Welcome to the homepage of Oliver Korn. This page deals with the famous play-by-email starship game

                 VGA-Planets

and is meant for beginners up to professionals, especially, but not only,  for PHOST players. You should, however, be already familiar with the installation of the game, which is not too easy. If you're absolutely new to the matter, go to: The Original Planets Page by Tim Wisseman, where you can order shareware and registered versions of the game (it's cheap! and worth it!) or have a look at: THE PHOST HOMEPAGE

 

 ^{Last updated 28.02.2001: special tips
(new: chapter 304)}

^{I do not have the slightest idea if you find this page useful! Or what I should change. Please send me a short mail saying "good" or "false info" or "unreadable design". Here's my address:} Oliver

VGAP Strategy Tips

Sorry, this page is still under construction! But do not hesitate to go on reading. And please forgive me - this page could have a better layout, I know... But I find the contents more important than a perfect layout. If you have problems with reading the text, please tell me!

The following represent just my personal estimations. They might just be correct for PHost and somewhat different for Host. But most of the information given should work for both, in general.
I will try to give some hints that you don't find in other documents, leaving out some of the basic stuff which you probably already read somewhere else.
Note: Do not think that the infos given below are complete in any way! I just try to give some additional thoughts to the stuff you find somewhere else. And please do not tell me that some information is wrong for Timhost, I am talking of PHost most of the time. I tried to note that several times below.

Beginners: read the first chapters
Professionals: read the last chapters
 

CONTENTS

(100) Strategy
(101) Startup
(110) Planets and Economy
(120) Starbases
(130) Ships
(150) General strategy

(200) Special tips for the races

(300) Very specialized tips (to be continued)
Themes so far: (301) Homeworld Distances (302) Colonization (302) Extended Missions (303) Bioscanners (304) Mine Sweeping (305) Chunneling (306) Cloning (307) Taking over Probes (308) Cloaking Fuel (309) Trace Cloakers (and Hyps) via interception (310) Money from Glory Device (311) Webs and Gravity Wells (312) Imperial Assault Ships

(350) Suggestions for configurations

(500) Alternative Shiplists
(510) Discussion
(520) PList

Feedback
 
 

Something completely different:  <- Klick here or link directly to: Kuhlmann Historic Games

VGAP Strategical Tips

(5) What is VGA-Planets?
For a helpful  VGA-Planets FAQ visit the site of Roger Burton West.

(10) Short characterization of races (normal ship list/PList)

NB: This is a ranking for the normal game. PList games are quite different,the races are much more on par than in the normal game.
NB2: I strongly recommend to register. It is only some 20 bucks and it really pays off.

Generally speaking, firstly cloaker races (2..4) are easier to play, because your greenhorn-faux pas will stay unseen, i.e. they're good for beginners (but will only survive when always attacking). The Robots are quite easily played, too (and do fine in defense!). Once you found ot how to build fighters for free, as a newbie you might be better off with a fighter race (8...11).

In Shareware, the Privs are very strong. The other torp-races (1..7) are weak.
Races like Borg, Crystals, Empire are "slow" races, they take some time to build up aggressive potential. Privateers are very fast, i.e. you quickly arrive anywhere and have to decide what to do now all the time. Their robbing feature is very complicated at first. The Crystal needs an economically good player. To play the Borg, you need to invest additional calculating time to play properly.
Torp races (1,2,4,5,6 and esp. 3,7) depend more on money, fighter races (9,10, 11 and esp. 8) more depend on ores. That's why fighter races need more logistics. The races with hyperdrive ships (6,8,10 - especially 10 in PList2!) need more time due to the necessity (and fun) to always calculate hyperjumps. But with utils like Echoview and VPA this has become quite easy.
If you're short in playing time, choose races 1,2,3,9.

Back to Table of contents
 
 

(50) Games to play in - which addons?

You might play in a TKF-game (The Killing Floor), where several ships fight simultaneously, though the game is very different. Just because you cannot foresee battle outcome. Masses of ships will win over smaller amounts. In the normal game ships fight one after the other. Sounds a bit stupid, but this way you can invest more tactical calculation and might have more chances even as a poor player.

There is no need to play in a Host-999-game. Its only difference is that you have to work with twice the amount of ships, which is just twice as much work and not necessarily more fun.

By now (December '99), I would not play in a VGAP 4 game. There is only a beta version yet and still a lack of many things.

As a summary, playing without any addons with only the naked host program and reasonable settings can be easiest and most fun.
 

(80) VGAP interface programs:

Crystal Ball:
 Good Windows-Graphics. Echo is better. Setup complicated. Only viewing.

DOS-Planets:
 The must. But not very easy to use. Little stupid.

Echo View 1.2.16:
 The best! Easy Windows-installing. Good animation, very stable, very helpful. Write messages; Randmax interface; other features "only" viewing. Can predict minefield changes for the next turn!
Echo View Homepage

Galactic Tracker:
 Nice try, too buggy. Only viewing.

Informer:
 Good old graphical DOS-program. Neat history-tracking.

VPA 3.51e:
 The optimum. An alternative for DOS. Echo is easier and more nice-looking, but in VPA you can change waypoints and values and do some minefield and tax calculation (very important!). Needs some time to get used to. Undo-functions. Does everything Planets.Exe can - and more!
Disadvantage: Only DOS. Fulfills register-checking and eventually deleting of your registration, if it can't find Planet.Exe. Be sure to check if you're registered after starting VPA! However, the best all-round utility!
Some bugs: VPA tries to tell the relevant (planet-ID-) friendly codes of any minefield. These are eventually wrong!
Careful! When you change missions via keys, be sure not to switch to COLONIZE instead of CLOAK!!! Very dangerous, I lost my best ship...

VPUtil:
 Neat DOS-Utility! No graphics, only numbers. Extremely helpful for calculations. Initiate and take back taxes, buildings and buildorders, calculate ores and money for the next turns, incl. incoming > ships. Undo. Watch ores of ship-waypoints etc. Pity, but won't get improved anymore. But still works nicely, esp. together with EchoView (window-swapping).

WinPlan:
 Some helpful new features. Better than DOS-Plan, but slower. No good overview, not the fastest. Little bit confusing, like DOS-Plan.
You may have problems with alternative lists here. I do not like this fuzzy program at all. And hardly ever ever use it. One can do anything better with VPA, if you ask me.
The Original Planets Page by Tim Wisseman
 
 
 

(85) Utilities:

QBoost:
 for use by the host; having reached the 500-ship-limit, it will allow weak players to build more ships than stronger players (configurable). IMHO a very nice thing to keep active but unlucky players in the game and therfore keep the game going.
you find it here
 

Back to Table of contents >

(90) Hosts:

Master programs:
Master2: OK.
PMaster: Good. Text file-driven detailed universe building. Comes in the PUTILS-package. See PHost-page.
HSMaster: very good start options!

(95) Good Planets texts:

Back to Table of contents

(100) Strategy

(101) Startup

Set the base engine tech to the highest possible (Warp7..9), then the hull to tech 6. Good engines are hurting expensive, but on good ships you'll be glad of them every coming turn, so build them! Build 1..3 Large Freighters with Warp9, put 1100 clans, a few MCs and 100 Supplies on them and go for the _best_ planets in the vicinity. They're more worth on planets with natives than on your
homeworld. With bioscanner ships (Pawn, Bohemian, Cobol), you find the good natives more easily, so build some of them early if you can.

NEVER use the mission "colonize"!

Head to the best planets you scouted with your first ships. But be careful sending them too far from your home without escorting. Check if there are other planets in about 350 ly distance of your freighter waypoints, esp. when your neighbours are "Hypers". They might hyperjump from there directly to your waypoint and catch your valuable Large DSF with a Probe with just one Laser.
So try to develop 13 defenses on often used routes and set these planets to ATT or NUK so that they will shoot down probes before those can catch your freighters (in PHost, ATT has a battle order value of -1. In TimHost, Ships fight first, but the planet will then catch both). You might even take one probe over, which is even better. From defense 15 on, your planet will be immune to sensor sweeps, as well.
Don't build fighters on your base too soon! If you are a fighter race, you might eventually build some on your ships. But unless you are really frightened of your neighbour attacking you, save the money for building ships.

Read the special section at the end of the document about the distance to other races.
 

(110) Planets and Economy

Bad to medium planets: beam down only 1, 13, 19, 25, 31, 37 or 43 colonists on planets that don't fit the above. Why these numbers? Because these are the effective steps in upgrading defense posts.

Medium planets (e. g. good temp. and ores, but no natives): put 37, 43, 93 (for 57 defense posts), 100 (most effective for mines and factories) or 161 cols (61 def. posts) on them. More than 100 won't pay off because above 100 you cannot build 1 factory per clan anymore. Give them a few supplies and about 50 MCs to catalyze economy.
On a nativeless planet with much ore, put 200 cols for 200 mines. Above that, you wouldn't get one mine per clan.

Good planets: beam down large amounts of colonists (100..1500), a couple of supplies, and eventually some money, if natives are weak. Otherwise _they_ will give you the cash. Set the col-tax to 9 % (Cyborgs: 11%) and the native tax to 1..9%. Don't believe  what Planets says here. PlanTabl or VPA will tell you the best value. From Gov.= Tribal to Unity you should be able to accordingly tax about 5% to 9%, Avians about 5% more. Money is mostly more important than ore, so hunt for the money-planets and settle on them! Best natives for this goal are 1.Bovinoids, 2.Insectoids, 3.Avian, 4.any kind of natives with representative ore higher governments. Of course, there should be more than five million to make worth large colonist settlements. Maximum is normally 15 Mio. While you've got only a few cols there and are waiting for more, tax them with few percents so that they grow in the meantime. Bovs will give you 1 supply per 10.000 natives per turn IF you have one clan there per supply, so invest all effort to send in enough cols when you find Bovs!

Build only factories first. If there is enough money, build one defense post against freighters, then 13 which is enough against hyperdrive-probes. If planet ATT is allowed, the planet can shelter your freighters against probes.
To beat ships with four or more beams or even torps, the least defense is 25, better 43. But once the enemy ships get stronger, planet defenses aren't effective enough and only your ships or starbases will save you.

Don't be too much afraid of losing some planets. You can't defend them all with ships and on their own they are too weak. Let him take some border planets, you should be safe enough if you can have a few defending ships there in a couple of turns. It might be even more clever to just ignore him and instead attack HIS good planets; many people would hectically retreat to defend them!
(Which can be a mistake.) If you followed rule 1 "have as many planets as possible" you can easily lose some.

But if you own _good_ planets at the border either leave them with few colonists or (perhaps later) settle large amounts of cols there - and build a stuffed starbase on top of it (with at least 35 Fi).

For desert and ice planets, normally races can have the following amount of clans at specific temperatures (PHost):
 
 
 

Desert		Ice
Clans surviving	Degrees	Clans surviving	Degrees
1	100	3	0
11	99	13	1
21	98	23	2
31	97	33	3
41	96	43	4
51	95	53	5
61	94	63	6
71	93	73	7
81	92	83	8
91	91	93	9
...	...	...	...
141	86	133	13
151	85	143	14
100000	84	100000	15

(NB. For TimHost, these values are completely different!)
For every 2 supplies you have there, 5 clans more can survive (and eat the supplies). (Depending on the config)

NB. some races can have more clans (Crystals many more in desert, Klingons and Robots 60 cols in deserts, Rebels 200 cols on ice)

Here is an interesting table of the colonists and defense posts relationship.

Back to Table of contents

(120) Starbases

(130) Ships

Best freighter: Large (if you're poor, take Mediums)
Best capital ships with cargo are cruisers: Nebula, Lizard Cruiser, Fearless, Skyfire, Painmaker, Lady Royale (with gambling option), Firecloud, Ruby, Cat's Paw, Deep Space Scout, Tranquility, Sagittarius, Gemini (Empire and Fascists don't really have good cargo ships).
Remember that frigates and destroyers don't have much cargo and are only effective for fighting, not for economy. So you don't really have to build them in the first turns.

If your neighbours can cloak, lay mine fields around your good planets and at those on the routes from them to you. This way you do not have to worry about your unescorted freighters there, as well. Use some 30 Mark4s or 10 Mark7s for smaller mine fields, but they could take the risk to get through healthy. Better take more, or high-tech torps. Especially against Privateers! Mines are expensive, but are often worth the cost. Don't lay mines outside your territory as long as you don't want to paralyze the enemy to instantly attack there. Don't lay normal mines when the Colonial is your enemy.
 

(133) Hyperdrive Probes

(135) Merlin Alchemy Ship

(150) General strategy

(recommended literature: Macchiavelli "The Prince")

Ally with your one neighbour, hit the other one. Keep the friendship for a long time so that you can really trust each other. But always keep an eye on your ally. Break alliances only if you really win the hell of an advantage, never for a quick cash.
The best ally is the one on the other side of your enemy. Living in the middle will be hard for the latter. Even if your ally betrays you, he won't be able to surprisingly harm you because of the distance.

If possible, hit weak players (actually, I tend to ally with weak players, but that's another story...) and spare no ship. Once you attack another race, you will never be able to trust him again, so stay away from alliances with him, even if he pretends to forgive you. And: it's better to kick weak players out quickly than to let them suffer with only a few ships and planets lost. In addition, people tend to act chaotically when they've nothing to lose anymore, like giving all ships and planets to your enemy, which a real realm leader would never do. So take them out before that.

Good alliances:
    Liz   - Borg
    Rebel - Empire
    Robot - Privateer
    Feds  - fighter races

Good allies: Fighter races (if you are none)
             Cloaker races (if you are none)
             Crystals

Good victims for: Robots: Liz, Privateers
    Crystals: Cloakers
    Lizard: Empire, Privs
    Empire: Feds
    Privs : Every non-Cloaker except Robots and Crystals (mines!)
     Feds can afford more minefields but have good equipped prize-ships. Beware of Lokis

If you get attacked, it might be intelligent just to attack him yourself, without caring too much about your losses. People tend to draw their ships back to defend theirselves, so you might get him out without fighting his (possibly big) ships with yours!
Vice versa, don't panicly go back if someone (counter)attacks you. Just think of that case _before_ you attack! Leave some minelaying ships at home, they could stop enemies without good sweeping beams (Disruptors or higher).

Don't throw many smaller ships against few big ones, or the ship-limit will defeat you. Let them weaken themselves against your planets and bases. Try to build border-bases only for the purpose to hurt his attacking ships.

It might be good to send a small torp ship first before you take part in an evenly matched battle between heavy ships in the same turn. If you hit him only once, he will decisively fight slightly slower in the main battle.

Try to be always stronger in every place, i.e. have one tube or bay more then he (beams are often less important). That's why Robots and Cyborgs are weak without Fighters: their Cruisers only have two tubes. Three are much better, four are best. Few ships have more. One bay more is even more effective.

Always calculate fuel! Fuel logistic is almost as important as having good ships in the right place. Do never expect to find fuel on conquered planets, because good players will not leave fuel on endangered planets.
Try to remove it from your front planets as well. Your enemy will move much slower, at least with big ships. Steal or destroy his fuel carriers and other small ships with large fuel capacity, and your opponent will have a hard time.
 

(200) Special Tips For The Races

(300) Very specialized tips (to be continued)

(350) Suggestions for configurations

• Hosts: take PHost. Take PList. See The Official PList2 Page .
• If you want to stick to the normal shiplist, look at The Advanced TimList .
• Players: use VPA.
• if you are new, do not play in games with any addons like Starbase+, FHost, AHost, Nemesis etc. Simple reason is: the game is very good already without them! Their use means more work, not necessarily more fun.
• leave the defaults untouched! They are balanced, more than you can imagine! Often lesser experienced hosts alter values that much later turn out better than they thought. It is very hard to estimate every aspect beforehand. Even changing the free fighters from 0 to 1 or the mining/taxing rates to 110%   is a _major_ change in the game!
• The Empire should get 10 fighters per turn.
• allow the Privateer Boarding parties/Tow capturing only for lesser experienced players.
• the Imperial Assault is very dangerous. Don't give it to good players - or make the homeworld distances > 500 ly..
• the Cumulative Pillaging is too strong. Leave it. But the Fascists are too weak if they don't have some other advantage, e.g. a Ground attack of 15. In PList they are stronger.
• The Colonies' mine sweep ability makes them very strong! I suggest a Fighter SweepRange of not more than 50 and a FighterSweepRate of 15, at least in PHost. This leaves them strong enough. (NB. There ARE some slight differences in Host and PHost-normal combat. One disadvantage is that e.g. a much cheaper Virgo fights nearly as well as a Gorbie. Better play PHost AND PList)
• RamScoops only for 1 N per ly.
• use PHost AlternativeTowing. The formula of Towing Strength is = EngineID * EngNumber * Warp * (gravi*163) + WaypointDistance (... where gravi is 2 with gravitonic accelarators, otherwise 1.) With this advanced formula, a 6-engine battleship with Enerpsi (ID6) or higher Drives is safe against being towed out by a 2-engine cloaker with Bistromatics (ID9).

Cheap cloakers can no longer tow out big, juicy freighters.

(360) PHost Configurations

• better don't allow PHost alliances. Right, they simplify allied playing, but the game could become boring quickly because pacts never change, the former ally would immediately notice if his partner switched off the alliance. In addition, everyone knows too much of everyone. Believe me. Especially if players know each other, they will soon start to kick out single players.
• No Planetary Tubes! Otherwise no-one will attack.
• Alternative Towing is much more realistic. Otherwhise, a 2-Engine Cloaker can tow out a 6-engine battleship which is disgusting.
• Alternative AntiCloaking: every race using a Decloaker will only decloak foreign ships
• NativeCombatSurvivalRate should not be less than 90%, otherwise good planets lose their value if they change ownership several times
• Have a look at The Vagabund Site and The PBP-Settings and Hints For Hosts.

(370) PList Configurations

• No Planetary Tubes! Otherwise you have a static game and no-one will attack.
• Alternative Towing is a must.
• Alternative Cloaking is much better for PList.
• Have a look at  The Vagabund Site

(400) PHost

Interested Hosts can grab additinal information from Hints For Hosts.

I strongly recommend switching PlanetsHaveTubes off. Otherwise you get no dynamic, but a static game. Who would sacrifice one battleship for every medium enemy base?
One nasty feature of PHost (I don't know if Host does it as well) is that the friendly codes DO NOT CHANGE after:

• a ship has been taken over in combat!
• a planet has been taken over by ground attack or Imperial Assault!

(500) Alternative Shiplists

• HULLSPEC.DAT,
• TORPSPEC.DAT,
• BEAMSPEC.DAT,
• ENGSPEC.DAT,
• TRUEHULL.DAT

(510) Discussion

(520) PList

• V 1.0 http://www.nefo.med.uni-muenchen.de/~phost/phost3.html
• V 2.2 http://phost.de/~vagabond/ ..(there is a new version 2.3 currently tested from September 2000 on; for participation in PList games, contact  Degi  from the PLIst2-team)

In PList, there is a cheap lower class, but medium and battle ships are MUCH more expensive. So people can strive for better ships for a much longer time in the game. In addition, you can have up to 20 Beams/Bays/Tubes!
Technology is more important. Lesser Torps and Beams need longer to reload and hit less often. This makes the game more challenging. There are more (stronger) medium ships and the battle results are not clear beforehand as is often the case in the normal game.
Ships are more thought of; Lokis and cloakers are more expensive a.s.o. One of the few faults I can see so far is that the Draklor Imperial-Assault ship is quite strong so that the Empire might kick other races out very early, if the starting points are too close to another. Though I recommend 10 free fighters for the Empire in normal game, here I would suggest only 8. The Rebel Battleship is too weak (improved in PList 2.2).
Laying mines is about twice as expensive; with the beam numbers up to 20 they will be swept quicker, as well.
As a PList newbie, don't play Lizards or Klingons here, play the Feds, Robots, The Empire or the Birds.

Here's an important table of the new beams and torps  !
Note that wheras e.g. in PList 1 the best torps cost 80 MC, in PList 2 they only cost 60 MC.

Don't build expensive hulls with low-tech weapons, here. Better build small ships with very good weapons if you are short in resources, for the good weapons will pay for themselves quickly. E.g., you end up with less costs when you use AntimatterBombs because they are more cost-effective than cheaper torps.

...
[to be continued]

____________________
NB: when I speak of cols/colonists or natives, I always mean clans!

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