.oooooo..o . d8P' `Y8 .o8 Y88bo. .o888oo .oooo. oooo d8b `"Y8888o. 888 `P )88b `888""8P `"Y88b 888 .oP"888 888 oo .d8P 888 . d8( 888 888 8""88888P' "888" `Y888""8o d888b .oooooo. . oooo d8P' `Y8b .o8 `888 888 .ooooo. ooo. .oo. .o888oo oooo d8b .ooooo. 888 888 d88' `88b `888P"Y88b 888 `888""8P d88' `88b 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 888 `88b ooo 888 888 888 888 888 . 888 888 888 888 `Y8bood8P' `Y8bod8P' o888o o888o "888" d888b `Y8bod8P' o888o I. Introduction. II. Abilities. III. Notes. I. Introduction. SC2VGAP (Star Control 2 for VGA Planets) is a freeware add-on that will simulate several aspects of the best ever Strategy/Adventure game of all time in the environment of the best Play-By-E-Mail game of all time. It is distributed free of charge, as long as credit is always given to the author and contact info is enclosed. Prior knowledge of Star Control game is required, or many options in this add-on will not make any sense. The following races are assumed to be playing in the game: 1. Earthhings. 2. Chmmr. 3. Spathi. 4. Orz. 5. Syreen. 6. Neutral races: Melnorme and Slylandro. 7. Mycon. 8. Pkunk. 9. Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah. a. Thraddash. b. Ur-Quan Kzer-Za If a number is used in (parentheses) in this doc file, it means the value is configurable using the enclosed config program, Sconfig. Please place the bmp file for this add-on, vpaux520.bmp, into your winplan\bmp directory. StarCon is a work in progress; if any new abilities or changes to the existing ones come to mind that would contribute to the general "coolness/believability" of StarCon, I will incorporate them in. You must install and configure the add-on to run in certain directories and skip others. If you have a multi-game, multi-directory planets universe, it would be possible to specify what directories you want StarCon to run in and have a separate configuration for every one. To configure StarCon for a specific directory, type the command SCONFIG . The program will let you specify a variety of options and then place Star.CFG into the specified directory. If StarCon cannot find this file when it runs, it will abort, so be sure to configure StarCon before using it. You should run the SCONFIG just after running MASTER and before running HOST for the first time. You can re-configure StarCon as many times as you want. If your host program name is host.exe, use Timhost instructions. If your host name is phost.exe, use Phost instructions. a) Timhost installation. You must add the line "Star1.exe " into your auxhost1.ini file, "Star2.exe " to your auxhost2.ini file, and "StarBC.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. You should put the Star1, Star2, and Starbc.exe files into the planets program directory, where host.exe resides. Host version 3.22.8 is required, or any Phost versin that supports UFOs. 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. In addition, StarCon 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. This add-on was first conceived by Armin Trott for his Star Control 2 game on Spaceport Hamburg (www.nikita.org) and programmed by Oleg Shvartsman (stardestroyer@deathsdoor.com) and available from http://www.deathsdoor.com/stardestroyer. II. Abilities. 1. Earthlings. The Earthling Cruiser can choose to exchange its 4 Standard Laser beam weapons for 10 Point Defense Lasers, for much improved anti-fighter Defense. The Point Defense lasers are very weak, but they have enough power to destroy fighters. This only lasts for one turn (the player can repeat the mission as many times as he wants). To activate this mission, start your FCode with the number '1'. (that's 'ONE', not 'L'). 2. Orz. The Orz Nemesis ships have the ability to board enemy ships that they are about to come in combat with (enemy means the Hierarchy races: 7, 9, 10, and 11). (200) of the Nemesis' crew will try to board all the Hierarchy ships that are at the same location in space after movement, but before combat. (2) enemy crewmen will be killed by each Orz marine; in addition, the ship will suffer damage, equal to the number of Orz marines in a boarding party divided by 8. So, by default, (25%) damage is done. The Orz Nemesis will attempt to board as many ships as possible, in ID number order, until the time its remaining crew is equal to or less than the size of the boarding party. To use this mission, start your FCode with the letter 'B' on a fully crewed Orz ship. 3. Syreen. The Syreen female crew has the ability to use the Syreen Song to refill its crew and repair their ships. Before the battle (but after movement), any Hierarchy ship at the same location as the Syreen Penetrator will fall under the Song's influence. The Hierarchy crew will desert to the Syreen, filling the ship to crew-capacity, and tear out their own hull plates to repair the Syreen. For example, there are two ships at the same location after movement but before combat: a Syreen with 100 crew (out of 400) and 30% damage and a "healthy" Ur-Quan Dreadnought. 300 Ur-Quan will desert to the Syreen, and the Dreadnought will suffer 30% damage fixing the Syreen. 4. VUX. The VUX can use their Limpet parasites to drain energy from enemy (Alliance) engines, degrading the performance by 1 warp factor, permanently. Each ship that ends its movement phase (before combat) nearby an Alliance ship will have a (33%) chance to attach a Limpet and degrade the Alliance ship's warp engine. No special FCode is necessary. 5. Arilou. The Ariloualeelay Skiff has two abilities: Combat Microjump and Quasi-space travel. If the Skiff does not desire combat (no primary enemy and mission not kill) and it is next to a Hierarchy ship after movement, it will have a 50% changce to jump away from combat, up to 70 ly. This jump does not cost any fuel, but it will be in a random direction. The Skiff can also travel through Quasi-Space. Using FCode "QJx", where x is a letter from 'A' to 'P', the ship can traverse great distances and come out on one of several Quasi-Space portals: Portal QuasiSpace location HyperSpace location VGAP Location A 500, 500 43.8, 637.3 1087, 2248 B 520, 514 11.1, 940.9 1022, 2882 C 520, 540 584.9, 621.3 2170, 2242 D 530, 528 775.2, 890.6 2550, 2781 E 544, 532 36.8, 633.2 1077, 2266 F 502, 460 318.3, 490.6 1636, 1981 G 506, 474 190.9, 92.6 1382, 1186 H 516, 466 567.3, 120.7 2135, 1241 I 476, 458 409.0, 774.8 1818, 2550 J 468, 464 921.0, 610.4 2842, 2221 K 476, 496 611.6, 413.1 2223, 1826 L 466, 514 230.1, 398.8 1460, 1798 M 448, 504 565.7, 971.2 2131, 2942 N 458, 492 860.7, 15.1 2721, 1030 O 492, 492 5.0, 164.7 1010, 1329 P 488, 538 973.5, 315.3 2947, 1631 The important column here is "VGAP location"; the other two are just reference points to the Star Control universe. This jump happens after movement and combat and uses 50 units of fuel. Unlike the Precursor Vessel, the Skiff may not take any ships along. 6. Pkunk. The Pkunk Fury crew can use its mythical "light" powers and regenerate their ship after an unsuccessful battle. If a Fury is destroyed in battle, it will have a 50% chance to revive at the end of the turn. No special FCodes or conditions are necessary. 7. Mycon Podship. The Mycon podship has 2 special abilities: Regeneration and Terraform. Every turn, after movement but before combat, the Mycon Podship can completely reclaim its crew and repair the hull. This happens for free and automatically. Every turn that a Mycon ship orbits a planet (after movement), its temperature increases by a default of (5) degrees. If desired, the Mycon can choose NOT to terraform by setting the first letter of the FCode to X or x. 8. Precursor Vessel. This unique ship, constructed on the planet Unzervalt from Precursor designs and heavily modified by the Arilou and Earthlings, can jump though Quasi-space and take up to 6 Alliance ships with it. Using 200 fuel and FCode "QJx" (see Ariloualeelay, above), it can jump to any of the 16 Quasi-space portals, taking the first 6 alliance ships at the same location with warp factor 0. (the Precursor's warp MUST NOT be 0). ID numbers control which ships are considered "first". 9. Sa-Matra. This Precursor battle station, owned (and fought for) by the two factions of the Ur-Quan, is such a massive ship that it cannot go faster than warp factor 6, or internal stresses would tear the huge station-ship apart. Its weapons are so immensely powerful that no known ship can possibly withstand a "face-to-face" battle with the Sa-Matra. Therefore, any Alliance ship, including the Precursor Vessel, that ends the movements phase at the same location as the Sa-Matra, will be utterly destroyed, without a chance for survival. The engine emissions of the Sa-Matra are so big that everybody within 5000 ly can see its location (a ufo-object). 10. Spheres of influence. Every race in the galaxy can see the relative strength of all races by looking at the spheres of influence, a feature very much similar to SC2's spheres of influence. Since the empires grow, their spheres will expand, so the host is encouraged to re-run SConfig every so often and increase the SOI divisor. The radius of the spheres is calculated by : radius = race_score / divisor. Race_score is computed using the following: Each planet: 10 points; each base: 60 points; each freighter: 2 points; each warship: 20 points. III. Notes. By design, this scenario does not allow building of ships, of any kind. All new ships are produced by cloning. Therefore, I programmed several features to facilitate this: 1) All ship components, hulls, tubes, and beams are wiped out every turn. 2) All ship build orders are cancelled. 3) A cloning queue was implemented. The cloning queue will take its "best guess" as to how many ships will clone next turn, and randomize the FCodes of all ships that attempt to clone that have cloned before. After the ship count in the galaxy reaches 450 ships, the cloning queue will send messages every turn indicating which ship cloned last (so the next higher ID-numbered ship will clone next turn). The "best guess" is not always perfect, so there will either be some ships that are cloned 2 times or some ships that are not cloned at all during the pass.