- PHost 4.0a released on 22/May/2003
- PHost 4.0b released on 16/Aug/2003
- PHost 4.0c released on 13/Sep/2003
Hosts: replace the PHost program. Place the following
in pconfig.src to make this version behave as close as possible to
the previous one. However, we recommend not doing that,
since that turns off new rules, and this version is there to try
the new rules ;-)
If you have used the default complete.src or
tim-host.src, please check the settings for
FighterSweepRate and FighterSweepRange. The
files shipped with versions up to 4.0b were bogus. The settings
should read FighterSweepRate = 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,20
instead of just 20 - the latter allows fighter-sweep for
all players! The same goes for FighterSweepRange.
Players: update the PVCR program. PVCR 4.0a should be
able to handle all PHost versions. Really :-)
- PHost now reports ship-specific hull abilities with a
util.dat record. (v4.0a)
- Mine laying rules changed again:
every player's ships lay in Id order, but sequences are randomly
interweaved. This gets you predictability for the general case
while maintaining fairness in extreme situation. This order of
operation is called per-player Id
order, we expect to use it as a means of conflict resolution
in many more places (see below). (v3.4e/4.0a)
- Mines Destroy Mines got improved: instead of laying mines and
considering intersections with just that one field, PHost now
does a complete Mines
Destroy Mines after all mine laying. This gives us 100% Id
independance and predictability (in other words: fairness). The
main reason, however, is, that this will also consider mines
which overlap by another means: when you use add-ons which lay
mines (Starbase+, ACP) or a mine-level alliance is cancelled. To
get back the old behaviour, turn on
AlternativeMinesDestroyMines. (v3.4f/4.0b)
- Added a command line switch to set config options on the fly
(-o option=value). See
Command Line Options for details.
(v3.4g/4.0c)
- PControl got a face-lift. You can
now execute commands before and after each stage,
settings are cumulative, and you can specify shell commands
directly in pconfig.src. (v3.4g/4.0c)
- When given a PlayersAllowed or RacesAllowed
without preceding Hull and Function in
hullfunc.txt, PHost would exit with an assertion
failure. This has been replaced by a proper error message.
(v3.4e/4.0a)
- Not really a bug, more sort-of a missing rule:
Dark Sense and
Super Spy now work properly even
when many players play the same race. When many players
Pillage or
RGA a planet, or many players
Rob, rules are now more fair
(per-player-id order).
(v3.4e/4.0a)
- Version 4.0 would not correctly communicate
Experience to PVCR, and PVCR would display
bogus warnings when seeing experience. (v4.0a)
- Experience score records came out
endian-swapped on Suns. Found by Stefan Glasauer. (v4.0a)
- When a ship got re-crewed, its
experience level would rise uncontrollably. Found by Daniel
Brüdigam. (v4.0a)
- PVCR 4.0 would spam the user with bogus warnings when used in
a 3.x game. (v4.0a)
- When a ship changed ownership (combat,
give, surrender,
boarding), its ship name would be sent
to the new owner even if AllowShipNames says it should
not. Found by Daniel Brüdigam. (v3.4e/4.0a)
- If the Beam up Clans mission was
used to gather more than 655 clans, PHost would remove too few
from the planet due to an overflow. It would report a bogus
amount in the message, too. Found by Bart Dopheide.
(v3.4f/4.0b)
- The FighterSweepRate and
FighterSweepRange now have correct defaults. With the
original defaults, everyone could use that ability, not just
colonies. Found by Holger Moritz. (v3.4g/4.0c)
- Experience did not work at all on Linux in
version 4.0b. This problem was caused by an error in the
compilation. (v4.0c)
- When writing util.dat records, PHost would have
consulted the AllowMoreThan500Minefields of the
minefield owner, not of the player who's receiving the record.
(v3.4g/4.0d)
- Units did not gain experience other than by aging when a
PControl add-on is used. That is, neither
Training nor fighting gave you points.
auxhostX.ini works, though.
Found by Heiko Schlenker. You now know why the 4.0 version is
called "beta". (v4.0d)
- util.dat Record 51 with
current minefield counts used wrong value for "unknown" entries
(65535 instead of -1). (v3.4g/4.0d)
- When AllowShipNames is off, PHost did not include
remote-control tags in the names. (v3.4g/4.0d)
- Bioscanning was broken in version 4.0c and reported all
planets as having Amorphs. Reported by Sascha Rambeaud. (v4.0d)
- All decloaked ships now generate a
util.dat record (previously, only ships
orbiting a planet did so). The record also includes
whether the ship was caught before or after movement.
(v4.0a/3.4e).
- A mine-laying ship now sends you a
util.dat record as well as a message
even when it could not lay mines because the field was already maximal.
The message will report that 0 mines were laid. (v4.0b/v3.4f)
- When you're hit by the Tim Continuum, your planets' happiness does
not change. This way, you won't benefit from 0% tax, but you won't be
hit too hard by growth tax. After all, you don't collect taxes either.
Idea: Sascha Rambeaud (v4.0b/3.4f)
- Messaging was completely revised. Therefore, you receive a
number of new failure records (broken tow,
gather failed, cannot colonize, cloak failure (incl.
anti-cloak)). Some other messages are now also
sent to the remote-controller of a ship (beam up, lay mines,
colonize, hiss (planet and ship), rob (robber and victom), super
spy deluxe, build fighters, ground attack, mine hit, minefield
passes, cyborgs gather debris, wormhole travel, chunnel
initiated/travelled, tow-capture, hit by glory device, cargo
trimmed). This should end the confusion about "why didn't my
remote-controlled ship end up with the same amount of fuel
predicted" or similar. Some other messages are deliberately not
forwarded (exploration, for example). (v4.0d/3.4g)
- The absolute fighter bay limit was raised to 50. A 20-bay ship
with 3 ExtraFighterBays now has 23 bays in total. (v4.0d/3.4g)
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PHost 4.0 released on 04/Mar/2003.
First public beta release. See What's new in
PHost 4 for changes compared to PHost 3.x.
Back to top
This document is maintained by The Portable Host Project
(support@phost.de).
Last updated 21 October 2003.