Stefan's VGAP Bits

Here, I collect miscellaneous VGAP bits that do not fit anywhere else.

Newer Winplan/Unpack versions (those which support Host999) create bogus SHIPXYx.DAT files when used with a "standard" Host (500 ship limit). PCC v1.0.11 stumbles over this problem, and other Host999-aware utilities probably will, too.

Fix999 is a small tool that fixes the bogus SHIPXY files. Just run it after unpacking. This can also be automated if you use Winplan (DOS planets users just make an appropriate batch file).

This utility takes a xyplan.dat file, and randomizes the planet Ids. Afterwards, the map will look identical but the Id numbers will be distributed randomly.

This utility removes the "current" ship history entries from PCC's ship database. This is necessary if your hostmaster re-runs the host because of some problem, so you have two RSTs for the same turn, and PCC has already seen the "wrong" one.

Since the ship database does not know if these targets came from an allied RST or a bogus one, they can't be automatically deleted.

This utility can manipulate the score statistics files (stat.cc) made by PCC. This can be used to correct for certain errors. For example, when you unpacked the wrong RST once, you can use this program to get rid of the bogus score data.

This utility can also be used to truncate VPA databases, for example when VPA claims its database to be corrupt.

This program can merge multiple .ccb files (saved simulation setups from PCC or CCBSim) into one file. This is version 0.2, which adds simple reporting.

Ufo4VPA does not officially support PHost. In my tests, it crashed or damaged the message file. I believe this is caused by the fact that PHost does not send a PBP message, but Ufo4VPA wants one to read the alliance information from. This tool adds a dummy message.

Note that even with this tool, Ufo4VPA does not officially support PHost. This is just a hack that worked for me.

Newer PHost versions support up to 10000 minefields, but VPA does not. This tool attempts to make life easier for VPA users by converting the "big minefields" into markers.

After unpacking, simply do

          vpa PLAYER DIR /b
          vpa10k PLAYER DIR

and then fire up VPA as usual.

Note that I do not generally use VPA regularily, so this program was not tested on really big VPA databases. It absolutely depends on your feedback that possible errors get fixed.

Second release; fixes a small harmless bug; reduced exe size a bit.

This page used to contain unofficial PVCR patches. Theese files are now obsolete. The official PVCR from http://phost.de/ now contains workarounds for the Evil Display Bug™. PVCR 3.3 and later support an option -F which enables the workaround.

Spacelord has problems with PHost VCRs. This small tool makes them invisible for it, so you can use Spacelord with PHost.

Note that this does not delete the VCRs from the RST file, they can still be restored using a hex editor. Hence, this is unsuitable to implement some host-side restrictions.

Multi-Check allows you to invoke different turn checkers under a single name, for stupid autohosts which don't let you configure this. The command to run is defined by a configuration file. With a bit of creativity, MCheck can also be used to multiplex other programs.

Version 0.3, adds exit code remapping using Map_Exit command.

People keep asking for hardcopy maps. This one by Trevor Fuson served me well, unfortunately it seems to have disappeared from the net. Well, here it is again.

The .bmp file is 2100x2100 monochrome and can be printed with PaintBrush. It yields two A4 sheets at 144 dpi; I guess modern printers offer more flexibility in scaling.

Both files are gzip-compressed. If your browser does not unpack them on-the-fly, most Windows archivers can handle them.

Here are two Perl scripts which can be used to manipulate pconfig.src files, especially for games with a non-standard PlayerRace setting (SRace games).

• Split a configuration into race definitions
• Merging race definitions into a configuration
• Merging multiple configuration files

Documentation is included. All files are in Unix text format (to read them under Windows, open them with Wordpad)

c2nuvcr is a Perl program that can import VCRs from planets.nu into PlayVCR, making watching VCRs a little more fun.

Documentation is included.

This is version 0.3 which adds support to the new (2014+) server APIs.