Upgrading from 4.x

Check the upgrade instructions in the Changes document. Usually, you only have to check new configuration settings. Skim the change list to see if a change affects you.

Upgrading from 3.x

Ensure that all add-on programs used in the game can handle PHost 4.x. Programs compiled with PDK 4.4 or later can handle both formats.

Several configuration options were introduced, some were dropped. Update the configuration file. To see what you have to change, run PHost in check-only mode with -oConfigLevel=1, like this:

$ ./phost -oConfigLevel=1 -c0 test_game
WARNING: pconfig.src: Parameter 'AllowNewNatives' is not recognized
WARNING: pconfig.src: Parameter 'CPEnableMessage' is not recognized
WARNING: pconfig.src: default value used: 'StructureDecayOnUnowned = 1'
WARNING: pconfig.src: default value used: 'PALIncludesESB = Yes'
WARNING: pconfig.src: default value used: 'PBPCostPer100KT = 200'
WARNING: pconfig.src: default value used: 'PBPMinimumCost = 400'
WARNING: pconfig.src: default value used: 'PBPCloneCostRate = 200'
WARNING: pconfig.src: default value used: 'NumShips = 500'
WARNING: pconfig.src: default value used: 'ShieldKillScaling = 0'
Using custom hull functions defined in 'hullfunc.txt'
Game name is 'PHOST Game'
This is Turn #39.
Checking host data...
Looking for player6.trn
    Turn not found!
[...]

Look up the parameters PHost complains about in the Configuration document, and change your configuration accordingly.

For your convenience, we have included a list with all new options added between PHost 3.4c and 4.1 in config/upgrade.src.

Upgrading from 2.x

The instructions for upgrading from version 3 hold here, too. However, many more parameters have changed between version 2 and 3. PHost 3 contains more detailed upgrade instructions for going from version 2 to 3, but I'm too lazy to copy them here :-)

If the game was hosted on a non-DOS system, you have to convert it into DOS format. PHost 4.x uses the same file format on all systems, which is the same file format as used on DOS.