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Frequently Asked Questions
The Portable Host
Version 4.0k

Index

Common Questions

Where do I get the latest PHost version?

The Introduction (readme) document contains the relevant links.

How do I set up a new game?

See the Hosting with PHost document for information on how to create and run games with PHost.

How do I switch a game from HOST to PHost (or back)?

Switching hosts in mid-game is not recommended. If you are familiar enough with the hosting process, familiar with HOST, and familiar with PHost, then you know the answer to this question. If not, don't switch.

Okay, if you insist on it: technically, you can switch from HOST to PHost and back at any time, provided you use a ship list understood by both; the file formats are the same. However, you have to manually convert the configuration. You'll likely piss some players, though.

One caveat to watch out for is the auxdata.hst file. If you switch from PHost to HOST, the file will remain there although HOST does not maintain it. This may confuse some programs. In addition, when you switch back to PHost, it will find the stale file lying around. Therefore, delete auxdata.hst when you switch from PHost to HOST.

What is the difference between PHost 3.x and PHost 4.x?

PHost 3.4 is the current "mainstream" release of PHost, the successor of PHost 3.3 and 3.2. As the version numbers show, they are all compatible, as far as file formats are concerned.

PHost 4.0 is the next major release. Some often-requested features cannot be implemented in PHost 3.x, because they need to break file format compatibility. The most-obvious one is 999 ships support. See What is new in PHost 4 for details.

How can I simulate battles for PHost?

You must use a simulator which explicitly supports PHost. BSim is a popular choice. Internally, it supports only PHost 2.x, therefore results will be slightly off in some cases. CCBSim[Remote] supports all PHost 3.x subtleties as well as PHost 4.0, but it has some problems with very long fights. Recent EchoView[Remote] versions have a PHost 3.x/4.x simulator built in, too. No other PHost simulator is known as of April 2003.

If you are using 100% "standard" combat, you can try to use a HOST simulator, such as the one built into VPA and Winplan. Results should give you a vague idea on the outcome, but don't bet on it.

Does PHost 4 support Planets 4?

No. Planets 4 is a completely different game than VGA Planets 3.x. The PHost team has no intention to write a host for Planets 4.

Does program X work together with PHost?

PHost has been developed with compatibility in mind. Ideally, everything which works with HOST should work with PHost as well. If it does not implement explicit PHost support, it'll not be able to access PHost's special features, but it should work nonetheless.

PHost implements some extra features which are not universally supported (such as 999 ships, or MapTruehullByPlayerRace); these have been marked as such and are disabled by default.

Known Troublemakers:

What advantages do players using Winplan have over others?

Winplan/registered introduced not only a new interface, but also a new TRN/RST file format giving players submitting Winplan-style turn files some advantages over players submitting old-style turns. PHost tries to compensate these differences as good as possible.

PHost distinguishes between three types of client programs: Winplan (turn files submitted with registered Winplan or compatible), DOS Planets (turn files submitted with DOS planets (registered or shareware), or Winplan shareware), and VPA (same as DOS Planets, but sends a client VPA command). When we say "players using Winplan", we actually mean "players using a program that generates Winplan-style turn files".

These are the restrictions enforced by PHost. Client programs might impose further limitations. For example, not every client program allows you to set a mission with a parameter larger than 500. Not every client allows you to give a unload-to-planet order as well as a transfer-to-enemy-ship order.

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Bugs - Real & Otherwise

My ship burned a different amount than predicted by my client. Why?

The fuel consumption formulas used by the original HOST and DOS Planets/Winplan were not exactly known when PHost was initially written. PHost must approximate the fuel consumption. Therefore, it is possible (though unlikely) that your client program may tell you that you only need a certain amount of fuel to get to your destination but in reality PHost may require more. HOST sometimes also requires more fuel than the client programs predict.

Some other reasons why a ship can use a different amount of fuel than predicted:

See also HOST/PHost differences for a list of all known differences between HOST and PHost, as well as our statement why PHost stays different even though HOST formulas are now well-known.

PHost claims that this minefield/wormhole was away 999 ly but this isn't true!

PHost condenses messages. You get only one report per object, not one for every ship which scans it. Therefore it can't compute sensible distances. After all, you can compute these yourself on your starmap.

Some programs which do message parsing expect messages to come in a certain, fixed format. For these programs, PHost fills in the dummy value "999 ly".

If this annoys you, change your language to "NewEnglish" using the language command.

Why does Winplan crash when I try to watch my battles?

Winplan cannot play combat generated by PHost. See here for more information.

PVCR displays lots of warnings about missing parameters, although I have the correct pconfig.src!

Since version 4.0, the game configuration is split into two parts:

Since people's habits are hard to change, most hosts include only the first file in the game's player files, although the second one should belong there as well. You must install a copy of the correct file before PVCR works correctly.

If you're using a standard ship list (Tim's list, or PList), chances are your host uses the recommended file from the PHost distribution. You can then just install that one (from the config/ sub-directory). The more reliable way is to ask PHost to send you the file, using the con friendly code or the send config command.

Note: Note that PVCR 4.0 erroneously moans about missing EModXXX options when used in a PHost 3.x game. This is fixed in PVCR 4.0a.

Note 2: Before bugging us "why did you complicate matters by requiring two config files", consider that shiplist.txt is actually part of the ship list, and ideally it should be delivered with it. Like you have to install hullspec.dat, beamspec.dat and friends before starting a game, you also have to install shiplist.txt.

PVCR stops while playing a battle until I press a key.

This problem has been observed under Windows.

You probably have some other program running in the background. While PVCR plays a battle, it constantly polls the keyboard. Therefore, Windows thinks PVCR is idle, and it would be better to give the CPU time to the background process. Windows doesn't see that PVCR also updates the display constantly.

The known-good fix is to stop the background process. Maybe you also manage to fix it by playing with the DOS-box property settings. The quick workaround is to press a key or fiddle with the mouse so Windows thinks you're talking to PVCR.

This has been observed with the program CPUCool, but probably things like Seti@Home are good candidates for this problem, too.

Why can't I see these enemy ships on my viewer? DOS Planets says they are out of scan range but they clearly are not.

The DOS Planets 3.0 program has an internal limit of 50 enemy ships. If more than 50 enemy ships are scanned in a given turn, then the excess ships have only their position, owner, and mass reported and the client program reports that they are out of scan range.

PHost still reports the information in util.dat, record 10. You can use a third-party client program such as VPA[Remote] or Planets Command Center[Remote] to see these ships.

What happened?! All my starbases disappeared, ships are in the wrong place, everything is wrong!

If you've enabled AllowMoreThan50Targets and are not using a program that can handle these extra targets, you may experience very strange behavior in DOS Planets. Note that the UNPACK program that comes with DOS Planets cannot handle more than 50 targets and must not be used if the AllowMoreThan50Targets option is on.

The AllowMoreThan50Targets option (and the related bigtargets command) are almost never needed these days; programs which can display more than 50 targets can usually also fetch them from util.dat (DOS Planets-compatible programs) or kore.dat (Winplan-compatible programs).

Why does PVCR show this ship as sustaining 10% damage but when I look at it, it only has 8% damage?

Did the ship have supplies? If so, remember that ships repair themselves with supplies both before and after combat.

I'm trying to cancel a build order from my starbase but the build order keeps showing up next turn.

The Maketurn included with DOS Planets, and older versions of Winplan, can not transmit build cancellations to the Host.

If you're using DOS Planets, use a different Maketurn program. All Maketurn programs known to work are listed in the next entry. However, many of the third-party maketurns might not encode cargo transfers generated by DOS Planets correctly, causing PHost up to version 3.4i/4.0f to reject the turns.

If you're using Winplan, PHost implements a workaround.

All my build orders got canceled! (or) PHost rejects my TRN as being damaged!

You're using a Maketurn program which is incompatible with PHost. Programs known to work are:

The Maketurn program must be careful not to trigger PHost's workaround for the above bug, and must send all commands in the canonical order. See Technical info on turn files for details.

I'm fighting, but I do not get build points (PAL, PBP)!

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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This document is maintained by The Portable Host Project[Remote] (support@phost.de).

Last updated 03 September 2006.