Subject: alt.games.vga-planets mini-faq
Supersedes: <games/vga-planets/mini-faq_824222115@rtfm.mit.edu>
Date: 26 Mar 1996 02:35:39 GMT
Summary: This posting contains answers to Frequently Asked Questions on alt.games.vga-planets and a list of ftp & www sites where related software can be found.
X-Last-Updated: 1996/03/25

Posting-Frequency: monthly
URL: http://www.netlink.co.nz/~dgedye/vga-planets.html

Alt.Games.VGA-Planets & Alt.Binaries.Games.VGA-Planets mini-FAQ page.

25 March 1996

LATEST VERSIONS: Winplan 3.51e & Host 3.22.002

VGA Planets is a graphical, multi-player, play by electronic mail, space 
war game. This game simulates combat in space between galactic scale 
empires. The game emphasizes colonization of space and the development of 
the planets that you will find, colonize and/or conquer. How well you 
develop these resources will determine what kind of starships (freighters 
and capital ships) you will be able to produce and how well you will be 
able to defend your space and attack your neighbors.  This game is 
designed to be a strategic and tactical game of warfare, but you will also 
need to be able to build an economy and service your empire. With a well 
developed strong economic base you will have a greater potential for 
winning the game.  As the leader of your empire you are responsible for 
all of the decisions that effect your growth and production (excluding, of 
course, being attacked by your neighbor). You will decide how to best 
develop your planets with the resources available to you.  You will decide 
what type of starship(s) to be built at your starbase(s).  You are the 
mastermind behind your race and you are in a race to see which empire can 
first conquer the universe.

VGA Planets is designed to be able to handle from two to eleven players 
in a play by mail (electronic mail) game format. The game is designed to 
be played as a Net or Bulletin Board System (BBS) game (as long as file 
transfers are permitted and available), although it can be played solely 
on one computer.  Many of the Net players are playing using E-mail and 
UUENCODE.

It has a devoted following and is one of the longest lasting games on the 
Internet PC Games Chart.

A shareware version of this game is available at
ftp://ftp.wilmington.net/vgaplanets/version3/vp320.zip
This package contains the Planets 3.0 Dos Client program and version 
3.2 of the Host program.  The Client is Shareware and the Host is Freeware.  
Each of the players needs a Client program to view their results and give 
their orders, and one person uses the Host program to process those orders 
and generate new results.

There is also a new Windows Client called WinPlan 3.5.  A Shareware version is available at
ftp://ftp.wilmington.net/vgaplanets/share/

To register contact the author: 
Tim Wisseman, P.O. Box 204, North Fork, CA 93643-0204,  USA. 

Planets 3.0 for Dos:   
Price:  15$ (USA/North America) - 17$ Foreign Air (15$ Surface)
WinPlan 3.5 for Windows:
Price:  20$ (USA/North America) - 23$ Foreign Air (20$ Surface)
Remember to make all checks payable to TIM WISSEMAN.

For further details and other merchandise check out the orderforms at the
official WWW page.
  
European residents can also contact European distributers:
Henrik Moerk - EuroVGA@ibm.net - Survival BBS - Fido 2:235/306
Jean-Marie Clement - AllGames BBS - Fido 2:331/221 - VgaPNet 57:39/100

The latest version of the freeware Host program is available at
ftp://ftp.wilmington.net/vgaplanets/host32/

The latest version of the Windows Client is Winplan 3.51e.
If you have already purchased an earlier version of Winplan you can 
download a free patch file from 
ftp://ftp.wilmington.net/vgaplanets/winplan.

There are also third party Host programs called PHost.
They are also freeware, run faster than the original Hosts and are 
available for different platforms, but are slightly different in 
operation to the original Hosts.

The Shareware package should also contain several document files.  
You really ought to read them!  There are also other documents available 
at most sites that may prove helpful. Definitely get a copy of Eden Tan's excellent 
Infolist.  Also check out the Dreadlord Battle manual available at several sites, and 
the FAQs for Alt.Games.VGA-Planets, and the newsgroup's hintfile.  
The FAQs are currently under revision, the last versions can be found at 
ftp://gameserver.digitaledge.com/pub/gordy/

"Therefore, I say: Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, 
you will never be defeated.  When you are ignorant of the enemy but know 
yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.  If ignorant both of 
your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle."  
Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" ~500 B.C.

Computer opponents:
There are a number of these available.  They all tend to cheat a bit to 
make up for their lack of intelligence, but the later ones are getting 
more sophisticated.
Cplayer.   Freeware. This is the original Cplayer by Tim Wisseman.
VPC_play.  Freeware.  By Miika Kasangas.  No longer being supported.
Dominate.  Freeware.  By Cliff Mc Keithan. 
ACP/Omega. Freeware. By stonig@ix.netcom.com.
The Q.     Shareware.  By the Sharenet Trolls.  Still in closed beta testing.
  (Patch files at ftp://ftp.wilmington.net/vgaplanets/Qplayer/)



SITES



These are some sites carrying VGA-Planets stuff. Remember that a site 
can appear to be "down" if it is overloaded, so you may need to try 
again or at a different time of day.

*** WORLD WIDE WEB PAGES: ***

http://www.netlink.co.nz/~dgedye/vga-planets.html 
The mini-FAQ page. 
The html version of the alt.games.vga-planets mini-FAQ.  
Aimed at newcomers, it contains a short introduction and a (hopefully) 
up-to-date list of sites & links. 
Maintained by Darren Gedye - DGedye@netlink.co.nz

http://www.imagi.net/~rwdc/vgap/
The Neutral Zone!   
You'll find a basic intro to VGAP, a brief guide for playing VGAP over 
the net, FTP & WWW Site list, and extensive local archive. The archive 
is organized with forms, with basic info, and rating of the programs. 
Maintained by Scott Shepherd - sshepher@imagi.net.  In AK, USA.

http://www.imagi.net/~rwdc/vgap/
Ted's universe.  
A very extensive set of pages. Includes local archives and documentation.
Web Site Includes: VGAP War Room, World VGA Planets Tournament Info, WWW
Scroll Room which has many, many VGAP and other Web Site Listings.
There are links to most all VGAP Web & FTP Sites and a full menu system
for Ted's Universe FTP Site.  No pointless graphics either.
In Oregon, USA.

http://www.primenet.com/~cam/
CYBER CONNECTION BBS
VGA Planets Files, Internet Utility Files, Our VGA Planets Games, VGA 
Planets Hosts seeking players, VGA Planets Players seeking games.
In Boise, Idaho USA (208) 362-3914. 

http://nospin.com/vp.html
Nospin site. 
Newbie friendly. VPLANETS Listserv mailing list for VGA Planets.
Maintained by nospin@nospin.com

http://brahms.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/stud/gcwilhel/english/Planets/PlanetsHome.html
Carsten Pinnow's page. 
Links, German documentation.

http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~neffets/vgapl.html
Steffen Pietsch's page.  
Links, and the latest version of the randmax auto planet-managing utility. 
In Germany.

http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~cvenour/planets
Corey's "The Zone"  
Intro, shareware copy, good lists. In Australia.

http://www.wilmington.net/vgaplanets
The Official Home Page.  
Contains ordering information.

http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~asterian/phost.html 
PHost homepage.  
Contains all the latest PHost stuff, The Portable Host Development 
Kit for budding programmers, plus the latest versions of utilities 
with PHost support.  In Michigan, USA.

http://www.tfh-berlin.de/usr1/odd/s590165/public_html/games/vgaplanets.html
CARNIVOGUE VGAPLANETS PAGE
Links, some PHost docs. In Germany.

http://pop.onwe.co.za/rhino 
Rhino Software. (Sean Martens Page).  
Contains links to the utilities Informer & Afsim.

http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~edentan
Eden Tan's homepage.  
Eden is the compiler of The Infolist, a must-have concise reference sheet.
In California, USA.

http://users.aol.com/vhost/vgap.htm
Popular Utilities for Players (Latest versions)
Maintained by Kyle Phillips - vhost@aol.com

http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~gorik/Vgaplanets/
Gorik's experimental page. 
Info, links.  In Belgium.

http://http://wwwtios.cs.utwente.nl/~bos/planmap/index.html
Andre van den Bos, Author of PlanMap v2.13.
In the Netherlands.

http://nyx10.cs.du.edu:8001/~cmckeith/home.html
Cliff Mc Keithan's homepage.  
Author of the dominate cplayer utility.  In Colorado, USA.

http://www.cybercomm.net/~eculp/tgot.html 
The Gamesters of Triskelion
The Gamesters Pages are NETSCAPE ENHANCED.
T.G.o.T. offers Custom Games, one at a time, check the game in progress 
or about to begin.  Source page for The Galactic Guilds (HELP for each 
race, thru experts in that race), BBS Numbers available, FTP-FAQ and WWW 
sites page, Full description of the game, PLAYER FORMS: To be considered 
for play in T.G.o.T. games, and as a source for replacement players.
In NJ, USA.

http://galahad.xstor.com/~todds/vgahost.htm
Todd Schacherl's page.  In California, USA.

http://www2.brecknet.com/vga/vga.html 
Ryan Power's page.  In Colorado, USA.

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~nepolon/games/vgap/
Starbase: Roduel 7.  
This is the home of one of the more comprehensive and refined hyper-text libraries in the
galaxy for VGA Planets... Maintained by Steve Lewis - nepolon@ursula.uoregon.edu.
In Oregon, USA.

http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/~e9026828
The first Austrian VGA Planets page

http://www.chem.vu.nl/0/Studenten/kreike/vgap.html
Timo Kreike's page.
Original stuff - things you can't find on any other vgap site.
1001 newsgroup strategies, lists with ready-to-use shipnames
and the latest Climate Death Rate formula's.
No pictures, no links. In Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

http://www.bmi.net/cadman/index.html
BioHazard BBS
Maintained by Jeff Bolden - cadman@bmi.net

http://pages.prodigy.com/NY/lnkf90b/VZone.html
Vga Planets Space Zone

http://www.starwarrior.com/deltalge
Delta League Home Page

http://www.io.org/~hoek/vgap/LocalHTTPStuff.html
Hoek's links.
Contains links to an html Battle Manual, as well as to several VGA 
Planets utilities (FLD, findship, and a few more) all on io.org.
Maintained by Tim Vanderhoek - hoek@io.org

http://cis.tamu.edu/~x049rh
Maintained by Ralph G. Hart - rghart@tamu.edu

www.islandnet.com/~dafriese/robo.html
Amazing AUTOMATED Vga Planets Web Site

http://www.jyu.fi/~mpriihim/vgap/vgap.html 
New timestamp checking program
Maintained by Marko Pekka Tap Riihim{ki - mpriihim@kanto.cc.jyu.fi

http://www.awinc.com/users/panther
Maintained by panther@awinc.com

http://www.jumbo.com/game/dos/vgaplanet/

http://www.webcom.com/~fpu/vgap/vgap.html
Franscesco Urbano's page.  



*** ANONYMOUS FTP SITES:***



ftp://ftp.wilmington.net/vgaplanets
Tim Wisseman's Site. 
Here you can find the latest releases of the official software and 
authorised add-ons.  There is little third party software though. 
In NC, USA.

ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/pc/msdos/games/vgaplanets
THE ftp site.  The biggest, the best, the busiest.  In Berlin, Germany.

ftp://ftp.teleport.com/users/goldman/VGAP
Ted's Universe 
"Official North American Phost FTP Site"  All Phost files can be found
at this site for all the different platforms.
Online file menus:  http://www.teleport.com/~goldman/files/files.htm
FTP Site is funded by Donations from Fellow VGAP Players

ftp://ftp.erg.sri.com/pub/pbm/vga_planets

ftp://ftp.solace.mh.se/pub/msdos/games/VGA-Planets
In sweden

ftp://bucket.ualr.edu/pub/vgap
University of Arkansas, USA

ftp://faui43.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/mounts/gonzo/pds/freeware
/software/dos/games/planets

ftp://gameserver.digitaledge.com/pub/gordy/
Maintained by Gordy Pine - gpine@oz.net

ftp://moonbase.wwc.edu/pub/planets
Walla Walla College, WA, USA

ftp://ftp.onwe.co.za/pub/VGAPlanets
This site has the Informer & Afsim utilities from Sean Martens, nothing else.

ftp://ftp.catt.ncsu.edu/pub/msdos/games/vga-planets
Once a major site, but now no longer being maintained.  
Useful for old software. In North Carolina, USA

ftp://rigel.phys-chemie.uni-marburg.de

ftp://berlin.snafu.de/pub/vgapl
This site should only be used for uploads into the ftp.fu-berlin.de site.  
Please don't use this site for downloading.


*** PAY TO PLAY SITES. ***



(These groups charge you money to play in their games.  There are many 
free games being played on the Internet, but if you want to pay to play 
thats your choice.)

http://csbh.mhv.net/~spacenet/
SpaceNet PBEM 
We began as a private group playing PBEM games for ourselves and our 
friends but soon grew to a size that required a more professional 
structure. We are a gaming Net run by gamers for gamers.
(from 38 cents to 54 cents a turn)

http://pm.znet.com/c4/
Winplan Host: The Apex of VGA Planets!
Wanna play? Happy to help...I will be your host. I am always here.  I'll 
match you up with ten other entry-level players who choose similar options 
and game-speed preferences, then you're off to galactic fame and glory! 
Maintained by Manny "Knightwing" Asencio - manny@sf.znet.com



If you know of any FTP sites or Web pages not listed here please 
mail me the URL and I'll include them.  
If you want to contribute a description of any of the sites listed 
here feel free.
 Any other suggestions? Mail: DGedye@netlink.co.nz


