# Introduction. This add-on program is an attempt to better the famous game of VGA Planets. With the many new racial special abilities and a few universal ones, this program will add a new dose of spice and excitement to any game it’s included in. The new abilities, ranging from Planetary Cloaking Shield to Genesis Device and from Advanced Terraforming to Cloak-Towing will surely add depth and cause new feats of strategy in the all-time favorite space strategy game. It was written in 386 protected mode to allow me to fully exploit the architecture of newer processors and more power and more abilities than ever. Jupiter is the most feature- rich add-on to VGA Planets, providing new abilities designed for power and convenience. With MANY configurable options and a special TEAM game switch, the host can customize the game to his preferences and the players may use the team game to exchange ships and racial special abilities. And yes, it does support Phost. With Jupiter, you will never lack an appropriate tool to rain destruction on your opponents! This is the doc file for version 1.03. Jupiter will display its version number every time Jupiter1.exe is run. Jupiter comes Winplan-enabled, which means that Jupiter icon will appear next to Jupiter messages, and that several special abilities with area effect which naturally lend themselves to being shown on a map will be shown as UFO objects. These abilities are: Fascist Deep Space Missiles (dark green squares) Viral Fields (Bright blue circles of proper radius with bright blue squares inside). Rebel Deep Space Bases (aqua squares) Interdiction fields (Bright red circles of proper radius with bright red squares inside) Antimatter Missiles (dark green squares) Missiles will show proper warp speed and direction. TimHost version 3.22.008 or later or any phost version that supports UFOs is required to run Jupiter. You can download new host for free from www.vgaplanets.com. You can always find the most recent version of Jupiter at http://www.deathsdoor.com/stardestroyer; if you obtained this distribution from elsewhere, please be aware that this might be an older version and there could be improvements/bug fixes/etc on the "official" site. For European players, there is a mirror site at http://www.darkforce.dk/std/ # What’s New In version 1.04 of Jupiter, the following changes were implemented: 1) Prevented abuse of moving mines with multiple ships. Only 2 ships may now move mines at the same time. Before, collaboration of multiple ships could send a minefield to the other end of the cluster. 2) Prevented abuse of Genesis/Assimilation/Antigenesis perpetuum mobile. 3) Prevented Genesisation of planets hit with antimatter missile and 0- and 100-degree planets. 4) New planetary FCode RDS will send a report on all defense sats and cloaking shields you have. # Installation. You must install and configure the add-on to run in certain directories. If you have a multi-directory VGAP universe, it would be possible to specify what directories you want Jupiter to run and even have a separate configuration for every one. To configure Jupiter for a specific directory, type the command JCONFIG . The program will let you specify a variety of options and then place JUPITER.CFG into the specified directory. If Jupiter cannot find this file when it runs, it will abort, so be sure to configure the Jupiter before using it. You should run the JCONFIG just after running MASTER and before running HOST for the first time. You can re-configure JUPITER as many times as you want. Optionally, you can use the Windows-based configuration program, JWConfig, which lets you set all the options with a more user-friendly interface. It will also automatically edit aux*.ini files for you, inserting Jupiter into its proper place in auxhost run. JWConfig is free of charge for registered owners. To install Jupiter and to tell it which directories to run in, use the appropriate section. If your host executable program name is host.exe, then you are running Timhost; if the name is phost.exe, then you are running Phost. a) Timhost installation. Unless you are running JWconfig, you must add the line "Jupiter1.exe " into your auxhost1.ini file, "Jupiter2.exe " to your auxhost2.ini file, and "JupiterB.exe " into the auxbc.ini file. Do not type the quotes. Full path means the _complete_ path to the directory, starting with the drive letter. These files must be in the VGAP GAME DATA directory, where your game data files reside. If these files do not exist, create them. If they already exist and you run other add-ons, be sure all of them are listed in mirror order, i.e. if you run Jupiter and then Jupiter in your auxhost1, run Jupiter and then Jupiter in AuxBC and auxhost2. You should put the Jupiter1, Jupiter2, and Jupiterb.exe files into the planets program directory, where host.exe resides. Host version 3.22.015 or above is required for Jupiter to run. VGAP 4.0 will be supported and an upgrade will be provided free of charge after the new version is released. If you ARE running Jupiter config, this is taken care of for you when you create the config file for the first time. b) Phost installation. This add-on will only work for Phost versions 3.2.x and higher. You should use the same instructions as for host.exe, taking particular care of running any add-ons in mirror order (if you have multiple add-ons). In addition, Jupiter supports the Timhost convention of placing alternate hull, engine, torpedo, and beam definitions into the host directory, not the game directory. Please place hullspec.dat, engspec.dat, beamspec.dat, and torpspec.dat into the same directory as phost.exe. This add-on has not been given the same amount of testing with phost as it was with host; bugs may exist or some abilities may not run. If you find something that is not working properly, please bring it to my attention and I will resolve it as soon as possible. Colonial Subspace Bubble does NOT run with Phost. The following is the explanation of some of the options in the JCONFIG. Some options are not explained here; their names are very descriptive. If there is an option you would like more explanation for, feel free to contact me by e-mail at stardestroyer@deathsdoor.com (use stardestroyer@geocities.com if the first address does not respond for some reason). You can press Enter key to accept the default value. *) If you encounter a message "runtime error 003 at xxxx:xxxx" it means you are trying to run JCONFIG on a non-existing game directory. You have to run MASTER.EXE before running JCONFIG. *) Fed sweet-talk success rate: what chance a single Fed ship will have to successfully sweet-talk an enemy. Diplomacy class cruiser will have 4x that rate. Enter 0 to disable. *) Fed aggressiveness ratio: the bigger the number and the more torps a Fed ship has, the less a chance of sweet-talk. A ratio of 2 and 30 torps will decrease the chance by 3%. Enter 0 to disable aggressiveness. *) Genesis device temp variation: defines a temerature range that allows the use of Genesis device. The greater the number, the wider the range. For example, with default 25, the Genesis Device may be used between 0 and 25 and between 75 and 100 degrees, and with 10, between 0 and 10 and between 90 and 100 degrees. Enter 0 to disable it and 50 to allow its use on all planets. *) Lizard chemical strike kill factor: what percentage of the population is killed following a successful chemical strike. 0 to disable. *) Growth at temp 50 worlds: how much faster the Lizard colonists would grow on temp 50 planets. Setting 10 will cause them to grow 10 times faster, 1 would keep them growing at the same rate as host.exe does. *) Birdman/non-Birdman cloaking shield failure: a failure % of a cloaking shield. Enter 100 to disable planetary cloaking shields. *) Missile speed. Enter 0 to disable missililes. *) Sweep factor: The chance that a 10-heavy-phaser ship will have of sweeping a missile. Enter 0 to disable sweeping. *) cloak tow engine degradation: how many tech levels an engine degrades after a cloaked-tow. Default is 0. Enter 9 to disable cloak-tow. *) Anti-Genesis device: The greater the number, the more Amorphs will be created by the device. 0 to disable. *) Strip planet minimum defense: enter a minimum number of defense outposts that will protect a planet from being stripped by a Quietus. 0 to disable. *) Advanced Terraforming: how much additional heat an Onyx would deliver. *) BMR mineral: Enter the first letter of the mineral that, combined with 1 supply, will produce 1 Robotic clan. *) Viral field radius: enter a number of light years 0 to disable. *) RSM money factor: the greater the number, the more money the Rebel ship will get after doing the Rebel Support Mission. *) Colonial fighter range: Enter a number of light years. *) Colonial pilot skill: the greater a number that you enter, the more Defense outposts will be destroyed and the more fighters will survive. *) Fed Goodwill factor: up to how many tens of clans will join the Federation colony. The default is 3 = up to 30 clans. *) Native Cryo hold capacity: this is the multiplier for cryogenic holds in Banshee class native mover. The default is 20 = 1600 clans. *) Refit money factor: multiplier for the cost of super-refitting components in flight. *) Lizard decay percentage: what percent of colonists in Cryogenic chambers die every turn in the Saurian. *) Cryo hold capacity: this is the multiplier for cryogenic holds in Saurian class troop carrier. The default is 10 = 1500 clans. *) Anti-fighter defense: the more it is, the more fighters will be destroyed during a T-Rex anti-fighter mine explosion. *) Fascist missile sweep probability: what probability a 10-heavy-phaser ship will have to sweep an incoming missile. *) Number of mines created: determines the minefield size. The radius is equal to the square root of the number of mines, making the default 30 ly in radius. *) Bio missile effectiveness: what chance EACH colonist has of dying of toxin poisoning. The more it is, the more people will die. *) Anti-fighter missile effectiveness: the higher this is, the more fighters will die following the anti- fighter missile explosion. *) Base defense increase factor: the higher this is, the more difficulty the Coldpain troopers will have penetrating the base. 100 turns base boarding off. *) Martial law happiness decrease: The higher this is, the more the colonists' happiness will decrease following the martial law (to prevent gambling). Set it to 0 to turn gambling off. *) Ravius Beam effect: by how much an Onyx will raise the temperature of a remote planet (=the Onyx's fuel use). *) Share Hyper-Moscow: set this on to allow other races to use the hyperdrive capabilities of the Moscow Class Star Escort. Set to off to allow only the Imperials to use it. *) Probability of correct race detection by a Pawn: the probability that the cloaked ship's race reported is in fact the cloaked ship's race. *) Cost factor of Rebel deep space bases: This is multiplier to get the mineral/money cost to build a deep space base. Multiply this factor by 10 to get the amount of minerals and money. *) Range of DSB detection: how far the enemy ship must be in order to detect an active DSB. *) Share Hyper-Sage: set this on to allow other races to use the hyperdrive capabilities of the Sage Class Frigate. Set to off to allow only the Rebels to use it. *) Skill of Colonial fighter pilots: the multiplier (percentage) by which Colonial fighters are better than the defending fighters. Set it to 100 to make them just as good, to 200 to make them twice as good, and to 50 to make them twice as bad. *) Sale of defenses/mines: How much money is received from a sale of 1 defense post or a mineral mine. You also get 1 supply unit plus (by default) 50% of the original cost. *) Sale of starbase: What percentage of the original construction+tech upgrade price is received from a sold starbase, both in minerals and money. *) Warp factor to be slowed to by Interdictors: what is a maximum speed that an enemy ship in an Interdiction field can attain. Own ships can go two warp factors faster. *) Antimatter launcher cost: how many thousands of units of minerals it would take to build a launcher. Multiply this factor by 1000 to get minerals and supplies, and by 2000 to get the money. This factor times 2000 is also used to calculate how much money a missile launch will cost. *) Tank and ComBot strengths: the equivalent number of colonist clans necessary to defeat a tank/ComBot. Set Tank offense and defense to 0 to disable tanks for that race; set ComBot defense to 0 to disable ComBots for that race. *) Team game: very important. This ability changes race specials into ship specials; ships can then be traded for the specials between the races. Any player can use a planetary FC "con" to receive the list of Jupiter config options next turn in the mail. It is very similar to Planets’ own "con" Friendly code. When an item is yes/no, 1 signifies yes and 0 - no. In BMR, 1 is Duranium, 2 is Tritanium, and 3 is Molybdenium, 0 is disabled. # Federation: Genesis device. The Federation scientists have finally found a way to stabilize protomatter. From now on, the Genesis device has become available, and all Federation ships will come with this device installed. The Genesis Device allows ships to convert hostile planets into habitable ones (50 degrees), seed them with natives of choice and even have pre-built structures. The only requirement is that the ship has to have more than 49 colonist clans aboard. To use the Genesis Device, set the FC to "@XY", where x is structures, y is natives. X: D 50 defenses, F 50 factories, M 50 mines. Y: A amphibious, B bovines, a amorphous, H humans, G ghipsoids, S silicons, R reptians, I insects, V avians. For example, to have a planet with 50 degrees, 50 factories and Bovinoid natives, set the ship FC to "@FB". The number and government of natives are set at random. As a matter of course, the use of this device is only allowed on non-owned planets with no natives and within a set temperature range, to prohibit its use as a weapon of destruction. Genesis device cannot be used on 0- or 100-degree worlds. Genesis device will add a large meteor's worth of minerals to the planet and set mineral density of all minerals to 100%. # Federation: Move Natives. The Fed Banshee class ship can transport batches of (1600) native clans in its modified and improved version of Lizard Cryo-Hold (see below for details). With an FC of "LNR", a totally empty (except for fuel) Banshee can load and store in its cryo holds the native clans of any race excluding the amorphs (hard to catch) and the reptians (very strong family ties). The number of native clans is determined by multiplying the cargo hold of a Bashee by (20), configured capacity of Federation CryoTanks. It can then take them to any Federation or allied planet and unload with a FC of "UNR". Three things can occur: if the planet has no natives, the native clans will unload and populate the planet; but as a result of the move and accompanying chaos, their government decreases by 1. If there already are natives of the same race, the natives add to the already existing natives; the government is set to the lower of the two and the happiness is set to 100 as a result of happiness of the reunited clans. If there are natives of another race on the planet, nothing would happen, since natives don't live well together in VGAP. Just be careful not to load anything (besides fuel) onto the ship while the natives are loaded, or the cryogenic units would break down and all natives would die. NOTE: it is possible to "steal" natives from planets owned by another race, if their happiness level is lower than 80%. # Federation: Native Cooperation. Seeing the kindness and the order of the Federation colonists, a variable number of natives might decide to join the Federation colony as full citizens. The happiness must be greater than 80% and the native race cannot be amorph. To stop native clans from joining, you can set your planetary FC to begin with the letter "S". # Federation: SuperRefit in Flight. Federation starships no longer need a starbase to perform their super refit function. As long as a ship has sufficient minerals/money and FC of "UFP", the ship can do the superrefit. Set the first letter of the ship name to "E" if you want to up your engines, or "T" for torps, or "B" for beam weapons. The old parts are too bulky for storage, so they are ejected into space. NOTE: due to some strange technological barriers ships cannot raise their engines, beams and torps from tech 6 to tech 7, and engines from tech 7 to tech 8. (This is done to protect Tim's registrations). If the host desires, he can increase the money cost of the upgrade. For example, with the factor of 2 it costs twice as much money to upgrade the parts as from a base. The default value is (1). NOTE: If you have any torps on the ship and are upgrading launchers, the torps are upgraded too, but 50% of them are disassembled to upgrade the other torps. NOTE: This is an UPGRADE, not a new component installation. You cannot built a ship with no torp launchers and then try to add launchers using UFP. At least level 1 launchers have to be present on the ship. # Federation: Bonus Refit. This is a super-set of superrefit-in-flight. Federation ships in orbit around Federation or allied planets with "special" natives (human, silicon, etc.) can get their ships superrefitted up to level 10 without a base! For the normal amount of minerals and double the (money factor) (for presents to natives), FCode "UFP", the ship can do the bonus-refit. Set the first letter of the ship name to "E" if you want to upgrade your engines, or "T" for torps, or "B" for beam weapons. If you are upgrading torps, any torps presently on the ship are now useless (too low-tech) and are discarded, so transfer them to another ship or lay and scoop them as minefield. NOTE: This is an UPGRADE, not a new component installation. You cannot built a ship with no torp launchers and then try to add launchers using UFP. At least level 1 launchers have to be present on the ship. # Federation: Sweet Talk. The peace-loving Fed captains do not like to fight. They would much rather take their ship on a diplomacy mission by setting the FC to "SWT", Sweet-talk. If the captain is successful, the captain of the enemy ship would be sweet-talked, or persuaded, into doing nothing, including attacking, building fighters, torpedoes, or using any of the functions included in this add-on. However, the enemy ship is allowed to attack any of the other races' ships in the same location, or the Fed ships that are not on a diplomacy mission. The suggested success rate is 25%, or it would require 4 ships to have 100% success in diplomacy missions. The sole exception to that is the Federation's Diplomacy Class Cruiser, which, thanks to its luxurious accommodations and conference rooms, has a 4*(success rate) chance to persuade the enemy. So, with the default 25%, a sole Diplomacy will suffice to keep an enemy ship at bay. Federation captains cannot sweet-talk the Borg because they obey the collective, not the emotions of individuals. A special config option allows the host to configure "aggressiveness ratio". It decreases the chances of successful sweet-talk outcome with the higher number of torpedoes. The more torpedoes and the greater the ratio, the less chance of successful sweet-talk For example, 30 torps and the ratio of 2 will decrease the sweet-talk chance by 3% per ship. To activate it, set FC to "SWT" and intercept the target enemy ship. Note: sweet talk cannot be given away in a team game. Clarification: Enemy ships at Fed bases at the start of the turn can be sweet-talked into SURRENDERING if the base has FCode SWT and mission Force Surrender and there are enough ships on sweet-talk mission to sweet-talk the enemy. This was there from the beginning but people thought it was a bug. # Lizards: Chemical Strike. The Lizards simply love their ground-attack capabilities, and they are constantly seeking ways to make it harder for the enemy to survive. Therefore, the Reptile class destroyer has been equipped with a toxin device, that takes 45 supplies and converts them into toxins for spreading onto enemy planets. After the toxins are spread, a set amount of planetary population dies out. To use Chem Strike, set FC to "CHx", where x is any character (to prevent base force surrender), and have at least 45 supplies aboard. You must also have more ships than the enemy orbiting the planet, to provide cover for the Reptile using Chem Strike. Only one Chem Strike per turn per planet is allowed. The Reptile must not be damaged. # Lizards: Multi-Purpose Eros. 2). Multi-purpose Eros Eros class cruiser will be able to heat planets up as well as cool them down. The terraform rate is the same: 1 degree/turn. Just like with default Eros ability, no special FC is required, no minerals or fuel are expended. # Lizards: Super Growth. Because the Lizards are Reptilians, they particularly like warm worlds (50 degrees) and this temperature is especially good for breeding. Therefore, their growth rate would increase 10 times on such worlds, but only if there is no overpopulation (2,000,000 colonists or more) The growth rate is configurable. # Lizards: Cryogenic Cargo Holds. The Lizards have developed a way to cryogenically freeze their warriors aboard a Saurian class ship and beam them out onto enemy planets or to supplement their colonists on planets. The Saurian class ship has to be empty of all cargo (besides fuel) and be orbiting a Lizard planet. With the FC of "LCH" the ship can Load its Cryo-Holds with cargo space of Saurian times (10), the default load factor. Therefore, in a default game with a standard ship list, the max load is 1500 clans; that can do a good deal of damage in Lizard hands. The clans can be unloaded normally (beam down colonists mission); in the end of the turn, other colonists will be defrosted and put into colonist quarters. NOTE: this means only 150 clans per turn would be able to be beamed down. Every turn, (5%) of clans would die from Cryogenic storage accidents. NOTE: You cannot use any of the "beam up minerals" functions; that would disrupt the cryo chambers and all colonists would die. NOTE: other ships cannot beam minerals to the Saurian, or the same effect would occur. You can safely beam up/transfer money and fuel. You would get a message every turn advising of cryo-chamber status. # Lizards: T-Rex Antifighter Mines. A T-Rex class battleship can choose to convert some of its torpedoes into mines just before battle. These mines would explode into small pieces of shrapnel and damage incoming fighters. Depending on the first letter of the FC, 'Q' will convert a quarter of torpedoes, 'H' will convert a half, 'T' will convert three fourths and 'A' will convert all of them. If the first letter of the FC is not one of these letters, no torpedoes will be converted. The more torps you use and the higher the tech level, the more mines will be created. Strength of the torpedoes can be adjusted in the JCONFIG program. This is done after movement, but before combat; you must have primary enemy set to something (anything) or kill mission for this ability to work. The formula for the percent of fighters destroyed is (FOURTH_ROOT (number_of_torps_used_squared times torp_tech_squared times config_strength)) divided by 100 per enemy ship. Use FCode "xyz" to use this ability, where x is Q, H, T, or A for quarter, half, three quarters, and all torpedoes, y is "A" or "a", and z is "F" or "f". The case variations of the last two characters is to help avoid ships not fighting due to matching FCodes. For example, QAf or Qaf or QAF or QaF will use 1/4 of torpedoes. WARNING: the program does not detect if the ship is actually in combat. Do not use xAF if you aren't sure you'll fight, or you will waste torpedoes. Note: to avoid xAF working two turns in a row in case a player missed his turn and forgot to reset the FCode, the ship has to be at warp factor higher than 0 to use this ability. In the end of the turn, xAF will reset warp factor to 0, so that to use it on the next turn, the player will have to manually set the warp factor. Note: the mines do not damage Lizard ships and fighters, as well as allied ships and fighters. # Birdmen: Planetary Cloaking Shields. Being a sneaky cloaking type, the Birds have greatly missed not being able to hide their own planets. But now they can, with the help of the planetary cloaking shield. Of course, it is quite impossible to make the planets totally disappear from view, but it is possible to fool the enemy sensors for them not to be able to achieve a transporter or a weapons lock. Therefore, no enemy ship will be able to fight or ground-assault the planet, making it extremely tough to take over. To the Birds' disappointment, all the enemy computers are different, making it harder to fool them. Therefore, only one race at a time can be blocked, making it necessary to have an alliance to take over Bird planets, unless you want to wait for a failure (suggested rate: 10%) to occur. Failure is computed for each individual ship, so the more ships you have the more chance you get of penetrating the cloak. Any Birdman ship can build a cloaking shield with the FC "BCS", using 50 of each mineral and 100 MC taken from _the planet's surface_, while staying at warp factor 0 and not towed. From then on, the cloaking shield will protect the planet. The cloaking shields are permanent installations, so they will not be destroyed during an invasion. One more benefit for the Birds is that their ships can build the cloaking shields over any planet, not necessarily Birdman. So it is possible to sell the shields to allies, getting money/minerals/ ships in return. One catch here: the installed cloaking shields on allied planets will be totally ineffective against the Birds themselves. To activate an installed cloaking shield, use FC "CSa", where is a race number to use against, 1..9, a, or b. The "CS4" will protect against the Fascists and against their missiles (see below). Cloaking shield uses 20 units of fuel per turn of use. All Birdman planets with 200 colonists or more get a free cloaking shield built automatically. Star Bases at the planets CANNOT set their missions to "force surrender". Otherwise, the shield will NOT work. Planets WILL protect against ships going into their warp wells. You can check if a planet has any cloaking shield by using Fcode CDS. You can also get a report on all Defense Satellites and Cloaking shields you posess by setting one of your planets to Fcode RDS, Report on Defense Systems. # Birdmen: Fuel Efficiency. The Birdmen must use enhanced energy management features in order for the cloaking devices to work. Cloakers can't just go around expending energy since that can be detected by the crudest scanners. Now they can use the same energy-management techniques on a Neutronic Fuel Carrier and the Large Deep Space Freighter, making them twice as energy-efficient as before (and burning one half the fuel it did before!) No special FC is required. The ships cannot tow or intercept to enjoy the enhanced fuel economy. # Birdmen: Remote Identification. This ability is shared with the Privateers. A Skyfire class starship on an intercept mission and warp 0 can use its targeting scanners to thoroughly scan the target ship. With FC "RID", the ship will report the other ship's drive tech, number and tech of beams and torp launchers, number of torps or fighters, mission, primary enemy, damage, different kinds of cargo, fuel and the FC. The default range for both races is (162) ly. The ship being scanned does not get any notice or warning of the scan. # Birdmen: Beacon Minefields. Birdman ships can convert their torpedoes into deep space mines and, instead of deploying them into a minefield, place a remote-response beacon on them and hide them under a small portable cloaking shield. After receiving a signal, the beacons collapse the cloaking fields and deploy the mines into regular minefields. For an added bonus, the Beacon minefields allow one mine field totally inside one another! The deploying ship must have the FC of "DBx", where x is "H" for half of torpedoes, "Q" for a quarter of tor- pedoes, "A" for all torpedoes, and "T" for three fourths of torpedoes. The max total amount of beacons in the universe is 100. The minefield size is determined with standard minefield size calculation, number-of-mines = number-of-torps-used times tech-of-torps-squared. After deployment, the beacons remain linked to the ship that deployed them; when that ship uses FC "UMB", all beacons that ship has created will be converted into regular minefields. If the deploying ship is destroyed, the Birdmen must get another torpedo ship with the same id number to deploy the beacons; otherwise, the beacons will remain floating about, unclaimed. The Imperial Mig class scout can detect and destroy the beacons; see its appropriate section. NOTE: the deploying ship may stay cloaked for the entire time! # Birdmen: Honor Device. Birdmen have the Honor Device installed on all ships with more than 10 crewmen. See the Universal section on the Honor device for details. # Birdmen: Warp Interdictor. In addition to the universal Planetary Warp Interdictor, the Bird ships can have a Ship-based Warp Interdictor installed into the hull. Just like the Planetary Interdictor, the Ship Interdictor is installed by joining the ship with a Neutronic Refinery vessel; However, by default it is less powerful and uses less fuel than the planet-based device. To install the Interdictor device, the ship must be at the same location as a Neutronic Refinery ship and have the FC of "BWI". To engage the ship interdictor, use the ship FC of "EWI"; you must have more than (20) fuel units to use the device. When the device is engaged, all ships of all other races are slowed down to warp (4); the Birdman ships and their allied can tweak their engines to go up to two warp factors higher than the other races' ships. Therefore, the Birds within the field can go the max of warp (6). Ship-based Interdictors are destroyed if ships are captured by another race. # Birdmen: Sneak Attack. The Birdmen, needing a combat advantage, can use their ships' stealth to help them defeat unsuspecting opponents. The Bird ships can keep themselves cloaked until the last possible moment, and come out of cloak firing all weapons, not giving an enemy ship time to detect them and raise their shields. Therefore, a Birdman ship can take one enemy ship by surprise by setting its mission to cloak, a numeric FCode, and having the first three letters of the ship name be the ID number of the enemy they want to ambush. The ship must have warp factor 0 in order to minimize their drive emissions and stay concealed from detection. The Federation ships have slightly better sensors and can detect the Birdmen ship powering up its weapons before other races can, so they have time to raise their shields to (25%). A special configuration option lets the game host allow or disallow the Romulan Sneak Attack against ships that are towed by any other race than the ship's owner (if a ship of the same race tows them, they can be attacked, regardless). For example, if the setting is set to allow, the Birdmen can tow out a ship to a waiting Dark Wing; if the setting is disallow, they cannot. This ability cannot be given away in a team game. # Birdmen: Steal Fighters. The Birdmen share the Red Wind fighter Steal ability with the Privateers. See the appropriate sectionpriv_fightersteal for details. # Fascists: Deep Space Missiles. Deep space missiles. In their infinite pursuit of destruction, the Fascist government authorized its ships' captains to install long-range deep space missiles on all ships tech 6 and above. From now on, any ship that has missile launchers available and is orbiting a Fascist planet will be able to launch three types of missiles: Orbital, X-Ray, and Planetary. Each missile costs 10 of each mineral and 20 fuel and moves at a set warp straight toward its target, which has to be an orbit of a planet. To launch a mis- sile, the ship has to be of tech level 6 or above, be orbiting a Fascist planet, have the necessary minerals in the cargo hold, warp factor 0 and set a waypoint to the target planet. The FC for Orbital missile id "LOM", Launch Orbital Missile. This kind of missile does half a minehit damage to any and all ships orbiting the target planet. To launch an X-Ray missile, set the FC to "LXM". This missile would kill 1/3 (default) of the crew of any and all ships orbiting the target planet. To launch a Planetary missile, set FC of "LPM". This missile would destroy 1/3 (default) of all planetary structures, including mines, factories, and defense outposts. It will also kill colonists and reduce their happiness levels. The launch an Anti-Fighter missile, set FC "LFM". This kind of missile seeks out groups of fighters. If no ships with fighter bays or no ships with fighters are found, the missile has no effect; otherwise, it separates into many small warheads, each with individual targeting capabilities. Each warhead one of four things, with equal probability: 1: completely misses. It would report "ship undamaged" 2: destroys a few fighters. It would report "X fighters destroyed" 3: destroys a lot of fighters (hit a squadron on patrol). It would report "X fighters destroyed" 4: follow a group of fighters into the ship and explode in a fighter bay. In that case, a fighterbay is completely destroyed. (so now it is possible to see a Gorbie with fewer than 10 bays, for example). NOTE: it is impossible to detroy a carrier's only or last fighter bay. To launch a Biological missile, set the FC to "LBM". This missile would release bio-toxins into the planet's atmosphere and have a (15%) chance per colonist to kill him. Therefore, the effects are largely unpredictable; the missile might either have no effect or decimate the entire population, but on average it will kill 15% of the population. To launch a Minefield missile, set FC of "LMM". This missile would deploy a (900)-mine-units minefield, with a radius of (30) ly. NOTE: the minefields can be contained entirely inside one another! I.E. you can have two minefields at [2000:2000] and not have them join together. The missiles can be swept when they reach the target point, or at any point along its path (only in the end of turn). To attempt to destroy the missile, you must set ships' missions to mine sweep. The de- fault chance of successfully sweeping a missile is TotalNumberOfBeamWeapons times BeamWeaponTechLevel times (100%). For example, a Biocide with 10 heavy phasers will have 10*10*(100%) or 100% chance. One Patriot with 2 Heavy Blasters will have 2*6*(100%) or 12% chance. The planetary defense (not starbase defense) outposts also participate in this missile sweep. No special FC is required; the defenses will auto- matically attempt to sweep all approaching missiles. However, their effect is much smaller than that of ship-based weapons (each 10 defenses are equal to one ship-based laser). The damage levels are of course configurable. If the missile is detected in space (i.e. it has not yet reached its target) then a scan message is sent to the owner of the target planet every turn the missile is in flight (provided that the missile is in range), as well as to the missile's owner advising of its status. A player who owns the missile can destroy it at any time using planetary FCode "Dxx", where xx is the missile's ID number. This ability is transferred to non-fascist players during team game, but with a catch: the Fascists, showing uncommon foresight, have built-in an override frequency into each missile control unit they give away in their ships. A Fascist player can "push the big red button" for any missile in flight, whether launched by him or by someone else. # Fascists: Board Base. The Fascists from a Coldpain class Cruiser can board a base of an enemy race. If the assault is not repelled by the base troopers(the probability of the assault being repelled is number-of-defense-posts divided by 2 minus 25% plus (25%) from the JCONFIG program), the base is damaged (25%), all base fighters are smashed, half the defense outposts are broken, and all built components (hulls, engines, beams, and launchers) are destroyed. In addition, all stored torpedoes are beamed out into space. Some Fascist crewmen are killed during the assault; since only a fully-crewed Coldpain can do the board mission, the ship must return to a base to pick up additional crew. The Coldpain have FC of "BBx", where x is anything (to prevent the capture of the ship), not be cloaked, warp 0, and not be towed. NOTE: the damage to base is progressive; that means the first ship will damage a base to 25%, the next ship to 43%, the next to 58%, and so on. It is next to impossible to completely destroy a base by boarding it repeatedly. # Privateers: Cloaked Tow. It is widely known that the towing of ships while cloaked is not allowed because of extreme power requirements. However, the captains of Meteor Class Blockade Runners with Transwarp Drives have an option of foregoing the ship's safety levels and attempting a cloaked-tow. Because the safeties were compromised, the ship's engines can burn out and degrade to lower tech drives. The default chance of degrade is 33%. To cloak-tow a ship, set the FC to "CLT", warp factor to 9, a waypoint of less than 160 ly away, and mission to tow. You will also need extreme amounts of fuel, so be sure to carry at least 120 kt of Neutronium (depending on the towee's mass, shape, and crew; ranges from 50 for a lowly probe to 160 for a Gorbie) when attempting a cloaked-tow. The formula for fuel burn is: round(40*ln((hull mass+cargo)/10)); this formula is further adjusted by enemy crew experience levels and the MBR's fuel and cargo. In addition, when cloak-towing, the tower will avoid all mine and web mine fields laid by the towee's race. This is because the IFF indicators of the mines pick up a friendly transponder signal of the towed ship but no unfriendly signal from the tower (because it's cloaked) and do not explode. It is not possible to cloak-tow another Privateer or an ally. # Privateers: Anti-Genesis Device. Some time ago, a privateer ship has robbed and captured a Federation starship on a Genesis mission, and the Genesis Device itself has fallen prey to Privateers. The Privateer scientists were able to understand its functions and reverse-engineer it. Now, they have constructed their own version of the device and called it the Anti-Genesis. As much as the Fede- ration wanted to make planets fit for life, the Privateers want to spoil them to make them unfit for enemies. The Anti-Genesis will plant the amorphous life-forms on the planet and disrupt its temperature, however the Privateers were not able to overcome the original's limitations. So, the Anti-Genesis can only be used over planets that are un-owned and un-populated by any native life-form. Any Privateer ship can use the device, the only requirements are warp 0 and a FC of "-@x", where x is the temperature desired for the planet. If x is 1, the planet will turn into a freezing tundra, and if x is 9, it will turn into a hot desert. Anything in between 1 and 9 will result in the planet retaining its temperature. For example, FC of "-@1" will seed the planet with amorphs and decrease its temperature to 0 degrees. # Privateers: Remote Identification. Exactly the same as Birdman feature; see Birdsbird_rid section for details. # Privateers: Lady Royale Gambling Supervessel. The Royale can now go to planets of other races and perform its gambling function there, with one exception: the proceeds go to the Privateers, not the planet's owner. The colonists beam up in the beginning of the turn and return in the end; they do not pay taxes and are not present to work at the factories and mines. The Royale would need the fc of "GXX" and warp 0. The Royale cannot be towed or attempt to leave the planet: if the colonists find out the ship is no longer at the planet, they will revolt and destroy the Lady Royale. Warning: do not try to attempt the gambling mission during the ion storm. The storm may pull the Royale off the planet. The owner of the planet may institute martial law on the planet; With the FC of "xML", where x is any character, the police and special forces would prevent the citizens from leaving. However, this would drop their happiness level by (25%) due to lost civil liberties. NOTE: the planet cannot be taken by ground assault or space assault during the time the colonists gamble. Otherwise, the returning colonists would announce what was done to them and the invading colonists would join the colony of the old race! for Example, a Lizard colony has a Royale in orbit. On the same turn, a Fascist takes over the planet with ground assault. When the Lizard colonists return, the colony ownership would go back to Lizards, with all the Fascist troops joining the Lizard government. # Privateers: Red Wind Fighter Steal. The Red Wind class ship that belongs to either Birds or Privateers can broadcast subspace messages to enemy fighter carriers at the same location describing the beauty of the pirate way of life. This may convince a random number of fighter pilots up to (30%) to desert and join the Privateer Red Wind, or (20%) to join the Birdman Red Wind fighter team. Multiple ships can steal fighters; however, the number of fighters stolen does NOT increase with the number of ships. Rather, only the capacity of fighters that can be taken away is increased. The fighters that do not find enough space will return to their "home" carrier. Stolen fighters are taken aboard Red Winds in ID number order. Cloaked carriers may not be robbed, however the Red Wind may be cloaked while robbing. Carriers on SuperSpy MAY be robbed, even if they can cloak. The Red Wind must have fuel and use the FC "SFx", where x is any alphanumeric character (to prevent matching FC on combat ships). The mission is done during the AUXBC phase: after movement, but before combat. NOTE: this ability cannot be given away in a team game. Note: allied ships do not get their fighters stolen. # The Cyborg: Moving Mines. The Cyborg ships can order any Cyborg minefield to move up, down, left, or right on the starmap at warp (5) using the FC "MMX" and: the first three characters of the name must be the minefield's ID number. The fourth character of the name must be the direction to go, "D" for down, "U" for up, "L" for left, and "R" for right. For example, FC "MMX" and name "023D" will cause the minefield 23 to move down. The controlling ship must have the warp factor of 0. Up to two ships may collaborate in this ability and move the field up to twice the normal configured speed. # The Cyborg: Super Intercept. Both cube ships can greatly speed up in their pursuit of an enemy vessel. Whenever the ship is intercepting an enemy and is not close enough to get to him in the regular movement phase, the ship will accelerate to twice its regular speed to cover twice as much distance burning the same amount of fuel! The cube's web/mine hit probability is halved, because the ship moves so fast the mines cannot lock on. The ship has to be undamaged, have engines of tech 8 or higher, be on an intercept mission, and have the warp factor EQUAL the engine tech level. NOTE: interception of another Borg vessel or an allied vessel will not increase the ship speed. # The Cyborg: Planet Strip. The Cyborg have found another use for their ships' cutting beams. Now the Quietus Class Cruiser can strip the planet of all its structures and assume ownership of the planet, all without fighting. In addition, the StarBase that's orbiting the planet will see the terrible destruction unleashed on the planet and surrender, also without a fight. So a single Quietus would be able to capture an entire planet with stocked StarBase, all without firing a single shot! All the planetary structures are cut up into pieces and converted into construction minerals, 3 per building. So if a planet has 200 factories, 100 mines and 50 defenses, it will get (200+100+50)*3 or extra 1050 kt of every mineral. Use FC "STR" on an undamaged Quietus to "strip" the target planet (the planet at the waypoint). Strip uses 50 units of fuel from the Quietus. Ships on the strip mission will avoid enemy mines and may not tow or intercept another ship. Each use of this mission will raise planet's temperature by 10 degrees. Ships can not strip planets belonging to their race. The greater the number of enemy defense posts is, the higher the change for mission failure. The number of defense posts indicated in JConfig is for 100% resistance. Ships can not strip planets belonging to the same race or an allied race # The Cyborg: A2S Device. The Collective has decided to do something about those pesky amorphs who are impossible to assimilate. Now, all their ships with over 50 crewmen have an a2S device that solidifies amorphs into siliconoids. The resulting silicon population will be totally confused (in the state of anarchy) and quite unhappy. Moreover, a set percentage of them will not survive the solidification process and die. However, the result will be achieved: the Cyborgs will have a planet of Siliconoids to assimilate! To use the a2S device, set the FC "a2S" and have warp factor 0. # The Cyborg: Sweet-Talk Immunity. Borg ships are immune from the Federation sweet-talk. See Sweet-talk for details. # The Crystals: Self-Destruct. The Crystals know very well what is done to the crews of ships that are forced to surrender: they are beamed into space. Now, the Crystals, wanting to avoid painful deaths when their own ships' capture is imminent, found an easier alternative: they can detonate their ship, preventing the capture. All Crystal ships, including freighters and captured ships, have been rigged with the Self-Destruct device. To activate the device, set the FC of the ship you want to detonate to "SDS". No other special requirements are necessary: it will work with or without fuel, with or without damage, any warp and waypoint. Team game note: only the Opal, Ruby, Emerald, Flame and Thunder can be self-destructed if the team game is on and the ships do not belong to Crystals. The crystals still can self-destruct all their ships. # The Crystals: Advanced Terraforming. After numerous complaints from many race Leaders, Presidents, Dictators, and Emperors, the Crystal Scientific Community have finally decided to improve their Terraforming ship. The Onyx has received a new lease on life; its terraforming ability will increase 50 times! This does not come without cost, however; a tankful of fuel is required for needed heat-up. To use Advanced Terraforming, set the Onyx's FC to "ATF" and make sure that your fuel tank is full. The Advanced Terraforming rate is configurable. # The Crystals: Super Alchemy. An Emerald class battlecruiser at warp 0 can transmute minerals from one to another or to money without penalty. To use Super Alchemy, set FC of the Emerald to "a*b", where a is: N: fuel, M: molybdenium, T: tritanium, D: duranium and b is: N: fuel, M: molybdenium, T: tritanium, D: duranium, S supplies, $ MC. For example, load it with 200 fuel and set FC to "N*D" to get 200 Duranium. One note-worthy thing: the Emerald can transform any mineral (or fuel) to megacredits getting 5 times more money than the amount of the mineral. For example, 200 fuel and "N*$" will result in 1000 MC. The Emerald can completely replace both of the ridiculously expensive alchemy ships: Merlin and Neutronic Refinery. To emulate them, the Emerald must have supplies and use FCode "S*m" to emulate a Merlin and "S*N" to emulate the NR ship. As with the Merlin, 9 supplies are converted into 1 of each mineral. The NR rules have slightly changed: since minerals can safely be transmuted into supplies, to simplify the process, 2 supplies can be converted into one fuel unit. Since this process is all-or-nothing, if more fuel is made than there is empty space in the tank, the excess is vented out into space. The Super Alchemy is done after movement, and combat, so if you are transmuting fuel into something you shouldn't worry about net being able to fight. You can also load supplies and use S*N to refuel in the end of movement (after some fuel is used up). # The Crystals: Move Web Mines. This ability is similar to the Cyborg move mines ability. The Crystalline ships can order any Crystal Web minefield to move up, down, left, or right on the starmap at warp (5) using the FC "MMX" and: the first three characters of the name must be the minefield's ID number. The fourth character of the name must be the direction to go, "D" for down, "U" for up, "L" for left, and "R" for right. For example, FC "MMX" and name "023D" will cause the web minefield 23 to move down. The controlling ship must have the warp factor of 0. Up to two ships may collaborate in this ability and move the field up to twice the normal configured speed. # The Crystals: ComBots. The Crystal can build ComBots to defend their planets. See the Universal abilities section on ComBots for details. # The Crystals: Ravius Beam. The Onyx class starships have been outfitted with the Ravius Beam, designed to increase a planet's temperature at a distance. As long as the Onyx has fuel, FC of "RAV" and has a waypoint set on one of the planets, the Onyx would increase that world's temperature by (1) degree per turn, burning (1) unit of fuel. NOTE: if the host sets the temperature increase rate to more than 1, the fuel use will increase accordingly. The range of this ability is the ship's engine tech squared times 2. # The Crystals: Honor Device. The Opal class and the Topez class ships have Honor device installed in their hulls. See the Universal abilities section on the Honor Device for details. # The Crystals: Crystal Oscillator. The Crystal Thunder Class Carrier has installed an Oscillator device. When engaged in the AUXBC phase (after movement, but before combat), it will destroy all fighters in the forward-facing fighter bays of the enemy carriers at the same location by inducing oscillations which shatter the fighters' sensors and central computer processor units. Exactly (33%) of all fighters of the primary enemy race are destroyed. Use the FC "OSC" to use this ability. You need at least 1 colonist clan on board the Crystal Thunder to operate the device. NOTE: to avoid enemy ships setting FC to OSC and not fighting the Crystal Thunder, you can also use FCodes Osc, OSc, and OsC. # The Empire: ComBots. The Empire can build ComBots to defend their planets. See the Universal Abilities section on ComBots for details. # The Empire: Hyper-Moscow. Moscow class Star Escort has had a hyperdrive installed. Just like default hyperdrive-capable ships, the Moscow will burn 50 units of fuel and jump (350) light years in the direction of the waypoint. Just set the "HYP" FC and warp factor to greater than 0. NOTE: Because of the size of the ship (it is much larger than the probes) there might be a small inaccuracy in targeting (1-3 ly, at random) so do not count on exact results every time. Note: Moscow-class ships will NOT hyperjump if towed. Note: even if share hyper-moscow is off, races the Empire is allied with can still use the hyper-capabilities. # The Empire: Imperial Pacification. The Super Star Carrier with 100 or more fighters in its bays can instantly improve morale of any Imperial planet's natives or colonists to 69% if it drops below 69. The ship has to be at warp 0, have FC "PAC" and not be towed. # The Empire: Mig Mine Detection. The Mig class scouts will automatically detect and destroy all Birdman mine- field beacons that are (20) ly from the ship's position at the start of the turn. # The Empire: Imperial Probe Droids. Imperial Probe Droids. Any Imperial ship with more than 100 crewmen will be able to send out Imperial Probe Droids to planets by setting FC "IPD". It uses 20 fuel, 1 of each mineral, 1 supply unit and 1 MC. Set the Warp to 0 and waypoint to a target planet less than 100 ly away, and next turn you will receive a message telling you the number of colonists, population, type of natives, number of factories, defenses and mines, minerals, money and supplies on planet and the number of ships orbiting the planet. The probes will even penetrate Planetary Cloaking Shields! However, they can be shut down by defenses; a planet with 100 defenses will shoot down a probe 50% of the time, and 200 defenses will almost guarantee safety since a great number of planet's fighters can be assigned to patrol around the planet. Of course, you can launch the droids toward un-owned planets, serving as advance recon units. Due to space limitations and requirements for short-burst transmission, the following numbers represent the type of natives: 0 none, 1 humans, 2 2 bovines, 3 reptians, 4 avians, 5 amorphs, 6 insects, 7 amphibians, 8 ghipsoids, 9 silicons. # The Empire: Gorbie Capture Beam. 2). Gorbie Capture Beam. The Gorbie Class Battlecarrier, being the biggest ship in the universe, has a non-standard method of capturing enemies. Instead of lowering the shields and beaming enemy crew out, this ship pulls the ship into its huge hangar and captures the ship with stormtroopers. This way, the Gorbie can capture any ship of tech 7 and below with the loss of some crew using its capture beam (FC "CPB"). The amount of crew lost is a half of the enemy ship's crew due to superior training of Imperial stormtroopers. In addition, the Rebel crews fight even less vigorously than average, and when capturing Rebels the Gorbie loses only a quarter of enemy ship's crew. For example, capturing a 322-crewman Birdman Valiant Wind would cost a Gorbie 161 crewmen, and a Rebel 172-crewman Patriot will only cost 43 troopers. The captured ship will have 10% damage as a result of fighting in its interior. To use the Capture Beam, set the Gorbie's FC to "CPB", warp factor 0, and mission intercept. The Gorbie has to be undamaged and have Transwarp drives for most powerful tractor beams. The Gorbie will use half of target's hull mass (just hull, no cargo, weapons, etc) in fuel during this operation. # The Robots: Cloaker Detection. The Robotic Pawn class Baseship may detect the computer emissions of enemy cloaked vessels nearby. With the FC of "DEC" and warp factor 0, a Pawn may detect cloaked ships of all races and super-spying Birds up to (49) ly away with (50%) probability. The computer chief will also report the warp factor the ship is under, and will attempt to identify the race that owns the ship. That cannot always be accomplished, though, and in (50%) of the cases, the computer chief will report a randomly chosen race, that may or may not be the correct one. (in the other 50% of the cases, the correct race will be reported). The host may choose if the race of the cloaker receives a message about detection. NOTE: The Pawn on this mission cannot be towed. # The Robots: Mass Drivers. As an alternative to small/medium/large Deep space freighters, the Robots may now use Mass Drivers to transport minerals or supplies to distant planets. This requires that a ship with hull mass over 100 is stationed above the "source" planet. The ship must use the FC "MDx", where x is the mineral to transport: "M" for moly, "D" for duranium, "T" for tritanium, "N" for fuel and "S" for supplies, have more than (20) fuel, and set the waypoint to the "target" planet. The next turn, (100) units of the mineral requested would be transported over. NOTE: the target planet must be closer than (100) ly. It does not have to belong to the Robots. # The Robots: Viral Field. Due to their very nature, the Robots are proficient with computers. They have just found a way to establish a viral field. The field wipes the enemy ship's computer core, erasing the ship's name, resetting the FC to "VRF", erasing destination, warp factor and transporter info. The ship that is caught in the viral field is effectively stopped dead in its tracks, unable to move, beam anything up/down and even cloak. In addition, the existing cloaking shield is no defense; Robotic viral field penetrates the cloak. Therefore, the Cybernaut, which is the only ship equipped with the viral field generator, can easily disable an entire enemy fleet and cause the enemy to assemble another one as the first fleet's ships drift helplessly in space. To activate the Viral Field, set the Cybernaut's FC to "VRF", warp 0, and the enemy race to disable as primary enemy or mission kill for all races. The Cybernaut loses 5% of its crew to short-circuits as the enemy fights for control of its computers. The Cybernaut has to have at least 100 "crew-bots" to establish the field. The Cybernaut can neither move nor be towed if the field is to be maintained. In order to prevent the creation of an impenetrable defense around the Robotic empire, no 2 Cybernauts can be present within 100 ly of each other. In this case, the Viral field will not work on both. In order to prevent an "unreachable" Cybernaut, the device cannot be operated from within a planet's warp well (1-3 ly). Note: races that the Robots are allied to will not be affected by a Viral Field. # The Robots: Build More Robots. Any Robotic ship has an opportunity to build more robot colonists from minerals and supplies. The JCONFIG lets you specify which mineral to use; 1 of that mineral, 1 supply and FC "BMR" will build more robots. For example, if JCONFIG is set to Tritanium (default) then a ship having 100 tritanium and 100 supplies will construct 10000 shiny new robots, or 100 clans. This ability cannot be given away with teamgame. # The Rebels: Hyper-Sage. Sage class Frigate ship had had a hyperdrive installed. Just like default hyper ships, the Sage will burn 50 units of fuel and jump (350) light years in the direction of the waypoint. Just set the "HYP" FC and warp factor to greater than 0. NOTE: Because of the size of the ship (it is much larger than the probes) there MIGHT be a small inaccuracy in targeting (1-3 ly, at random) so do not count on exact results every time. Note: Sage-class ships will NOT hyperjump if towed. Note: even is Share Sage config option is off, races that the Rebels are allied with can still use the hyper-capabilities. # The Rebels: Starbase Sabotage. Rebel saboteurs can infiltrate the starbases of enemy races and reduce their hull, engine, and tech levels. Any Rebel ship with more than 10 crew, at warp 0 and not towed, with FC "SBx", where x is any character, can beam in a few saboteurs and if there is an area that has a tech level above 1, it will be reduced by 1 level. The area is chosen randomly among those that are above 1. NOTE: If there is a native race on that planet that originally helped to develop that technology, they will help to upgrade it back to level 10 and the mission will have no effect. For example, if there are ghipsoidal natives on a planet and the Rebel ship sabotages engines, the Ghipsoids will push the engine tech level back up to 10. If that happens, the host will have a message about it in the log file, but the Rebel player will NOT receive a mail message. The Rebel ship may not be cloaked. The Rebel ship will sustain some crew casualties during this mission. The ship must return to a "real" Rebel base (not one of the DSBs, see below) and be "fixed" before it can do a Sabotage mission again. # The Rebels: Deep Space Bases. Rebel ships can construct and maintain Deep Space Bases on asteroids floating in deep space. They cost 10*(5) units of each mineral, supplies and money. Any Rebel ship with FC of "DSB" and the required minerals on board can build a base at any point in space, not necessarily in Rebel space. At least 1 clan of colonists must be inside the ship; they will build the base and then transfer over to administer it and work on it once built. The base cannot be built at the same location as a planet, because a sun's gravity makes the asteroids there too unstable. The builder-ship must not be cloaked, but it may be moving. The base, once built, will repair any Rebel or allied ship at the same location instantly and at no cost and will provide 1 free torpedo per turn to every Rebel or allied ship stationed over that base, built from materials collected from nearby asteroids. If an enemy ship starts its turn within (25) ly from the base, it will send a subspace message to the ship's owner informing him about the base. The radar technicians on the base will also inform the Rebels of the base's detection. Any enemy ship with mission kill or primary enemy Rebels and possessing beam weapons can destroy the base by moving to it. The base is not armed and is unable to offer any resistance. A maximum of 100 bases can exist at any one time. # The Rebels: Honor Device. The Sage class and the Deep Space Scout ships have Honor device installed in their hulls. See the Universal abilities section on the Honor Device for details. # The Rebels: Rebel Support Mission. A Rebel ship can do a Rebel Support Mission when orbiting an enemy planet. Just set the FC to "RSM", and some public speakers from the ship will land on planet's surface and persuade colonists to support the Rebel cause. Many of the colonists will defect to Rebels, beaming up to the ship and becoming Rebel colonists. Many others will also do monetary contribu- tions, supplying the orbiting Rebel ship with money. The amount of money the ship can get is directly proportional to the population and then colonist level of happiness; if they are unhappy the ship can easily collect 10,000 MC in a single turn. The ship is also completely fixed by the Rebel sympathizers. The planetary taxes are set to 0, and some of the money from the treasury is stolen and turned over to the Rebels as a contribution. However, the informants from the planet will send a message to the government telling information about the ship's armament, number and tech level of beams, torpedoes or fighters. The ship may not be cloaked. RSM may not be given away in a team game. # The Rebels: Rebel Defenses. Any planet that belongs to the Rebellion will get 21 defense outposts for free and automatically. The defenses will also regenerate; for example, if some are destroyed by a Colonial KDP mission, they will regenerate back up to 21. # The Colonies: Kill Defenses Posts. A fully loaded Colonial Patriot class carrier can send its fighters on an anti-defense mission. The fighters will cross the space and attempt to destroy enemy defense outposts, if the Patriot's FC is set to "KDP", Kill Defense Posts, warp factor to 0, waypoint to an enemy planet and the primary enemy to the race that owns the planet. A number of outposts will be destroyed and a number of fighters will be shot down, depending on fighter pilots' skill as set in JCONFIG. Do not forget that only a full Patriot can do this mission. The Patriot must also have fuel. Please be advised that the planet's population will build decoys when the number of their defense outposts comes down. When the planet is completely stripped of its defenses, it will display its decoys to lure the fighters in. THERE IS NO WAY that the Colonial fighters will be able to detect these decoys! If a planet has no defenses left and a Patriot sends the fighters on a KDP mission, they will report destroying x number of defenses, however all they got were decoys and no real damage was caused. KDP cannot be given away in a team game. # The Colonies: Subspace Bubble. THIS IS TIMHOST-ONLY MISSION. IT CANNOT BE DONE WITH PHOST. Any starship that belogs to the Colonies has a bubble device that can create a subspace bubble around the ship and propel it forward, in any direction. The ships enclosed in these bubbles are partially out of this universe and exhibit some special properties. Their properties include BUT ARE NOT LIMITED to: they totally ignore any and all mine and web mine fields; they do NOT engage in combat at the end of their movement phase; they are not affected by ion storms (unless they end their move in the middle of one, in which case they will be subject to normal ion storm movement/damage); they can resist towing (including cloaked-tow); they are not affected by fascist missiles (unless they end their move on a target planet); they cannot be forced to surrender; they are not affected by gravity wells of planets (this means a colonial ship can end its move 1 ly away from a planet); they cannot be robbed. To create a subspace bubble, starships use fuel. The fuel use formula is: new_fuel=round(fuel-20- (hull_mass+cargo+fuel+number_of_torps_or_fighters)/(drive_tech_level+1)) As evident from the formula, the distance travelled does not matter; ships moving 1 ly use as much fuel as those that move 80 lys. The maximum amount travelled within a bubble is 81 ly, disregarding the drive_tech_level. The waypoint must be between 1 and 80 lys away and warp greater than 0 in order for the space bubble to work. You can't use the bubble to sit in one spot! The FCode to use it is ISB, Initiate Subspace Bubble. Team game note: due to the many common ships between the colonies and other races, only the following ships are available in team game for non-colonials: Cobol, Aries, Virgo, Scorpious. Colonials can still use all their ships. Note: The cobol class ship will NOT make any fuel while in the bubble. # The Colonies: Fighter Base Attack. WARNING: this mission needs host 3.2.015 to allow for base destruction. With prior versions of host, the base will be damaged but not destroyed. The colonial ships can send fighters to attack enemy bases. Several ships can join their fighter squadrons to attack a base at an enemy planet by using the FC "FBA", setting the warp factor to 0 and waypoint to the target planet. The attack value of an attacking fighter is 4 * (120%). The defensive value of a fighter is 4, a defense outpost is 1. Only fighters and defenses of a starbase participate in defense. The following is the algorithm used to determine the outcome of the battle: while (there are attackers) and (there are defenders) do begin if (random (attackers*skill-of-pilots) > random(defenders) then increment base's damage if (random (attackers*skill-of-pilots) > random(defenders) then decrement defenders if (random (attackers*skill-of-pilots) <= random (defenders) then decrement attackers if base's damage >= 100 then kill all defenders end if there are no defenders left then destroy the base. The surviving fighters DO NOT RETURN from the mission. NOTE: To prevent this ability's abuse in the end-game, it is performed in auxhost2 phase, after movement and combat. # The Colonies: Ion Control. Any Colonial ship of tech level 6 or above can now manipulate ion storms. for Ion Control, use the FC "IOC" and a ship name corresponding to the operation you want. The first character of the name is the operation code, and the 2nd and 3rd characters are the ID number of the storm, 01-50. The following are the different operations on the storms and corresponding codes: a) Create a storm: "N" b) Increase the storm radius: "I" c) Decrease a storm radius: "D" d) Strengthen a storm: "S" (increase voltage) e) Weaken a storm: "W" (decrease voltage) f) Turn approximately 90 degrees clockwise: "R" g) Turn approximately 90 degrees counterclockwise: "L". For example, to weaken storm 17, have a ship with FC "IOC" and the name "W17". If the storm does not exist, it will be ignored on call to weaken, increase radius, or decrease radius, and created on strengthen, with random location and radius. With a call to New, a small ion disturbance will be created at the location of the calling ship. The ship must be (50) ly from the outer storm edge to operate on the storm; if the host sets the range to 0, the controller ship must be INSIDE the ion storm. There is a percent chance that the controller-ship will lose control of the storm and be destroyed in an electromagnetic feedback flux. The default value for this chance is 0%, but it can be adjusted upwards. NOTE: multiple ships can operate on one storm. For example, you could turn the storm 180 degrees, strengthen it, and increase radius, all in one turn, with 4 ships. NOTE: to dissipate an ion storm, weaken it ("W") until it's gone. NOTE: when creating a new storm, its ID will be the first one available, not the ID you have indicated in the name. NOTE: Artificial ion storms will weaken slightly every turn if untended. # Universal Ability: Planetary Warp Interdictor. All races can build a Planetary Warp Interdictor devices on planets. The Interdictor is installed by dismantling a Neutronic Refinery vessel and converting its parts to build the device; to install the Interdictor device, the planet must have an orbiting Neutronic Refinery ship and have the FC of "BWI". To engage the Planetary Warp Interdictor, use the ship FC of "EWI"; you must have more than (40) fuel units to use the device. When the device is engaged, all ships of all other races are slowed down to warp (4); the ships of the race that owns the device and its allies can tweak their engines to go up to two warp factor higher than the other races' ships. For example, the Birds within the field Birdman-planet- generated Interdiction field (at the beginning of the turn) can go the max of warp (6), while other ships can go up to warp (4). Planetary Interdictors are destroyed when the planet is captured by another race. # Universal Ability: Orbital Defense Satellites. The Orbital Defense Satellites are designed to make the planets much harder to take over. Any planet can build up to 5 of the Satellites using the FC "BDS". Each satellite, when built, is taken into orbit and placed in standby mode. One can activate them with the FC "ADS". Each satellite, when activated, will engage a search pattern for enemy ships. If none are found, it will return back to standby. However, if any enemy ships approaching the planet are found, all the present satellites will detonate, each causing 40% of a mine-hit to any and all enemy ships(own and allied ships are safe). Thus, the maximum damage to an enemy fleet is 2 full mine hits. Only the biggest ships will be able to withstand the explosions and have enough firepower left to defeat a well-defended planet. However, there is a catch to that. Some ships have a chance of avoiding the damage from the ODS's. The larger the ship is, the better its chances are; a Swift heart is about 0.5%, and a Gorbie is about 3%. There is nothing anyone can do to prevent this "immunity" or to increase a ship's chances. In addition, there is an extra option open to a planet with all 5 satellites present. If you issue the FC "EDS", the satellites will unconditionally explode, causing damage to all enemy ships in orbit in the beginning of the turn, doing only 50% of a minehit to each (total), but it would apply to cloaked ships as well. So for example you have some Birdman ship in orbit around your homeworld with Super spy mission. Your homeworld has 5 ODS's. You set the FC to "EDS", the satellites explode, causing 50% of a minehit to all cloakers. They come out of cloak and are now ready for taking. Each ODS costs 50 of each mineral, 50 supplies and 100 MC. You can count the number of your satellites and check the presence of a planetary cloaking shield by using planetary FC "CDS", count defense satellites. You can also get a report on all Defense Satellites and Cloaking shields you posess by setting one of your planets to Fcode RDS, Report on Defensive Systems. Super Star Destroyers are immune to ADS and EDS. # Universal Ability: Anchoring. Many captains and race leaders have complained about the motion effect of the Ion storms. I am also not an exception: it is extremely annoying if you can't keep your own fleet at your own planet. Therefore, I am introducing anchoring: a free and easy way to keep your ship in place. Any ship orbiting a planet can set its FC to "ANC" and warp to 0 and voila: the ship has not moved! No other special requirements exist. Ships using anchoring cannot escape Tractor beam tow. # Universal Ability: Native Gifts. Some of the natives are more friendly to races that are like them. Siliconoids like Crystals, Humanoids are fond of Colonials, Avians adore Birdmen, and the Reptilians just love having Lizards nearby. In these four cases, the natives give money presents to colonists, not depending on tax rate and happiness. This does not decrease the native happiness levels. The more natives and colonists there are, the more money they will bring, up to the maximum of 1000 MC/turn. # Universal Ability: Give Planet. Use the planetary FC "xGa", where a is 1..9 or "a" or "b" to give the planet to the corresponding race. That race must have a ship in orbit. 10 percent of the population is killed in riots that follow the change in government and happiness of colonists drops 30 points. The base is given along with the planet. No base or structure damage results. Any starship hulls in store on the base are ejected into space. Since in Timhost Birdman ships with FC beginning with the letter "x" cannot change FCodes of enemy planets, Fcode xGa, where a is 1 through 9 or "a" or "b" should alleviate the worries of hosts who worry about empires surrendering to Birdmen due to players who miss turns. # Universal Ability: Beam Up Planetary Codes. To supplement "bum", 6 new planetary FCs are introduced. Use the FC "BUM", "BUD", "BUT", "BUS", "BUN", and "BUC" to beam up molybdenium, duranium, tritanium, supplies, fuel, and colonists respectively. It is done after movement and combat, proportional distribution to all starships' cargo holds. For example, if there is 400 fuel on the planet and an LDSF and a SDSF are in orbit, the LDSF would get 300 and the SDSF will get 100 additional fuel. At least 1 colonist will always stay on the planet. For all you Fhost users: To avoid conflict with FHost's BUM, you can use BuM FCode as a substitute for Jupiter' BUM. Note: ships whose FCode begins with letter 'X' will not receive anything. This was done because some people were using beam-up codes as cloaked ship detectors. # Universal Ability: Tanks and ComBots. The Tanks and ComBots (Combat Robots) are additions to VGAP's weak system of ground combat. Now, in addition to using colonists to defend and attack planets, (all) the races can use tanks to defend and attack and (Crystals and Empire) can use ComBots to defend their planets. The default attack value of a tank is equal to (10) clans and a defense value is (5) clans; one tank takes up 2 cargo spaces on a ship. A Combot is equal to (50) clans on defense, and it cannot be used for offense (because they are too big to be transported on starships). Each planet can build up to square root of the population of tanks and ComBots; for example, a planet with 400 clans can build 20 tanks. 1 tank costs 10 units of all minerals and 50 MC; 1 ComBot costs 50 of each mineral and 200 MC. Use a planetary FC "B1C" to build 1 ComBot (if a race can) and "B1T" to build 1 tank. With an empty ship (excepting fuel and money) use FC "LTN" to load as many tanks as would fit into the ship from a planet; use FC "UTN" to unload tanks. If tanks are unloaded to a friendly planet, they are added to the current stock; if they are unloaded to an enemy planet, combat ensues. First, the tanks fight the ComBots (if any); then, tanks fight tanks (if any); then, tanks fight defending colonists. NOTE: during the ground combat involving these new war machines, the defending side DOES NOT get any bonuses from the colony defenses or the colonists' natural combat abilities: the inborn strength or ferocity means nothing next to tons of combat armor. NOTE: if a ship lands assault troops to a planet, they first fight ComBots, then tanks, then colonists. WARNING: if a ship carries tanks, it CANNOT carry any other cargo (besides money). If you load anything else, all the tanks are DESTROYED. NOTE: when landing troops, all tank landing battles are resolved before any colonists from any ships are landed. NOTE: tanks alone cannot take control of the planet. You need to beam down at least one clan to do that. # Universal Ability: Ground Bombardment. Ships can choose not to engage the ground defense posts in combat and use orbital bombardment instead. This will allow you to capture planets with all defense posts intact and with colonists already on the planet, ready to work and pay taxes. Assault factor is determined as follows: number-of-colonists killed = (#-of-beams-corrected-for-damage * tech-of-beams * 2)- number of-defense-posts (dps). NOTE: with phost, the max damage to the planet is 100. 1 factory + 1 mine are destroyed per 5 colonists killed. The ships take damage from defense outposts on planets; damage determined as (number-of-dps minus (tech-of-engines + tech-of-beams)*4)/2. Therefore, a ship with heavy phasers and transwarps can ignore up to 80 dps with no damage, and add 0.5% of damage per dp thereafter. If the planet has a base or over (200) defenses, then orbital bombardment is not allowed. There is a chance for surrender of all colonists to the race that bombards, equal to 20% plus (number-of-colonists-killed times cowardice-factor) / 125. So a ship with 10 heavy phasers bombarding a planet with 80 dps can hope for a 78% chance of survivors surrendering. All damage to ships is done before any damage to the planet, so that small ships could not bombard heavily defended planets. Damaged ships would not use all of their beams. To initiate orbital bombardment, have a ship orbiting an enemy planet with less than (200) dps and no starbase at warp 0, FC "GRB" and not towed. # Universal Ability: Antimatter Doomsday Missile. The Antimatter DoomsDay Missile is the ultimate weapon in the VGAP universe. It is a huge missile, filled with antimatter, that moves at warp 9, cannot be swept, and that totally destroys a planet and all life and all structures on it, converts it to 100 degree desert world, destroys the starbase and all ships up to 1 ly away, and damages all ships up to 100 ly away. Unfortunately, antimatter is very expensive and takes a long time to produce; therefore, the launcher takes (10) turns and (5000) units of every mineral and (10000) MC to build; the planet has to have more than 1000 colonists, a starbase, and FC "BAM" to start building the launcher. Every race in the galaxy gets a progress report on building from its spies. NOTE: the launcher is destroyed whenever the planet changes ownership. Therefore, the best way to survive a missile is not let it finish building. You have to keep the first letter of the FC "B" if you want to continue building launcher; the building will be suspended if the first letter is not a "B". After (10) turns, the launcher is built and you can launch missiles. Each missile costs (10000) MC and (1000) units of fuel; it also takes (3) turns to aim/launch. Every race in the galaxy receives a spy report on a planet preparing to launch a missile. To launch, have all the required money/fuel available and set the FC of the planet to the ID# of the planet you want to pulverize and keep it until the missile is launched. All computing resources of the world are required to move the missile and evade destruction; therefore, each planet can have a max of ONE missile in flight. NOTE: if ownership of the planet is changed during the missile flight, both the missile and the launcher are destroyed. # Universal Ability: Honor Device. Selected ships (all Birdmen, Opal, Topaz, Sage, and Deep Space Scout) have the Honor Device built into their hulls. This device will explode the ship if it is captured, damaging all ships nearby by (1) mine hit and damaging other ships of the ship's previous owner at the same location by (20) percent of a mine hit. The operation is automatic, no special FC or other requirements are necessary. For example, an Imperial task force attacks a Birdman planet with a Deth Specula in orbit (uncloaked) and a cloaked Swift Heart. If the Deth is captured, it will self-destruct, all surviving Imperial ships will get a mine hit's worth of damage, and the Swift Heart will get 20% of a mine-hit worth of damage. # Universal Ability: Ship Exchange. This ability would improve an otherwise painful process of exchanging ships under Timhost. With Jupiter ship exchange, you no longer need 3 ships, 2 turns, and clans on board; you are also protected from betrayal from the other player: if the other player does not want to give his ship, he won't get yours either. To activate, set FCode of a ship to "EXx", where x is any character. Next turn, the next-higher-ID-numbered ship from another race with IDENTICAL FCode will be swapped with yours and FCodes of both ships will reset to QQQ. Neiter ship can be cloaked during transfer of ownership. If there are no other ships with identical ID, the exchange will not occur (you may want to see that your opponent does not set a EXx on a worthless ship, giving it away for something potentially good of yours). # Universal Ability: Sell Structures. You can sell mines, defenses, factories and starbases on planets where you don't want them or when they run out of minerals. The FC is "SDx" for sell defenses, "SMx" for sell mines, "SFx" to sell factories, and "SSB" for sell starbase, where x is the number of units you want to sell divided by 10. For example, "SM5" will sell 50 mines. NOTE: if the planet has less than 50, none will be sold. Note: "SD0", "SM0" and "SF0" will not sell anything. You will get back (50%) of all money and minerals and 100% of supplies back when you sell structures, and 50% of money that went into tech upgrades; however, if a planet has (for example) humanoid natives and hull tech of 10, you will not get any money for the hull tech. Sold factories will get the same amount of money as a sold mine. To prevent Birdman practical jokes (don't really need that starbase at the Birdman border, do you?), a ship of yours has to be orbiting that planet with FC "YES" for the structures to be sold. # Team Game The host can configure Jupiter so that it uses team game rules. It is a very important configuration item. This ability changes all race specials into ship specials; ships can then be traded and preserve their special abilities. For example, with team play a Fed player can give a Nebula to a Borg and then the Borg would be able to use the Genesis Device just like a Fed. Only certain ships are transferable: only the original, race-designed ships would do. For example, a Borg Victorious bought from the Fascists would be able to launch missiles, but a Deth Specula would not, since the Birdmen can also build that ship. Therefore you should always check before buying a ship to use a race special. The following are the abilities that cannot be transferred in a team game: Sweet-talk, lizard growth, Eros, rebel defense regeneration, and Colonial KDP mission. All others, including build cloaking shield, are transferrable. # Contacts: If you have any questions, please e-mail me, stardestroyer@deathsdoor.com, or, if the message is bounced, stardestroyer@geocities.com. The main Jupiter web site is at http://www.deathsdoor.com/stardestroyer; the European mirror is at http://www.darkforce.dk/std # Gameplay Notes. BE VERY CAREFUL when assigning your ships destructive FCs. Many of them work on your own planets/ships as well as the enemy. This add-on has been given a good amount of testing. I am pretty sure it’s bug-free, but if you find any, please e-mail me at stardestroyer@deathsdoor.com and you will be the first to receive the fix! This add-on will create a file called JUPITER.LOG in the planets game directory and will log most Jupiter actions there for debugging purposes. Warning: In using the subspace bubble and cloak-tow, I am utilizing a bug in the movement phase of host.exe. Due to this bug, combat is possible BEFORE MOVEMENT in both of these cases, i.e. if a Colonial ship tries to use the bubble when escaping combat (such as, for example, departing from an orbit around an enemy planet with ISB FCode and the planet has NUK) or when being cloak-towed out of the location where enemy ships are present. There is no way to get around this; the only way is to get Tim to fix the bug, but it would totally disable the Bubble, which is why I have not reported it to Tim. This add-on will create a file called JUPITER.LOG in the planets game directory and will log most (not all) JUPITER actions there. # Shareware/Registration. This addon is being distributed as full registered version only. This means you will not get the full- featured program until you register. There are two methods you can use to register. To register by mail, send a check, cash, or money order for 15 American dollars plus a form found in the file JORDER.FRM to: Oleg Shvartsman 29631 Westbrook Pkwy. Southfield, MI 48076 USA You can also register online, by phone, by e-mail, or by fax. Please see http://www.deathsdoor.com/stardestroyer/order.html or http://www.darkforce.dk/std/order.html for details. # Alt Tech It is possible to use Jupiter with various alternate tech files out there. However, there are some restrictions: * Number of planets HAS to be 500. * Number of possible hull designs HAS to be 105. * Number of Hull tech slots HAS to be 10. * Number of Engine, beam, and torp designs HAS to be 9. * The map HAS to be equal to or below 4000x4000 ly in size. If any of the above are violated, the results are unpredictable. Other than that, alt techs are OK, though some side effects may develop: for example, if an alt hull file redefines an Emerald (hull number 61) to Coldpain's slot (36) and team game is in effect, the Emerald would start boarding bases! Or, if a banshee is redesigned to have 500 cargo hold, it will hold millions of natives. You have to keep hull reassignments in mind when deciding what alt tech file to use and when configuring Jupiter. #Thanks: To Tim Wisseman for the wonderful game. To M.Ederveen@cd.hse.nl for many suggestions and planetary codes. To Armin Trott: for hosting beta game, many ideas and a lot of help. To brianlg@primary.net for web server space. # intro # Whatsnew # Installation # genesis_device # Move_Natives # Native_coop # Superrefit # BonusRefit # swt # CHM # eros # Super_growth # LCH # AFM # BCS # fuel_efficiency # bird_RID # beacons # bird_honor # bird_interdictor # Sneak_attack # bird_stealfighters # fascist_missiles # bbx # clt # anti_genesis # priv_rid # priv_royale # priv_fightersteal # borg_movemines # cube_intercept # STR # A2S # borg_sweettalk # SDS # ATF # super_alchemy # move_webs # crystal_combots # RAV # crystal_honor # OSC # Empire_Combots # hyper_moscow # PAC # mig # IPD # GCB # cloakerdetect # massdrivers # VRF # BMR # hypersage # rebel_sabotage # DSB # rebel_honor # RSM # Rebel_defenses # KDP # ISB # FBA # IOC # univ_interdictor # ODS # ANC # nativegifts # give_planet # beam_up_codes # univ_combots # GRB # BAM # univ_honor # ship_exchange # sell_structs # team_game # contact # notes # shareware # alt_tech # thanks