The configuration was cleaned up. One of PHost's most distracting points was that huge configuration file. You don't need a university degree to play with PHost -- but do you believe that in the presence of 300 configuration options?
Now, some of the very rarely-used options have been dropped. Others have been made optional so the average host need not bother with them. Ship-list specific parts can be separated out into a separate file that goes with the ship list. All in all, this allows for much shorter game configuration files.
Some options are no longer accepted:
- The older obsolete options (ColonialFighterSweepRate, ColonialFighterSweepRange, RaceTaxRate) previously only gave a warning; now they are no longer recognized at all and yield an error.
- AllowMeteorMessages makes little sense; when a meteor hits your planet there's no reason to not tell you. Besides, you were getting util.dat records even when this was off.
- CPEnableMessage is no longer supported. The ability to send messages is controlled solely by the AllowPlayerMessages command. It makes no difference to the recipient of a message whether it was sent using the message command or not. Turning off AllowPlayerMessages no longer disables rumors as well; if CPEnableRumor is still on, rumors can be sent.
During the 4.1 series, we will further reduce the number of configuration options. For example, there is no need to have a separate switch to turn off Hissing when you can as well assign the player a different special mission - ignoring the fact that probably nobody so far ever wanted to disable Hiss.
