1. Overview
2. Outline
3. Tools

 

 

Have you ever wanted to see what would happen if a galactic civil war erupted between different factions of the Solar Federation? Have you ever wanted to play the Minbari from Babylon 5 or the Kilrathi from Wing Commander? Have you ever just wanted to mix things up and play God? Then now is your chance to make it happen!

 

Through the month of September 2006 Circus-Maximus.com will be hosting it's 2nd Annual Scenario Design Contest for VGA Planets. We're looking for the best custom made scenario for VGA Planets version 3.0 DOS, and version 3.5 WinPlan.

 

Once the submission deadline has passed, all eligible entries will be judged and trophy's will be awarded for First, Second and Third place winners.

 

 

 

The concept has been kept as simple as possible.

 

A scenario consists of 4 key elements.

1. Conceptual Idea

2. Shiplist (Custom or Pre-Existing)

3. Galactic Map

4. Documentation

You can use a pre-existing shiplist's such as the standard default "TimList" that comes with the game, or any of the others readily available like TLIST, and CBLIST. If you're inclined, you can also create your own ship list with races currently unavailable in the known VGA Planets universe. The sky is the limit!

 

While the tools for building custom scenarios are mentioned in the next section, one needs to be mentioned here. If you're interested in creating a situation that pits factions of the same race against one another, you're going to need a program called SRACE. SRACE can be found on our Host Versions page in the Downloads area.

 

It is not necessary to make your scenario work with any 3rd party host addon's. Examples would be programs like Starbase+ and F-Host. But should you do so, it will be noticed by the judges.

 

There are some excellent examples of how to build a scenario located in the Downloads area. Look at the SDC 2005 Winners and standard Scenarios page's for full scenarios. The Maps page and Shiplists page are also chock full of info. Download some and take a look at them. For stellar example of how to build a scenario from scratch I would suggest looking at Grant Woodring's "Europe" scenario and Matt Clouser's "Klingon Civil War" scenario.

 

 

 

There are many unique tools at your disposal for the creation of custom games. Some examples are listed below. All of these utilities can be found on www.circus-maximus.com in our download pages or on the FTP site.

 

            Campaign / All-In-One Tools

-         Dan Gale ’s VGA Planets Campaign Editor

-         Overlord by Brad Doucette

 

            Map Making

-         Map Wizard by Eugene Goroh

-         New Map by Carsten Pinnow

-         Make Map by “Weird Al" Walker

-         Fix Map by Roger Burton West

-         Troll Mapper by Ben “Red Troll” Stout

 

            Shiplists

-         ShipEdit by Sebastian Zander

-         PENG – Portable Shiplist Compiler by Stefan Reuther

 

            Race Creation

-         The Design List by Ted York

 

and many more.