Cream of the Crop 11

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Text File | 1995-12-20 | 42KB | 1,107 lines

note: unfortunately winword isn't able to convert the DOC format into a similar looking ASCII file. I suggest that you prefer reading the printed winword manuals until this problem has been fixed. Fortress Host v1.13 Documentation (c) 1995 Michael Raith, All rights reserved Table of Contents 1 WHAT IS FHOST? 3 2 INSTALLING FHOST 3 3 THE FEATURES 5 3.1 AFM Advanced Fighter Missions 5 3.1.1 Fighter to Ship Attack - FAx 5 3.1.2 Fighter to Planet Attack - FBx 5 3.1.3 Fighter Patrol - FPx 5 3.1.4 Fighter Gather Resources - FGx, FGy 6 3.1.5 Fighter Transfer Mission - FTx, FTR 6 3.2 ATM Advanced Torpedo Missions 6 3.2.1 Ship Targets - TAx 7 3.2.2 Stationary Targets - TBx 7 3.3 Stargates 7 3.3.1 Build a Stargate - BSG 7 3.3.2 Completing a Stargate - Cid 7 3.3.3 Repairing a Stargate - RSG 8 3.3.4 Attacking a Stargate - ASG 8 3.3.5 Travelling through Stargates - Jid 8 3.3.6 The Stargate Report 8 3.4 Core Mineral Reformation Device 9 3.4.1 Building a CMRD - BCT 9 3.4.2 Using CMRD - FCT 9 3.5 Helionuclear Fusion Interrupt Device 9 3.5.1 Building a Sunbuster - BSB 10 3.5.2 Using a Sunbuster - FSB 10 3.6 Additional Features 10 3.6.1 Fuel Ramscoops 10 3.6.2 Plasma Sunscoops - SSC 10 3.6.3 Maintenance Ships - MTN 10 3.6.4 Automated Fighter Construction - AFC, lfm 11 3.6.5 Automated Torpedo construction - ATC, mkt 11 3.6.6 Ship giveaway orders - GSr, EXC 11 3.6.7 Deathstar Destruction Beam - KPL, KSP 11 3.6.8 Self Destruction - BUM 12 3.6.9 Tholian free Torpedos 12 3.7 Supernova 12 4 FHCONFIG 13 5 FHUTIL 13 6 A WORD ABOUT SHAREWARE 14 7 REFERENCE CARD 15 8 CREDITS 16 9 HOW TO REACH THE AUTHOR 16 10 GETTING FHOST UPDATES 17 11 LEGAL STUFF - WARRANTY 17 1 What is FHost? FHost is a shortening for Fortress Host. The name derives part from the node I am running, part from the series of scifi stories I am writing that is all linked together. Its idea came into existence about February 1995 when some of my players asked me, whether it was possible to implement something like 'Stargates' or some additional missions for the fighters stationed on carriers... FHost is an add-on host for VGA Planets. It uses the host-files to introduce new features into planets gameplay. FHost does not replace the original host.exe, it's just an enhancement. 2 Installing FHost Installation by itself is simple: Just copy the EXE file into your planets directory. FHost.exe is a 32bit protected mode program and needs DOS4GW.EXE v1.97 or higher. This release includes a copy of DOS4GW if you already have DOS4GW somewhere in your path then there is no need to keep this additional copy. FHost2.exe is an OS/2 32bit executable and does not need an extender. FHostNT.exe is a 32bit character mode executable for WindowsNT, Windows95 and Windows32s. As FHost, host.exe and maybe other programs have to run in a certain order, you might already have created a batchfile doing the hosting job. If not, then now it is the time to create one. FHost does no turnfile processing on its own. This is for security reasons. If you want to have your TRN's checked and included in the game universe (I strongly recommend so), then you might want to use one of the TRN checking and processing programs available on the internet. Personally I use VPHost as a turn processor for FHost. If you don't have a copy yet then get yourself one. The features of VPHost are really worth it... (You may download it from ftp:ftp.fu- berlin.de in directory /pc/msdos/games/vgaplanets/util/host) Modify your batchfile so that it looks like this: (assuming %1 to be the game directory) vphostx bp -pt -w%1 fhost %1 vphostx bp -pb -w%1 host.exe %1 vphostx bp -pa -w%1 vphostx bp -pr -w%1 If you use another tool, then insert its name at the appropriate position. From now on, FHost will work in your planets campaign. If no config file is found, it will use internal defaults. If you don't want to use the features of VPHost, I still recommend to use it as a kind of turn processor for FHost. In this case run the programs in following order: vphostx bp -pt -w%1 fhost %1 host.exe %1 Although FHost will run without the help of VPHost or any other turn processor I strongly disrecommend that. If you use it in such a way, FHost will seem to process all it's orders one turn later than they were originally given, but if you like it that way... At the moment the following files are used by FHost: fhconfig.hst sgate.hst cmrdata.hst sunbst.hst sundata.hst These files store the additional data on ship status and the solar systems belonging to the planets. Additional remark: FHost will also run with PHost instead of host.exe. Using the example batch from line 116 you just need to replace host.exe by phost.exe. No need to use the multi-phase-system of phost. Jens Hofbauer contributed some text about how to have FHost work together with PHost and/or VPHost smoothly. With PHost v2.8 and higher you needn't to bother around with that anymore. Under PHost >v2.8 your Batches look that simple: phost -1 fhost phost -2 phost -3 Using Phost earlier than v2.8 is not recommended, because it doesn't support phases or the Fhost messaging system. 3 The Features 3.1 AFM Advanced Fighter Missions AFM refer to fighters stationed on carriers. If enabled, all races may set special friendly codes, indicating the mission and number of fighters to send. Get the carrier to a complete stop and put the waypoint on the target. The parameter x may be replaced by a(ll), h(alf), q(arters) or numbers 1 to 0 (1->10%,2->20%,0->100%) indicating the percentage of fighters to send to this mission. Note: a, h or q may also be specified uppercased. Keep in mind, that the more fighters you send to a mission, the more effective they are, but the less fighters remain to defend your ship in case of emergency. The pilots of each race may have different skills. This will reflect in all combats fighters are envolved in. A better skill helps your pilots to score more kills and to survive longer than others. If, unfortunately, a carrier is too badly damaged to land on, or has been destroyed, while its fighters were on a mission, the returning fighters will search for an emergency landing place within their fuel reserve range (1/3 of their standard range) and try to land there. The pilots will first try to find a carrier, then a starbase and at last they will land on a planet's surface, convert into colonists and decomission their fighters. You may configure, that fighters flying through space use neutronium, too. The amount you configure is kilotons per 100 fighters per 100 lightyears. When your carrier is low on fuel, it will adjust the number of fighters for this mission and reserve 1 kiloton neutronium to keep defenses up. 3.1.1 Fighter to Ship Attack - FAx With the friendly code FAx you may send a squadron of fighters to an enemy spaceship. They will attack the largest enemy ship at that position and return to your carrier. A special switch decides, whether the Privateer's ships on a rob ship mission are immune against this kind of attack or not. In this case the privateer ship escapes the incoming fighter squadron by activating its cloaking mechanism. 3.1.2 Fighter to Planet Attack - FBx Friendly code FBx indicates a bombing mission. Your fighters proceed to the targeted planet and start a bombing run. They will also attack a starbase if they find one. 3.1.3 Fighter Patrol - FPx Ordering your fighters on a patrol by using FPx, they will patrol around the area you marked with your waypoint. The size of the patrolled area depends on the number of active fighters but is in the best case half the maximum fighter range. Patrolling fighters will have multiple effects on enemy forces. Depending on your primary enemy settings, battleships may be forced to slow down if they don't want to be detected by your fighters. Maybe one of their carrier's combat space patrol engages your squadrons. If your fighters detect a fighter squadron of your primary enemy in their patrol area or they see an enemy squadron headed for one of your ships or planets, they will move to intercept the bandits. Do not expect all of your fighters to engage in a skirmish of that kind. Usually your fighters split up into flight groups of ten to sweep the entire area. If they encounter a primary enemy ship, the flight group will call for other flight groups to join in. Because of their task, fighters on patrol have a combat advantage over other machines that are on a bombing run. If your machines down a serious percentage of enemy fighters, the enemy will not be able to break through, thus protecting valuable planets and/or ships. Patrolling fighters also will give you a brief report of planets in their range and to whom they belong to. 3.1.4 Fighter Gather Resources - FGx, FGy This mission is for Colonies only, because they used to have all their pilots trained for this difficult mission. FGx allows a fighter carrier to send a squadron of fighters to the target planet, pointed at with the waypoint. A second carrier with the friendly code set to FGy, where y now indicates a certain resource: n(eutronium), t(ritanium), d(uranium), m(olybenum), s(upplies), $(Megacredits). Fighters will fetch the requested resource and return to their starting point, landing at carrier 2 and deploying all the stuff. After they are done, they will return to their own carrier. One fighter carries one kiloton of minerals/supplies or 100MC. Be careful: Although this mission could be misused to steal resources from enemy planets, their defenses will surely not stay and watch your machines take off with their minerals! 3.1.5 Fighter Transfer Mission - FTx, FTR Using the command FTx on a carrier with the waypoint set on another carrier, will send the ordered amount of fighters to the other carrier. If there is more than one carrier at the target location, please tell your pilots where to land by using friendly code FTR (fighter transfer receive) on the designated carrier. This command may be useful to get reinforcements to the front fast. 3.2 ATM Advanced Torpedo Missions Fighters have become more versatile - so do torpedos. Equipped with passive warp coils, a simple energy source and a targetting computer, dull torpedos turn into self-guiding cruise missiles. Like in advanced fighter missions, the x in the command give the percentage of tubes used for this mission. On a ship with 8 tubes, TA9 will fire 7 tubes. The hit chance for a torpedo launch is determined by several factors: One of the most important is the target ship's scanner silhouette. This means that a bulky slow ship is a better target for a torpedo than a small swift scout. Targetting computers will give you the silhouette value of each hull design within the range from 0 to 2. A value of 1 means, this ship is a 'standard' target. The second value is torpedo techlevel. The better the torpedo's targetting computers, the better the hit chances. The third value is the distance to your target ship. Chances will decrease as distance increases. In FHConfig you may adjust the influence of each of this values on the hit chance as a percentage. 3.2.1 Ship Targets - TAx Your battleship will launch torpedos at an enemy ship if you set friendly code to TAx and put your waypoint on the target. Your cruise missiles will then look for a primary enemies ship of the biggest size. 3.2.2 Stationary Targets - TBx Despite the changed friendly code TB for (Torpedo Bomb) the only change is that you have to select a planet with your waypoint. Your warship will then fire your torpedos aimed at an enemy starbase. 3.3 Stargates After achieving a sophisticated knowledge of warpspace engineering and subspace travel, your race might be able to build stargates - huge timespace-distorting machines, being able to push a ship through space in fractions of seconds. 3.3.1 Build a Stargate - BSG If you have enough of every resource to build a stargate, you might order your planet to construct a primary hull of a stargate by using friendly code BSG. If all went ok, your gate will be build and have an id number assigned. The gate will be shown on the stargate report. Note: FHost will convert supplies into MC if you are lacking funds. 3.3.2 Completing a Stargate - Cid As in FHost, a primary hull of a stargate is not functional on its own. You have to build a second raw stargate at another position and finetune them on each other. This process is called secondary installation or stargate completion. To complete a stargate, use friendly code Cid on the target planet, where id indicates the id number of the already existing gate to link to. If the command can be executed, first the primary hull will be build on the planet, and then the tuning and second installation will take place. Second installation will also require resources, depending on how far the two gates are away from each other. The costs for secondary installation are deducted from each planet's surface. From now on, the two gates are linked together and ready to travel through. It is possible to allow another race the completion of your unfinished gate. Just give your partner the stargate id and set the friendly code on your gate planet to BSr, where r indicates the partner race (1-9ab). Note: Also here, FHost will sell supplies, if you are lacking funds. Short example for building a Stargate between Sif and Achernar: Turn #1: Sif gets command BSG Turn #2: primary hull on Sif complete, Gate-id is given Achernar gets command Cid to complete the above mentioned gate. Turn #3: Gate is complete and should be working now If you build a multirace-gate remember to set Sif's friendly code to BSr in turn #2 to allow player r completing the gate. 3.3.3 Repairing a Stargate - RSG If your stargate gets damaged somehow but is not destroyed, simply repair it, using the friendly code RSG on the planet. This will of course cost you 10 supplies per percent repaired. 3.3.4 Attacking a Stargate - ASG Your ships may attack enemy stargates if you set the ship's friendly code to ASG. This is only possible if no other ships of the enemy are trying to defend the gate. (And they certainly will do.) 3.3.5 Travelling through Stargates - Jid Maybe stargate travel looks easy. Just have your ship's code set to Jid, indicating that you want it to jump through gate id and there we go, but in some cases this may bear uncalculable risks. Each gate is equipped with a navigation computer. This sensible device is responsible for the correct alignement of the subspace distortion. Normally if the gate gets damaged, the computer will deactivate the gate's propulsion abilities. But sometimes, this emergency power off is not sensitive enough. Travelling through a damaged gate with a possibly faulty nav- computer may have devastating effects. Some test drones have already been catapulted out of our galaxy using invalid warp parameters. Furthermore, stargates need a sound power supply from the planet beneath to be working. If another player conqueres the planet beneath the gate, the energy supply will be interrupted and the gate will not work. Because the gate's nav-computer is security encrypted, the enemy will not be able to make use of the gate. He either has the choice to leave it there, or to destroy it. If two races share a stargate link. The nav-computers of both ends of the link have to be set to the same friendly code. So be sure, that the friendly codes of both planets match, if travelling trough a multirace gate. The navigation computers of stargates normally are programmed to only let ships of your or your partner race jump. Birdmen might try to sneak into the computer system by using their super spy mission and give the Jid order. Wich luck they could be able to perform a jump without having built that gate. 3.3.6 The Stargate Report As soon as you have access to at least the data of one stargate, FHost will create a stargate report containing all available data on visible stargates. The Reports show the gate id, the two planets which are linked together, the damage states and owners of the gates. The access code shows you, whether you are acutally able to perform a jump. If a gate is incomplete, this data is not available of course. If everything is ok, then it shows 'ok'. If you are watching an enemy gate or your partner race has closed (i.e. changed planetary friendly code) the gate connection, access state is 'dny' (deny). 'pwr' means that at least one of the gates is not being supplied with energy from the planet beneath. Normally this only occurs, when the planet under the gate has been taken over. 3.4 Core Mineral Reformation Device The original version of the called CMRD or 'Core Torpedo' has been invented long ago by Federation scientists who were searching for a means to turn dead planets into thriving worlds to live on. This project was considered a failure because the scientists used protomatter, which all spacefaring races know as a very instable and dangerous matter, and so it had nearly been forgotten. Fascist engineers got hold of the construction plans and redesigned the device in such way, that it could primarily be used to destabilisate the molecular structure of a planet's core and reintegrate it in a way that ore can be mined more easily. In other words a core torpedo increases the density of minerals in the planets core. Although this torpedo has been designed to be used on not yet colonized planets, the Klingon soon discovered that the molecular protomatter destabilisation is also hazardous to all known lifeforms. So it has been abused as a mass destrucion weapon from time to time. Because of their bodies' structures, Crystal people and all siliconoid lifeforms suffer to the molecular effects of CMRD in an extreme severe way. We sure will never see a Crystal scientist putting his hands on such a cruel weapon. 3.4.1 Building a CMRD - BCT By default only Fascists are able to equip a torpedo ship with a core torpedo. To perform this order set the fc to BCT (build core torpedo). The tubes on this ship must be of tech 10. If you want to get a report wheter one of your ships is currently carrying a CMRD, use fc RCT (report core torpedo). Fascist or other races may trade the plans for a CMRD with other races. Just hand a ship with a CMRD over to your partner and his engineers will reverse engineer the torpedo and be able to reconstruct it from there on. Because the Solar Federation has very distinct laws concerning the use of mass destruction weapons, they will never be allowed to build or use a CMRD. For Crystal and siliconoid people, the CMRD is an extremely devastating weapon. They will therefore never use or build CMRDs. 3.4.2 Using CMRD - FCT Having your ship in the orbit of the target planet, issue the friendly code FCT (fire core torpedo) and the device will be detonated. Although a core torpedo may be used as a weapon against other races, this is a very difficult task. Your ship has to trim its position very carefully to succesfully launch a CMRD. If alien ships are disturbing your vessel (and of course they will do if they recognize your intentions) you will not be able to launch the torpedo. Furthermore the planets defense posts will launch their fighters and use their beam weapons to intercept the torpedo before it detonates on the planets surface. 3.5 Helionuclear Fusion Interrupt Device Accidentally invented by genuine Crystal scientists on an outer space solar lab and annexed from a Birdmen warship that just passed the station, the HFID (or so called Sunbuster) developped to one of the main weapons of the Birdmen race. A sunbuster torpedo fired directly into a sun stops all thermonuclear reactions almost instantly and therefore make the sun go nova and turn into into a white dwarf afterwards. This, as a consequence, lets the whole planetary system of this sun become a set of giant, unfriendly icecubes. 3.5.1 Building a Sunbuster - BSB Similar to the construction of a core torpedo, your ship needs to have: One kiloton of every mineral, the required amount of money, tech 10 torpedo tubes and of course you have to be able to construct a sunbuster. Finally build a HFID with fc BSB (build sunbuster). Like core torpedos, sunbuster technology may be traded among all races (exept Solar Federation which, will never allow use of mass destruction weapons). Giving a ship with a sunbuster away to another race should do the job. The status of the sunbuster on board may be requested by setting the ship's fc to RSB (report sunbuster). 3.5.2 Using a Sunbuster - FSB You may order your ship to fire the sunbuster with friendly code FSB. Sunbuster missiles may be fired at distant suns like torpedos. Put your ship's waypoint at the target solar system. The ranges and hit chances are the same as configured for cruise missiles. The defensive rules against sunbusters are the same as for core torpedos. If you succeed, your ship should run for its life, because your opponent surely will not be very pleased about what you did... 3.6 Additional Features 3.6.1 Fuel Ramscoops Because they used to be travelling long distances through deep space,the Colonies invented a device that gathers Hydrogen out of the near vacuum and converts it into fuel for their warpdrive engines. Originally designed into the hull of the Cobol Class Cruiser, the ramscoops have also been ported to the famous Virgo Class Battlestar in the meanwhile. By trade to other races and through assimilation by aliens, ramscoops are now also found on Eros Class Research Vessels and B41 Class Explorers. The amount of neutronium collected by a ramscoop per lightyear travelled may be configured by the host. Default is 2.0 kt/LY. Host 3.2 didn't recognize fuelscoops working, when used with VPHost. FHost fixes this. 3.6.2 Plasma Sunscoops - SSC Crystal people like heat very much. And so it is no wonder, that their engineers built a modified form of the ramscoop into the Ruby Class Light Cruiser that is able to collect the plasma directly out of the sun's corona. Although this method is very effective in collecting fuel, the required low distance to the sun bears some risks to the ship and the crew. An unexpected protuberance may damage the ship's hull or high frequented gamma rays may cause losses to the crew. Frienldy code SSC activates this mission. 3.6.3 Maintenance Ships - MTN Almost each fleet now has so called maintenance ships within their ranks. The only ones who do not use the concept of repair ships in space are the Cyborg, because they already have a much more sophisticated repair technology, and the Fascists and Birdmen, who think that repairing a ship in space is an unethical and cowardly act. All other races may have their according maintenance ships flying to the same position as the damaged starship and set the friendly codes of boths ships to MTN. The amount of damage repaired depends on the capability of the repairing ship and also of the size of the repaired ship. But also with very small vessels, repairing speed will never exceed 10 percent per month. The ships equipped with all the neccessary items are: - Vendetta Class Frigate - Dwarfstar Class Transport - Onyx Class Frigate - Moscow Class Star Escort - Cybernaut Class Baseship - Sagittarius Class Transport 3.6.4 Automated Fighter Construction - AFC, lfm Given the friendly code AFC (or lfm, for host compatibility), a carrier loads the maximum possible amount of minerals to construct fighters using 3kt Tri, 2kt Mol and 5kt Supplies. 3.6.5 Automated Torpedo construction - ATC, mkt Using friendly Codes ATC or mkt, ships are able to build torpedos in space. Please notice that mkt only uses resources that are already on board the ship while ATC determines the maximum amount of torpedos that this ship can build and loads the proper amounts of resources. ATC and mkt codes also distinguish whether a race must pay for torpedos in MC or may use supplies. The amount of supplies that each race has to pay for a torpedo can be configured in FHConfig. A value of 0 means that this race has to pay in MC. 3.6.6 Ship giveaway orders - GSr, EXC If you want to give the control of one of your ships to another race, just meet somewhere in space and set the friendly code to GSr (give ship to race r). r is the number of the race from 1 to 9, a or b. You may also specify gsr as lowercased order (compatibility with host commands). If you want to trade two ships, the more secure way to do this is using the exchange command EXC on both ships. This special mission only works, when both envolved players gave this command to their ships at the same location in space. The crews and colonists of both ships will change and take their position as well as they are able to. If, unfortunately there is not enough room for all crewmembers on the new ship, a part of the crew has to stay as colonis clans... 3.6.7 Deathstar Destruction Beam - KPL, KSP The Gorbie Class Battlecarrier is now equipped with a huge main weapon that is able to pierce the shields of any ship within a matter of milliseconds or to even blow up entire planets with a single blast. According to what you want to shoot at, set the friendly code to KSP (kill ship) or KPL (kill planet). The use of this weapon will cost a pretty large amount of energy that has to be delivered in the form of neutronium. REMEMBER: A planet you blow up this way does not exist anymore and therefore can not be colonized! 3.6.8 Self Destruction - BUM Under some extreme conditions you may recognize that there is no other way out for one of your ships than engaging the self destruction routine. You would presumably like to blow up your ships to prevent your enemy from catching valuable mineral loads or reverse engineering your main battleship... Because self destruction is a highly sentisive topic, you unfortunately are not allowed to decide over the lives of perhaps many thousand crewmembers of your own. To send a request for self destruction to one of your ships, give friendly code BUM. The commanding officer on the ship will then evaluate the ship's situation and decide, whether he approves self destruction or denies your request. At least two of the following conditions have to be given: - the ship is low on fuel (between 1 and 25 kt left) - the ship is more than 60% damaged (90% for lizards) - there are more than 5 enemy armed ships within a distance of 10 light years - more than 80% of your crew have been killed 3.6.9 Tholian free Torpedos Per default, the Tholian race gets two free torpedos on each starbase. The techlevel of the added torpedos is determined by the tech on each starbase. So a base with tech10 torpedos will get two tech10 fish each turn, while a new starbase with tech1 will only get tech1 torpedos. 3.7 Supernova The life of a star ends approximately 10e9 years after its birth. Of course this event is rarely unprobable to happen within a game that simulates 500 solar systems over a period of mabye 20 years. But to make things more interesting and add a new fancy color to the game, you may set a percent chance that determines how likely a sun will run out of atomic fuel in a certain turn. If this happens, the sun does not go nova instantly, but it will show up on your scanners that this sun is starting to increase fusion activity. In the default period of 10 turns the players are informed about the progress of the nova and the corresponding planet starts to heat up as the sun grows. The player who owns the endangered planet should put all his efforts in evacuating his colonists until the sun collapses. While reaching the final state of a nova. The ray emissions of the star are high enough to be seen at the other end of the galaxy. Not to talk about the poor planet, that is burnt to ashes. Even the deflector shields of common ships are not strong enough to withstand the radiation when the distance drops under 10 lightyears. Finally the nova colapses to a 'white dwarf'. A little glimming star. This system can now be considered dead, because without a constant supply of thermal energy the planet will barely be warmer than 70K. 4 FHConfig This little program for itself is freeware. Start it with the game directory as a commandline parameter and you may edit the game configuration. If you do not give any parameters, FHConfig will assume the current directory as your choice. FHConfig will start up with default settings if it cannot find a fhconfig.hst file. Move around with your cursor and increase/decrease the values by typing + and - or enter the values directly where it applies. Stargate costs divide into primary and secondary costs. The primary costs for one gate are given, the total secondary costs are calculated by: cost.2nd = pow( (real_range/base_range), prop) * cost.1st; As you see you may render long distance gates more expensive by decreasing the base range or by increasing the proportionality factor. The cmrd/hfid save defense number shows the amount of required defense posts on a planet to be 100% safe from the according weapon. For core torpedos or sunbusters you have the choice between three options: If set to never, a race will not be allowed to build or fire any weapons of this kind. If set to yes, the race is able to build and use the weapon from the beginning. If set to no, the race does not begin with the required technology but may aquire the knowledge by capturing/buying a ship from another race. You may allow certain races to build torpedos using supplies instead of MCs. The amount of required supplies can be fine tuned for each race of its own. Setting the amount to zero means that this race has to pay by MCs. The default values of 5kt supplies are a rough guess by me and my betatesting crew. Please feel free to test around and perhaps report any good settings... 5 FHUtil FHUtil is a tool that combines some functions for hosts to maintain their game data together with the possibility for players to perform several calculations concerning torpedo hit rates. FHUtil is a command-line-driven program. The first parameter when you start it always needs to be your game-directory or the directory the global data files are in. Next are the commands. Possible commands are at the moment: give race, a special way to delete one race from the game by merging it into another empire. nova init, the setup for a special FHost-scenario: all suns have a limited lifetime that slowly expires. For example if the host specifies a value from 100 to 200, the first suns will explode after 100 game turns and the last ones after 200. After the maximum time all suns will have burnt out and the winning player is the one, who managed to build most ships and has saved most colonists for the new sector... Warning: 500 suns changing their status at the same time may require some minutes to calculate and will generate a lot of messages. In the worst case (all 500 suns exploding the same time) you will have to expect a host-message file of 1.8MB size. Some tools may have problems handling a 190k Resultfile... - torp given the accoring parameters of the target ship, torp calculates your hit chances and estimates the amount of damage that your torpedo causes. - basetorp this is the same as above but for starbases. - sunbuster idem for cruise missile sunbusters The parameters the last three player functions accept may be the following: m<mass>, effective mass of the ship (hullmass+maxfuel) M<realmass>, hullmass (i.e. armor) d<distance>, distance to target t<torptech>, torpedo tech used D<defenses>, defense posts h<hit_ratio>, hit ratio as configured in FHConfig T<tech_infl>, the tech influence as configured in FHConfig r<max_range>, the maximum range of cruise missiles R<range_infl>, the range influence as configured in FHConfig G<damage>, the damage scaling configured in FHConfig S<save_def.>, sunbuster save defense posts as configured in FHConfig From the above, FHUtil requires a certain mimimum amount of parameters to be given for calculation. For example calculating hit chances on a ship without giving the ship's mass does not make sense. If you omit the configuration-specifiy parameters, FHUtil will use the default settings. 6 A Word About Shareware FHost is shareware. So you have the possibility to try out my work before paying for it. I would be glad if you consider registering when you decide to use FHost on a regular basis. This project used up a respectable amount of time. (And as it seems to me now, it will also continue using) Unregistered FHost will send a message to every player in the game from time to time and run for a maximum of 100 turns. Following features will not work: Using fighter missions, you are not able to transfer fighters or let them gather resources. With stargates, it is not possible to build gates that belong to different races. Furthermore it is not possible to attack them. The super destruction beam of the Gorbie Battlecarrier is not working. The technology of core torpedos (CMRD) or sunbusters (HFID) may not be transferred to another race. HFIDs may not be fired at remote suns. 7 Reference Card FAx Fighter Attack Ship 1-0 = 10% to 100% a = all h = half q = quarters n = neutronium d = duranium m = molybdenum s = supplies $ = MC id 01-99 = Stargate ID r 1-9ab = Racenumbers FBx Fighter Bomb Planet FPx Fighter Patrol Area FTx Fighter Transfer to FTR Fighter Transfer Receive FGx Fighter Gather Resources FGy Fighter Gather (part2) TAx Torpedo Attack Ship TBx Torpedo Bomb Planet BSG Build Stargate Cid Complete Stargate BSr Build Stargate To Race ASG Attack Stargate RSG Repair Stargate Jid Jump Through Stargate BCT Build Core Torpedo RCT Report Core Torpedo FCT Fire Core Torpedo BSB Build Sunbuster RSB Report Sunbuster FSB Fire Sunbuster SSC Activate Sunscoops (Ruby Class) KSP Kill Ship (Deathstar) KPL Kill Planet (Deathstar) AFC Automated Fighter Construction ATC Automated Torpedo Construction GSr Give Ship To Race EXC Exchange Ships BUM Request Self Destruction MTN Maintenance Order 8 Credits I'd like to thank following persons who have helped with their ideas or programs, or part of their knowledge to create FHost. - Tim Wisseman, author of VGA Planets - Jan Peter Dijkstra, author of VPHost and VPTools - Holger Walz, "Century Forces", having tons of ideas for FHost - Gisbert Moggert, "The Cylon Imperator", being creative, too - Wolf Moggert, "King Wolfdie III", at least promised to write FHConfig :} - Gerd Tr÷ger, "Navy's 1st Bomber Squad",a hard working betatester - Jens Hofbauer, "Devil's Alliance", OS/2 hints, stargate bug - Johannes Meyer, "John Locutus Warduck",fighting the 'unowned ship' bug ;) - Stefan Schneck, "Snail Imperator", many good ideas about fighter combat - Eva-M. Ksionsek, "Even R.T'Pei Sawaiy",encouraging me to finish FHost - Sandra Steiger, for patiently reading through my spelling errors :) - Marcus Meissner, "Bugnix", ideas in code organisation - Tobias Schie▀l, "Col Slung", the 'official' FHost distributor in the Regensburg And my Star Fortress 'acting crew': - Annette Diruf, "LtCdr Tecall" (Second-in-command) - Michael Schulte, "LtCdr Rhallick" (Second-in- command) - Tobias Schie▀l, "Col Slung" (Army Commander, Mech Units) - Kathrin B÷lter, "Cpt Indira" (Wing Commander Anaconda) - Marcus Meissner, "Cpt Marcus" (Wing Commander Cobra/Viper) - Andrea Reyzl, "Lt Avalja" (Communications Officer) - Armin Kohl, "Lt Rip" (Flight Officer) - Monika Ehrenreich, "Sgt Satik" (Engineering) Special thanks go to my grandfather, who always supported me and my ideas. It makes me very sad that he passed away just on FHost's first release date, on June 27th 1995. And all others that I might have left out... 9 How to reach the author If you have questions of suggestions, or probably have found a bug, you may reach me at following addresses: FidoNet: Michael Raith@2:2494/340, Star Fortress InterNet: Michael.Raith@wiwi.uni-regensburg.de WWW: http://www-stier.wiwi.uni-regensburg.de/~mlraith IRC: Metacon at #TAPPMud, #VGAPlanets Or call Star Fortress BBS, newest FHost will always be requestable (magic FHOST) Star Fortress BBS: +49-9401-79462, v32b, ISDN Or via snail mail: Michael Raith Kreuzstrasse 5 93092 Barbing Germany Also feel free to write your comments about FHost to me... 10 Getting FHost updates The newest release of FHost is always available at Star Fortress BBS, the Fortress WWW Homepage and ftp.fu-berlin.de. The original FHost release archive is called FHOST???.EXE, where ??? shows the version number. This EXE-file is a self-extracting archive. It has a security envelope attached to it. Due to the size of all the release files I split everything up into several parts: FHOST???.EXE, the main archive with support files and ASCII-docs FHX???.EXE, files needed for FHost DOS/32 FHN???.EXE, FHost Windows NT/95/32s executables FHO???.EXE, OS/2 executables FHM???.EXE, FHost manual in winword format (suggested reading) You may receive the RAR archives packed up into another archive, but make sure that the AV envelope is intact and the installation programm isn't missing. 11 Legal stuff - Warranty FHOST, FHOST2, FHOSTNT, FHCONFIG AND FHUTIL ARE DISTRIBUTED "AS IS". NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. YOU USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE AUTHOR WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR DATA LOSS, DAMAGES, LOSS OF PROFITS OR ANY OTHER KIND OF LOSS WHILE USING OR MISUSING THIS SOFTWARE.