very fast. Simulations and small games will process much faster by the host.

New: Bases can be the initiator of Space Combat if they have Ion Cannons or Fighters and the target is a ship. Also, they can be the initiator if they have Anti-Aircraft Guns or fighters and the target is a Wing.

New: Boarding laser ship logs.

New: Object ID # added to pod capture player message.

New: Player message when a minefield runs out of energy.

New: Ship and Wings that have Target Harmless Pods disabled (client 64) or Target Soft disabled (client -63) will not use pods as a target when attempting to initiate combat.

New: Ship Command Code "CTx", where x is from 0 to 9. This code will cause troops to be transferred to the base below and colonists transferred up. The x value is the percentage (x 10) of troops that you want to keep on the ship. For example, when x = 1 then 10% of the troops on board will be kept on board.

New: Ships and Wings set to Avoid Base will not use them as a target when attempting to initiate combat.

New: Support to initiate a transport from an assault pod using a ship.

New: Support to land construction and gold pods on planets. If you lose a hull plan in the process (since they cannot exist on planets) then you'll get a player message.

New: Support to land resupply pods on planets. This may effect how colonizing new planets with a life pod and resupply pod functions. Please report back any issues/concerns.

New: Support to land wreckage on planets. If you lose ship parts in the process (since they cannot exist on planets) then you'll get a player message.

New: When a wing or ship is set to guard base and there is a base owned by that same player in range of the combat initiation, it will be pulled into combat if it has fighters, ion cannons or AAGs to add support to the combat. This will happen for ships even if they are hidden from other players. It will also happen if ships/wings have their aggressive mode disabled.

New: You have a 40% chance to receive the last transmission from a destroyed unit (ship, wing, base) via player messages. If the message is too long then you'll only receive the last portion of the unit's log. There is a 20% chance that the transmission will be fragmented and you'll only get a portion of the unit's log.

New: Your forces will only attack enemy Anti-aircraft Guns in ground combat if you have fighters in your forces to protect.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.212

[edit] December 7th, 2007

Fixed: Alchemy auto-unload could target an incorrect base. Details of what was transferred and where to has been placed in the ship and base logs.

Fixed: Extra message when an Outfit Pod would replace or add parts removed.

Fixed: Gravity Well Generators will now function at their max range as configured in HConfig. Previously the checks were looking for objects less than the range; not less than or equal to the range.

Fixed: Message regarding the number of farms destroyed from chunneling a base to a planet that doesn't have enough remaining soil for the chunneled base's farms.

Fixed: Mivorari ships needed to have the full amount of fuel to hyperjump when their actual cost is 10% normal. They can now hyperjump with their true fuel cost.

Fixed: New Combat Code calculations for weapon ranges changed.

Fixed: Possible fix for Cyborg base problem from enemy transfers to planets without their base.

Fixed: Removed code that was undocking wings after combat.

Fixed: Some incorrect variables were used in Jumppoint Generator hyperjumping, so it may have caused unexpected results.

Fixed: The "Object is not moving" message when hitting a web mine may not always be correct due to large mass hulls being able to penetrate a web mine 90% of the time. The message is now accurate.

Fixed: When a Privateer is using GBA command code, hull plans will be deleted.

Fixed: When using the Steal Ship Plans spy attack, you could get a hull plan that isn't of the target race's hull list. You can now only get a hull plan from the list of plans from the original race of the target.

Fixed: When a race turns their attack setting off for you, any prisoners of yours that they have are released. The base log message reflected your own player number. This is now the player number that the prisoners came from.

Fixed: When Insectoids attack a Enforcer or Aczanny base, the coordinates would be 0, 0 sometimes. They are now correct.

Fixed: There was no boundaries set up for the HConfig VictoryPointsToWin option, so it could overflow. The range is from 0 to 32000.

Fixed: There was no lower boundary set for the HConfig VictoryKingOfHillPoints option. The range is from 0 to 500.

New: BDM, BDF/G, BDA, BDP, and BDN Command Codes will provide details of what was beamed down and to which base in the ship and base logs.

New: The Hostile Boarding Party player message will have the coordinates of the occurance in the message now.

New: New HConfig values have been added. (not supported by original HConfig but by HConfig2)

Alias	Default	Range	Description
WingChargeDivisor	400	1 - 5000	Wing Charge Divisor - New Combat Code Testing
PBCPowerBoostDivisor	100	1 - 5000	Plasma Bolt Cannon Power Boost Divisor - New Combat Code Testing
BCPowerBoostDivisor	10	1 - 5000	Blaster Cannon Power Boost Divisor - New Combat Code Testing
NormalPBMultiplier	5	1 - 5000	Normal Power Boost Multiplier - New Combat Code Testing
KingoftheHillVPStartTurn	25	1 - 100	King of the Hill VP Start Turn
AllowGBxCommandCodes	1	0 / 1	Allow GBx Command Codes
EyeofMagadonBaseShieldPenetrationRange	80	1 - 5000	Eye of Madagon Base Shield Penetration Range

Changed: Base sabotage spy attack message will include the base ID. Only when prisoners are at the base will you get a message about them dying. For the message about the base that you own, you should have a hammer button now to be able to jump to the base.

Changed: Checking for Virgo Class minefield immunity was slowing down the host processing, so I put in some code to speed it up again by eliminating some unnecessary checks when a Virgo or the Virgo's escorts are within multiple minefields.

Changed: Hyperjumping code sped up a little by eliminating unnecessary routines.

Changed: Rebel Ally Report will now show the allies instead of the enemies. Hopefully it will fit in one message now. Newline has been put in to make it readable.

Changed: Scanning is causing the host processing to slow down, so I've reinstated the scan every 5 movement pulses again. It was every 20 movement pulses for fighters, but it'll be every 5 movement pulses now.

Changed: Sensor profile of wings increase due to speed has been reduced by a factor of 10, but the size (mass) of the wing will increase its profile prior to the speed adjustment. The size divided by 5 will be added to the profile.

Changed: Borlox Armor ship log changed so that it tells how much armor was repaired and how much is left to repair.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.212a

[edit] December 21st, 2007

Fixed: A wing will not have a chance to lose its high guard unless it actually takes damage from a minefield hit.

Fixed: BDx command code ship log corrected.

Fixed: Captured ships through boarding action will show their last position in the client.

Fixed: Clone Lab crew creation fixed so that it doesn't just fill the entire crew capacity.

Fixed: Corrected the counts on minefield detonation player messages.

Fixed: Cyborg assimilation of prisoners would kill off even those prisoners that cannot be assimilated. Not anymore.

Fixed: Fixed the "Borg Bug", which had nothing to do with the Cyborg, but the resulting error was clearly demonstrated by Cyborg bases causing problems. This fix sped up the host processing a bit.

Fixed: Minefield recharging fixed so that the proper amount of ordnance is used, thus making the ordnance of the ship stay positive or 0 as expected.

Fixed: Problem with captured ships not clearing out remaining high guard.

Fixed: Ram Scoop will now work while escorting or intercepting at or above speed 20.

Fixed: Rebel "Ally Report" will not show yourself as an ally.

Fixed: Rebel R## command code on ships wasn't working for all minefield types. Now it is.

Fixed: Ship repairs of armor will no longer allow the repair on the ship to go negative.

Fixed: Sometimes a ship escorting a Virgo that lost its minefield immunity would remain immune.

Fixed: Target Dangerous will no longer allow large pods (such as wreckage) to become targets when target soft is disabled.

Fixed: The King of the Hill Beacon map icon would take you to x, x coordinates instead of x, y.

Fixed: Wings hitting a nova barbitic produced a mostly blank player message. It will have some content now.

Fixed: Wings would not continue to move after destroying their intercept/escort target.

New: Ship log messages for change in sensor profile when hitting minefields.

Changed: A Virgo with a scan range of 0 (i.e. towed) cannot provide minefield immunity. Its scanners and Unicom are the means of providing the immunity.

Changed: Cargo Grappler limited to taking 1000 food from a base.

Changed: Various log messages cleaned up.

Changed: When a minefield's power is depleted, it is removed from the map immediately.

[edit] Undocumented Changes

Fixed: BUR Command Code bug.

Changed: Labor Camps of the Evil Empire now pay 3 mc like other races.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.212e

[edit] February 11st, 2008

[edit] Bug Fixes

Fixed: Aczanny Security Device would stay on even if out of fuel. It will now shut off when you don't have the 5 fuel requirement.

Fixed: An issue where wings would undock when wings consumed multiple bays in the carrier.

Fixed: Bases controlled by an AI player will not overspend and have negative values for fuel and ship parts.

Fixed: BDx command code ship log corrected.

Fixed: Captured ships through boarding action will show their last position in the client.

Fixed: Clone Lab crew creation fixed so that it doesn't just fill the entire crew capacity.

Fixed: Corrected an issue with wings docking to wings that are docked to a carrier.

Fixed: Corrected the counts on minefield detonation player messages.

Fixed: Crew Prisoners that break out from a base will now be removed from the prison base.

Fixed: Cyborg assimilation of prisoners would kill off even those prisoners that cannot be assimilated. Not anymore.

Fixed: Docked wings were visible based on their mass.

Fixed: Fixed the "Borg Bug", which had nothing to do with the Cyborg, but the resulting error was clearly demonstrated by Cyborg bases causing problems. This fix sped up the host processing a bit.

Fixed: Hull plans on a Robot base or ship will be deleted.

Fixed: Hull plans on a Solorian ship will be deleted.

Fixed: Issue where the JOE switch on Jumppoint and chunnel jumps may get switched off while moving ships/wings, so that a portion of them would not move.

Fixed: Issues with math and negative number handling in ship to ship boarding combat causing unexpected results.

Fixed: Minefield recharging fixed so that the proper amount of ordnance is used, thus making the ordnance of the ship stay positive or 0 as expected.

Fixed: Minefield type selection is no longer required when recharging a minefield.

Fixed: Movement code sped up a bit by using less calls that utilize the disk.

Fixed: Non-Solorians can no longer transfer fuel to Solorian bases from ships or pods.

Fixed: Non-Solorians can no longer transfer fuel to Solorian pods from ships.

Fixed: Personnel in a base or pod of another player won't count as prisoners if they don't have the attack switch on.

Fixed: Poor interaction of WPP command code and auto-intercept caused the unit not to move. Auto-intercept will now only kick in after the waypoints are exhausted.

Fixed: Problem with captured ships not clearing out remaining high guard.

Fixed: Proper race number will appear in Nova Barbitic chain reaction messages.

Fixed: Ram Scoop will now work while escorting or intercepting at or above speed 20.

Fixed: Rebel Ally Report will not display itself as an ally...really.

Fixed: Rebel R## command code on ships wasn't working for all minefield types. Now it is.

Fixed: Reticulian Med Lab won't overload the cargo of the ship.

Fixed: Robot hull plans on other race's ships will be deleted.

Fixed: Ship repairs of armor will no longer allow the repair on the ship to go negative.

Fixed: Non-Solorian-owned ship captured by a Solorian player will have the fuel set to 0.

Fixed: Solorian-owned ships captured by a non-Solorian player will have the fuel set to 0.

Fixed: Sometimes a ship escorting a Virgo that lost its minefield immunity would remain immune.

Fixed: Sped up the routine that checks for combat by eliminating loops that do nothing as well as using data in RAM instead of loading from disk.

Fixed: Target Dangerous will no longer allow large pods (such as wreckage) to become targets when target soft is disabled.

Fixed: The Evil Empire get their x4 cash bonus for Labor Camps. They need empty camps to gain this bonus.

Fixed: The King of the Hill Beacon map icon would take you to x, x coordinates instead of x, y.

Fixed: The radius of chain reacting nova barbitic minefields was 1 less ly radius.

Fixed: Transport Inhibitor uses the current fuel level to determine if it can work instead of the fuel that you started the turn with.

Fixed: When a non-Solorian-owned ship is captured by a Solorian player then the fuel will be set to 0.

Fixed: When a Solorian-owned ship is captured by a non-Solorian player then the fuel will be set to 0.

Fixed: When a spy attack "Sabotage Base" is stopped by high guard, then the colonists will not decrease in happiness.

Fixed: When a spy attack "Steal Ship Plans" succeeds, it will not gain a hull plan foreign to the target.

Fixed: When crew is missing from a ship, it will stop where it is immediately.

Fixed: Wings hitting a nova barbitic produced a mostly blank player message. It will have some content now.

Fixed: Wings would not continue to move after destroying their intercept/escort target.

[edit] Changes / New Features

[edit] Command Codes

New: "PAT" ship and wing Command Code for patrol mission that will not clear a waypoint when it is reached; rather recycle it (put it at the end of active waypoints) and continue to the next waypoint. So the unit will loop its waypoints instead of removing them. If you have waypoints A, B, C plotted then when waypoint A is reached, the waypoints will now be B, C, A. Works for ships and wings.

New: "SHU" ship command code that will behave like "PAT" but will stop moving at each waypoint.

New: "WP1" ship And wing Command Code that will never clear WP1 when it is reached.

New: "BDR" command code to Beam Down Repair.

New: BUS, BUF, BUM, BUO/ORD, BUC, BUN, BUK will now observe Reserve Levels of the base.

Changed: GBA and GSA Command Codes will give away special race structures even if they are not in the same slot, such as a Resort being in slot 1 for the Feds and slot 3 for the Birdman.

[edit] HConfig

New: More HConfig options available for the upcoming combat code changes:

Alias	Default	Range	Description
FighterMissileVCROrdUsage	10	1 - 100
ShipSpeedFactor	100	25 - 400
ShipAccFactor	100	25 - 400
WingSpeedFactor	100	25 - 400
WingAccFactor	100	25 - 400
FighterBeamDivisor	2	1 - 5
FighterMissileDivisor	2	1 - 5
FiringFighterDivisor	50	10 - 400
CoalitionTriadRadius	50	3 - 3000

[edit] Logs/Reports

New: 2 Player messages "Crew Report" will appear. One for the beginning of the turn and one for the end of the turn.

New: 2 Player messages "Resource Report" will appear. One for the beginning of the turn and one for the end of the turn.

New: Base log for EPA command code.

New: Base log for failure to purchase ship parts that you don't have the technology requirement for. Some players have used a registered copy of the client to go above the max tech for shareware and then shifted to their friend's shareware version and can't build high tech parts anymore, which is expected.

New: Log messages for Laser and Barbitic minefield detonations.

New: Ship log message providing some information about ship capture results.

New: Ship log messages for change in sensor profile when hitting minefields.

New: Wing log for refueling operations.

Changed: Ship & wing log for jump gate travel now includes coordinates.

Changed: Sitting in a web minefield won't display excessive ship logs any longer.

Changed: Various log messages cleaned up.

[edit] Minefields

Changed: Minefields will not affect other players that you have your Attack! setting disabled for regardless of that player's Attack! setting for you.

Changed: Minelaying and minesweeping are performed in reverse score order.

Changed: Minesweeping a cloaked barbitic has a 25% chance of being swept unless you have a scan of it. If you have a scan of it, then there is a 100% chance.

Changed: Wings that hit a minefield will always lose at least 1 fighter and that could be the one that your high guard is in. The killed fighter starts with type-1.

Changed: When a minefield's power is depleted, it is removed from the map immediately.

[edit] Races

New: (RCS) When the Coalition has an Arerran Capital with colonists of over 100 happiness and Humanoids of over 100 happiness then up to 5000 Humanoids will become Arerran Farmers (colonists).

New: (RCS) When the Others May Live Rescue Team rescues prisoners from a base, that base will lose 5 happiness and the base that rescued them will gain 5 happiness.

New: (RCS) Willow Native Scanner: The N. Willow Class Survey Ship has a built-in bioscanner that detects natives within 100 ly 100% of the time.

New: (RCS) Xelovi Queen's Royal Honor Guard: The X. 1260 Royal Class Heavy Cruiser will attract up to 2000 Insectoids from a planet surface to be troops on the ship. The Queen can attract up to 300 - Insectoid Happiness from any base except one with an Insectoid Nest. At least 1 high guard must be on the ship to train the Insectoids to be troops.

Changed: (RCS) Aurora Class Flagship now has a bio computer like the Lotus Class Pursuit Ship.

Changed: (RCS) Aurora Class Flaship changed to only require 3000 gc (from 5000 gc) from the galactic bank per turn.

Changed: (RCS) Binary Class Star Port can build all Coalition ship types except for itself. Alien hull drydocks cannot build Coalition hulls special hulls.

Changed: (RCS) Target Enhancer only requires 30 fuel to operate (from 40).

New: (RCS) Coalition Trade Triad - When 3 bases of each capital type are within 50 ly of each other, they all 3 gain 1500 mc per turn. This is configurable by HConfig option: CoalitionTriadRadius.

New: Federation, People's Army, Coalition, and Arborian ships get +40 bonus to hit IMT ships with their small and large weapons (No, the Arborians aren't released).

New: (IMT) Metals Exchange now uses Reserve Levels to keep from processing all metals unless desired.

Changed: (IMT) Metals Exchange will only process up to 2000 kt of each type of metal per turn.

New: (Mivorari) Mivorari colonists will lose 50 happiness when they are being poisoned by Lerchin Spices (No, the Mivorari are not released yet).

Changed: (CoM)) A Virgo with a scan range of 0 (i.e. towed) cannot provide minefield immunity. Its scanners and Unicom are the means of providing the immunity.

Changed: (Cyborg) Cyborg boarding an enemy ship with colonists will now have colonists return to the ship instead of troops when the target can't hold the troops in its guest quarters.

Changed: (UEA) Redistribution Center limited to processing 100 contraband per turn.

Changed: (Rebels) Rebel R## minefield immunity only works when the Rebel is in their own hull.

[edit] Other Changes

New: Bases being attacked by Amorphous Worms will lose 5 happiness.

New: When a base is overrun by Amorphous Worms, any prisoners will create a new base and have to fend for themselves.

New: When you gain prisoners from an ally in your base and your ally doesn't have any other bases, then one will be created on the same plaent as yours with the released prisoners.

Changed: Labor Mines will use the mining rate of the prisoner's race instead of your own. It is still only half as effective at mining as standard Mineral Mines. Prisoners will die after they mine instead of before.

New: Empires that have not had a turn submitted for over 10 turns will immediately have all pods destroyed, Wings will lose 20% of their fighters, buoys are immediately destroyed, and minefields decay by an extra 2 power per turn. This is in addition to what it normally did.

New: Ships that come into range (4 ly) of a ship being towed will have a contest to see who will take over towing. The loser loses for the rest of the turn. Spindizzy isn't affected by this. You can't tow a unit that is being multi-towed by a Spindizzy.

Changed: Cargo Grappler limited to taking 1000 food from a base.

Changed: Cargo Grappler processed in reverse score order.

Changed: If the HConfig setting for buoys is set to 0, then no buoys can be deployed. Previously this setting caused buoys to be unlimited.

New: Modified the way that objects are handled in the host code so that they stay in RAM for a majority of the host run; allowing about a 42% reduction in host run time. This uses about 121 MB of RAM. If you want the host version that uses about 7 MB of RAM then you can contact Tim or Rick. This speed enhancement will probably be more notable in games with a large number of objects.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.212f

[edit] February 14st, 2008

Mostly bugfixes for Host 212e and limits on effects adjusting native happines.

[edit] Bug Fixes

Fixed: EE Labor Camp x4 bonus doesn't require empty camps. (Host 212e issue)

Fixed: Labor Mines weren't mining and the prisoner death was producing unexpected results. (Host 212e issue)

Fixed: Tech Institute now has limits on the native happiness increase up to 300.

Fixed: Changes made to attempt to make it so that EE cannot see docked pods/wings on ships that they don't have a scan of (e.g. cloaked carrier with its wings). More testing required.

Fixed: Chupanoid happiness increase when they finish off all of your food limited to 300.

Fixed: Chupanoid happiness decrease limited to -300 when they escape from a native pod launch.

Fixed: Damage from orbital bombardment on a base will decrease native happiness. There is now a limit on how low that can go (-300).

Fixed: Non-Solorian owned ships captured by a Solorian in combat will now have 0 fuel.

Fixed: Privateer bases adjusting native happiness will be limited between -300 and +300.

Fixed: Rebel bases draining native happiness is now limited to -300.

Fixed: IMT native happiness adjustment boundary limit set.

Fixed: Centaur Racetrack native happiness increase limited to 300.

Fixed: Issue with the new HConfig values being read from the .FIG file.

Fixed: DOC base Command Code not working.

[edit] Changes

Changed: HConfig WingChargeDivisor default set to 50 instead of 400.

Changed: Mind Crusher would limit the lower native happiness level to -100. It is now -300.

Changed: Solar Gamma Ray would limit the lower native happiness level to 0. It is now -300.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.211

[edit] November 3th, 2007

Changed: When the number of public space ports exceeds 10 then the number of active public space ports is now 10 plus the square root of the number of PSPs minus 10. In math talk that’s: 10 + SQRT(PSPs – 10). It was 10 plus the square root of the number of PSPs or: 10 + SQRT(PSPs).

Changed: IMT Chupanoid to troop conversion limited to 5000 new troops.

Removed: Code that may be undocking wings from carriers.

New: Rules around Spindizzy:

• Will "tow" a planet that you target with then Nav/Tow target and Spindizzy is enabled. If a base is targeted, it shifts the target to the planet that the base is on.

• Will "tow" all ships, wings, pods with the Spindizzy ship when enabled. Will not move minefields, jump gates, or worm holes. Bases will move if the planet is targeted and moved.

• When under the effects of a Spindizzy, pods and wings cannot undock from a ship. They will just continue to be swept along with the Spindizzy effect.

• A pod/wing cannot dock with a ship/base unless it is under the effect of the same Spindizzy ship effect.

• All objects under the effect of a Spindizzy device have 0 scan range (like standard tow).

• The Spindizzy cannot tow a planet within 5 ly of another planet. If this is attempted, then the Spindizzy device will shut down and all tow targets are dropped.

• It cannot activate a Spindizzy effect around a planet that is already within 5 ly of another planet.

• A jumppoint cannot be generated from within a Spindizzy effect.

• A planet will not move with the Spindizzy effect if the Spindizzy ship is jumppoint jumped or warp chunneled.

• A Spindizzy ship cannot affect another ship with the Spindizzy enabled.

• Spindizzy ignores normal tow restrictions of engines and mass.

• Spindizzy will break all other active tows if those tows are under the effect of the Spindizzy.

• Two Spindizzy ships competing for the ability to tow something will compete using a random value between 0 to 10 + the ship experience.

• If the result of a Spindizzy contest results in 1 of the Spindizzy ships not having any targets then it will shut down the Spindizzy effect to save fuel.

• Ships/wings under the Spindizzy effect will not auto-intercept.

• 500 fuel is required to use the Spindizzy effect in addition to the normal cost to move the Spindizzy ship itself.

• The Spindizzy device will fail if 20% or more control system damage is present.

• Spindizzy effect cannot work on ships with gravitional stabilizers (Solorian Ragnarok, etc.).

• Ships/wings that want to avoid all Spindizzy effects can use the NSD command code.

• A Spindizzy effect will not take a planet through a jumpgate or wormhole with the Spindizzy ship.

• Gravity Rift interferes with the Spindizzy effect within 150 ly.

• The Gravitonic Accelerator cannot be enabled at the same time as the Spindizzy. The Spindizzy will win.

• Spindizzy will not affect the King of the Hill planet.

• When a Spindizzy effect encounters another planet while towing a planet, it will stop the Spindizzy ship.

• If a Spindizzy effect encounters a Grafity Rift, it should shut it down and stop the ship. That happens when either: moving normally, escorting, or intercepting.

• The Spindizzy effect is able to be activated if at range 5 with another planet. Range 4 or less is not allowed. The idea here is to allow the planet to be moved away so that you cannot box planets in and make it so that a rival IMT player cannot move it again.

• If you attempt to move a planet within 5 ly of another planet then the planet will stay at its prior coordinates.

Fixed: After a jumppoint jump, only the Centaurs can continue moving.

Fixed: Alchemy A## command code fixed.

Fixed: An ally with a matching friendly code on the source and destination ship can now transfer to/from another ship.

Fixed: Boarding Laser could send the target ship’s troop count to a negative number. No longer.

Fixed: Deep Space Message for Protomatter Cannon fire displays the proper graphic now.

Fixed: Fixed a problem with CoM and IMT crew going above their capacity and filling up completely when the crew is low (the rest of the crew came from nowhere).

Fixed: Gravity Rift and Gravwell interaction could cause confusion.

Fixed: Happiness message for Robot emotion chips fixed.

Fixed: Ill Wind bonus “precharge” of large weapons only included the first 10.

Fixed: IMT Driller mechs actually deplete the planet of minerals now.

Fixed: In hostile boarding actions, high guard were easily killed off by lesser combatants.

Fixed: Insectoid Nest converting prisoners base log message corrected.

Fixed: Intercept target was being cleared when it shouldn't have.

Fixed: Laser special ability to short out pulsed laser now works on more than the first 10 pulsed lasers.

Fixed: Pods/wings were showing up on the map even when they were docked. Evil Empire are the only race that can scan for and see a docked pod/wing.

Fixed: Previously, Gravitonic Accelerator couldn't be active within a 150 ly grid of a Gravity Rift, which allowed the Rift to function out to a maximum of 150*SQRT(2) ~= 212 ly. I changed it to be calculated more precisely to 150 ly.

Fixed: Problem displaying the graphic of the ship that used its glory device in the message fixed.

Fixed: Rebel Ally Report should fit in a single message now.

Fixed: Removed the code that moved an object that you are towing to your position when you end the turn within a 5 ly grid of it. It turned out to be a bad idea.

Fixed: Reticulian Beam puts log messages in the proper place now. More details provided also.

Fixed: Ship log "Our Gravity Stabilizer prevents us from entering the jump gate." cleaned up for proper object and jump gate changed to jumppoint.

Fixed: Ships and wings getting a full scan of planets that they are near fixed.

Fixed: Solorian TOT message for Exotic Techs fixed.

Fixed: The calculations around how close you are to a target during movement have been reviewed to make sure that they are kept accurate. Towing and Jumppoint use would sometimes result in an unexpected displacement of the tower and a missed jump.

Fixed: Tow target was being cleared when it shouldn't have.

Fixed: When small weapons hit organic armor, their special features no longer have any effect.

Fixed: When wreckage is created after combat, only the first 10 small weapons would appear in the wreckage.

Fixed: Wings docking with wings that are in turn docked to a ship fixed so that they cannot overload the carrier.

New: Added an extra check to make sure that auto-intercept doesn't go after bases, minefields or jumpgates/wormholes.

New: Added more information to the hostile boarding action results message.

New: BUK command code: Beam Up Krew

New: IMT Spindizzy device support (see below).

New: Messages for failure to chunnel due to lack of crew or system damage.

New: Minefield hit messages (from moving through them) will now include the minefield graphic.

New: Put in ship log messages when a Warp Chunnel doesn't have a valid target and when the chunnel target is within 10 ly.

New: Recharging a minefield doesn't require a minefield type to be selected. It will choose the appropriate type for you. So ships with multiple dropper types can recharge any appropriate target.

New: Recovering minefields allows a kill target to specify the minefield to recover. You must still be within the radius of the minefield to recover.

New: Ship log for Maelstorm Class Light Cruiser notifying ship that it is minefield immune.

New: Ship log for Warrior Shuttle notifying ship that it is minefield immune.

New: Spy Scanner ship log message cleaned up.

New: When set to recharge, you can set a kill target to specify the minefield to recharge. It must still be within a 200 ly grid.

New: When sweeping a minefield, you can set a kill target to specify the minefield you want to sweep. You must still be within the radius of the minefield.

Changed: After a jumppoint jump, only the Centaurs can continue moving. Previously all ships could continue moving, which breaks the laws of hyperjumping. Wings couldn’t move after a jump already.

Changed: Allies and your own units will always get the message from Tachyon Emitter flooding the area with Tachyon particles.

Changed: Colonies of Man growth on ships allows partial growth if partial food is available. The way it works is that you need to have enough food to feed the babies. a) Take the sum of the colonists and crew, b) multiply (a) by .06 on a Sagittarius, c) divide (b) by 100,000, (c) is the amount of food required to feed the babies. Previously if you didn't have (c) then you would have 0 babies. Now, if you have a fraction of the food then you make a fraction of the babies. If you have 0 food then you have 0 babies. After this type of growth is backbreeding (if you have at least 1 food), where troops become crew and HG become troops. If you overload the crew then the excess are colonists. IMT ships do the same thing, but their growth multiplier is .015 on all ships.

Changed: CoM Warrior Shuttle is only minefield immune when owned by a CoM player and a high guard is on board. Previously any race could own it and put a HG on it to be minefield immune.

Changed: High Guard will escape from ships that are destroyed from minefields, Gun Zero, Stellar Matter Launcher, etc.

Changed: Host Report turn number is in the message text instead of the Subject line now.

Changed: Newly launched pods and laid minefields will not count down their power timer.

Changed: Previously there was a 70% chance for each ship part type being in wreckage when destroyed. Now it is 70% change per part per type. In other words previously it was all or nothing. Now you can have a chance to get some of a given part type.

Changed: Prison break of prisoners will no longer create 20% of the colonist prisoners as troops. The new maximum is 2% or100, whichever is less. The happiness drop from a prison break on the original base limited to a maximum of 30 point drop.

Changed: Privateer training on ships requires 50 experience instead of 51.

Changed: Robot Q Tanker now affects its own units once where it decreases the sensor profile by 80%. The other restrictions are the same as before. Look at the ship log message; not the profile given in the client.

Changed: Ships and Wings cannot move after a warp chunnel. The code for this was already in place, but wasn’t working correctly.

Changed: Tachyon Emitter changing sensor profile moved to take effect after Q Tanker cloaking.

Changed: Terraformers will now start turned on after construction.

Changed: The host will not process invalid tow targets for ships (e.g. towing a planet) except in special circumstances, such as Spindizzy.

Changed: The pod type is given in the glory device shockwave message instead of just "pod".

Changed: Tow score will be 0 when there is only 1 or less crew or 1 or less fuel on a ship.

Changed: Virgo Minefield immunity requirements are now: 1 HG on the Virgo, owned by a CoM player, same player wing docked to ship or within 10 ly of the Virgo. Virgo immunity will be checked during movement instead of only before movement. Virgo immunity extends to those that are not at war with the CoM player that owns the Virgo and are escorting the Virgo and are within 10 ly of the Virgo.

Changed: When capturing an abandoned ship, the Kill Target and Attack Enemy status will not change. Prior, the Kill Target was cleared and the Attack Enemies was turned off.

Changed: Wings docking to wings has the role reversed from prior version. In prior version if you dock Wing A to Wing B then the resulting wing will be Wing A. Now Wing B will be the resulting wing.

Changed: Wings now have an increased sensor profile based on the speed that they are traveling like ships do. Birdman wings start at a low profile and only half of their speed is counted when increasing their profile.

Changed: Wings will not auto-intercept when their Attack Enemies setting is off.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.210

[edit] August 31th, 2007

Fixed: Plasma Stream Enhancer using 3x ordnance instead of theintended 2x ordnance.

Fixed: Darkwing G small weapons now penetrate Borg hull shields as intended.

Fixed: Base chunnel to a planet with bases on it no longer causes a host crash.

Fixed: A combat with over 30 Scavenger combatants no longer causes a host crash.

Fixed: Pods move again!

Fixed: Resource Report no longer shows stats from another player (and possible host crash).

Fixed: Ships and Wing can fully detect planets again.

Fixed: Quick Build works again!

Fixed: Wing redock to the carrier after combat again.

Fixed: Colonies of Man can no longer grow on Ships when there is no food present.

Fixed: IMT no longer gets a growth bonus while on Colonies of Man ships. IMT no longer trains high guard on a Virgo Class like the Colonies of Man.

New: A## Command Code for Alchemy to only transfer ##% of its cargo hold in Supplies to the ship. If the Alchemy ship has a cargo capacity of 1000 and A10 is used, then 100 Supplies will be gathered before processing the Supplies.

[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.210 Patch1

[edit] September 10th, 2007

Fixed: Bases scanning for other bases fixed to use planetary Scanner building.

Fixed: Large wings can no longer get bonuses to hit Solorian Fusion or Robot R27 Raider with missiles.

Fixed: Wings should dock with their carriers after a battle now.

Fixed: Glory Device message to minefield owners will now show the proper graphic of the minefield type.

Fixed: Minefield Soft Destruct works properly.

Fixed: Gravitonic Minefield detonations apply the proper damage now.

Fixed: Nova Barbitic Minefield detonations cleaned up.

Fixed: Minefield detonation messages cleaned up.

Changed: Colonies of Man and IMT growth on ships will give partial growth if only partial food requirement is present on the ship.

Changed: Q Tanker cloaking field will only affect special Robot hulls owned by the same Robot player.

Changed: Optimized the sharing of data with allies for speed.

Changed: Deletion of objects optimized for speed.

New: If a carrier is overloaded with too many fighters that exceeds its carrier bay capacity then all wings will undock. The next official release will prevent wings from docking to a wing that is docked to a carrier that will result in an overloaded carrier.

New: Ship log for Web Minefield detonation knocking out the Light Speed.

New: Ship Log for