PHost - Configuration Parameters

Index

• Introduction
• The Configuration Files
  • Sections
  • Assignments
  • Defaults
  • Player Modifications
  • Add-ons
  • shiplist.txt & pconfig.src
• Parameters Grouped by Function
  • Overall Options
  • Planets
  • Ships
  • Experience
  • Minefields
  • Combat
  • Wormholes
  • Ion Storms
  • Unimplemented / Obsolete settings
• Alphabetical Index

Introduction

PHost has many configuration options. This offers hosts a great deal of flexibility in how the game is run and provides many tools for the game designer who wishes to set up a custom scenario.

With flexibility, however, comes the price of complexity. For players to memorize and understand the settings of over 200 parameters is a difficult task. Fortunately, all configuration parameters come with reasonable default settings. If the host does not wish to learn about the myriad configuration parameters, he/she can simply leave these settings at their default and rest assured that the game will work "sensibly".

To reiterate PHost's policy on complexity: PHost is only as complex as you want it to be. Match PHost's complexity to your own ability and experience.

PHost is configured with a text file, pconfig.src. Unlike with HOST, there is no dedicated program needed to edit it, a text editor of your choice suffices. Unlike in prior PHost versions, you do not need to "compile" that file before it can be used.

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The Configuration Files

PHost reads two configuration files: pconfig.src and shiplist.txt. These files are intended to contain the game-specific parameters and the ship-list specific parameters, respectively.

Both files are plain-text files. PHost looks for them in the game directory only. The files are structured in sections, where each section contains a series of assignments. Comments can be included almost anywhere by using the character # (number sign): everything from the # up to the end of the line is ignored. Blank lines are ignored as well. Case is ignored.

Sections

A section is started with a line

% section

PHost expects its configuration in section PHost (and PCONTROL for the PCONTROL settings). For example,

# Everything below this line will be interpreted by PHost
% PHost

Add-ons can use other sections.

Assignments

The basic format of an assignment is

Item = Value

where Item is the name of the option to assign (for example, MineSweepRate), and Value is the value. Values can have different types:

• Numbers. These are simply integers. PHost cannot deal with fractional numbers in the configuration. For example, the MineHitOdds can be 1% or 2%, but not 1.5%. For some values, PHost internally scales down the value you entered. These options end in X10 or X100. For example, the value of MineHitOddsWhenCloakedX10 is internally divided by 10. If you enter MineHitOddsWhenCloakedX10 = 25, the cloaked mine hit odds will be 2.5%. Even here, fractional values are not allowed in the config file. MineHitOddsWhenCloaked = 2.5 will not work!
• Booleans, or other enumerated values. A boolean value can take the values Yes or True resp. No or False; individual entries state the allowed values.
• Costs. These are specified in a similar format as cargo amounts for the beamup command: one value is a space-separated list of type/amount pairs. For example, T402 D120 M340 $900 is the cost of a starbase. Permitted cargo types are only Tritanium (T), Duranium (D), Molybdenum (M), supplies (S) and money ($). A cost specification cannot be empty. To make an item free, specify it as "$0" or something similar.
• Arrays. Array options contain a sequence of values, separated by commas. For example, the WraparoundRectangle option requires an array of four integers.
• Arrayized options. Many things can be set individually for each player, for example,

  ColonistTaxRate = 100,120,100,140,100,100,100,100,100,100,100

  If you want to assign the same value to all players, you only need to specify one value:

  # This sets all players' values to 100 ColonistTaxRate = 100

  Many of these options were originally global settings affecting all players, which were turned into arrays (arrayized) by PHost. This concept (specify one or many values) now applies to many options, including new ones.

Defaults

Each configuration item has a default setting. If a configuration setting is not specified in the configuration file, PHost uses the default value. A warning message will be displayed for each default assignment when PHost runs (except when a setting is optional). We recommend explicitly writing down all values anyway, to explicitly indicate to players the configuration parameters that are in use for a game.

The default values are not necessarily optimal, and are not necessarily compatible to the HOST defaults. Most of the time, when a new option is introduced, its default value is set in a way that it doesn't change games not using it. Exceptions to this rule are important bug fixes or widely-requested changes. For details, refer to the Release Notes for the version in question.

Player Modifications

The PHost Command Processor allows players to modify some of the configuration options, such as Language, AllowMoreThan50Targets, and FilterPlayerMessages.

When these options are modified by players, a new pconfig.src file is written out by PHost and the old file saved as pconfig.bak. The new file is written to the game directory. In addition, PHost "comments out" the old value and states when the change happened.

Do not put these parameters into the ship-list specific file.

Add-ons

Strictly speaking, the above rules apply to PHost only. Add-ons can use any rules they wish for their configuration. However, since the PDK offers convenient functions for parsing the configuration file according to these rules, it is expected most follow the general rules.

shiplist.txt & pconfig.src

pconfig.src: This file contains the game-specific hosting parameters (as documented below), and the hosting sequence configuration. If this file does not start with a section delimiter, PHost assumes it contains hosting parameters.

shiplist.txt: This file contains the ship-list-specific hosting parameters and the special ship abilities. It must contain correct section delimiters. For backward compatibility, PHost looks for a file hullfunc.txt with ship ability definitions in the game or root directory when this file does not exist.

The decision which parameter goes where (pconfig.src or shiplist.txt) is arbitrary, but most likely, the ship-list-specific part will contain the combat settings.

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Parameters Grouped by Function

Overall Options

GameName

Values: up to 31 characters Default: PHost Game

This parameter may be any character string containing up to 31 characters. PHost makes no use of this value other than writing it to the control record in util.dat files. Player-side utilities can display this name in order to attach a meaningful label to a result file.

With this option enabled, player password settings are ignored. All player passwords are disabled.

If you as a host want to disable a single password only, you can use the password command through the auxcmds.txt interface. You need not disable all passwords at once. Note, however, that passwords do not guarantee cryptographic security in any case.

AllowRegisteredFunctions

Values: Yes No

This option allows a host to easily set up unregistered games. With this option disabled, all registered friendly codes and other registered-only functionality is disabled, even if a player is using a registered version of the client program.

AllowShipNames

Values: Yes No Allies

This option specifies whether players are permitted to see each others' ship names. At a setting of Yes (default), everyone can see the names, as usual. When set to No, visual contacts, battles, messages -- everything that cites alien ship names -- will only contain a dummy name ("Ship NNN"). When a ship changes ownership, in combat for example, its name will be padded out as well. The setting Allies will allow allied players to see each others' ship names.

This option is intended for anonymous games, to avoid that people communicate via ship names, or recognize each other by their naming style. If you as a player want to prevent other people from seeing your names, there are a few utilities that do the trick client-side.

Note that this option has bad (read: no) interaction with remote control. If there is a ship whose name you shall normally not see, you will see the name when you control the ship. The rationale is that setting up a ship-level alliance plus remote control requires enough communication so ship names are your least problem.

ScoringMethod

Values: Compatible None

This parameter indicates the method by which player scores are computed and reported to players. By default (Compatible), players receive information about how many planets, bases, freighters and capital ships the other players own. With the None option, no scoring information is reported (i.e., the counts are set to zero). Players only receive their own counts, and, when they are allied with someone, their allies' counts (planets and bases when a Planet level alliance exists, ship counts when a ship level alliance exists).

See also: Score formulas

TonsScoreCountsPlanets

Values: Yes No

This parameter enables or disables the inclusion of ship-planet battles in the ship tonnage scoring mechanism (i.e., the tons.hst file). With this option enabled, a ship that conquers a planet/base in battle will have his tonnage score increased by the combat mass of the planet/base.

PlayerRace	Values: 1 to 255 Default: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11
PlayerSpecialMission	Values: 1 to 255 Default: same as PlayerRace
MapTruehullByPlayerRace	Values: Yes No

The PlayerRace parameter specifies what special racial abilities are given to each player. Normally, player 1 plays race 1 (the Federation), player 2 plays race 2 (the Lizards), and so on. This mapping can be freely configured in PHost. For example, you can have a game with 11 players playing Feds. Values larger than 11 specify an "unspecial" race.

The PlayerSpecialMission parameter specifies what special mission (mission 9) each player uses. By default, he uses the mission assigned to his race. You can change that mapping to create completely new race (maybe the "Jem Hadar" who have a ground attack mission (PlayerSpecialMission=10) and 150% combat bonus (PlayerRace=2). For the time being, we recommend this parameter to be used only in real expert games.

The MapTruehullByPlayerRace parameter defines how the truehull.dat file is to be interpreted. It should only be used when all players use a client which can handle this. Since this feature has been available for a long time, it is not protected by the AllowIncompatibleConfiguration option introduced in PHost 4.0k.

See the Advanced Features page for more information.

(v4.0:) This option specifies the maximum number of ships that are to appear in the game. PHost will only allow the specified number to be built; when there are more build orders, they will go into the build queue.

PHost will only allow ships with Ids below this value to be built. It will not destroy "excess" ships, however, when you lower this option in mid-game.

When this option is set to more than 500, all players have to use a front-end that supports 999 ships. Programs known to do so are:

• Winplan 3.52.017 and later
• VPA 3.58 and later
• PCC 1.0.11 and later
• EchoView 1.2.14a and later
• There exists a planets.exe, unpack.exe and maketurn.exe with Host999 support.

Even if more than 500 ships are allowed, PHost will not allocate ship Ids above 500 until there are at least 400 ships in the game, to allow people with old clients to start the game and upgrade later.

AllowWraparoundMap	Values: Yes No
WraparoundRectangle	Values: 4 integers Default: 1000,1000,3000,3000

These options allow you to define a Wraparound map ("Sphere", "PWrap"), see there for details.

Note that the WraparoundRectangle also defines the starting locations for ion storms, even when wraparound is disabled. Therefore, you should always set this to a valid value corresponding to your starchart.

AllowPlayerMessages	Values: Yes No
AllowAnonymousMessages	Values: Yes No Default: same as AllowPlayerMessages

These options define whether players are allowed to communicate using the built-in e-mail function ("subspace messages") of the game.

• With AllowPlayerMessages enabled, players can send normal subspace messages (with or without the message command). When this option is off, players can't send messages.
• With AllowAnonymousMessages enabled, players can send rumors (using the rumor command or the *w* construct). When this option is off, PHost will attempt to send the messages non-anonymous.

For compatibility with previous versions of PHost, you can also use the name CPEnableRumor instead of AllowAnonymousMessages.

ConfigLevel

Values: 0 to 2 Default: 0

This option does not affect anything in the game, it affects how the configuration file is handled.

• Value 0 (default) is, well, the default behavior.
• Value 1 causes PHost to complain (with a warning) if you forgot an optional setting. For example, the DisablePasswords option is normally not required and it doesn't harm to leave it out. With ConfigLevel = 1, PHost will warn you anyway.
• Value 2 causes PHost to complain if you forgot an unnecessary setting. For example, when AllowHiss is off, the HissEffectRate is not needed. At ConfigLevel = 2, PHost will complain if you left out such an option anyway.

The intention is that, when preparing a config file, you can increase the ConfigLevel to check whether you left out some option that is important to you. For the game, you can remove this setting again. The ConfigLevel setting itself is optional.

AllowIncompatibleConfiguration

Values: Yes No

Some options are incompatible with standard VGA Planets programs. To avoid that you accidentally configure a game which your players cannot play in, PHost by default rejects these assignments.

If you set this option to Yes, PHost will allow you to assign to these options. But be aware that players need updated client programs to be able to submit correct turn files. Programs known to support these settings are

Program	base costs, fighter costs	BaseTechCost
PCC	1.1.15	1.1.19
PCC2	1.99.3	1.99.15
VPA	3.63 beta 1	-

Enabling the MapTruehullByPlayerRace option also makes your game incompatible with DOS Planets and Winplan. However, this option has always been available, thus it is not protected by AllowIncompatibleConfiguration.

Command Processor

Some command processor commands can be turned off by the host. When players attempt to use these commands, they'll receive an error message and the command will be ignored. Some commands can also be externalized, meaning that PHost just stores these commands away for handling by some add-on program.

CPEnableGive

Values: Yes No Allies External

This parameter controls access to the give command which is used to give away planets and ships.

When this parameter is set to Allies, only allied players can interchange ships and planets this way. It does not matter what alliance levels they offer, they just must be allied.

In PHost up to version 4.0i, the gsX friendly code will always be available, even if this option is off. However, setting this parameter to Allies also affects gsX.

CPEnableAllies

Values: Yes No External

This parameter controls access to the allies command which is used to set up and configure alliances. If this option is off, players can not change their alliances. It does not turn off the alliance feature altogether. Thus, when this is off, you can set up pre-configured alliances using auxcmds.txt or a program like "pally" from the PDK, and players can't change them.

DelayAllianceCommands

Values: Yes No

This parameter controls whether allies commands take effect at the beginning or end of the turn. With this option turned off, alliance changes take effect immediately. A player can back-stab his ally by breaking the alliance in the same turn he attacks the former ally. With this option on, alliance processing is deferred till the end of the turn, so that the deceived ally knows his alliance was broken before his former ally attacks him.

CPEnableEnemies

Values: Yes No External

This parameter controls access to the enemies command which is used to set up and configure enemies. If this option is turned off, players cannot use the enemies command to declare additional enemies. Turning this off in mid-game will not cause PHost to cancel existing enemy settings, though.

CPEnableRaceName

Values: Yes No

This parameter controls access to the racename command. When this option is enabled, players can change the names of their empires.

CPEnableRefit

Values: Yes No External

This parameter controls access to the refit command (extended super refit).

See also: AllowSuperRefit

CPEnableRemote

Values: Yes No External

This parameter controls access to the remote command (starship remote control).

CPEnableSend

Values: Yes No

This parameter controls access to the send command. With this command, players can request certain configuration files from the host.

CPEnableShow

Values: Yes No Allies External

This parameter controls access to the show command which is used to transmit information about some objects to other players. By setting this to allies, you can restrict information transfer to allied players.

When this is set to allies, the alliance must already be active by the time the command is used. It is not possible to set up an alliance and show objects around in the same turn.

Player Preferences

There are some settings to configure player preferences and compatibility with certain client programs. Players can change these using command processor commands as they like. PHost will automatically modify pconfig.src accordingly.

Language	Values: language names Default: English
CPEnableLanguage	Values: Yes No

This option contains 12 language names. The first one contains the host's preferred language; PHost's screen messages and the host.log will use that language. The other eleven ones specify the languages used for players' subspace messages.

When CPEnableLanguage is enabled, players can use the language command to change their language.

PHost supports the following languages as of version 3.4c. See the language command for details about languages.

• English (the standard "Tim-compatible" messages)
• German
• French
• Spanish
• Italian
• Dutch
• Russian
• Estonian
• Polish
• NewEnglish (a polished, less quirky version of English)

AllowMoreThan50Targets

Values: Yes No

This option contains 11 values, one for each player. It controls the generation of RST files. The DOS client program (planets.exe) has a limit of 50 scanned enemy ships (targets) per turn. Many replacement programs do not have this limit.

With this option disabled, PHost will only report the closest 50 ships, excess targets will be reported via util.dat. With this option enabled, PHost will report all targets. Players must then use a client program which can handle that many. Note that most current client programs that can deal with more than 50 targets will also find the targets in util.dat, so use of this option is not required to see everything. However, some older programs such as VPUtil need it.

This option has no effect for players using the registered Windows client (Winplan). Those always get all targets, in a special section of the RST which only Winplan (and compatible) handles.

Players can use the bigtargets command to change their value for this option.

When you set up a game, you should set this option to No.

FilterPlayerMessages

Values: Yes No

This option contains 11 values, one for each player. If message filtering for a player is enabled, PHost will suppress certain messages for which there is a util.dat equivalent. Players can use the filter command to change their value.

When you set up a game, you should set this option to No.

AllowMoreThan500Minefields

Values: Yes No

This option contains 11 values, one for each player. If it is enabled, PHost will report minefields with Id numbers larger than 500 to that player, in exactly the same way it uses for smaller Ids. Because this might confuse clients that don't expect so many minefields (the original HOST program as well as many previous versions of PHost have a 500-minefield limit), this option can be used to suppress these minefields.

Even when this option is off, high-Id minefields will still be reported using a separate util.dat record (type 46).

Players can change their value using the bigminefields command.

When you set up a game, you should set this option to No.

Meteors

This parameter indicates each planet's percent chance that it will be struck by a meteor shower on each turn. Meteor showers add small amounts of minerals to each planet, with no negative side-effects. Many hosts set this to a slightly higher value.

These parameters define the number of large meteors that impact on planets each turn.

• When LargeMeteorsImpacting is nonzero, that many planets will be struck by a large meteor each turn. The planets will be chosen at random. Most people will leave this option zero because it tends to overload the universe with minerals when set too high.
• When LargeMeteorsImpacting is zero, there's a chance of RandomMeteorRate that one large meteor will hit a planet this turn. For example, with a RandomMeteorRate of 50 (percent), there will be one meteor every second turn on average.

Large meteors will, in addition to adding minerals to the planet, destroy planetary infrastructure and make the population unhappy. The explosion from a large meteor will be so large that all players notice it (and receive a message).

MeteorShowerOreRanges	Values: 8 integers Default: 10,10,10,10,200,200,200,200
LargeMeteorOreRanges	Values: 8 integers Default: 100,100,100,100,10000,9000,9000,7000

These options define what constitutes a meteor shower respective a large meteor. The value consists of 8 integers specifying the minimum Neutronium/Tritanium/Duranium/Molybdenum amounts and the maximum of each mineral, in this order.

These options are normally left unchanged.

Planets

Production

RaceMiningRate

Values: 0 to 1638 Default: 70 for Feds, 200 for Lizards, 100 for others

This setting specifies, for each player, the rate at which minerals are be extracted from a planet's core. A base value of 100 is the default, indicating that the mining rate is the same as the mineral density.

This config option can be different for each player. By default, Lizards can mine twice as much as others due to their stature, and Feds can mine less than others due to their environmental laws.

ProductionRate

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 100

This array stores a supply production rate percentage for each player. The base value of 100 means that production proceeds at 100% of the usual rate (as determined by the number of factories, Bovinoid natives, and the number of colonists on the planet). Higher or lower ProductionRate values affect this production rate in proportion. For example, a ProductionRate of 50 means that supplies are produced at half the nominal rate. This option can be different for each player.

ColonistTaxRate	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 200 for Feds, 100 for rest
NativeTaxRate	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: same as ColonistTaxRate

These arrays store a player-dependent parameter indicating the taxation rate for colonists and natives. A base value of 100 indicates that tax revenues match the values predicted by planets.exe. A value of 200, for example, doubles the rate of colonist taxation. A value of 50 halves it. This config option can be different for each player.

MaxPlanetaryIncome

Values: 0 to 2*10^9 Default: 5000

This parameter indicates the maximum number of megacredits that a planet may generate on one turn from both colonist and native taxation revenue combined.

BorgAssimilationRate

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100

This parameter affects only the Cyborgs: it indicates the percentage number of existing colonists that are used to assimilate natives. For example, at a rate of 50%, half of the colonists are used. That is, on a colony with 120 Cyborg clans, up to 60 native clans can be converted.

This option is arrayized to allow different values to be configured for each player. It currently affects only players who play Borg, though (i.e. those whose PlayerRace is 6). For all other races, this parameter is ignored.

Natural Processes

NewNativesPerTurn

Values: 0 to 500 Default: 1

This option specifies whether how many new native populations are discovered on planets. Each turn, PHost picks N planets at random, and establishes a new native population on that planet if it didn't already have one. If the planet PHost chose already had natives (or if it was picked previously this turn), it will not be changed, but still counts against the number of picks. Hence even if you set this to 100, your universe will not be full of natives after 5 turns.

This option replaces the AllowNewNatives option from previous versions. AllowNewNatives=Yes corresponds to a value of 1 here.

NewNativesPopulationRange	Values: 0 to 250000 Default: 2500,5000
NewNativesGovernmentRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 1
NewNativesRaceRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 1

These options specify the characteristics of new native populations. Their main intention is to allow you to configure games consistently: when you configure out Amorphs in your Master program, you should also be able to configure them out of the game itself.

NewNativesPopulationRange contains two integers that specify the range of the native population, in clans. The actual population will be a random value between these two borders.

NewNativesGovernmentRate specifies a weight for each government type. You can specify 9 values, for the 9 government types (starting with Anarchy, ending with Unity). The higher the value, the more frequent this government type will appear. For example,

NewNativesGovernmentRate = 0,1,2,3,4,3,2,1,0

will distribute governments so that Feudalism (the middle one) will appear most, followed by Tribal resp. Monarchy, and so on. Anarchy and Unity will not appear. Because Representative has been given value 2 here, it will appear twice as often as Participatory (value 1), but only half as frequent as Feudalism (value 4). When you specify fewer values, the last one will be repeated (as usual for "arrayized" options). In particular, specifying only one value will let every government type appear equally often.

NewNativesRaceRate is the same for native races.

For your reference, here is a list of native races and government types in the right order for these options:

For completeness, the names used in pmaster (NativeClansRange, NativeTypeFrequencies, NativeGovFrequencies) are also accepted as aliases to these options.

Each turn, some new minerals appear in the planet's core due to a natural effect called Transuranium Decay. This parameter sets the amount of minerals generated per turn. At a mineral density of 100%, the amount specified here will be added to the planet's core.

StructureDecayPerTurn	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 1
StructureDecayOnUnowned	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 1

This parameter indicates the number of mines, factories, and defense posts that a planet will lose on each turn for which these structures exceed the maximum allowed by a planet's population. This config option can be different for each player.

(v3.4:) Structure decay also happens on unowned planets, so you can set it separately for those.

Growth

The exact effects of the Growth switches are documented in the Growth Formulas section.

RaceGrowthRate

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 100

This array stores a colonist growth rate percentage for each player. The base value of 100 means that colonists grow at 100% of the usual rate (as determined by the usual factors of temperature, happiness, etc.) Higher or lower RaceGrowthRate values affect this growth rate in proportion. For example, a RaceGrowthRate of 50 means that colonists will grow at half the rate that is determined by temperature, happiness, etc.

This option affects the maximum colonist and native population on planets. When enabled, the maximum population depends on the temperature; overpopulation will possibly die. When this option is off, climate has no effect on the population limit (it still affects growth).

AllowEatingSupplies

Values: Yes No

When this option is enabled, colonists on planets which are overpopulated will consume supplies in their efforts to survive. That is, you'll be able to have more colonists on the planet when you provide them with enough supplies.

This parameter has no effect if ClimateLimitsPopulation is off.

ClimateDeathRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 10
NativeClimateDeathRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0

These parameters control the rate at which colonists and natives die when their planet is overpopulated.

Natives normally don't die due to overpopulation. After all, they were born on the planet and have adapted to this biosphere.

This parameter has no effect if ClimateLimitsPopulation is off.

With this option enabled, the Crystals and Siliconoid natives (the latter in PHost 3.3c and later only) favor hot planets over temperate ones. Their growth rates, maximum populations, etc. are all based upon a target temperature of 100 degrees rather than 50 degrees as for the other races.

This option controls the maximum number of colonists and growth rate of colonists for Crystalline planets when the CrystalsPreferDeserts option is enabled. Without CrystalSinTempBehavior enabled, colonist growth is linear in temperature, as is the maximum number of colonists. With this option enabled, both growth and maximum number of colonists follows a sinusoidal curve with the peak occurring at a temperature of 100. However, there is no growth below temperatures of 15 degrees and the maximum number of colonists below this temperature is limited to the same number of colonists as other races. This option gives a slight boost to the Crystals since it allows more colonists to thrive and provides for quicker growth (on non-arctic planets) than for the linear model.

Although, since PHost 3.3c, Siliconoid natives are affected by the CrystalsPreferDeserts option, they are not affected by this option. Growth is always linear for Siliconoids.

This parameter controls the number of colonists supported on arctic and desert planets. The higher this value, the more colonists are supported. The exact effect is documented in the Growth Formulas section.

Starbases

StarbaseCost

Values: Cost Default: T402 D120 M340 $900

This option defines the cost of a starbase.

This option can make your game incompatible to standard VGA Planets tools. As a safety measure, PHost only accepts assignments to this option if you also enable AllowIncompatibleConfiguration. Players must use updated client programs to be able to play in a game which has this option modified.

BaseTechCost

Values: 0 to 5000 Default: 100

This option defines the base cost of tech upgrades. Upgrading from tech level N to N+1 costs N * BaseTechCost megacredits.

This option can make your game incompatible to standard VGA Planets tools. As a safety measure, PHost only accepts assignments to this option if you also enable AllowIncompatibleConfiguration. Players must use updated client programs to be able to play in a game which has this option modified.

MaximumFightersOnBase

Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 60

This parameter defines the maximum number of fighters that can be bought and placed in starbase storage. This directly affects the fighting strength of the base.

Traditionally, this value is hard-wired to 60 fighters. It can now be freely configured, and can be different for each player. When a base changes ownership and has too many fighters in storage, the excess is destroyed without compensation.

This option can make your game incompatible to standard VGA Planets tools. As a safety measure, PHost only accepts assignments to this option if you also enable AllowIncompatibleConfiguration. Players must use updated client programs to be able to play in a game which has this option modified.

MaximumDefenseOnBase

Values: 0 to 2000 Default: 200

This parameter defines the maximum defense a starbase can have. This directly affects the fighting strength of the base.

Traditionally, this value is hard-wired to 200. It can now be freely configured, and can be different for each player. When a base changes ownership and has too many defense posts, the excess is destroyed without compensation.

This option can make your game incompatible to standard VGA Planets tools. As a safety measure, PHost only accepts assignments to this option if you also enable AllowIncompatibleConfiguration. Players must use updated client programs to be able to play in a game which has this option modified.

FreeFighters	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 10 for Empire, 0 for rest
FreeFighterCost	Values: Cost Default: T3 M2

The FreeFighters parameter indicates the number of fighters that a starbase will build automatically on each turn if it has the required resources. This config option can be different for each player. Normally, free fighters is a race advantage of the Empire.

(v4.0k:) You can also configure the cost if these fighters. Traditionally, these fighters cost the same minerals as normal starbase fighters, but no money, hence they are called free fighters. You can now change this cost, and even make these fighters truly free (FreeFighterCost=$0).

BaseFighterCost

Values: Cost Default: T3 M2 $100

This option defines the cost of a fighter built normally on a starbase. Traditionally, these fighters cost 3 kt Tritanium, 2 kt Molybdenum, and 100 megacredits. This cost can now be freely changed, and can be different for every player.

This option can make your game incompatible to standard VGA Planets tools. As a safety measure, PHost only accepts assignments to this option if you also enable AllowIncompatibleConfiguration. Players must use updated client programs to be able to play in a game which has this option modified.

Combat

GroundKillFactor	Values: 1 to 32767 Default: 30 for Lizards, 15 for Klingons, 1 for rest
GroundDefenseFactor	Values: 1 to 32767 Default: 10 for Lizards, 5 for Klingons, 1 for rest

These parameters specify the ground combat strength of each race. The GroundKillFactor specifies the strength of colonists attacking a planet, the GroundDefenseFactor specifies the strength of the defending clans. A factor of 1 means that each colonist fights at nominal strength. Higher values scale linearly (e.g., a value of 2 means that each colonist fights like 2 normal colonists). See Ground Combat formulas for details.

This option allows planets to use the ATT and NUK friendly codes to become aggressors in combat (see Order of Battle). With this option enabled, planets can attack enemy ships that come into orbit.

(v4.0i:) The PlanetsAttackXXX options define the initial assignment of the PlanetImmunity ship function. You can adjust it afterwards by assignments in shiplist.txt.

ColonistCombatSurvivalRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0
ColonistCombatCaptureRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100

These parameters indicate the percentage of people that survive when the planet is taken over by an enemy ship in combat (not ground combat!).

The number of surviving clans is computed as follows:

Eff_SurvivalRate =
    Trunc(ColonistCombatCaptureRate[Ship_Owner] * ColonistCombatSurvivalRate[Planet_Owner] / 100)

Surviving_Clans =
    Max(Trunc(Clans * Eff_SurvivalRate / 100), 1)

These options are arrayized. ColonistCombatSurvivalRate models how many people of a particular race survive the war, and ColonistCombatCaptureRate models how many colonists the new owner of the planet will accept from the old colony.

If the value of the Survival-Rate computation is zero, one clan will survive on the planet in any case. This (exactly one clan surviving) is the default in earlier PHost versions and in HOST.

(v4.1c:) The ColonistCombatCaptureRate option is new in PHost 4.1c. PHost 4 versions before that only had a global ColonistCombatSurvivalRate option effective for all races, and behaved as if the ColonistCombatCaptureRate option had the value 100, making the number of surviving clans depend only on the survival rate.

This parameter indicates the percentage of natives that survive when a planet is taken over by an enemy ship in combat (not ground combat!).

When the native population drops to less than one clan, the native population will be gone.

This parameter indicates the minimum happiness on a planet after it is

• conquered in regular combat,
• conquered in ground combat or Imperial Assault, or
• colonized by dropping clans or using the Colonize mission.

If natives are unhappier than the value specified in this option (e.g. from excessive taxation), they'll be improved to this value.

The same goes for colonists, with the exception that newly colonized planets (third case above) always start with happiness 100, i.e. the maximum possible.

This option is intended to limit the damage a player can do to a planet he is sure to lose. It does not limit happiness on a planet which remains under a race's control; RGA or excessive taxation may make a planet unhappier than configured here. This option also has no effect on voluntary planet trades (give planet command).

This option exists in PHost since version 4.1c. Previous versions behave as if it had the value -300, and thus do not limit happiness beyond the hard limit implied by all happiness computations.

See also: Combat Effect formulas

Ships

Building Ships

This option controls whether players can clone ships using the cln friendly code. Ship cloning is only possible when this option is enabled.

ShipCloneCostRate

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 32767 for Crystals and Privateers, 200 for rest

This option controls the monetary cost of a cloned ship as a separate value for each player. Each entry in this array represents the cost of cloning a ship for that player, as a percentage of the ship's normal cost. For example, a value of 200 means that cloned ships will cost twice as many megacredits to build as they would cost normally. This config option can be different for each player.

Note that in PHost, the Privateers and Crystals are not prohibited from cloning, as they are in HOST 3.2. Their default clone cost value of 32767 however makes cloning very unattractive. Note, too, that this config option only affects the monetary (i.e., megacredits) cost of cloning. The mineral costs are not affected.

If you want to disable cloning completely for a race, you can make their ships unclonable by using a statement such as

Function = Unclonable
AssignTo = Hull
Hull = *
RacesAllowed = 5 7

in shiplist.txt. The AssignTo=Hull statement is important here, as you want all ships owned by these races to be unclonable, not just those built by them.

RecycleRate

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 75

This parameter indicates the percentage of a ship's mineral content that is salvaged after a ship is recycled at a starbase, disassembled using the Colonize mission, or after ship components are recycled using the dmp planetary friendly code. The minerals obtained from recycling are placed on the surface of the planet.

Ship Build Queue

The ship build queue will get active when all ship slots are used up. From this point on, game play usually changes significantly. The following options control build queue operation. Read the ship build queue page for details.

BuildQueue

Values: PAL PBP FIFO

This option chooses the build queue strategy to apply. The optimum value largely depends on the ship list and the other environment of the game.

• PAL is the PAL-driven queue used exclusively in most PHost 3.x versions: build orders gain priority related to your player activity level.
• PBP is a build-point driven queue, not unlike the one used in HOST: build orders are processed in the order of submission, but you can "buy" priority builds using your activity points.
• FIFO is the first-in-first-out queue used in PHost 2.x: build orders are processed in the order of submission, period.

BuildPointReport

Values: Yes No Allies

This option specifies whether build points (PAL) are made public or not. Normally, build points are secret and every player just gets his own value. With this option set to "Yes", all players will know all scores. This makes sense when you're playing with a PBP queue, to add some predictability.

The default value is Allies; each player gets his own value and the values of his allies (no special alliance levels needed).

AllowPriorityBuild

Values: Yes No

This parameter specifies whether players are allowed to use the PB1 to PB9 friendly codes.

When using a PAL or FIFO queue, this mechanism can be abused to have dummy build orders gain priority in advance, and then promoting some new build orders for new battleships using PBx. So you can forbid use of these codes if you think this is a problem.

When you use the PBP queue, you should definitely enable this option (because that's what PBPs are all about). You can still disable it, though, for example to prevent priority builds early in the game (like HOST does not permit priority builds until there are 450 ships in the game).

BuildChangeRelativePenalty

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100

This parameter defines a penalty for changing build orders. If a build order is placed on the queue and gains some priority, but is then changed, the base loses a part of their build queue priority. By default, it loses 100% of its priority, thus the new build order starts walking the queue anew.

This option supersedes the SBQBuildChangePenalty parameter. SBQBuildChangePenalty is only available when a PAL-driven build queue is used, and specifies a fixed penalty. In contrast, this option works in all queue modes, and gives relative penalties. SBQBuildChangePenalty still remains available. If you want to use a relative penalty with a PAL queue, remember to set SBQBuildChangePenalty to zero. Otherwise it would remove all the remaining priority left over by this option.

SBQBuildPALBoost	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 1
SBQNewBuildPALBoost	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 1
SBQPointsForAging	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 1200
SBQBuildChangePenalty	Values: -2*10^9 to +2*10^9 Default: 2*10^9
SBQBoostExpX100	Values: -200 to 200 Default: 0

These options are only used with the PAL-driven build queue (see there for details). They describe how build orders enter the build queue and gain priority by aging.

These options are arrayized and can be different for every player.

PBPCostPer100KT	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 200
PBPMinimumCost	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 400
PBPCloneCostRate	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 200

These parameters define the cost of a priority build, when a PBP queue is being used. They are ignored otherwise. The exact interpretation is documented in the PBP build queue section.

PALAggressorKillPointsPer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 10
PALAggressorPointsPer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 2
PALBoardingPartyPer10Crew	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 3
PALCombatAggressor	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0
PALCombatBaseScaling	Values: 0 to 200 Default: 80
PALCombatPlanetScaling	Values: 0 to 200 Default: 50
PALGloryDamagePer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 2
PALGloryKillPer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0
PALGloryDevice	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 100
PALGloryDevicePer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0
PALGroundAttackPer100Clans	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100
PALImperialAssault	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100
PALIncludesESB	Values: Yes No
PALOpponentKillPointsPer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 10
PALOpponentPointsPer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 2
PALPillage	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 10
PALRGA	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 10
PALRecyclingPer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 4
PALShipCapturePer10Crew	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 5
PALShipMinekillPer10KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0

These parameters define how players acquire activity points. The exact interpretation is documented in the build point details section.

These options can be different for every player.

PALDecayPerTurn

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 20

This parameter defines how many build points decay each turn, in percent. Points decay to encourage players to use them instead of just sitting on their points and doing nothing.

PALPlayerRate

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100

This parameter defines how turn activity level translates into build points. At a rate of 100%, one TAL point turns into a boost of one point for ship build orders. See PAL-driven build queue for details.

Ship Movement

With this option enabled, fuel-less ships are able to move 1 ly per turn. In this type of movement, mine hits are not a concern.

AllowGravityWells	Values: Yes No
AllowHyperjumpGravWells	Values: Yes No Default: same as AllowGravityWells
GravityWellRange	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 3
RoundGravityWells	Values: Yes No

These options control shape and behavior of gravity wells. Gravity wells surround planets. They cause ships that move faster than warp 1 to be sucked towards the planet.

Gravity wells can be turned off for hyperjump ships. Normally, all hyperjump ships (exact and non-exact) are affected by gravity wells.

Gravity wells can be round (RoundGravityWells = Yes) or square (RoundGravityWells = No). In both cases, the GravityWellRange is the size of the well: radius of the circle, or maximum distance in X/Y direction for the square.

See Gravity Well Formulas for details.

UseAccurateFuelModel

Values: Yes No

When disabled, PHost uses a simple fuel consumption model similar to that of HOST. Essentially, ships burn fuel proportional to their initial mass and their movement distance: when you double the mass, the fuel usage doubles.

When this option is enabled, PHost uses a more exact, differential time model where the ship's mass is updated continuously to account for fuel burned for movement. With this model, ships tend to burn less fuel.

The original client programs will not correctly predict fuel usage when this option is on (the same goes for the default fuel model, but to a lesser extent); the third-party clients (VPA, PCC) aim to be exact. Other than that, the choice of this option depends only on your taste.

Missions

AllowBuildFighters	Values: Yes No Default: No,No,No,No,No,No,No,No,Yes,Yes,Yes
ShipFighterCost	Values: Cost Default: T3 M2 S5

These option controls which races can build cheap fighters aboard their ships using the lfm friendly code or the Gather-Build fighters mission, and how much these fighters cost. In addition, this controls availability of the robotic/colonial Build Fighters mission. When enabled for them, Rebel carriers build fighters automatically.

Note that availability of cheap fighters is generally considered a racial ability of Robots, Rebels and Colonies.

The AllowBuildFighters option replaces the older RobotsBuildFighters, RebelsBuildFighters, and ColoniesBuildFighters options.

CumulativePillaging

Values: Yes No

This option controls the use of multiple Klingon ships in performing the Pillage mission. With this option enabled, each ship performs its own independent Pillage mission, for cumulative effect. With the option disabled, only one ship is allowed to pillage any given planet on a single turn. Among multiple ships, the ship with the lowest Id number will perform the pillage.

SpyDetectionChance

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 20

This parameter indicates the percentage chance that a Bird Man ship performing the Super Spy mission will be detected by the planet. For example, a value of 20 indicates a 20% chance of discovering a Super Spy mission in progress. Note that this parameter is unrelated to the Deluxe Super Spy part of the mission.

AllowRebelGroundAttack	Values: Yes No
RGANeedsBeams	Values: Yes No
AllowRGAOnUnowned	Values: Yes No

These options control the Rebel Ground Attack mission.

With RGANeedsBeams enabled, ships must have beams in order to do a Rebel Ground Attack. This is to parallel the need of beams for Hiss and Pillage. Normally, any ship can do RGA.

With AllowRGAOnUnowned enabled, Rebels can attack unowned planets; this can be beneficial to native happiness.

With this option enabled, the Federation can perform the Super Refit mission.

See also: CPEnableRefit

AllowExtendedMissions

Values: Yes No

With this option enabled, players can use PHost's extended missions. Turning this off disables all extended missions at once.

ExtMissionsStartAt

Values: 20 to 900 Default: 20

Normally, PHost numbers its extended missions starting from 20. Using this option, you can change that base value in case there is a conflict with some add-on. Remember that you must renumber mission.ini when you change this, and tell all your players.

We strongly recommend you to never ever change this option to avoid confusion. See also the Host section of the Mission descriptions.

AllowBeamUpClans	Values: Yes No
AllowBeamUpMultiple	Values: Yes No

These options control whether players may use "non-standard" beam-up orders. AllowBeamUpClans controls whether colonists can be beamed up (using the Beam up Clans or Beam up Multiple missions). AllowBeamUpMultiple controls whether players can beam up multiple things at once using Beam up Multiple.

Cloaking

The following parameters apply to ships with cloaking device that try to cloak (using the Cloak or Super Spy mission, or one of the replacement extended missions).

CloakFuelBurn

Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 5

This parameter specifies the amount of fuel needed to cloak 100 kt of hull mass. Ships which have less fuel are not allowed to cloak. Ships that have an advanced cloaking device do not need this fuel. The exact formula is on the Formulas page.

CloakFailureRate

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 1

This parameter indicates the percent chance that cloaking fails (due to a random technical malfunction) on a ship.

When a ship has reached the damage level specified here, or more, it can no longer cloak. At the default value of 1, only undamaged ships can cloak.

Ships with a hardened cloaking device can cloak even if damaged beyond this limit.

AllowCloakFailMessages

Values: Yes No

When this option is enabled, players receive a message whenever cloaking fails on one of their ships. The message will also explain the cause (excessive damage, random chance, lack of fuel, wormhole, ionic pulse, ion storm). When this option is off, players receive no indication that their cloaking devices have failed (except for ionic pulses which always generate a message).

With this option enabled, cloaked ships can take part in combat. If a cloaked ship has a primary enemy set, and a ship of that race is in the same position, then the cloaked ship will engage in battle with the enemy ship.

Cloaked ships can never attack planets, even with this option enabled.

AllowAntiCloakShips	Values: Yes No
DamageLevelForAntiCloakFail	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 20

This option toggles whether anti-cloak ships (Loki Tachyon pulse) work. Such ships will uncloak all cloaked ships within 10 ly range when they have less than DamageLevelForAntiCloakFail damage points.

AntiCloakImmunity	Values: Yes No Default: Yes for Fed/Lizard/Bird, No for rest
AlternativeAntiCloak	Values: Yes No

These options configure who is immune to anti-cloak ships, i.e. whose ships are not de-cloaked.

The races for which AntiCloakImmunity is enabled are immune in any case. This is exactly the same as if these ships were given the Anti-Cloak Immunity ship function.

With alternative anti-cloak behavior enabled, the owner of the anti-cloak ship and his ship-level allies are immune. AntiCloakImmunity is commonly set to No in this case.

Advanced Anti-Cloak ships will also decloak ships that are immune against normal anti-cloak.

Robbing

RobFailureOdds

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 1

This parameter specifies the percent chance that robbing fails for a ship. When this happens, the robber will not rob anything.

RobCloakedShips	Values: Yes No
RobCloakedChance	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0

These parameters specify whether cloaked ships may be robbed and, if yes, at what chance. Unlike the RobFailureOdds, these options are applied to each robber/victim pair, so there's the possibility that some cloaked ships get robbed and some not.

Towing

See Tow Mission and Contested Tows for more information about towing.

This option specifies whether ships with just one engine can tow other ships (or resist being towed by another ship).

(v4.0i:) This option defines the initial assignment of the Tow ship function. You can adjust it afterwards by assignments in shiplist.txt.

TowedShipsBreakFree

Values: Yes No

This option controls how towed ships behave if the ship that is towing them runs out of fuel or is destroyed by a mine. With this option disabled, all movement for both tower and tow target stops once the tower either runs out of fuel or is destroyed by a mine hit. If this option is enabled, however, then the ship that was being towed will use the remaining amount of movement time to move towards its original waypoint at its current speed. That is, the towed ship breaks free of the tow and performs its own movement if the tower can no longer maintain the tow (due to lack of fuel or to having been blown up).

Note that if this option is enabled, and a ship that did not have a waypoint breaks free from the tow, the ship will attempt to get back to its original position.

TowedShipsCooperate

Values: Yes No Allies

This option controls whether towed ships cooperate with their tower or whether they try to escape.

• No. Ships do not cooperate. This is the default setting in PHost up to v4.0d.
• Yes (default). Ships belonging to the same player will cooperate. If you set your warp-3 freighter to tow your ten-engine warp-9 battleship, the tow would normally fail unless you reset the battleship to warp-0. With this setting, the tow will work, which is what most people seem to expect.
• Allies. Same as Yes, but ships who offered you ship level also cooperate.

See tow conflict resolution for details. This option does not affect whether the towed ship breaks free when the tower hits a mine or runs out of fuel.

AllowTowCloakedShips

Values: Yes No

This option controls the ability of ships to tow enemy ships while they are under cloak. With this option disabled, cloaked enemy ships cannot be towed (the tow mission will be cleared).

Note that a player's own cloaked ships can always be towed, and an ally's cloaked ships can be towed provided that the ally has enabled the Ship Level of alliance to the player performing the tow (i.e. you can always tow ships you see through your RST file).

AllowAlternativeTowing

Values: Yes No

This option chooses between two rule sets for resolving tow conflicts. With this option disabled, PHost behaves much like HOST. With alternative towing enabled, PHost uses a model based on tow strengths derived from engine tech, speed and fuel aboard the ships.

TowStrengthEngineScale	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 1
TowStrengthDistanceScale	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 19

These options affect tow strength computations for alternative towing. Increasing TowStrengthEngineScale puts focus on the ship's equipment, increasing TowStrengthDistanceScale focuses the distance it can move.

These parameters have default values of TowStrengthEngineScale = 1 and TowStrengthDistanceScale = 19, respectively, and we recommend you to use these (at least, if you're using the standard ship list). Note that in PHost versions before 3.4b, the defaults were hard-coded as 163 and 1 (which gave the ship's equipment a huge effect, making big ships almost un-towable even when they didn't move). When you switch from such a PHost version to 3.4b or higher in mid-game, you should probably set these values to 163 and 1 to not offend anyone.

AllowBoardingParties	Values: Yes No
AllowPrivateerTowCapture	Values: Yes No Default: same as AllowBoardingParties
AllowCrystalTowCapture	Values: Yes No Default: same as AllowBoardingParties

These options specify whether Privateers and Crystals are able to capture fuel-less enemy ships by locking a tow beam on them and boarding them ("tow capture").

When AllowBoardingParties is on, you can use the other two options to choose who may board enemy ships. When AllowBoardingParties is off, no-one can board ships.

(v4.0i:) The AllowXXXTowCapture options define the initial assignment of the Boarding ship function. You can adjust it afterwards by assignments in shiplist.txt.

Scanners

ScanRange

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 300

This parameter indicates the maximum distance from a player's planets and ships at which enemy ships are visible. This config option can be different for each player.

SensorRange

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 200

This parameter indicates the maximum distance from a player's ships at which Sensor Sweep (and Bioscan) find enemy planets. This config option can be different for each player.

DarkSenseRange

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: same as SensorRange

This option controls the distance at which Empire ships are able to perform their Dark Sense mission. All planets within this range from an Empire ship using the Dark Sense will be sensed, except for Rebel planets which cannot be sensed at all.

ExtendedSensorSweep

Values: Yes No

(v4.0:) When enabled, the Sensor Sweep mission will also scan for mine fields (like the Mine Sweep mission) and wormholes (like the WRS friendly code). This is the default behavior of PHost 4.x. If you turn this off, Sensor Sweep will behave the old way and only scan for planets.

MinesForDetectable	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 20
FactoriesForDetectable	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 15
DefenseForUndetectable	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 15

These options determine when a planet will be visible to enemy Sensor Sweep.

• Planets which have less than MinesForDetectable mines and less than FactoriesForDetectable factories will be safe and can't be seen.
• Planets which have DefenseForUndetectable defense posts or more will be safe and can't be seen.
• Planets which fit in neither of these categories will be visible. The probability depends on its number of defense posts, as described in the Sensor Sweep Formulas section.

DefenseToBlockBioscan

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 20

This option defines how many defense posts are needed to block enemy bioscanners.

Planets which have DefenseToBlockBioscan defense posts cannot be scanned by enemy bioscanners. The scanners will not yield a native life report for the respective planet. Owners of a bioscanner can use this report (or, the lack there-of) to conclude which planets are heavily-defended and which are weak.

Hiss

With this option enabled, the Lizard Hiss mission can be performed.

HissEffectRate

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 5

This parameter controls the amount of happiness increase effected by a single ship performing the Lizard Hiss mission.

This parameter controls the maximum number of ships that can perform the Hiss mission at any one planet. If more than the configured number of ships are hissing at one planet, the excess ships will have no effect upon the happiness levels of the colonists and natives. Together with the HissEffectRate config option, the maximum increase in happiness that can be effected via the Hiss mission is HissEffectRate*MaxShipsHissing.

Ship Special Functions

Most of the starship special functions can be separately turned on and off. You can also turn off a function by removing it from the ship, via shiplist.txt resp. hullfunc.txt.

With this option enabled, the Alchemy (Merlin) and Refinery (Neutronic Refinery Ship) functions will work.

When this option and AllowAlchemy are enabled, the Advanced Refinery function (Aries) will work.

AllowScienceMissions	Values: Yes No
DamageLevelForTerraformFail	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100

With this option enabled, the terraforming ships (default: Bohemian, Eros, and Onyx, and the ore condenser ship of newer ship lists) are able to perform their terraforming function.

Ships which have DamageLevelForTerraformFail damage or more can not use their terraforming function. The default value is 100, so they can terraform regardless how damaged they are.

TerraformRate

Values: 1 to 100 Default: 1

This option controls the rate at which science ships change a planet's temperature. This rate indicates the number of degrees of temperature change for every turn that a science ship is in orbit of a planet. For the ore condenser ship, this option specifies the increase of mineral density per turn.

This config option can be different for each player.

AllowHyperWarps	Values: Yes No
DamageLevelForHyperjumpFail	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100

If this option is enabled, ships can use their hyperdrive (default: PL21, B200, and Falcon).

Ships which have DamageLevelForHyperjumpFail damage or more can not jump. The default value is 100, so they can jump regardless how damaged they are.

With this option enabled, Glory Devices will work (default: Saber and D19b).

With this option enabled, Gambling ships (Lady Royale) will generate credit revenue from clans aboard the ship.

With this option enabled, the Super Star Destroyer can perform the Imperial Assault.

With this option enabled, the ships equipped with Bioscanners (the Cobol, Pawn, and Brynhild) are able to detect native life on planets.

This parameter indicates the number of KT of Neutronium generated for every light year traveled by ship with ram scoop (default: Cobol). To turn off that function, set this parameter to zero.

No fuel is generated by the ramscoop if the ship is being towed.

AllowChunneling	Values: Yes No
DamageLevelForChunnelFail	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100

These options control chunneling (Firecloud).

Ships which have DamageLevelForChunnelFail damage or more can not initiate or complete a chunnel. The default value is 100 which means every Firecloud works, no matter how damaged it is.

AllowAlliedChunneling

Values: Yes No

This option enables allies to chunnel to each other's ships without requiring both chunnelers to belong to the same player. It also allows allied ships to pass through the chunnel. Both players must be formal allies and must have the Ship Level of alliance enabled to each other.

With this option disabled, both chunneling ships must belong to the same player for a chunnel to take place, and foreign ships must be cloaked, fuelless or have a matching friendly code to pass through the chunnel.

MinimumChunnelDistance

Values: 0 to 5000 Default: 100

This specifies the minimum range of a chunnel. Fireclouds which are closer to each other than this setting may not chunnel. There is no upper limit.

By default, the minimum range is 100 ly; you may want to lower that setting in small universes.

Ships in Combat

AllowEngineShieldBonus	Values: Yes No
AllowESBonusAgainstPlanets	Values: Yes No
EngineShieldBonusRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0

When AllowEngineShieldBonus is enabled, ships receive a bonus when fighting other ships. With AllowESBonusAgainstPlanets, that bonus is also applied when the ship fights against a planet.

The bonus depends on the engine tech (engine price, actually). The EngineShieldBonusRate specifies the rate. At a value of 100%, a ship receives a mass bonus numerically equivalent to the monetary cost of one of its engines (i.e. 300kt for standard Transwarp drives). Lower values scale down the bonus proportionally.

With this option enabled, the Federation is awarded certain advantages in combat. Their ships are given an automatic hull mass bonus of 50 KT. Finally, their ship's shield levels are raised by 25 units from one battle to the next on the same turn.

In HOST, Federation ships are also given an extra 3 fighter bays in combat. In PHost 3 and later, this feature is controlled by the ExtraFighterBays config option.

(v4.0i:) This option also defines the initial assignment of the FullWeaponry ship function. When set, all Fed ships can always use all their weapons even when they're damaged.

AllowInterceptAttack

Values: Yes No

With this option enabled, ships that have a cloaking device and intercept another ship will attack that ship first, before the normal battle order. This is known as intercept attack (XA). See the Order of Battle page for more information.

FuelUsagePerFightFor100KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0
FuelUsagePerTurnFor100KT	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0

(v4.0f:) Ships need to burn fuel for operating. FuelUsagePerFightFor100KT defines the amount to burn after each fight, for a 100 kt ship. This fuel is burned immediately after the combat. If the ship does not have this amount, nothing bad happens during the fight, but the ship will, obviously, have no fuel left afterwards.

Fuel_burned_per_fight =
   Ceil(Hull_mass * FuelUsagePerFightFor100KT / 100)

Likewise, FuelUsagePerTurnFor100KT defines the amount to burn each turn, directly after movement.

Fuel_burned_per_turn =
   Ceil(Hull_mass * FuelUsagePerTurnFor100KT / 100)

Experience

The following parameters configure the Experience System of PHost.

NumExperienceLevels

Values: 0 to 10 Default: 0

This parameter specifies the number of experience levels available in addition to the basic level. At a setting of 4, a ship can advance a level four times.

The PHost sample configuration files come pre-configured with experience configuration for four experience levels, for the standard ship list and for the PList. In order to use crew experience, all you need to do is to set this to 4 in pconfig.src.

ExperienceLevels

Values: 0 to 10^6 Default: 750,1500,3000,6000

This parameter contains up to 10 values, depending upon the NumExperienceLevels parameter. The values should be ascending. A ship reaches level one when it has at least as many experience points than the first entry in this list. With the default settings, a ship reaches level one when it has 750 EPs.

In PHost 4.0e and below, the default value for this option was 1500,4000,10000,20000.

ExperienceLimit

Values: 0 to 10^6 Default: 1000000

This value defines the maximum number of experience points a unit can ever reach. After that point, further training or aging no longer has any effect. It should be set higher than the highest ExperienceLevels value.

ExperienceLevelNames

Values: up to 11 strings Default: Recruit, Soldier, Experienced, Elite, Ultra Elite

This determines the names of the experience levels. With four experience levels, you need five names here (basic level, level one, ..., level four).

This parameter is not used by PHost itself, but client programs like Planets Command Center use it to name your units.

ExactExperienceReports

Values: Yes No

When enabled, players receive the exact experience point scores for their ships and planets. By default, this is disabled.

When this option is enabled, the Training mission also generates a confirmation message stating the number of points gained. Experience from other sources (for example, aging, movement, alchemy) does never generate messages.

EPRecrewScaling

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 30

This parameter determines how crew experience changes when you add new crew to a ship.

At a setting of 100, a ship keeps its experience when you capture it and put your own crew on it. At a setting of 0, the captured ship receives the experience level of the captor.

EPShipAging	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 15
EPPlanetAging	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 25
EPShipMovement100LY	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 40
EPShipHyperjump	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 30
EPShipChunnel	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 30
EPShipAlchemy100KT	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 5
EPShipBuild1000TorpUnits	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 0
EPShipBuild10Fighters	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 0
EPShipIonStorm100MEV	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 80
EPPlanetGovernment	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 0
EPCombatKillScaling	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 800
EPCombatDamageScaling	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 200
EPCombatBoostLevel	Values: -100 to 100 Default: 0
EPCombatBoostRate	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 100
EPTrainingScale	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 70
EPAcademyScale	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 400

These parameters describe how ships get experience for doing certain things. The actual formulas are shown in the Gaining experience section.

EModBayRechargeRate	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 1,2,3,4
EModBayRechargeBonus	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModBeamRechargeRate	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModBeamRechargeBonus	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModTubeRechargeRate	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 1,2,3,8
EModBeamHitFighterCharge	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModTorpHitOdds	Values: -100 to 100 Default: 9,18,27,35
EModBeamHitOdds	Values: -100 to 100 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModBeamHitBonus	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModStrikesPerFighter	Values: -100 to 100 Default: 1,2,3,4
EModFighterBeamExplosive	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModFighterBeamKill	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModFighterMovementSpeed	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModMaxFightersLaunched	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModTorpHitBonus	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModTubeRechargeBonus	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModExtraFighterBays	Values: -100 to 100 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModEngineShieldBonusRate	Values: -100 to 100 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModShieldDamageScaling	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModShieldKillScaling	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModHullDamageScaling	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0,0,0,0
EModCrewKillScaling	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: -5,-10,-15,-20
EModPlanetaryTorpsPerTube	Values: -100 to 100 Default: 0,0,0,0

These parameters describe a ship's benefits in combat. When an experienced ship is involved in combat, its experience bonus is added to its battle parameters. The default values are suitable for standard combat with four experience levels.

For an experienced ship, PHost will add the value corresponding to its experience level (e.g. the second value for a level-2 ship) to the combat configuration option named the same as this option (i.e. TorpHitOdds for EModTorpHitOdds).

See Experience in Combat for details.

EModMineHitOddsBonus

Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 5,10,15,20

This parameter gives a bonus for experienced ships traveling through mine fields. The MineHitOdds (resp. WebMineHitOdds or MineHitOddsWhenCloakedX10) are reduced accordingly. For example, WebMineHitOdds=5 reduced by 20% is a hit rate of only 4% for level-4 ships.

Minefields

General

These options control whether players can lay mine fields (using the Lay Mines mission and its relatives), or web mines (Lay Web Mines), respectively.

When these options are both disabled, Mine Sweep and related missions will be disabled as well.

MineDecayRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 5
WebMineDecayRate	Values: 0 to 100 Default: same as MineDecayRate

These parameters indicates the percentage of mine units that disappear from a minefield on each turn due to natural decay processes. The MineDecayRate config option can be different for each player; the WebMineDecayRate applies to all web minefields.

MaximumMinefieldRadius	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 150
MaximumWebMinefieldRadius	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: same as MaximumMinefieldRadius

This parameter controls the maximum radius of any minefield at any time. When laying minefields, the number of torps converted to mines is limited so that the final size of the minefield does not exceed this limit. These options can be different for each player.

NumMinefields

Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 500

This option specifies the maximum number of minefields that can exist in the game. By default, there can be only 500 minefields. You can raise that limit up to a value of 10000. Players must enable access to high-ID minefields (ID > 500) using the bigminefields command of the PHost command processor; see also AllowMoreThan500Minefields.

Note that you can also set the limit lower than 500 if you wish.

For compatibility with older PHost versions, this option can also be named CPNumMinefields.

MaximumMinefieldsPerPlayer

Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 10000

This parameter can be used to limit the number of minefields each player is allowed to have. It is intended to prevent that players lay many ``junk'' minefields to fill up minefield slots and prevent their enemies from laying.

When a player reached his personal limit configured here, he'll not be able to lay mines any longer, even if there are still free mine slots. With the default value 10000, all players can lay as many minefields as they wish, because 10000 is the maximum global limit (see NumMinefields).

The current number of minefields and the limit will be reported to the players each turn by a message and a UTILx.DAT record.

Note that, even if a player has more minefields than allowed here, PHost will not delete the excess minefields. You might consider the mfq add-on program to do this.

If you lower this limit, consider setting AllowMinefieldIdentity to Allies or No.

AllowMinefieldIdentity	Values: Yes No Allies
MineIdNeedsPermission	Values: Yes No

The AllowMinefieldIdentity option configures whether players are allowed to lay minefields in other players' identity (e.g. using the Lay Minefield extended mission or the miX friendly code). It extends the older MineIdNeedsPermission option which is still accepted.

The MineIdNeedsPermission option is now redundant; we recommend using AllowMinefieldIdentity=Allies to achieve the same effect as MineIdNeedsPermission=No.

UnitsPerTorpRate	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 400 for Robots, 100 for others
UnitsPerWebRate	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: same as UnitsPerTorpRate

This array of parameters indicates the rate at which torpedoes are converted to space mines and vice versa. Each player has his own configurable rate. The base rate value is 100 meaning that one Tech 10 torpedo generates 100 mines. See the Detailed Operation page for the exact usage of this parameter in laying and scooping minefields.

(v3.4m/4.0k:) Whereas previous PHost versions used the same parameter for normal mine laying as well as web mines, you can now set different values.

AllowUniversalMinefieldFCode

Values: Yes No

When enabled, players can use the Universal Minefield Friendly Code to grant their allies immunity to their mines. Since this can also be achieved by a minefield-level alliance in a less fragile way, the Universal Minefield Friendly Code can be turned off now.

When this option is off, friendly codes starting with mf are no longer special. Attempting to use Super Spy to set a planet's friendly code to mfX will no longer automatically trigger the Ionic Pulse.

Movement through Mines

MineHitOdds	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 1
WebMineHitOdds	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 5

These parameters indicate the per-lightyear chance of a ship running on a mine. For each light year moved through a minefield, a dice is rolled. Moving through overlapping minefields increases the risk. These options can be different for each player.

MineHitOddsWhenCloakedX10

Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 5

This parameter represents the percentage chance (scaled by a factor of 10) that a cloaked ship will hit a mine for each light-year of travel through a minefield. The true percentage chance is the value of this parameter divided by 10 (e.g., MineHitOddsWhenCloakedX10 = 5 means that a cloaked ship has a 0.5% chance of hitting a mine per light-year). This config option can be different for each player.

Cloaking has no effect for web mines; the WebMineHitOdds are also applied when you cloak.

MineOddsWarpBonusX100	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 0
CloakMineOddsWarpBonusX100	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 0
WebMineOddsWarpBonusX100	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 0

These parameters can be used to modify the mine hit odds in favor of slow ships: people can move slower to reduce their risk.

When one of these parameters is nonzero, the corresponding "HitOdds" parameter only applies to ships moving at Warp 9. Slower ships get a bonus as specified here on the hit rate. For example, with

MineHitOdds = 5
MineOddsWarpBonusX100 = 50

a ship moving at Warp 9 has a 5% chance of hitting a mine, a ship moving at Warp 8 gets a bonus of 50/100 = 0.5 and thus has a hit chance of only 4.5%, warp 7 gets you twice that bonus, and so on. See Mine Hit Odds Formulas for details.

These options can be different for every player.

MineTravelSafeWarp	Values: 0 to 9 Default: 0
WebMineTravelSafeWarp	Values: 0 to 9 Default: same as MineTravelSafeWarp
CloakedMineTravelSafeWarp	Values: 0 to 9 Default: same as MineTravelSafeWarp

These parameters indicate the highest warp speed at which ships can travel through a minefield completely safe, without the chance of hitting a mine. The default value is 0 meaning that traveling through a minefield is never safe.

These options can be different for every player.

Ships that hit a mine must slow. This parameter selects the exact behavior.

MineHitDamageFor100KT	Values: 0 to 327 Default: 100
WebHitDamageFor100KT	Values: 0 to 327 Default: 10

These parameters indicate the amount of damage a ship takes when it runs on a mine. The actual damage amount is

Trunc(100 * MineHitDamageFor100KT / Hull_mass)

i.e. ships which weigh less than 100 kt get more damage, ships which weigh more get less damage. Reducing these parameters will make minefields do less damage.

WebHitFuelLoss

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 50

This parameter specifies how much fuel a ship loses when it hits a web mine.

Ships lose 1/6 of their fuel tank or WebHitFuelLoss, whichever is more; see Mine Hit Effect formulas.

WebDrainFuelLoss

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 25

Ships that start their turn inside a web mine field lose fuel. This parameter specifies how much. See WebDraining stage.

Mine Sweeping

MineScanRange

Values: 0 to 32767 Default: same as SensorRange

This parameter controls the distance at which a minefield becomes visible to a ship performing the Mine Sweep mission.

This config option can be different for each player.

AllowMinesDestroyMines	Values: Yes No
AllowMinesDestroyWebs	Values: Yes No
AlternativeMinesDestroyMines	Values: Yes No

When AllowMinesDestroyMines is enabled, two enemy minefields that overlap will destroy each other, mine-for-mine, until the minefields no longer overlap. The mines must have the same type (normal/normal or web/web).

AllowMinesDestroyWebs selects whether web mines interact with normal mines. It is generally left disabled because it devalues web mines a lot.

When AlternativeMinesDestroyMines is enabled, minefields explode immediately when they are laid. This is the behaviour of PHost 4.0a/3.4e and below. When this is disabled (default), all mines-destroy-mines happens in the MinesDestroyMines stage after all mine laying is done.

MineSweepRange	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 10
WebMineSweepRange	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 5

These parameters indicate the distance at which beam weapons are able to sweep minefields. These options can be different for each player.

These values should be smaller than the MineScanRange, because ships cannot sweep mines they don't see.

MineSweepRate	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 4
WebMineSweepRate	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 3

These parameters indicate the number of mines or web mines that a single type-1 beam weapon can sweep on one turn from one minefield. The actual amount swept grows quadratically with the beam type. These config options can be different for each player.

FighterSweepRange	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,100
FighterSweepRate	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,20
AllowColoniesSweepWebs	Values: Yes No

These parameters control the behavior of fighters in sweeping mines. This originally was a Colonial race ability.

• FighterSweepRange specifies the range in which fighters can destroy mines, like the MineSweepRange for beams. It should be smaller than MineScanRange, because ships cannot send fighters to sweep mines when they don't see the mines.
• FighterSweepRate specifies the number of mines every fighter can destroy each turn per minefield, like the MineSweepRate.
• With AllowColoniesSweepWebs enabled, Colonial fighters can also sweep web mines. Otherwise, they can only sweep normal mines. Other races' fighters cannot sweep webs.

To achieve the HOST behavior, set the FighterSweepRate to zero for everyone but the Colonies, that is,

FighterSweepRate = 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,20

Combat

The following options customize PHost's battle algorithm. Normally, a set of such parameters is associated with a ship list. If you're not an experienced host and ship list designer, you'll probably leave these parameters alone.

Because these parameters are specific to the ship list, they should probably go into the shiplist.txt file.

AllowAlternativeCombat

Values: Yes No

This option controls several behaviors in PHost combat. With this option OFF, PHost combat is very much like HOST combat in terms of damage to ship and crew (see Combat Formulas). For example, a fighter hit will always inflict at least 1% damage on an enemy ship, regardless of mass. With this option turned on, damage to shields, hull, and crew can be fractional e.g., 0.2%. Furthermore, the formulas used to compute damage are different.

Beams

BeamFiringRange	Values: 0 to 100000 Default: 20000
BeamHitShipCharge	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 600

These parameters indicate when beams can fire at enemy ships or planets. The distance must be BeamFiringRange or less, and the beam must be charged BeamHitShipCharge.

Note that the charge status directly affects the damage inflicted on the enemy, so beams that fire earlier also do less damage (at least with AllowAlternativeCombat on).

BeamHitFighterRange	Values: 0 to 100000 Default: 100000
BeamHitFighterCharge	Values: 0 to 1000 Default: 500

These parameters indicate when beams can fire at enemy fighters. The distance must be BeamHitFighterRange or less, and the beam must be charged BeamHitFighterCharge. Beams always destroy enemy fighters when they hit, no matter what type they have and how much they were charged.

BeamHitOdds	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 100
BeamHitBonus	Values: -4095 to 4095 Default: 0

These options specify the odds that a beam will hit its intended target. In HOST, beams never miss (i.e. BeamHitOdds=100), but in PHost they can.

The BeamHitBonus can be used to improve or reduce the hit rate of high-tech beams, see the Combat Formulas for details.

BeamRechargeRate	Values: 0 to 16384 Default: 8
BeamRechargeBonus	Values: -4095 to 4095 Default: 0

This parameter indicates the rate at which beams recharge. At every step in the battle, each beam is recharged by a random amount chosen uniformly between 0 and BeamRechargeRate. Once the charge level reaches BeamHitShipCharge (or BeamHitFighterCharge), it can fire at an enemy (or an enemy fighter).

The BeamRechargeBonus modifies the recharge rate depending on the beam type, see the Combat Formulas for details.

FireOnAttackFighters

Values: Yes No

This option controls how beam weapons are used to fire on enemy fighters. With this option off, a beam weapon will fire on the nearest fighter, no matter in what direction it moves (like HOST). With this option on, a beam weapon will first try to fire on the nearest attacking fighter (i.e., coming towards the defending ship). Only if there are no attacking fighters will a beam weapon fire on an enemy fighter that is returning to the enemy ship or planet (and is thus less harmful than an attacking fighter).

Fighters

ExtraFighterBays

Values: -20 to 20 Default: 3 for Feds, 0 for rest

This parameter indicates a number of bays to add to any ship in combat. This number of bays is added after all damage limiting is taken into account. The customary bonus for the Federation is 3 bays. (v3.0:) This is a new config option in PHost 3. For backwards compatibility with PHost 2.x, set this option to 0 for all players.

BayLaunchInterval

Values: 1 to 10000 Default: 3

This parameter is used to limit how often fighters can be launched. The bay launch interval is the minimum number of battle steps a ship must wait after a fighter launch before it can launch another fighter. This parameter can be used to tune the battle mechanics when changing movement speeds.

BayRechargeRate	Values: 0 to 16384 Default: 52
BayRechargeBonus	Values: -500 to 500 Default: 2

This parameter indicates the rate at which fighter bays recharge. A fighter bay can only launch a fighter when it is fully recharged. At every step in the battle, each fighter bay is recharged by a random amount chosen uniformly between 0 and BayRechargeRate. Once the charge level reaches 1000 or greater, the bay can launch a fighter.

The BayRechargeBonus modifies the recharge rate depending on the number of bays a ship has, see the Combat Formulas for details.

FighterBeamExplosive	Values: 1 to 1000 Default: 2
FighterBeamKill	Values: 1 to 1000 Default: 2

These parameters indicate the explosive and kill power of the beam weapons fired by fighters. These parameters are interpreted the same way as the corresponding parameters of a beam weapon in beamspec.dat.

FighterFiringRange

Values: 0 to 100000 Default: 3000

This parameter indicates the maximum distance at which a fighter can fire on an enemy ship or planet.

FighterKillOdds

Values: 0 to 50 Default: 20

This parameter indicates the percentage chance that a fighter will fire on and destroy an enemy fighter if both fighters are very near to each other in space. This parameter has no effect on fighters that are attacking the enemy ship or planet. These fighters always hit their mark.

FighterMovementSpeed

Values: 1 to 10000 Default: 235

This parameter indicates how many meters a fighter will move at each battle step. Also see the ShipMovementSpeed parameter.

MaxFightersLaunched

Values: 0 to 50 Default: 19

This parameter indicates the maximum number of fighters that a ship can have launched (either attacking or returning to the ship) at any one time. A value of 19 is compatible with the original HOST.

StrikesPerFighter

Values: 1 to 100 Default: 7

This parameter indicates the number of hits that a fighter can inflict on the enemy ship or planet before being required to return for refueling. All fighters get a fixed number of hits. Fighter strikes at enemy oncoming fighters do not count against this limit.

Torpedoes

TorpFiringRange

Values: 0 to 100000 Default: 30000

This parameter indicates the maximum ship-to-ship distance at which torpedo tubes can launch torpedoes. No torpedoes will be launched until the two combatants are within this range of each other.

TorpHitOdds	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 65
TorpHitBonus	Values: -4095 to 4095 Default: 0

These options specify the odds that a torpedo will hit its intended target.

The TorpHitBonus can be used to improve or reduce the hit rate of high-tech torpedoes, see the Combat Formulas for details.

TubeRechargeRate	Values: 0 to 16384 Default: 45
TubeRechargeBonus	Values: -4095 to 4095 Default: 0

This parameter indicates the rate at which torpedo tubes recharge. At every step in the battle, each tube is recharged by a random amount chosen uniformly between 0 and TubeRechargeRate. Once the charge level reaches 1000, the tube can fire another torpedo.

The TubeRechargeBonus modifies the recharge rate depending on the torpedo type, see the Combat Formulas for details.

PlanetsHaveTubes	Values: Yes No
PlanetaryTorpsPerTube	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 3
UseBaseTorpsInCombat	Values: Yes No

When PlanetsHaveTubes option is enabled, then planets and starbases can fire torpedoes in combat, along with the usual fighters and beams. This option was meant to give planets a small boost in defensive capability since they are normally quite weak.

When PlanetsHaveTubes option is enabled, the other two options determine how many torpedoes a planet/base combination has in combat.

• PlanetaryTorpsPerTube specifies the number of free torpedoes a planet receives for each torpedo tube it has. The number of torpedo tubes depends on the planetary defense posts. For example, with PlanetaryTorpsPerTube = 3, a planet with four torpedo tubes will be able to fire 12 torpedoes. This factor can be modified by experience (EModPlanetaryTorpsPerTube).
• If UseBaseTorpsInCombat is enabled, the planet will use torpedoes from starbase storage (if available) before using the free torpedoes. This option is new in 4.1c, and is hardwired to Yes in all previous versions.

See also: Starting parameters for planets in combat.

Miscellaneous

CrewKillScaling	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 80
HullDamageScaling	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 80
ShieldDamageScaling	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 80
ShieldKillScaling	Values: 0 to 32767 Default: 0

These parameters modify the formulas used to compute the crew killed and damage taken by a weapon hit. A higher value means the unit takes more damage. When a ship is hit by enemy fire, the ship's Scaling parameters are consulted, not those of the enemy. Thus, you make ships stronger by lowering these values (so that ships take less damage).

The exact formulas are documented on the Combat Formulas page.

ShipMovementSpeed

Values: 1 to 10000 Default: 75

This parameter indicates how many meters a ship moves at each battle step. This parameter makes sense in relation to other speed related parameters (FighterMovementSpeed, StandoffDistance, etc.).

StandoffDistance

Values: 3000 to 60000 Default: 3000

This parameter indicates the distance in meters at which the two battle participants will stop moving towards each other. The combatants will remain separated by this standoff distance for the remainder of the battle.

Wormholes

AllowWormholes

Values: Yes No

This option controls the use of wormholes in the game. If this option is enabled, then PHost will look for a file named wormhole.txt in the game directory and use the wormhole descriptions contained there (see the Wormholes page for more details). If this file is not found, a warning is generated. If this option is disabled, then no wormhole activity takes place.

WormholeUFOsStartAt

Values: 1 to 801 Default: 51

This config option is used to set the range of UFO numbers reserved by PHost for the reporting of wormholes. From this start value ranging up to the next 200 values, PHost will write out Ufos that represent wormhole scans (to Winplan players only, of course). Any existing Ufos from other programs in this range will not be seen!

For example, with WormholeUFOsStartAt set to 300, then UFO numbers in the range 300 through 499 will be reserved for PHost's wormholes. Any UFO maintained by an add-on program whose UFO number is in this range will not be seen.

WrmDisplacement	Values: 0 to 2000 Default: 1
WrmRandDisplacement	Values: 0 to 2000 Default: 0

These options control how fast wormholes move each turn. The formulas are documented on the Wormhole formulas page.

WrmStabilityAddX10	Values: -1000 to 1000 Default: 0
WrmRandStability	Values: 0 to 100 Default: 0

These parameters specify how much to add to the stability factor of a wormhole each turn. The formulas are documented on the Wormhole formulas page.

WrmMassAdd	Values: -10000 to 10000 Default: 0
WrmRandMass	Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 0

These parameters specify how much to add to the mass of a wormhole each turn. The formulas are documented on the Wormhole formulas page.

WrmVoluntaryTravel

Values: Yes No

When this option is enabled, only ships that want to travel through a wormhole (by using the WRT friendly code) actually travel.

When this option is disabled, all ships that come near to a wormhole entry are forced through the wormhole.

WrmTravelDistDivisor	Values: 1 to 32767 Default: 100
WrmTravelWarpSpeed	Values: 0 to 9 Default: 9

These parameters control the amount of fuel used to travel through a wormhole. Essentially, ships burn the same amount they would use for traveling 1/WrmTravelDistDivisor times the wormhole distance at WrmTravelWarpSpeed.

With WrmTravelWarpSpeed set to zero, ships don't use fuel for wormhole travel.

WrmTravelCloaked

Values: Yes No

This option controls the ability of cloaked ships to remain cloaked while traveling through wormholes. If this option is enabled, then cloaked ships may remain cloaked after wormhole travel. With this option disabled, a cloaked ship will automatically uncloak after travel through a wormhole.

WrmEntryPowerX100

Values: 0 to 100 Default: 25

This parameter controls the size of a wormhole's entry area. The larger this parameter is the bigger a wormhole's radius of entry becomes. See the Wormhole formulas page for the relation between this parameter and the wormhole entry radius.

WrmScanRange

Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 100

Ships which scan for wormholes will see all wormholes within this range. Outside that range, the old probabilistic scan model is still applied.

Ships with the ScansAllWormholes function internally double that range.

Putting it all together, this gives you the following options:

• WrmScanRange=0: old probabilistic model. For each wormhole, a dice is rolled; of the found wormholes, the closest one is reported.
• WrmScanRange=100 (something in the magnitude of SensorRange): wormholes behave similar to normal objects. Exceptionally strong wormholes can also be seen at larger distances due to the probabilistic scan model. This is the default.
• WrmScanRange=10000: every ship that scans will see all wormholes in the universe. Use this if you want to make wormhole positions public, like planet positions are public.

Ion Storms

Sets the approximate number of ion storms that are active in the Echo Cluster at a time. Set it to zero to effectively deactivate ion storms.

If there are fewer ion storms than defined here, PHost will create some new ones (and possibly exceed the limit for a few turns); if there are more storms, the weakest one will die.

New v4.1a: If you set this value to zero in mid-game, PHost will remove all ion storms. In previous versions, they would have died one after the other.

When enabled, minefields inside of ion storms cannot be seen normally. See Ion Storm Effects.

These options define the maximum radius and voltage of an ion storm. They can be used to limit the effects of ion storms to less than the default effect.

These options have no direct effect on the ion storm formulas, but they just limit the results. For example, in a universe with 500 ships, new ion storms will still have a voltage of at most about 100 MeV, no matter whether MaximumIonStormVoltage is set to 200 or 1000.

Unimplemented / Obsolete settings

The following options are not implemented in this PHost version. Some are accepted in pconfig.src for compatibility with the Wisseman host, some are not.

When disabled, players that miss their turn will have their old messages re-sent. PHost does not implement that feature and behaves as if this option is on (i.e. old messages are deleted). Instead of just re-sending old messages, it is much better to keep all the old RSTs, anyway.

RaceTaxRate

Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 200 for Feds, 100 for rest

This option was superseded by ColonistTaxRate and NativeTaxRate. The old name is still accepted and does the same as ColonistTaxRate.

These options are superseded by the FighterSweepRate and FighterSweepRange options.

These options are superseded by the AllowBuildFighters option. Note that RobotsBuildFighters affected all players that have a PlayerRace or 9, likewise the other two options. In contrast, AllowBuildFighters is indexed by player.

This option was disfunctional since at least PHost 3.3, and nobody noticed, so it is now declared obsolete. It used to decide whether the Bird Men are allowed to perform their Deluxe Super Spy mission (friendly code changing). You can achieve the same effect as disabling this option by disabling the DeluxeSuperSpy stage of host processing.

CPEnableMessage

Values: Yes No

This option controlled access to the message command processor command. The ability to send messages is now solely determined by AllowPlayerMessages.

CPEnableBigTargets

Values: Yes No

This option controlled access to the bigtargets command processor command. This command is now always enabled.

CPEnableRumor

Values: Yes No

This option is now named AllowAnonymousMessages. The old name is still accepted.

CPNumMinefields

Values: 0 to 10000 Default: 500

This option is now named NumMinefields. The old name is still accepted.

In prior PHost version, this option controlled whether players received subspace messages when their planets where hit by meteorites or large meteors. Because util.dat records were always sent, it makes no sense to disable this.

This option is superseded by the NewNativesPerTurn config option. AllowNewNatives=No corresponds to setting NewNativesRaceRate to zero, AllowNewNatives=Yes corresponds to a value of one.

This HOST option was never implemented in PHost. As far as we know, this option does two things in HOST when enabled:

• It weakens the Intercept cheat check to allow for allied intercepts even without an appropriate alliance. PHost requires you to set up an appropriate alliance before permitting allied intercepts. It will tell you which ships you can intercept (those you see through your RST/UTIL.DAT, that is).
• It permits large ship/ship and ship/foreign-planet cargo transfers (i.e. the sum of cargo aboard the ship and on transit can exceed the cargo room size). DOS Planets and older Winplan versions do not permit that, VPA and PCC do. PHost (and older HOSTs) behaves as if the option is on all the time as far as cargo transfers are concerned; the PHost group believes this rule interpretation is more useful than the other one.

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Alphabetical Index

A

AllowAdvancedRefinery (Ships)
AllowAlchemy (Ships)
AllowAlliedChunneling (Ships)
AllowAlternativeCombat (Combat)
AllowAlternativeTowing (Ships)
AllowAnonymousMessages (Overall Options)
AllowAntiCloakShips (Ships)
AllowBeamUpClans (Ships)
AllowBeamUpMultiple (Ships)
AllowBioscanners (Ships)
AllowBoardingParties (Ships)
AllowBuildFighters (Ships)
AllowChunneling (Ships)
AllowCloakFailMessages (Ships)
AllowCloakedShipsAttack (Ships)
AllowColoniesSweepWebs (Minefields)
AllowCrystalTowCapture (Ships)
AllowDeluxeSuperSpy (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
AllowESBonusAgainstPlanets (Ships)
AllowEatingSupplies (Planets)
AllowEngineShieldBonus (Ships)
AllowExtendedMissions (Ships)
AllowFedCombatBonus (Ships)
AllowGamblingShips (Ships)
AllowGloryDevice (Ships)
AllowGravityWells (Ships)
AllowHiss (Ships)
AllowHyperWarps (Ships)
AllowHyperjumpGravWells (Ships)
AllowImperialAssault (Ships)
AllowIncompatibleConfiguration (Overall Options)
AllowInterceptAttack (Ships)
AllowMeteorMessages (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
AllowMinefieldIdentity (Minefields)
AllowMinefields (Minefields)
AllowMinesDestroyMines (Minefields)
AllowMinesDestroyWebs (Minefields)
AllowMoreThan500Minefields (Overall Options)
AllowMoreThan50Targets (Overall Options)
AllowNewNatives (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
AllowNoFuelMovement (Ships)
AllowOneEngineTowing (Ships)
AllowPlanetAttacks (Planets)
AllowPlayerMessages (Overall Options)
AllowPriorityBuild (Ships)
AllowPrivateerTowCapture (Ships)
AllowRGAOnUnowned (Ships)
AllowRebelGroundAttack (Ships)
AllowRegisteredFunctions (Overall Options)
AllowScienceMissions (Ships)
AllowShipCloning (Ships)
AllowShipNames (Overall Options)
AllowSuperRefit (Ships)
AllowTowCloakedShips (Ships)
AllowUniversalMinefieldFCode (Minefields)
AllowVPAFeatures (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
AllowWebMines (Minefields)
AllowWormholes (Wormholes)
AllowWraparoundMap (Overall Options)
AlternativeAntiCloak (Ships)
AlternativeMinesDestroyMines (Minefields)
AntiCloakImmunity (Ships)

B

BaseFighterCost (Planets)
BaseTechCost (Planets)
BayLaunchInterval (Combat)
BayRechargeBonus (Combat)
BayRechargeRate (Combat)
BeamFiringRange (Combat)
BeamHitBonus (Combat)
BeamHitFighterCharge (Combat)
BeamHitFighterRange (Combat)
BeamHitOdds (Combat)
BeamHitShipCharge (Combat)
BeamRechargeBonus (Combat)
BeamRechargeRate (Combat)
BorgAssimilationRate (Planets)
BuildChangeRelativePenalty (Ships)
BuildPointReport (Ships)
BuildQueue (Ships)

C

CPEnableAllies (Overall Options)
CPEnableBigTargets (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
CPEnableEnemies (Overall Options)
CPEnableGive (Overall Options)
CPEnableLanguage (Overall Options)
CPEnableMessage (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
CPEnableRaceName (Overall Options)
CPEnableRefit (Overall Options)
CPEnableRemote (Overall Options)
CPEnableRumor (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
CPEnableSend (Overall Options)
CPEnableShow (Overall Options)
CPNumMinefields (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
ClimateDeathRate (Planets)
ClimateLimitsPopulation (Planets)
CloakFailureRate (Ships)
CloakFuelBurn (Ships)
CloakMineOddsWarpBonusX100 (Minefields)
CloakedMineTravelSafeWarp (Minefields)
ColonialFighterSweepRange (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
ColonialFighterSweepRate (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
ColoniesBuildFighters (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
ColonistCombatCaptureRate (Planets)
ColonistCombatSurvivalRate (Planets)
ColonistTaxRate (Planets)
ConfigLevel (Overall Options)
CrewKillScaling (Combat)
CrystalSinTempBehavior (Planets)
CrystalsPreferDeserts (Planets)
CumulativePillaging (Ships)

D

DamageLevelForAntiCloakFail (Ships)
DamageLevelForChunnelFail (Ships)
DamageLevelForCloakFail (Ships)
DamageLevelForHyperjumpFail (Ships)
DamageLevelForTerraformFail (Ships)
DarkSenseRange (Ships)
DefenseForUndetectable (Ships)
DefenseToBlockBioscan (Ships)
DelayAllianceCommands (Overall Options)
DeleteOldMessages (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
DisablePasswords (Overall Options)

E

EModBayRechargeBonus (Experience)
EModBayRechargeRate (Experience)
EModBeamHitBonus (Experience)
EModBeamHitFighterCharge (Experience)
EModBeamHitOdds (Experience)
EModBeamRechargeBonus (Experience)
EModBeamRechargeRate (Experience)
EModCrewKillScaling (Experience)
EModEngineShieldBonusRate (Experience)
EModExtraFighterBays (Experience)
EModFighterBeamExplosive (Experience)
EModFighterBeamKill (Experience)
EModFighterMovementSpeed (Experience)
EModHullDamageScaling (Experience)
EModMaxFightersLaunched (Experience)
EModMineHitOddsBonus (Experience)
EModPlanetaryTorpsPerTube (Experience)
EModShieldDamageScaling (Experience)
EModShieldKillScaling (Experience)
EModStrikesPerFighter (Experience)
EModTorpHitBonus (Experience)
EModTorpHitOdds (Experience)
EModTubeRechargeBonus (Experience)
EModTubeRechargeRate (Experience)
EPAcademyScale (Experience)
EPCombatBoostLevel (Experience)
EPCombatBoostRate (Experience)
EPCombatDamageScaling (Experience)
EPCombatKillScaling (Experience)
EPPlanetAging (Experience)
EPPlanetGovernment (Experience)
EPRecrewScaling (Experience)
EPShipAging (Experience)
EPShipAlchemy100KT (Experience)
EPShipBuild1000TorpUnits (Experience)
EPShipBuild10Fighters (Experience)
EPShipChunnel (Experience)
EPShipHyperjump (Experience)
EPShipIonStorm100MEV (Experience)
EPShipMovement100LY (Experience)
EPTrainingScale (Experience)
EngineShieldBonusRate (Ships)
ExactExperienceReports (Experience)
ExperienceLevelNames (Experience)
ExperienceLevels (Experience)
ExperienceLimit (Experience)
ExtMissionsStartAt (Ships)
ExtendedSensorSweep (Ships)
ExtraFighterBays (Combat)

F

FactoriesForDetectable (Ships)
FighterBeamExplosive (Combat)
FighterBeamKill (Combat)
FighterFiringRange (Combat)
FighterKillOdds (Combat)
FighterMovementSpeed (Combat)
FighterSweepRange (Minefields)
FighterSweepRate (Minefields)
FilterPlayerMessages (Overall Options)
FireOnAttackFighters (Combat)
FreeFighterCost (Planets)
FreeFighters (Planets)
FuelUsagePerFightFor100KT (Ships)
FuelUsagePerTurnFor100KT (Ships)

G

GameName (Overall Options)
GravityWellRange (Ships)
GroundDefenseFactor (Planets)
GroundKillFactor (Planets)

H

HissEffectRate (Ships)
HullDamageScaling (Combat)
HullTechNotSlowedByMines (Minefields)

I

IonStormActivity (Ion Storms)
IonStormsHideMines (Ion Storms)

L

Language (Overall Options)
LargeMeteorOreRanges (Overall Options)
LargeMeteorsImpacting (Overall Options)

M

MapTruehullByPlayerRace (Overall Options)
MaxColTempSlope (Planets)
MaxFightersLaunched (Combat)
MaxPlanetaryIncome (Planets)
MaxShipsHissing (Ships)
MaximumDefenseOnBase (Planets)
MaximumFightersOnBase (Planets)
MaximumIonStormRadius (Ion Storms)
MaximumIonStormVoltage (Ion Storms)
MaximumMinefieldRadius (Minefields)
MaximumMinefieldsPerPlayer (Minefields)
MaximumWebMinefieldRadius (Minefields)
MeteorShowerOdds (Overall Options)
MeteorShowerOreRanges (Overall Options)
MineDecayRate (Minefields)
MineHitDamageFor100KT (Minefields)
MineHitOdds (Minefields)
MineHitOddsWhenCloakedX10 (Minefields)
MineIdNeedsPermission (Minefields)
MineOddsWarpBonusX100 (Minefields)
MineScanRange (Minefields)
MineSweepRange (Minefields)
MineSweepRate (Minefields)
MineTravelSafeWarp (Minefields)
MinesForDetectable (Ships)
MinimumChunnelDistance (Ships)
MinimumHappiness (Planets)

N

NativeClimateDeathRate (Planets)
NativeCombatSurvivalRate (Planets)
NativeTaxRate (Planets)
NewNativesGovernmentRate (Planets)
NewNativesPerTurn (Planets)
NewNativesPopulationRange (Planets)
NewNativesRaceRate (Planets)
NumExperienceLevels (Experience)
NumMinefields (Minefields)
NumShips (Overall Options)

P

PALAggressorKillPointsPer10KT (Ships)
PALAggressorPointsPer10KT (Ships)
PALBoardingPartyPer10Crew (Ships)
PALCombatAggressor (Ships)
PALCombatBaseScaling (Ships)
PALCombatPlanetScaling (Ships)
PALDecayPerTurn (Ships)
PALGloryDamagePer10KT (Ships)
PALGloryDevice (Ships)
PALGloryDevicePer10KT (Ships)
PALGloryKillPer10KT (Ships)
PALGroundAttackPer100Clans (Ships)
PALImperialAssault (Ships)
PALIncludesESB (Ships)
PALOpponentKillPointsPer10KT (Ships)
PALOpponentPointsPer10KT (Ships)
PALPillage (Ships)
PALPlayerRate (Ships)
PALRGA (Ships)
PALRecyclingPer10KT (Ships)
PALShipCapturePer10Crew (Ships)
PALShipMinekillPer10KT (Ships)
PBPCloneCostRate (Ships)
PBPCostPer100KT (Ships)
PBPMinimumCost (Ships)
PlanetaryTorpsPerTube (Combat)
PlanetsAttackKlingons (Planets)
PlanetsAttackRebels (Planets)
PlanetsHaveTubes (Combat)
PlayerRace (Overall Options)
PlayerSpecialMission (Overall Options)
ProductionRate (Planets)

R

RGANeedsBeams (Ships)
RaceGrowthRate (Planets)
RaceMiningRate (Planets)
RaceTaxRate (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
RamScoopFuelPerLY (Ships)
RandomMeteorRate (Overall Options)
RebelsBuildFighters (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
RecycleRate (Ships)
RobCloakedChance (Ships)
RobCloakedShips (Ships)
RobFailureOdds (Ships)
RobotsBuildFighters (Unimplemented / Obsolete settings)
RoundGravityWells (Ships)

S

SBQBoostExpX100 (Ships)
SBQBuildChangePenalty (Ships)
SBQBuildPALBoost (Ships)
SBQNewBuildPALBoost (Ships)
SBQPointsForAging (Ships)
ScanRange (Ships)
ScoringMethod (Overall Options)
SensorRange (Ships)
ShieldDamageScaling (Combat)
ShieldKillScaling (Combat)
ShipCloneCostRate (Ships)
ShipFighterCost (Ships)
ShipMovementSpeed (Combat)
SpyDetectionChance (Ships)
StandoffDistance (Combat)
StarbaseCost (Planets)
StrikesPerFighter (Combat)
StructureDecayOnUnowned (Planets)
StructureDecayPerTurn (Planets)

T

TerraformRate (Ships)
TonsScoreCountsPlanets (Overall Options)
TorpFiringRange (Combat)
TorpHitBonus (Combat)
TorpHitOdds (Combat)
TowStrengthDistanceScale (Ships)
TowStrengthEngineScale (Ships)
TowedShipsBreakFree (Ships)
TowedShipsCooperate (Ships)
TransuraniumDecayRate (Planets)
TubeRechargeBonus (Combat)
TubeRechargeRate (Combat)

U

UnitsPerTorpRate (Minefields)
UnitsPerWebRate (Minefields)
UseAccurateFuelModel (Ships)
UseBaseTorpsInCombat (Combat)

W

WebDrainFuelLoss (Minefields)
WebHitDamageFor100KT (Minefields)
WebHitFuelLoss (Minefields)
WebMineDecayRate (Minefields)
WebMineHitOdds (Minefields)
WebMineOddsWarpBonusX100 (Minefields)
WebMineSweepRange (Minefields)
WebMineSweepRate (Minefields)
WebMineTravelSafeWarp (Minefields)
WormholeUFOsStartAt (Wormholes)
WraparoundRectangle (Overall Options)
WrmDisplacement (Wormholes)
WrmEntryPowerX100 (Wormholes)
WrmMassAdd (Wormholes)
WrmRandDisplacement (Wormholes)
WrmRandMass (Wormholes)
WrmRandStability (Wormholes)
WrmScanRange (Wormholes)
WrmStabilityAddX10 (Wormholes)
WrmTravelCloaked (Wormholes)
WrmTravelDistDivisor (Wormholes)
WrmTravelWarpSpeed (Wormholes)
WrmVoluntaryTravel (Wormholes)

Last updated 31 May 2015.