Winplan

Winplan is the official Windows VGA Planets client. It is set up to handle up to eight separate games, for which it will use separate directories.The Winplan interface is easy to use and pretty self-explanatory. You start off with your race’s main screen, from which you can choose to direct your ships, planets and starbases. You can also change your settings or go directly to the starchart. I usually make my turns by first going through my ships, and then if necessary my planets and bases. But most of the time I switch to the appropriate planets and bases while giving commands to my ships.People who don’t like Winplan often claim it is too slow. True, it obviously isn’t built for speed, but personally speed is not the first thing I’m looking for when it comes to VGA Planets. I like Winplan because it’s easy to use, nice on the eyes (well, once you’ve replaced the graphics with alternate bitmaps) and since it’s a windows application it’s simple to switch back and forth between Winplan, Echoview, your email program and a spreadsheet.Winplan offers some advantages over other clients, mainly that it enables you to plot exact hyperjumps (this is not possible with the DOS version of VGA Planets) and it gives you correct minefield information (Winplan is the only client that does this). Also, it shows UFOs which are often used and generated by addons, and allows you to interact with them. This too is not possible with other clients (though there are patches for this for DOS Planets and VPA).

The thing I like most about Winplan is the fleet control screen. It presents all ships at a certain position in one screen, listed in order of Friendly Code battle-order. Together with the auto options (automatic waypoints, friendly code changes, missions, taxation and building of structures) this makes it very easy to command and maintain large empires, leaving you more time to think strategy and correspond with allies and enemies.

Updates for people with a Registered version of Winplan: http://www.vgaplanets.com/fixes.htm