(ONLY PHOST!)

PLIST 3.2             for PHost v4.1 or higher

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• INTRODUCTION
• WHAT IS THE PLIST?
• DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PLIST VERSIONS
• PLIST 3 SPECIFICATION
• WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE LITE & HEAVY VERSION?
• PLIST 3 COMBAT SIMULATION TABLE
• HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE PLIST
• FURTHER REQUIREMENTS/RECOMMENDATIONS
• PLIST UPDATE CHRONOLOGY
• LINKS
• PLIST GUIDES
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to PLIST, the alternative shiplist for the common PBEM game VGA Planets 3.x. 

PLIST has been developed to replace Tim's standard shiplist and is intended to use all advantages of the Portable Host (PHost).
It is recommended to use PHost 3.x for PLIST 2 and PHost 4.1 and higher for PLIST 3.

Recent version is PLIST 3.2.

WHAT IS THE PLIST?

PLIST is an alternative shiplist for PHost games using an alternative combat setting system. PLIST is designed for players, who are experienced and bored / unsatisfied by playing Tim's original standard shiplist. Main PLIST characteristics are very expensive and powerful battle ships, e.g. Death Star Carrier carrying up to 20 main weapons. PLIST attempts to be well balanced and not to offer  useless ship types. Names of the hulls and equipment were taken from various SciFi series and literature. Objective of the PLIST developers was to create an excellent shiplist for pretentious players. Therefore, PLIST is often described as expert shiplist.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PLIST VERSIONS

There are currently three PLIST versions available (PLIST 1, PLIST 2 and PLIST 3).

The original PLIST (PLIST1) has been crafted by Carsten Pinnow, Thomas Voigt, Steffen Pietsch, and Matt Mueller. The original PLIST had some minor undesirable features and a slightly unbalanced shiplist/combat configuration which mainly due to the continuously development of PHost. That's why Vagabund decided to revise the PLIST in a second version (PLIST 2). Hereby the PLIST 1 settings, equipment, and shiphulls were assessed and adjusted regarding to costs, value for the race and combat battle power. New hull designs and hull functions were added over the years following the progression of PHost. Also an experience system has been introduced, pconfig.src settings were added, modified, and arrayzed; game rules have been changed. The recent PLIST 3 takes all these advancements into account. For PLIST 3 newbies it is recommended to read the PHost 4.1 chapters crew experience, hull functions, and pconfig.src settings before starting a game.

Generally, PLIST 3 bases on PLIST 2. We tried our best to keep the basic character of preceding versions: same races and similar race specific shiplists, ship designs, equipment types, and pconfig.src settings. Surely, due to many new PHost 4 features PLIST 3 became much more complex and sophisticated. Playability without a PHost4 supporting client, like VPA, PCC and Echoview, is a challenge.

PLIST 3.2 updates PLIST 3.1. New PLIST 3.2 characteristics are:
Based on the experiences of few games and many excellent suggestions of active PLIST 3.1 players multiple hulls and hull functions were adjusted as
+ Hull functions for freighters in higher levels
+ Sharp-cut delimitation of Constitution and Excelsior
+ Slight re-adjustment of Gorn, e.g. Cobra was too expensive for the intended use
+ Alignment of several ship hull functions
+ Minimal Orion protection for the Borg (8 engines for Eraser and Exterminator)
+ Re-design of Dimetrodon, Topaz, Sapphire and Katana

PLIST 3.1 updates PLIST 3.0. New PLIST 3.1 features are:
+ [Bug] Some clients do not support hull picture numbers > 151
+ New hullfuncs were added (HardenedCloak, Commander, IonShield, AdvancedAntiCloak)
+ Federation's Special Feature: At Level 1 crew is experienced enough to equip all ships with an IonShield
+ New engine type (Transshield Generator) provides high EngineShieldBonus at low tech level
+ Adjusted beam (Desintegrator) and tube (Fusion Bomb) type with high recharge rate at low tech level
+ Based on the experiences of several games and an intensive discussion during PHost convent 2006 races were re-balanced slightly

PLIST 3.0 details:
+ New hullfuncs (Un-/cloneable, AntiCloakImmunity, HardenedEngines, Full Weaponary, Level2Tow, Academy, OreCondenser, RepairShip)
+ Split hullfuncs (WarpChunnel Self, WarpChunnel Others, WarpChunnel Target, Planet Immunity, Imperial Assault)
+ Experiences system for planets and ships (planets and ships can reach several experience levels which result in improved combat abilities)
+ Ships gain additional hullfuncs at higher experience levels
+ Race-specific combat setting modification (each race has specific combat settings, e.g. the Romulan is a good torpedo race, but weak fighter race)
+ Death ray weapons (these weapons ignore shields, cause no hull damage and kill crew directly)
+ Training missions controlled by crew sizes
+ Several new or revised pconfig.src settings (main differences are described in the PLIST 3 documents)
+ Orion's Special Feature: At Level 4 ORION crew is experienced enough to equip armed ships having one or two engines with gravitonic accelerators.
   (Excluded are ships with a cloaking device and two engines (Dreadful with one engine) or in general ships with a glory device)

Due to the complexity of PLIST 3 we added some FAQs.

PLIST 3 SPECIFICATION

For the specification of the shiplist PLIST 3.2 standard see the tables engines, beams, tubes & torps, hulls and custom hull functions.

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE LITE & >>HEAVY<< VERSION?

The PLIST 3 LITE is the low cost version of  PLIST 3, whereas all features of the standard PLIST 3 are kept.

If you never played a PLIST game before or if you are still learning playing VGA Planets the LITE version is probably the best of choice for you.

LITE version characteristics

Hulls: Mineral and MC costs *1/2
Engines: Mineral costs *1/2; MC costs *2/3
Beams: MC costs *1/2, mineral costs *2/3
Tubes: MC costs *1/2, mineral costs *2/3
Torps: about *2/3

-lite- version specification

For details see the tables PLIST 3.2 -lite- engines, beams, tubes & torps and hulls.

HEAVY version characteristics

Hulls, carriers: Mineral costs *2.2, MC costs *2.5
Remaining hulls: Mineral and MC costs *2.0
Engines: Mineral costs *2.0; MC costs *2.0
Beams: Mineral and MC costs *2.0
Tubes: Mineral and MC costs *2.0; Torps: *1.5

HEAVY version specification

For details see the tables PLIST 3.2 HEAVY engines, beams, tubes & torps and hulls.

The PLIST 3.2 HEAVY is the high cost version of PLIST 3.2 - hardly to guess. ;-) We tried our best to keep strengths balanced between races.

Why that tough HEAVY version? Well, some guys asked for it. Please use the HEAVY version only,  if your players are experienced and successful in playing VGA planets. Otherwise most of them will be victims and not opponents. Could be frustrating. :-)

PLIST 3 COMBAT SIMULATION TABLE

ONE to ONE Ship Combat PLIST 3.2 table: 11combat.html

Sequence of decreasing battle strength:
Exterminator/Death Star...
Eraser...
Dragon...
Atlantia, B11 WOQ'A, Godzilla (150%), Nova (+50kt)...
Mon Calamari, SuperClassStar, D'Deridex...
Godzilla (100%), Eliminator, DiamondFlame, Galaxy...
Carillion, Basilisk_CS, Hydra ...
a.s.o.

If you are using the Experience system of PHost 4, please find the recommended settings at PLIST 3.2 experience

HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE PLIST

Download

Installation: Possibility ONE. PLIST is your preferred shiplist

Copy the main VGAP directory to somewhere else and rename it as backup. Now clear up the plan1 directory and dedicate it for PLIST games. Therefore overwrite all old *.dat-files with the PLIST dat files (beamspec.dat, engspec.dat, hullfunc.dat and shiplist.txt, hullspec.dat, torpspec.dat, truehull.dat). In all VPWORK sub directories PLIST is now the 'standard' shiplist.

Installation: Possibility TWO. Playing only few PLIST games

Copy all PLIST *.dat files (see above) and into the preferred VPWORKx-subdirectory (x meaning the number of the gameslot, e.g. VPWORK1). The PLIST shiplist with all its features will be available for this specific VPWORKx game.

If you copy additionally ship.exe (and rename it into e.g. ship1.exe) and the bmp subdirectory to this directory, you can view the new shiplist by starting ship1.exe.

If you don't like to use the custom hull functions features, do not copy the shiplist.txt and hullfunc.dat into your subdirectory.

FURTHER REQUIREMENTS/RECOMMENDATIONS

AMASTER.SRC

PLIST 3 is designed for normal rare universes. You can find an optimized AMaster source configuration file in the PLIST 3 distribution.

PCONFIG.SRC (for PHost v4.1 or higher)

pconfig.html - The recommended pconfig.src of PLIST 3. Hosts, please read it!

Many pconfig.src parameters are PLIST specific, for example combat setting, experience, alternative cloaking or alternative tow.
Do not changed them!

ADD-ONS

A recommended add-on for PLIST is Explore Map. An example configuration file was added to the PLIST 3 distribution.

PLIST UPDATE CHRONOLOGY

LINKS

PLIST GUIDES

• Basic strategies by Degi and Heiko, translated by Maurit van Rees (Thanks!)
• How to play with BigGuys by Thomas Voigt
• PLIST 3.2 FAQs

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

PLIST has been designed originally by Carsten Pinnow, Thomas Voigt, Steffen Pietsch, and Matt Mueller. 1997 PLIST was handed over to Matthias Degenhardt (Degi) and Peter Scholz and has been continuously developed over the years.

Thanks to
- to Bartek, Patrick, Ingo, Tilman, Holger and Stefan for ideas and discussion on PLIST 3.2 
- the guys joining PHost convent 2006 in Landau for the very intensive discussion with special thanks to Ingo, Holger, and Johannes! (PLIST 3.1)
- Stefan Reuther for developing PHost, peng, PCC and VPA in parallel to the PLIST shiplist
- Heiko Schlenker for technical support and discussions
- Patrick de Groot, Przemek Filek, Matthias Jacobi, and Sascha Rambeaud for the critical review of PLIST 3.0
- Thomas Klebes for setting up a graphic-replacement for PLIST 3.1
- Many thanks to all those who submitted suggestions for enhancing or improving or participated in playing and testing PLIST over the years.

For any questions concerning the PLIST please email to the_vagabund@gmx.de. We are always interested in new ideas and suggestions.