Clientside actions

There is a significant difference in VGA Planets between most actions and the so-called 'clientside' actions. Clientside actions are performed as soon as you perform them (loading clans from your homeworld onto your freighter, for example) while all other actions are actually performed during the hostrun (movement, for example). In most cases, clientside actions are easy to recognise as such - if you load clans from your homeworld to your freighter, they're gone from the homeworld immediately and onboard your freighter immediately. However, especially in a listing with the host order of actions, some clientside actions are easy to confuse with actions that are performed during the hostrun.

Cargo transfers between own ships and planets
Transferring cargo between ships from the same owner and/or planets from the same owner are handled immediately during the client-side of a turn, and are "checked" at the very beginning of the hostrun. Minerals, for instance, transferred from a ship to one of your own planets during the client-side can immediately be used for building a starbase, a shipcomponent or whatever you wish to make from those minerals.

Handled in this phase are:

• Transfer between own ships (fuel, money, colonists, supplies, minerals, fighters and torpedoes).
• Transfers from own ships to own planets (fuel, money, colonists, supplies, minerals).
• Transfers from own planets to own ships (fuel, money, colonists, supplies, minerals).
• Manually loaded and unloaded fighters and torpedoes from ships to starbases.

This is not to be confused with cargodrops from your ships to unowned, allied or enemy planets or transfers from your ships to ships belonging to other people (allied or enemy). Those two are handled separately later in the hostrun. However they may seem clientside (cargo is gone from the transferring ship), transfers to foreign ships and planets are not done clientside. The cargo does not arrive at it's destination during the clientside of the turn - it takes a hostrun to get there.

Building structures
Apart from the structures used in addons, there are three types of structures you can build on planets. These are mineral mines, factories and defenseposts. Mines are used to extract minerals from the planet's core. Factories produce one supply unit per factory per turn. Defenseposts help shield the planet from enemy scanners and protect it in combat.

Structures are built immediately during the client side of the game: they are built "immediately" once you build them with whichever client you're using. This is why it is one of the first things the host-program "processes". For more details, see "structures"

Building starbases
Starbases can be built at planets, and once built they will orbit that planet. Starbases are primarily used to build ships. Starbases can also repair damaged ships, recycle ships that are no longer useful and perform a range of other orders. Additionally, starbases greatly help in defending planets in battle.

Building costs

• 900 Megacredits
• 120 kilotons of Duranium
• 402 kilotons of Tritanium
• 340 kilotons of Molybdenum

Starbases are less recognisable as being clientside than structures. If you build a factory, it's there immediately and the used resources are gone immediately. With a starbase, it's slightly different. The resources are gone immediately, but the base isn't there yet. It is however one of the first things done by the host program. For more details on starbases, see "starbases"

Alliances
Alliances can be set and broken through ships' friendly codes.

To set a race as your ally, set a friendly code of "ffX" on one or more of your ships, where X is the racenumber of your ally (1 for Feds, 2 for Lizards......9 for Robots, a for Rebels and b for Colonies). To offer an alliance a ship does not need to have fuel onboard. If your proposed ally also uses the "ffX" (with X corresponding to your race) code to make you his ally, the two of you are formally allied.

Alliances are checked very early in the hostrun, and as such alliances can be labelled clientside actions. For more details, see "alliances"

Jettison cargo
It is possible to jettison cargo and/or fuel from your ships, as long as they are in deep space. Nothing can be jettisoned when a ship is in orbit of a planet.
Ships need to have fuel onboard in order to jettison. Cargo is jettisoned during the clientside part of the game: anything you jettison is gone immediately.

What exactly can and can't be jettisoned depends on the client-program that is used:

• With Winplan anything but the crew can be jettisoned: fuel, cargo (minerals, supplies, clans and megacredits), but also torpedoes and fighters.
• DOSplan and VPA do not allow the jettisoning of money, torpedoes and fighters.

Lock towbeam
In the very early stages of the hostrun, the towbeam is locked onto the intended towee. This happens before ships cloak, so if you try to tow an enemy ship that cloaks the same turn, the cloaking does not disable the towing. The same goes for towing cloaked allied ships. As long as they are visible when you give the order, the towbeam will be locked. As such, locking a towbeam can be labelled clientside (some addons check for towlocks, so locking a towbeam apparently happens somewhere before auxhost1) You can tow your own ships regardless of them being cloaked or not.

To lock a towbeam as defined in this description, a ship does not need to have fuel onboard. It does need fuel to actually tow(capture) a ship. For more details on locking towbeams, towing and towcapturing, see "towing".