VGA Planets ....

by

The Editor: UK Atheist & Science E-Zine & Others

The Solar Federation

The Lizards

The Birdmen

The Fascists

The Fascists are able to plunder a planet, which means that 20% of the native & colonist population is killed off and their personal belongings are turned into supplies .... this can cause rioting & civil war but so few clans will be left that it won’t matter much anyway. The Fascists have three cloaking ships and two ships which can be set to explode with a friendly code causing minor damage to the owning race’s ships but the equivalent of a mine hits worth of damage to enemy shipping ... the explosion also generates Berthold rays which can damage structures and life on the planet below and killing ALL Amorphous natives converting them directly into supplies where 1,000 natives will create one supply unit.

Any armed Privateer ship can Rob an enemy ship of fuel and cargo. This makes it easy to steal enemy ships which once robbed of fuel cannot fight. Additionally, Privateers beam weapons do 3 x the damage of normal beams to crews so that there is a greatly increased chance of destroying the crew of a ship before it is destroyed and thus acquiring the ship for themselves. They have three ships equipped with Gravitronic drives which are twice as fast as normal ships so that, at Warp 9, the Privateer ship travels as much as 162 light years where a conventional ship could travel only 81. These ships also cloak .... so a standard technique for Privateers is to tow a ship away from planetary orbit into a pack of cloaked MBR’s which, on the next turn, ROB the ship and tow it away to force it to surrender at a convenient Privateer starbase (Tow Capture: under host 3.2x the Privateers will take control of any fuel-less ship that they are towing .... they do this by beaming armed crew from the capturing ship to the towed one). Privateer crews however are cowards and inherent traitors and will, if captured defect to a man to the enemy race. A useful ship that the Privateers can build is The Lady Royale starship which generates 1 MC for every clan on board (max. clans is 160).

The Cyborgs assimilate natives including, unfortunately, Bovinoids and Avians however they cannot assimilate Amorph’s. The Cyborg Cubes are some of the most powerful starships in existence and after the battle Cyborg ships sweep up the debris from space. They are also able to repair in space at 10% per turn provided they are not moving. The Cyborgs have the HYPerdrive ship the B200 Class Probe and the FireCloud (which allows chunneling, a process where one firecloud "warps" to another via a rift in the space-time continuum and, more usefully, can take other ships with it!).

The Crystals lay the dreaded Web Mines which not only damage ships when caught but also drains 25KT of fuel from any ship in the minefield. Crystal like hot, desert worlds and have a terraformer that heats planets to 100 degrees. Like the Privateers the Crystals can do a Tow Capture (under host 3.2x the Crystals will take control of any fuel-less ship that they are towing .... they do this by beaming armed crew from the capturing ship to the towed one)

The Evil Empire’s special mission is the DARK SENSE. All Imperial ships captains have the DARK SENSE and no occupied planet (except Rebel owned) can hide from it (the DARK SENSE report on the presence of an enemy race on a planet, it’s natives, temperature & whether or not they have a starbase) .... unoccupied planets cannot be DARK SENSEd. The Evil Empire also get free fighters at every starbase (standard number is 5 per turn, per starbase) at the cost of three tritanium and two molybdenum. They have the most powerful ship in the game .... the Gorbie Class Battle Carrier (which just happens to look like the DeathStar out of Star Wars) with 10 beams and 10 fighter bays. They have the Super Star Destroyer which, if it drops 10 clans on a planet, will take over the planet at the cost only of ALL the defence posts ... the Super Star Destroyer is invulnerable to planetary and starbase attack and can only be stopped by another ship. The Imperial Empire also have hyperdrive ships .. the PL21 Class Probe.

The Robots can, on any ship with fighter bays, build fighters for free. They have a 4 x minelaying capability but only 1 torpedo-based ship (The CatsPaw Destroyer) ... however in most games they start with a CatsPaw and 300 Tech 5 torps which will make a very large minefield. They have some serious carriers ranging from the less than useless Iron Slave through their main fleet ship Instrumentality’s to their Starbase Killer the Golem. The only redeeming feature of the Pawn Class Baseship is it’s Bio-Scanning capability.

The Rebels GROUND ASSAULT mission will destroy 30% of the planets money, 40% of supplies, 20% of the defence posts, 60% of the mines and 30% of the factories. But what really upset the colonists is that 20% of them will get totalled too!!!! Rebels can use this mission to self-destruct their own planets. The Rebels can also build free fighters in space requiring only the correct minerals & supplies to be loaded. The Rush Class Heavy Carrier carries more fighters than any other carrier in the game (390) and, recent discussions & tests, have revealed that it’s lower beam count actually make it a more serious opponent than is often believed and in some battles, against larger carriers with more beams/bays and mass, it actually stands a higher-than-expected chance of winning. In common with the Colonies they also have the Gemini Class Transport (which is excellent for fighter building) and the cheap but nasty Patriot. Rebels are the only race that cannot be sensed by the Evil Empire’s DARK SENSE.

The Lost Colonies of Man, like the Rebels & the Robots, build fighters for free (after loading with the correct minerals and supplies) when their mission is set to BUILD FIGHTERS. They also sweep mines with beams and, uniquely, with fighters .... a colonial carrier with 200 plus fighters will sweep over 4,000 mines in one turn. They also have the Cobol Class Research Cruiser which will ram-scoop neutronium from the vacuum of space, the Aries Class Transport that will convert minerals into fuel and, like the Rebels, the Gemini (excellent for fighter building) and the cheap and nasty Patriot. The pride of the Colonial fleet .... the Virgo, despite being one of the lightest heavy carriers, will kill a any torpedo based ship and most starbases! Like the Privateers the Colonies can also build the Lady Royale starship which generates 1 MC for every clan on board (max. clans is 160).

The first few turns is where the New-to-VGAP player is most likely to make mistakes! Many times I heard of players sending their colonising ships out to a planet, often with no supplies, but sometimes with no clans ... to an experienced player this is most amusing but to the beginner it is often perplexing and annoying. The following are some bits of advice I have to offer:

RTFM: Read the ******* manual!

No prizes for what the "*******" represent, however, I cannot stress this factor strongly enough! VGAP is a game involving intelligence ... no one can act with absolute intelligence if they do not have the facts upon which to base intelligent decisions. The manual supplies those facts and despite the fact that the game in minor ways deviates from the manual … it is ESSENTIAL reading!!!!

For future-shocked DOS client users there are a set of text files called PLANETS1.DOC, PLANETS2.DOC ..... PLANETS7.DOC supplied with the DOS version of the game (you can read these using DOS edit or some other file viewer, possibly even Windows Write). Future-proofed Windows client users (WinPlan) can access the Windows Help file!

Even the experienced VGAP player should "revisit" the manual occasionally ... I did ... and found out several things I didn’t know first time round.

Playing the Game.

In this section, I intend to outline my personal methods of starting a game of VGAP ... you don’t have to follow this but it is, at least, worth your while to read it ... after all, one day you may be in a game with me and it might just be in your interest to know how I might think & plan. I will deal with the first few turns under a series of sub-headings.

Colonisation

The most important aspect of ANY VGAP game is colonisation ... I mean sure you want to win ... sure you want to kick some butt ... but to do that you MUST have a secure & productive base territory. To do this you must send ships out to virgin (uncolonised) planets drop colonists on them and the next month (1 game turn) they will be yours.

A common mistake made by many VGAP Newbies is to use the COLONIZE mission to colonise a planet .... except under special circumstances this is NOT the best way to do it as the same end can be achieved by dropping clans from an orbiting spaceship. There are situations where using the COLONISE mission is justified (especially in games running under Host 3.2 where the colonise mission will gain you 1 priority build point .... very useful in games at the 500 ship limit!), for instance when attempting to deny an enemy the potential capture of a ship (or it’s destruction and consequent generation of priority build points for the enemy!) or to gain an important planet in 1 turn instead of two (see below) or simply because you no longer have a use for a particular ship anymore!

In normal colonisation the number of clans to drop on a planet depends on that planets native type, government, climate and mineral content. It is impossible to advise on the exact numbers for each type since matters are further complicated by the race you play (i.e. everyone needs minerals but the "big" fighter-based races need more!). The actual number of clans you drop will also depend on whether you think the planet will make a suitable starbase world or not. The following table gives some ball park figures (i.e. ones that I’ve just pulled out of my head) for relatively mineral rich worlds for the Robots or Colonies (i.e. the "big" fighter-based races):

Climate Type

Effectively I, personally, consider all native populations to be the same except for 4 special cases i.e. Bovinoids, Avians, Insectoids & Amorphous:

• A temperate-cool, temperate-warm or tropical Bovinoid planet is worth it’s weight in gold. If it’s near your homeworld it is worth considering moving a very large percentage of your population to it. This is because every 10,000 Bovinoid natives produce a free supply unit for every clan on the planet (in practice it doesn’t seem to be quite that efficient but you get the idea!). Build a base there and position a Merlin Alchemy ship over it because Merlin’s convert supplies into minerals. Build a Neutronic refinery (unless you’re the Colonies who have ram-scooping Cobol’s) and load it up with supplies and minerals to make fuel. A good Bovinoid planet (even one with no minerals at all) can, if a Merlin is towed there (never give Merlin’s or Neutronic refineries Transwarp engines since they’ll usually sit there in orbit around one planet for the rest of the game!) easily become your most productive base (I tend to term these Super-Bases!).

• A good climate Avian planet is worth serious clan supply because you can tax them at 10% more than any other native race!

• Insectoids, like Avians, give a good tax return (double the normal tax) so are worthy of a good clan supply.

• Amorphous natives ritually sacrifice 5 of your clans every turn. This is a problem since this means your colonist population will decrease not increase. However, on a reasonable climate world, if you dump enough clans on one, the increase will be greater than the decrease so your population WILL grow (albeit slowly). It isn’t worth it if the mineral content of the world is poor but sometimes, even if the climate is harsh, it simply is absolutely essential to get the minerals in an Amorph planet, even if that means dropping further clans each time you collect minerals and supplies.

When a planet is colonised your initial move is to make it viable. A planet has five basic purposes, to produce minerals for starbase, ship & fighter production, to produce fuel, to produce more clans, to produce cash and to act as a strategic platform for further expansion into the galaxy. Your first move at any planet will be to drop clans, your second, once the planet is colonised, is to drop supplies and cash. Because cash cannot be dropped until you own the planet this is usually a two turn process i.e. in turn 1 you arrive and drop clans then, waiting at the planet until turn two (when you acquire the planet), you drop supplies & cash. Note that carrying cash is a good idea because it weighs nothing and thus it’s movement around the galaxy usually needs no fuel (but bear in mind a cash run will consume fuel because a ship has mass and requires fuel to move it.

The most efficient way of colonising (my opinion) is to send a lightly armoured scout (lots of beams and reasonable size cargo bay) full of clans and on each world you come to drop 1 clan .... everyone knows that this is about as much use as a plastic frying pan ... but they’re wrong because following that scout, 1 month behind, is a Large Freighter or Super Transport full of clans, supplies and, if possible, money. The advantage of this technique is that your scout will run into anything dangerous first (allowing your valuable freighter to turn and run if necessary) ... if the enemy ship is a freighter the scout will engage and, probably, capture it so you gain a ship ..... if it is a war ship, your scout stands a chance of defeating it (& possibly capturing it!), if it’s too big to handle then you lose a small scout, your freighter turns to run and you bring up heavier reinforcements from the rear ... no problem!

I usually build factories to the maximum a planet is able to support, then I build mines to a level I consider to be correct taking into consideration the amount of minerals buried in the planet and finally I max. out the defence posts.

Note: it is VERY important that, when colonising planets, your freighters carry clans AND supplies. Without clans you cannot colonise a planet and with no supplies you cannot build factories, mines and defence posts.

Building Starbases

A starbase world will usually be obvious from the time you acquire it. The best worlds to build Starbases at have Humanoid, Ghipsoldal, Amphibian or Siliconoid natives because the moment you build them you will have tech 10 in hulls, engines, beams or torp’s respectively. however it must be borne in mind that temperate/tropical Bovinoids produce immense numbers of supplies (useful for creating minerals & fuel) and Avians allow over-taxing and thus immense amounts of money.

The ideal world, then, is a temperate world with Humanoid, Ghipsoldal, Amphibian or Siliconoid natives in a cluster of planets that includes a temperate Bovinoid & temperate Avian. For fuel economy and strategic reasons those worlds are best close together ... why advertise your presence unless absolutely unavoidable? Once you have such a cluster build some freighters and run them around prescribed paths, sending them out with no fuel and no cargo (unless you’re supplying an Bovinoid, Avian or Amorph world with clans) to the furthest world in the loop and planet-hop them back picking up fuel & minerals & cash on the way. It shouldn’t be too long before the starbase is max’d out and it is building top specification ships in its own right.

Building Ships

Only you can decide which ships to build as it depends on the various racial strengths and weaknesses of your race. Early in the game you will be building smaller ships because they are easier to move around and often they will cloak, thus avoiding detection by other, potentially unfriendly, races. If you have HYPerdrive capable ships (Cyborgs, Robots & Rebels) you will build these early in the game, HYPing them out to establish wide ranging borders and look out posts for your budding empire. If you have Gravitronic ships (Privateers) you will be building MBR’s mainly and Large Freighters with useless Stardrive 1 engines and you’ll be towing them around twice as fast as any other player. The Empire will concentrate on building more Starbases than anyone else because at each s/he will be getting 5 free fighters per turn whereas the Robots will be building Q-Tankers and the Rebels/Colonies Gemini’s (all with Stardrive 1’s) which will sit in orbit of a suitable world (Bovinoid?) doing nothing but building fighters.

As they say in a well known game show ... the decision is YOURS!

Later on in the game, as the 500 ship limit closes, your colonisation program pans out and minerals & cash flow into your Starbases in steady streams you’ll begin to build your bigger warships. But never forget that the smaller ship has it’s place ... 3 or 4 small warships CAN take out a bigger one and the net loss may still be to your enemy’s detriment.

Unfortunately my experience with any but the free-fighter building races is limited so I am unable to advise on strategy and warship choice much beyond the Colonies, Robots and Privateers. Certain strategies, such as colonisation, remain broadly similar from race to race and I am constantly surprised at how disorganised some players strategies (to my mind) appear ... which I’ve discovered on the rare, & usually unpleasant, experience of taking over another race after a player has, for whatever reason, dropped out of the game.

Alliances.

Do not try to conquer the galaxy on your own ... make an alliance!

Alliances are the key to winning at VGA Planets. Unless you are very, very good (and as a beginner you aren’t!) you will not win unless you work in partnership. More importantly, make that alliance choice with care! Sure personalities are important, trustworthiness is important but, whatever you do, select an ally or allies that will benefit you strategically and make very sure you can give them something in return. If you’re one of the "big" free-fighter builders then you will need cloakers, you will (if you’re not the Rebels) need HYPerdrive ships, you may decide you need Gravitronic ships .... and you will be able to supply your ally with free-fighters and possibly large fighter carrying ships.

Don’t be fooled by "The Border Alliance!". The border alliance is a delaying tactic, it may be desirable at that moment in time but believe me you’d better be prepared for an attack across it ... because it WILL happen!

One final piece of advice. Treat your allies with respect. If you make a commitment, stick to it. Do this and you will have every right to wipe them out if they cross you .... and remember those who do break alliances ... because they will do it again and they cannot be trusted!

Utilities

Despite the fact that VGAP is not liked by many conventional PC Gamers there are those that tend to be very enthusiastic and such enthusiasm has created the environment for the existence of many, many utilities & extra’s for the game. Such extra’s take the form of addons (scenario’s, shiplists and additional game features), information (text files, strategy reviews, FAQ’s), host utilities (crack, ragnarok, tantalus) and what you, the new-to-VGAP player are really interested in ... player utilities.

Utilities for the player are enhanced tools e.g. in the DOS planets client (PLANETS.EXE) you cannot see what that red dot, representing an enemy ship 300 LY away, is .... sure you can tell it’s a Robot ship but what else can you actually find out? Nothing ..... that is nothing until some very nice people came along and started writing utilities .... and now you can tell it’s a Golem AND an Automa traveling directly towards your homeworld at Warp 9 and you figure it’s time to start getting worried!

So what utilities are there? The following list briefly details some of the utility type and examples of them (please note that the following is a Quick & Dirty list … that is to say it is compiled from so many screwed up pieces of paper that I found mouldering under piles of rotten vegetables for several years … I take no responsibility for their accuracy!)

Role Play

Whilst the emphasis of VGAP is on strategy & colonisation the simple (and believe me it IS simple) messaging system adds an RPG (role playing game) dimension.

To paraphrase a friend of mine (Doug BierBower) "Until a player can prove to me, unequivocally, that he IS a Klingon, a Lizard or a Robot then this game IS a role playing game!". Role Playing Games (RPG) are, as I understand it, games in which the characters the players develop form an important part of, and perhaps even take precedence over, the game. VGA Planets is NOT like that but you can develop your in-game character to a considerable degree. The in-game messaging system is not very user-friendly but playing the game by E-mail offers immense possibilities in terms of role-play and some of the messages can be clever, provocative & funny.

I can state that the limited RPG capability within VGAP, for me, makes for much more excitement than the basic planetary management & strategy which forms the major part of the game. There have been times when I have been nearly rolling on the floor with laughter at some of the abusive role-play messages sent by players!

Rehabilitation

Take note .... VGA Planets IS addictive! There are no formal rehabilitation services available but a recognised cure in the event of a serious defeat is to immediately take up position either as a new or replacement player in one of the many other games running or starting up on The Internet or upon various BBS services. Failing that it is rumoured that a horsehair shirt, a whip and copious flagellation does wonders for the mind and body!!!

Conclusion (inc. Hosting VGAP games)

VGA Planets, as previously stated, is not the same type of game as the latest PC-based games (wonderful graphics, sound effects & music), games that are fast & furious ..... if that’s the sort of game you truly like to play then VGAP is NOT for you! But if you want a game which involves intelligence, camaraderie, play against REAL people and you have an imagination where the game interface is NOT the prima facie aspect of the game then VGAP may well be the game you are seeking.

Having read this you may just turn around and forget it, that’s your decision and your loss, but you may just be tempted to take a step into a bigger, better world than the average PC gamer.