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Frequently Asked Questions |
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Frequently Asked Questions |
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distribution to master the game on the non-DOS platform that you are using,
orYou will also need to set up a configuration for the game. This requires creating a PCONFIG.SRC file. Your best bet is to copy one of the PCONFIG.SRC files that comes with the PHOST distribution and make modifications as desired.
The "Changes in PHOST 3" page describes what has changed between the PHOST 2.x series and PHOST 3.x.
The "Version Changes" page describes the revision history of PHOST 3 since its initial release.
to offer an alliance to player 5, for example. Use any player number from 1 to 11. The other player must do the same for the alliance to take effect. You must then configure which alliance levels you wish to be in effect. To do so, send a message to yourself with the words:
to enable the Ship Level and Planet Level of alliance to player 5, for example.
For more details, please see the Alternative Ship Lists and Maps section of the "Hosting with PHOST" page.
For more details, please see the Hosting with VPHOST section of the "Hosting with PHOST" page.
There are some additional items to take note of:
| FC | Planet or Ship | Registered Only? | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| mkt | Ship | Yes | Build torpedoes in space with minerals + megacredits |
| mdh | Ship | Yes | Drop only half of your torpedoes when Mine Laying |
| mdq | Ship | Yes | Drop only one quarter of your torpedoes when Mine Laying |
| msc | Ship | Yes | Scoop up your mines and make torpedoes when Mine Sweeping |
| alt | Ship | Yes | Alchemy ships only manufacture Tritanium |
| ald | Ship | Yes | Alchemy ships only manufacture Duranium |
| alm | Ship | Yes | Alchemy ships only manufacture Molybdenum |
| NAL | Ship | No | Alchemy ships do not perform their alchemy function |
| HYP | Ship | No | Hyperwarp-capable ships perform a hyperjump |
| NTP | Ship | No | In combat, the ship will not launch fighters or torpedoes |
| ATT | Planet | No | Planets with this code will attack ships in orbit |
| NUK | Planet | No | Same as ATT but fuelless ships are attacked too |
| mdN | Ship | Yes | Drop only 10*N mines (100 when N=0) when Mine Laying |
| miN | Ship | Yes | Lay mines belonging to race N when Mine Laying (N=1..9,a,b) |
| WRS * | Ship | No | Scan for wormholes |
| WRT * | Ship | No | Travel through a wormhole |
| lfm | Ship | No | Load minerals necessary for fighter building |
| dmp | Planet | Yes | Starbase will recycle all components in storage |
| bdm | Ship | Yes | Ship will beam down all credits to a planet if in orbit |
| gsN | Ship | Yes | Give a ship to player N (N=1..9,a,b) |
| nat * | Ship | Yes | Alchemy ships build Duranium and Molybdenum, no Tritanium |
| nad * | Ship | Yes | Alchemy ships build Tritanium and Molybdenum, no Duranium |
| nam * | Ship | Yes | Alchemy ships build Tritanium and Duranium, no Molybdenum |
| cln | Ship | Yes | The ship with this code will be cloned |
| btt | Ship | No | Transfer torpedoes to enemy ships with the same torp type |
| btf | Ship | No | Transfer fighters to enemy ships with bays |
| btm | Ship | No | Transfer money to enemy ships |
| bum | Planet | No | Beam up money to enemy ships in orbit |
| pop | Ship | No | Ships with glory device will explode unconditionally |
| trg | Ship | No | Glory device will explode if enemy cloaked ship is detected |
| con + | Planet | No | Send the PCONFIG.SRC file in the UTIL.DAT file next turn |
| nbr | Ship | No | Priv/Crystal ships can tow without capturing fuelless ships |
| PBn + | Planet | No | Set priority order of base in build queue |
| The * beside a friendly code indicates that it is specific to PHOST. | |||
| The + beside a friendly code indicates that it functions differently from HOST. | |||
The following friendly codes have a special meaning, but are not special friendly codes per se. In particular, these friendly codes will match enemy friendly codes. Actually, that's what they are for :-)
| mfX | Planet | No | Universal Minefield Friendly Code |
| x??, X?? | Ship | No | Standard Super Spy |
The following HOST friendly codes are not special in PHOST and do nothing.
| ffX | Ship | No | Offer "Level 1" Alliance |
| FFX | Ship | No | Offer "Level 2" Alliance |
| eeX | Ship | No | Cancel alliance |
)
to view these battles. Once you create a PIF file for PVCR, viewing your
battles is just one mouse click away.
For more details, please see the Viewing Battles with PVCR section of the "Playing with PHOST" page.
PlayerRace defines a mapping between player number and race number. Normally, this is a mapping that you've never had to worry about. Player #1 was the Federation (Race #1), Player #2 was the Lizards (Race #2), etc. The PlayerRace config option makes this mapping explicit and allows you to change it. For example,
is exactly the mapping of a "normal" game, i.e., Player #1 is the Federation, Player #2 is the Lizards, etc.
But with this mapping:
all 11 players are now playing the Privateers! A final example:
In this example, players 1 through 5 are playing Birdman races, players 7 through 11 are playing Empire races, and player 6 is given no racial abilities (the race number of '12' indicates 'no race').
For more information, please see the Non-Standard Race Assignments section of the "Hosting with PHOST" page.
The second option to consider is MapTruehullByPlayerRace.
NOTE: This option should
only be enabled if all players in a game are using VPA.
This config option determines the list of ships that each player can build. Normally, you would want the list of available ships to match the race that a player is playing. This is achieved by setting MapTruehullByPlayerRace to Yes.
Setting MapTruehullByPlayerRace to No disassociates the race that a player is playing from the list of ships that he can build. The host must modify the TRUEHULL.DAT file to give each player a custom list of ships that he can build.
NOTE: If any players are playing without racial abilities (i.e., PlayerRace is set to 12 for that player) then MapTruehullByPlayerRace MUST be set to No.
For those with a good understanding of ship lists and the purpose of the TRUEHULL.DAT file, MapTruehullByPlayerRace is understood simply by the following:
The effects of the PHP Abyss are different from the Tim Continuum (TC). While the TC causes ships to be flung to the remote reaches of the galaxy, the PHP Abyss thinks this is a bad idea since it a) causes flung ships to act like scouts, letting them see parts of the universe they would not normally see, and b) limits the options of hosts. If the TC strikes an honest player (as is the case in 99% of all TC incidents) then the host may wish to re-run the turn. But due to the scouting effect, the affected player has gathered information that cannot be given back.
Instead, the PHP Abyss "freezes" the player's actions for that turn. His ships will not move. His factories will not produce supplies, his mines will not extract minerals, his colonists and natives will not pay tax. It's as if the player picked up a "Lose A Turn" card.
The most common cause for a strike by the PHP Abyss is one person playing multiple races in the same game, but doing so incorrectly. In team games, especially, when one player submits a turn for another player, great care must be taken or the PHP Abyss will strike.
To successfully submit turns for multiple races in the same game, follow these rules:
| play the turn for player1 | WRONG! |
| run MAKETURN and submit the TRN for player 1 | |
| play the turn for player 2 | |
| run MAKETURN again and submit the TRN for player 2 |
| play the turn for player1 | Right! |
| play the turn for player2 | |
| run MAKETURN | |
| submit the TRN files for player 1 and player 2 |
In summary, always do everything as a group. Unpack all the RST files as a group in the same directory. Run MAKETURN and submit all of the TRN files as a group. Always.
PHOST 3 does not support 999 ships. PHOST 4, the next major release, will support 999 ships. We don't make any prediction on when it will be released. The problem is that supporting more ships means an incompatible file format change which must be accompanied with a new major version number.
No. Planets4 is a completely different game. Maybe someone writes a portable host for it, but that would have nothing to do with PHOST. The games differ too much to be hosted by the same program.
PHOST 3.4 is the current "mainstream" release of PHOST, the successor of PHOST 3.3 and PHOST 3.2. As the version numbers show, they are all compatible, as far as file formats are concerned.
PHOST 4 will be the next major release. Some often-requested features can not be implemented compatibly, so we need to change the host-side file formats (auxdata.hst). The most obvious one is 999 ships: doubling the number of ships clearly changes the file formats. PHOST 4 is currently being programmed and tested. Some other features change properties of the game so we think it's easier for players to change the major version number as an indication of "new rules".
PHOST 3.4 and PHOST 4 are based on the same code base. Essentially, when a feature is being added to version 4.x, it is also being added to version 3.4x, and vice versa. Only those features which are impossible to implement in 3.4x, or those that we think are too intrusive, will be available in version 4.x only.
We will continue to maintain version 3.4 as long as possible to support running games and people who want to keep 3.4.
Back to the indexIt is very very unlikely that PHOST is to blame for your ship running
out of fuel (but if it is, please send a bug report to the PHOST bug reporting
address). Some other things to consider are:
You can use the DOS Planets or VPA client programs to view your battles. Note, too, that you can view your battles without starting a client program at all. Typing the following:
for example, will view all battles for player 5 in the directory gamedir. Also see Common Question #16 above.
PHOST has an option, AllowMoreThan50Targets, which controls whether or not the number of ships listed in the RST file is limited to 50. When this option is on, all enemy ships within scan range have full information reported, but DOS Planets will crash if you attempt to use this RST file directly. You must use an external utility, such as VPUTIL and/or VPUNPACK, which can correctly handle more than 50 scanned enemy ships. The original UNPACK utility will not work if AllowMoreThan50Targets is enabled.
Note that a bug in the DOS Planets 3.0 program (see Common Bug #9 above) shows ships with 1% damage as actually having no damage. Thus, your ship may be prevented from cloaking because it has 1% damage but this damage is not seen in DOS Planets.
Finally, all cloaking missions (including Super Spy) suffer a random chance of failure on each turn (configured by the CloakFailureRate config option).
When PHOST is used, however, WinPlan users will be able to cancel their build orders. MAKETURN, however, will still not work. VPUTIL or VPMKTRN should be used for DOS Planets players.
As of PHOST v2.10, PHOST will remember whether or not the last valid turn you submitted was from WinPlan. Not submitting a turn no longer provides you with a 3.2-style RST file (as it does in HOST 3.2)
Your Maketurn program is incompatible with PHOST. Use a different one. Programs known to work are:
The problematic cases are PHOST's bug workaround (Maketurn programs have to resend all current build orders, not just those that changed) and the "build starbase" TRN command which differs from all other TRN commands.
Besides, it is still possible that your TRN actually got damaged on transport.
The usual cause for this problem is that you are allied with the ships you're fighting. You do not get build points for fights against allies. It does not matter what alliance levels you offer. You have to cancel the alliance completely using allies drop.
The intention of this rule is to prevent allies from "generating" activity points by capturing ships back and forth.
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(support@phost.de).