Host Configuration Settings

Many abilities and missions in VGA Planets can be turned on or off by the host person. Also, many of the game's mechanics can be fine-tuned. Each option has a default setting that has been developed over a period of time, forming a balanced overall game.

The settings listed below are the default settings for Host 3.22.036.

Whenever a setting has a default of YES or NO, an explanation is given of the function that setting relates to. Needless to say, changing something from YES to NO will disable that function, and changing a setting from NO to YES enables that function.

General setup

Recycle rate of colonizing ships: 75 % ( minerals recovered from hull )
The percentage of minerals invested in a ship's hull that are regained when a ship is colonized. Note that the recycling rate (at a starbase) is always 100%

Odds of a large meteor impact: 2%
The chance that a large meteor will hit one of the 500 planets in the cluster.

Antiship space mines: YES
Torpedoes can be converted to space mines and laid as minefields.

Delete Old Messages: NO
If a player misses a turn, the messages he or she received that turn will be saved and sent to the player again the next turn. When this option is set to YES, those messages will not be re-sent.

Disable Passwords: NO
Players can password protect their files using a password. This prevents others from reading that player's data if they obtain their files.

Ground Attack Kill Ratio: (Lizards 30:1 / Fascists 15:1 / all others 1:1)
When a player drops clans on an enemy planet, they will attack the enemy colonists. Due to the nature of their races, the Lizards and Fascists have an advantage when it comes to ground combat.

Ground Defense Kill Ratio: (Lizards 10:1 / Fascists 5:1 / all others 1:1)
When attacked by colonists dropped from enemy ships, Lizard and Fascist colonists defend better than other races due to the nature of their people.

Free fighters at starbases: (Empire 5 / all others 0)
The Evil Empire get 5 "free" fighters per starbase per turn. These five fighters are built from minerals only, and do not require any megacredits.

Crystal desert advantage: YES
Because of their Siliconoid nature, the Crystalline's love desert temperatures. They have a higher growth rate and maximum population on hot planets. If this is set to no, Crystal colonists behave like all other colonists.

One engine ships tow: NO
Ships with only one engine cannot tow other ships.

Ion Storms: 5
The maximum number of Ion storms present in the cluster. To disable Ion storms, set this option to zero.

Ion Storms hide mines: YES
Ion Storms can hide minefields from enemy sensors: a (web)minefield of which the center is inside an ion storm can neither be scanned or swept.

Cloaked ships attack: YES
Cloaked ships can attack ships belonging to their primary enemy. A cloaked ship with a primary enemy set will attack ships belonging to that enemy, but not their planets.

Cloaked ships may be robbed: NO
The Privateers can rob ships of their fuel and cargo, but they can't rob cloaked ships.

Ship cloning: YES
Except for the Privateers and Crystalline's, all races can clone captured enemy ships at their starbases.

Gravity wells: YES
Each planet has a warpwell around it, which pulls every ship within three light years with a warp speed higher than 1 into orbit of the planet.

Planets attack ships: YES
Using the NUK or ATT friendly code, a planet can use its fighters and beams to attack enemy ships.

VPA extra features: NO
With the VPA interface, it is possible to give transfer commands and intercept commands that the official clients won't let you. By default, these commands are considered illegal but hosts may enable them.

Ranges and rates

Fuel used to cloak: 5
The amount of fuel used to cloak or stay cloaked per turn, per 100 kt of hullmass rounded up. The Resolute and the Darkwing do not use any fuel to stay cloaked.

Odds that a cloak will fail: 0%
The chance that a cloaking device will malfunction, for no apparent reason. At it's default setting of 0, cloaking devices will never malfunction unless there is
a clear reason like damage, a Loki or an Ion storm.

Damage to prevent cloaking: 1%
A ship with 1% damage or worse cannot cloak or stay cloaked. With a higher setting, slightly damaged ships can still cloak.

Ships without fuel can move: YES
Ships with 0 fuel can move a couple of light years, depending on their mass. Very light ships can move large distances without any fuel, while heavy ships can hardly
move at all if they're fuelless.

Ships visible range: 300
The detectable range of non-cloaked ships is 300 light years by default. Planets, starbases and ships all automatically look for ships.

Sensor mission range: 200
The range of the sensor sweep mission. This also applies to bioscanners.

Engine-Shield bonus: NO (E-S Bonus rate 50 %)
By default, the engine shield bonus is disabled even though the "engine shield bonus rate" will still read 50%. If enabled, ships gain some mass in battles depending on their type of engines.

Race advantages

Federation super refit: YES
The Federation can use their super refit mission to outfit ships with better parts (engines, beams and torpedolaunchers).

Federation Crew Bonus: YES
Because of the highly trained crews, Federation ships receive several bonuses in combat: extra mass, shield regeneration and full weapons usage regardless of damage.

Lizards can use hiss mission: YES
The Lizards can use their hiss mission to keep natives and colonists happy, or make them happy again when angry.

Effect of hiss mission: 5
The effect of the Lizard Hiss mission is 5 happiness points gained per hissing ship.

Super-Spy Deluxe: YES
Next to their regular Superspy mission (which can not be disabled), the deluxe part of superspying allows the Birdmen to control a planet's friendly code.

Planets can attack Fascist ships: NO
Fascist can use their ships to pillage planets, and are therefore immune to attacks from planets. If this is set to YES, the ability to pillage becomes practically useless since it is performed after battle. Enemy planets would simply fight the Fascist ships before the Fascists could pillage the planet.

Privateer Rob mission failure: 1%
There is a slight chance that the Privateer rob mission will fail, by default this is 1%.

Privateer / Crystalline boarding party: YES
The Crystalline and Privateers can capture fuelless ships via boarding parties by simply towing them. If this is disabled, these races can only take control of enemy ships by towing them to their starbases and forcing them to surrender.

Cyborg assimilation rate: 100%
The Borg assimilate natives into the collective at this rate. That is, 1 colonist will assimilate 1 native. A lower rate decreases the speed in which natives are assimilated, a setting of 0 disables assimilation.

Crystalline web mines: YES
The Crystallines can convert torpedoes into webmines, used to trap enemy ships and drain them of fuel.

Empire's Dark Sense range: 200
The Evil Empire's Dark Sense mission tells them everything about owned planets within this range.

Robots/Rebels/Colonies build fighters in space: YES
These races can build fighters onboard their carriers. They require minerals and supplies only, no megacredits.

Rebel ground attack: YES
The Rebels can perform a planetary groundattack, sabotaging structures, destroying resources and killing colonists.

Planets can attack Rebel ships: NO
The Rebels can perform groundattacks on planets, and are therefore immune to attacks from planets. If this is set to YES, the ability to RGA becomes practically useless since it is performed after battle. Enemy planets would simply attack the Rebel ships before the Rebels could perform their groundattack.

Colonial fighter mine sweep rate: 20
The Colonies of Man have highly skilled fighterpilots: their fighters can be used to sweep mines and each fighter can by default destroy 20 mine-units per turn.

Colonial fighter can sweep webs: NO
Because of the special nature of webmines, Colonial fighters can not sweep them as they can normal mines.

Mines and webmines

Mine field decay rate: 5%
Five percent of all mines plus one additional mine vanish from each minefield each turn as a result of natural causes, like flying spacedebris.

Web mine decay rate: 5 %
Five percent of all webmines plus one additional webmine vanish from each webminefield each turn as a result of natural causes, like flying spacedebris.

Odds of hitting a mine per LY: 1%
The chance of hitting a mine for each lightyear of mines a spaceship passes through. This is independent of the ship's mass, speed or size.

Odds of hitting a mine while cloaked: 0.5%
Cloaked ships run a lower risk of hitting a mine per lightyear than other ships; half a percent instead of 1%. This is independent of the ship's mass, speed or size.

Odds of hitting a webmine per LY: 5%
The chance of hitting a webmine is higher than for normal minefields, at 5% per lightyear travelled. This is independent of the ship's mass, speed or size. The odds for hitting a webmine when cloaked are the same: 5%.

Maximum minefield radius: 150
The maximum radius (not diameter, radius) of a minefield is 150 lightyears. This is also the maximum radius for webmine fields.

Minefield detect range: 200
Ships on a minesweep mission will detect minefields within 200 lightyears.

Mines destroy enemy mines: YES
Overlapping minefields of non-allied races will destroy each other.

Mines destroy enemy webmines: NO
Minefields laid over webmines won't destroy the webmines (nor the other way around).

Minefield sweep rate: 4
One laser type beam on a ship will sweep four spacemines from a minefield. Higher tech beams sweep more mines, depending on their type.

Webminefield sweep rate: 3
One laser type beam on a ship will sweep three spacemines from a webminefield. Higher tech beams sweep more webmines, depending on their type.

Minefield sweep range: 5
A minefield can only be swept from within five lightyears of the edge of the field, or from inside the field itself.

Web minefield sweep range: 0
Webmines can only be swept from within the web.

Hull tech not slowed by minehits: 7
Ships with a hull of techlevel seven or higher are not slowed down by minehits. Ships with lower tech hulls slow down immediately upon hitting a spacemine. All ships come to an immediate halt when hitting a webmine.

Special ships

Hyper drive ships: YES
Ships equipped with a hyperjumping device can make jumps through hyperspace. The Cyborg-built B200 class probe, the PL21 class probe built by the Evil Empire and the Falcon built by the Rebels have these hyperjumping devices installed.

Firecloud Chunnel: YES
Two Firecloud Class Cruisers (built by the Cyborg) can create a chunnel through space in which an unlimited number of ships can be moved over an unlimited distance, burning only 50 kilotons of fuel on the chunneling Firecloud.

Glory device: YES
The Fascists can build two shiptypes with glory devices built into them (the D19 Nefarious and the Saber). Those ships can be set to explode after movement or upon detection of cloaked enemy ships (also after movement).

Loki anti-cloak: YES
The Federation and Lizards can build the Loki Class Destroyer, which can decloak enemy ships.

Loki decloaks Bird Men: NO
Due to their sophisticated cloaking technique, cloaked Birdmen ships are not decloaked by Lokis.

Lady Royale gambling ship: YES
The Privateers and Colonies can build the Lady Royale, capable of producing one megacredit per turn for every clan onboard.

Imperial Assault: YES
The Super Star Destroyer, built by the Evil Empire, can take over an entire planet by simply dropping ten clans onto that planet so long as the ship is not damaged.

Cobol fuel per LY: 2kt
The Cobol (built by the Colonies) scoops up fuel from space while flying, at a default rate of 2 kilotons of fuel per lightyear travelled.

Alchemy ships: YES
This enables the alchemy functions for the Merlin and the Neutronic Refinery Ship. They can convert supplies into minerals (Merlin) and supplies plus minerals into Neutronium fuel (Neutronic refinery)

Aries makes fuel: YES
The Aries (built by the Colonies) makes fuel out of minerals without needing supplies; this is an improved version of the Neutronic Refinery Ship.

Bioscanners: YES
The Brynhild, the Cobol and the Pawn have bioscanners which scan for natives and temperatures of all planets within scanning range, as long as this is set to YES.

Science Missions: YES
This setting enables the terraforming functions of the Eros, Bohemian and Onyx

Planets, population, economy

New natives appear: YES
On colonized planets thought to be devoid of native lifeforms, new natives may be discovered.

Tax collection rates: (Feds 200 / All others 100)
Colonists and natives living on planets can be taxed for money. The Federation is very good at making friends with the natives, natives just lover the Federation and will pay them 200% of normal taxes. Federation colonists also pay 200% of normal taxes.

Max income per planet: 5000 MC
Natives and colonists can be taxed for money. The maximum amount that can be earned from natives and colonists combined per planet per turn is limited by this setting.

Climate limits population: YES
Normally, on planets with a temperature below 15 degrees or above 84 the number of colonists that can survive is limited. The exact number depends on the Climate Death Rate and the colonist race.

Climate Death Rate: 10%
On planets with a temperature below 15 degrees or above 84 degrees the number of colonists that can live there is limited. The actual amount of colonists that can live on the planet is controlled by this number. The higher this setting, the lower the maximum population. The Climate Death Rate only applies when the setting "Climate limits population" is left at it's default setting of YES.

Overpopulations eat supplies? NO
A planet's maximum population is based on it's temperature. If enabled, part of a planet's overpopulation can survive the harsh climate by eating supply-units.

Mineral mining rates: (Feds 70 / Lizards 200 / All others 100)
Due to their environmentally-aware nature, the Federation mines planets at only 70% of the speed of most other races. The Lizards are very strong and mine twice as fast as other races.

Isotope Trans-uranium mutation rate: 5
The rate at which new minerals are formed inside a planet. For the actual number of kilotons that appear, this rate is multiplied by the density first: on a planet with a 60% density of Duranium for example, 3 kilotons will appear every turn.

Planetary structure decay rate: 1
The number of mines, factories and defenseposts is limited by the number of clans on a planet. When there are insufficient clans to support the number of structures, one of each will disappear each turn until the maximum amount that can be maintained by the colonists is reached.