Jupiter

Jupiter is the third of Oleg Shvartsman's power addons. At it's core Jupiter is a combination of the Nemesis and the Gryphon addons, although it is more than just a simple combination of the other two.

The Jupiter add-on program is an attempt to better the famous game of VGA Planets. With the many new racial special abilities and a few universal ones, this program adds a new dose of spice and excitement to the Echo Cluster. Jupiter is the most feature- rich add-on to VGA Planets, providing new abilities designed for power and convenience. With MANY configurable options and a special TEAM game switch, the host can customize the game to his preferences and the players may use the team game to exchange ships and racial special abilities.

Special abilities in the Jupiter include such gems as Sweettalking for the Federation, Sneak Attack for the Birdmen, deep space missiles for the Fascists and much more. The Privateers can tow enemy ships through minefields while cloaked, without a chance of hitting a mine. The Borg cubes become very scary with their double speed intercept, the Crystals can move their webmines around for extra terror and the Empire can now launch probe droids for detailed information on enemy planets. New to the Robots is a Viral field in which they can trap and incapacitate entire enemy fleets, the Rebels can build deep space bases and the Lost Colonies can now use their fighters to destroy complete starbases without ever sending a single ship to the planet.

The abilities listed above are just one per race, but keep in mind most races gain three or more new abilities through the Jupiter addon. Most of those abilities are quite serious and have a great impact on gameplay and tactical options (where some features in for example raceplus are less 'powerful'). So when playing in a game that uses this addon, make sure you read the docs well  - and not just the part describing your own race.

As the author has written himself in the addon's documentation: With Jupiter, you will never lack an appropriate tool to rain destruction on your opponents!

Additional information: Jupiter player docs & Jupiter Order of Operations