PBuster

This add-on program allows for the destruction of planets. All inhabitants and structures are destroyed, and the planet is reduced to freezing rubble. This has one major advantage: the minerals in the core are laid bare for pick-up.

This program is GNUWare. It is made available under the General Public Licence; it may be copied and distributed freely as long as no fee is charged for such copying or distribution, and as long as the source code is included.

If you have any questions or comments in respect of this program, please contact the author: Roger Burton West <roger@firedrake.demon.co.uk>.

To configure the program, just edit the pbuster.ini supplied. If there is an ini file in the game directory, it will be used; failing this, an ini file in the main planets directory will be used; if this is not present, default settings will be used.

Information for the host

The program should be run in the auxhost2 phase.

It is invoked as:
broker <dir>

To configure the program, just edit the pbuster.ini supplied. If there is an ini file in the game directory, it will be used; failing this, an ini file in the main planets directory will be used; if this is not present, default settings will be used.

The program uses one extra data file, pbuster.hst, and writes status information to a file pbuster.log in the game directory.

There's no VPAUX bitmap - I don't use WinPlan. All the player needs to have is this document.

Information for the player

To get a configuration message describing planet buster costs, set a planetary friendly code to "con".

To build a planet buster, set the friendly code of a starbase planet to "BPB". You will receive a confirmation message. There is a limit of 255 planet busters in storage at any one base.

To load a planet buster onto a ship, set its friendly code to "LPB" when it is at a base. Each ship can carry only one planet buster

To fire a planet buster, set the carrying ship's friendly code to "FPB" when it is orbiting the target planet. Note that the shock waves from the explosion will be noticed by everyone.

To find out how many planet busters are stored on a planet or ship, set its code to "RPB".

This program was compiled using the excellent and free DJGPP v2 for DOS.
Because of the flat memory model used, there are two requirements for operation:

(1) You must have a 386sx or higher processor. These days, that doesn't seem to be much of a problem for most people. If it's a problem for you, get in touch with me and I'll see about putting an 86-compatible version together.

(2) You'll need a DPMI host. If you're running under Windows (3.1, 95 or NT) this won't be a problem. If you're running under DOS, many third-party memory managers apparently come with DPMI hosts. Failing this, there's always CWSDPMI, which is freely available:

ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2misc/csdpmi3b.zip

Once you've extracted cwsdpmi.exe, just place it somewhere in the search
path.