Publisher Description
1BANCO is an Add-On for VGA Planets. This Add-On allows you to buy and sell minerals, supplies and fighters in the Corsarian's Stock Exchange and, deposit money in the Bank (to collect interest).  The Bank will even allow you to request loans!

The Corsarians are shrewd investors. They know they are bringing a valuable commodity to the Echo Cluster; as such, the prices of the Corsarian Satellites will rise, and fall, to meet supply and demand.

AMASTER implements a clever way to find suitable homeworld locations. It is possible to create maps of any given shape.

AMASTER is intended to be portable and open source.

Publisher Description
Every VPL player asks herself sooner or later "What the hell did Tim have in mind of when he made the Red Wind class carrier hull tech 8?! It's small, it's almost unarmed, it doesn't have any special mission...
...it's all but useless!"

Well, here's the answer to that old question: The Red Wind is...
...a mobile KAMIKAZE fighter launcher! ("Banzai!" is said to be an ancient Terran battlecry, dating back to Japanese suicide pilots in world war II)

Publisher Description
Centaurian Legacy is an add-on for Tim Wisseman's ever popular play-by-mail computer game, VGA Planets.

Long ago, well before any of the eleven races had arrived in the Echo Cluster, the concentration of stars was populated by an incredibly sophistocated and benevolent race of thinkers:  The Centaurians... Born amidst the ion-rich star cluster of the Echo, the Centaurians prospered and grew into a mighty empire that spanned the entire sector.  Their mammoth starships would inspire awe among anyone who was graced with their tremendous visages.  For millenia, the Centaurians thrived in the Echo Cluster, a proud civilization and monument of intellect and ethics.

Publisher Description
If you are tired of carring colonists and supplies around the universe to colonize planets, this utility may help you.

It uses the auxhost feature of version 3.2 and whenever a player unloads 1 clan on an unexplored planet, on the next turn he/she gets 100 clans and 100 factories already built.

Publisher Description
"Crystalline Entity Reborn" is a remake of the original "Crystalline Entity" addon, rewritten and compiled with more recent equipment to be compatible with modern CPUs.

The idea of the Crystalline Entity is from the Star Trek: The next Generation series. It's a really big lifeform that is able to live in space. However, as every lifeform it needs food to survive. The Crystalline Entity absorbs all life it can find on planets it encounters and transforms it into energy. That doesn't mean it's a killer, it's only trying to survive. But as always, those who ARE the food don't care much about this, they only want to destroy the thing that is going to kill them.

But the Crystalline Entity doesn't just leave lifeless rocks behind, there are sometimes a few lifeforms that are able to hide themselves and survive. As a byproduct of the transformation of life into energy, new minerals are produced known in Planets as Neutronium, Duranium, Tritanium and Molybdenum. These minerals will be buried deep in the ground of the planet.

Publisher Description
Explore Map will create individual xyplan.dat files for each specified player. Explore map will 'hide' planets that the player has not yet 'seen'. Making universe exploration more inventive a scenerio. As players fly out into space they will 'see' new planets. These are updated to each player's personal xyplan??.dat file.

ExplMap works with both HOST and PHOST. However, some features will only be available in PHOST games (alliance support, xtern commands).

Non-DOS versions can be built with the PDK.

Publisher Description
A sophisticated enhanced host for VGA Planets. Boosts game play with many new features. FHost does not replace the original host.exe or phost.exe, it’s just an enhancement

Carrier Fleet Combat, Advanced Fighter Missions, Advanced Torpedo Missions, Stargates, Core Torpedo's, Sunbuster Torpedo's, Supernova, Plasma Sunscoops, Ramscoops, Deathstar Destruction Beam, Maintenance Ships and many new friendly codes. Winplan support. Highly configurable.

Available for DOS/32, OS/2, and WinNT/95/32.

Publisher Description
Flag Ship is a new game scenario for VGA Planets, fully titled "Capture the Flag Ship"

Each player gets a special ship they have to protect at all costs. This ship is selected by the host, but some hosts may wish their players to choose what type of ship their Flagship will be. The ship is limited by the race.

Upon losing their ship, either by destruction or capture, the player has all of their ships, planets, bases and mine fields destroyed.

Which ever race captures or destroys the Flagship, may have a percentage of the planets, ships and Priority Build Points transferred to them.

Methods of gaining enemy assets are: Destruction by ship, destruction by planetary or base defences, ship capture, tow capture by Crystaline or Privateers, force surrender as base, or ship transfer via the "gs#" friendly code.

The program keeps a ranking of the players, providing a reliable means for getting tournament winners.

This is supposed to be an all out ship hunt, with the idea of making players concentrate more on trying to destroy other ships, not capturing planets.

The winner need only be whoever is left playing.

The Flag Ship can be limited to a set range from any planets, or from its Home planet, or allow unlimited range.

Home World operates very simply. If the home world is captured from the original owner of the home world, some of the original owner's planets and ship may join the new owner. If the original owner of the home world recaptures it from an invader, some of the invader's planets may join the original owner. If the home world is destroyed, but not occupied, as when you capture the Crystals 100 temp home world, the effects are halved.

Any planet or ship that does join another race will probably have some damage or loss of crew/colonists, as the loyalists had to be disposed of before the ship or planet could join a new race.

Publisher Description
JSQ is an add-on utility for VGA Planets using the features implemented in Host 3.2 and higher. Alternate Hosts will be support if they are compatible with the Host, structs and AUXHOST features of Tim Wisseman.

Q'u is a very bad guy. As great transcendental might he travels through the galaxy. His game is to ask for different things and players have to answer with their FriendlyCode. If some answers with <x> are given they have set FC to x of the real answer. If answer is wrong bad things can happen.

Publisher Description
Jump Gate is an add-on utility for VGA Planets 3.5 that takes advantage of the AUXHOST features found in HOST 3.20. This add-on provides the capability for players to Build, Attack, and Repair Jump Gates as well as using them as a form of travel. Four new friendly codes are introduced with this program. They are case sensitive and as follows:

• BJG - Build Jump Gate
• AJG - Attack Jump Gate
• RJG - Repair Jump Gate
• Jnn - Jump to Jump Gate ID# nn

With the convienence of controlled hyperspace travel comes risk. Each time a ship travels via Jump Gate, there is a small chance that an alien ship will exit the destination Jump Gate with the traveller. The aliens are a warrior race, intent on conquering all that they see. They will conquer the entire Echo Cluster unless stopped.

Publisher Description

Lurkers
This is a multi-part VGA Planets Add-on. It will serve a two fold function. It will offer a target as a kind of Computer Player for people wishing to play as a group against a common enemy. It will also act as a background (add-on) to normal games of VGAP. This program can operate in three different modes.

• Mode 1 - (Team)
  This is the operating version where the LURKERS will be considered the "Big Nasty Bad Guys." They have come openly and with hostility to the Echo Cluster. They are out to exterminate all of the existing races. They come armed for bear and all they want to do is destroy. The players will have to play together to withstand the attacks of the LURKERS and they can expect to loose some of their number.
  
• Mode 2 - (Harass)
  This version is a weaker and slower propagating version of Mode 1. This version of the LURKERS will move about the Echo Cluster and harass the different races randomly. Attacking quickly and nastily. They pick from the top scoring players and harass them for a short time, before picking a new target.
  
• Mode 3 - (Ally)
  This is the operating mode where LURKERS will be more of a background influence. They will sneak quietly into the Echo Cluster. Intent upon using one of the existing races as a puppet to bring down the other races. The will come quietly and select one of the races as an ally. The race chooses if they want to accept the alliance with the LURKERS.
  
  As your ally the LURKERS can be ordered to defend planets for you and they will. They can gather spy information for you from enemy planets and they can even be persuaded to attack enemy planets.
  
  In exchange they ask that you provide them with materials to build ships and occasionally you have to go attack targets that they select for you. If you are successful and accomplish your missions, they will stay happy and help you. If eventually you displease them (they loose ships attacking for you, you don't make proper deliveries of resources, ect.) they will leave to select a new ally, and in leaving they will chastise you for failing them.

StormFront
StormFront is a 3rd party add-on for VGA Planets that uses the new third party features in VGA Planets host 3.2x. This program allows the player, through the use of a device that they build and attach to their ship, to manipulate the power and/or heading of an Ion Storm in a game of VGA Planets.

Publisher Description
The Machines Of Yore is an add-on for VGA Planets that scatters machines of differing functions on planets throughout the cluster. One machine provides an unlimited source of moly, another provides a more efficient form of transportation, another destroys ships lightyears away, and there are more.

These machines were constructed long ago by a very intelligent and argumentative alien species. Fortunately, this very intelligent and argumentative alien species also killed each other off long ago. Apparently, some sort of argument developed as to what engineering software was the best to design new machines. There were other arguments, too. Some wanted to be the Empire of Yorians, and others wanted to be the Empire of Yoreans. And others wanted to be the Empire of Yorelites. And others thought "of" was too wordy so they wanted to be the Yorelite Empire. As more and more others were created, they started attacking each other. Eventually, they had completely eradicated themselves from the universe. Which turned out to be a great thing for the new species!

Another great thing for the new races, all the machines were built of non-biodegradable material and are 100% intact!

Successful salvaging of debris will tell you what you discovered, and unsuccessful salvaging may mean you lose some systems, minerals, or even lose a relic.

Many types of relics exist. They range from computer viruses that cause ships, planets and bases to do strange things, to viruses that may affect populations, to high powered explosive devices capable of destroying or damaging anything within the blast radius.

Publisher Description
Starbase+ is an add-on utility for VGA Planets 3.5 that takes advantage of the AUXHOST features found in HOST 3.20. This add-on provides starbases with more inherent abilities. With this Addon, starbases can now lay mines, sweep mines. Transport starship componeSphere is a host add-on product for VGA Planets. It will convert any VGA Planets map that adheres to the standard coordinate system (1000 to 3000) into a torus, allowing ships that travel off one side of the map to reappear on the opposite side (e.g. a ship on the southern edge of the map can travel 100 lys south and be at the northern edge of the map). The default "seam" is 50 lys from the edge of the standard (i.e. X or Y < 950 or X or Y > 3050) but this may be configured to accomodate "compressed maps" (e.g. a map of 350 planets with all planets between 1500 and 2500).

This should make the game a bit tougher. No longer can a player put all his forces on his front lines and leave his rear areas undefended. The increasingly popular "Invasion" games should be a bit more challenging as Homeworlds may come under attack from the other side of the map. It should also end the complaint of those players who find themselves stuck in a corner of the map without any decent planets - just move to another corner.nts and transfer megacredits to your other starbases on the map.

Publisher Description
Stargate is a host side add-on program for the game VGA Planets. It is written in C and uses the Portable Host Development Kit (PDK) to access the data structures. This means that it should be easy to port it to many platforms.

The idea of Stargate is to allow faster movement through the galaxy (in-game). This is done by building stargates with starbases and ships, and then travelling from one stargate to another. Stargate uses four extended commands and some control messages. The extended commands are:
- Build Stargate
- Deploy Stargate
- Use Stargate
- Destroy Stargate

Publisher Description
This VGA Planets add-on is an effort to "populate" the VGA Planets landscape, a feature wished for in the Planets newsgroup and elsewhere.

It is a known fact, that the average distance between stars is about 3-4 light years (ly). However, not every star has a habitable planet. That is why the average distance between the VGAP planets is often tens or more ly. With the help of Super Nova add-on, these "uninhabitable" and therefore invisible on the maps stars can explode, or "go super-nova", inflicting tremendous amounts of damage to the neighboring space, destroying or damaging ships, planetary structures, and other types of hardware. The challenge here is to make maximum use of these nova stars, towing them closer to the enemy territory and detonating them as close as possible to his planets or ships (and then possibly move in with your own starfleet, mopping up the remnants of the enemy's damaged planets and shattered economy).

Publisher Description
Wormholes are, quite simply, folds in the space/time continuum. Travel through a wormhole can allow a ship to travel huge distances virtually instantly. The biggest downfall to wormhole travel, however, is their unstable nature. They are *NOT* jumpgates. Ships must endure unpredictable amounts of hull stress on their way through a wormhole. Also there is no way to know whether or not the wormhole will still be there when the ship wants to return.

On the plus side, a ship travelling through a wormhole expends an insignificantly small amount of fuel. They can also provide nearby planets with an additional source of income from scientific and commercial pursuits.

Publisher Description
Wormholes are, quite simply, folds in the space/time continuum. Travel through a wormhole can allow a ship to travel huge distances virtually instantly. The biggest downfall to wormhole travel, however, is their unstable nature. They are *NOT* jumpgates. Ships must endure unpredictable amounts of hull stress on their way through a wormhole. Also there is no way to know whether or not the wormhole will still be there when the ship wants to return.

On the plus side, a ship travelling through a wormhole expends an insignificantly small amount of fuel. They can also provide nearby planets with an additional source of income from scientific and commercial pursuits.