The standard missions can be set in all client programs. There are two exceptions, however. When you are using a custom ship list where ships can cloak which can not in the standard list, some clients may refuse to let you set the cloak mission. You then have to use the cloak extended mission. The same holds for the special mission in games with non-standard PlayerRace assignments, and on remote-controlled ships, for which you would use the extended special mission as a replacement.
Note that DOS Planets splits mission selection over two menus. The first ten missions are on the "Mission" menu (key M), the "Gather"-type missions are on the "Gather" menu (key G). Both menus change the mission of the ship. If you use both menus, the ship will perform the mission selected last, not both.
That aside, setting a standard mission is similar in most clients: you choose a mission, and the client asks you for its parameters if it needs some. Client programs automatically know all the 15 standard missions.
The procedure to set extended missions differs in client programs, and you may need to tell the program about the extended missions first.
► Note: Some games have extended missions disabled. In those, a ship told to perform an extended mission will either do nothing special, or continue its previous mission. Check the AllowExtendedMissions parameter to see whether extended missions are enabled in your game.
Winplan
Winplan players should place the mission.ini file that comes with PHost (or an alternate file provided by the host) in the VPWORKx subdirectory being used for the game. When you wish to give an extended mission order to a ship, bring up the mission menu for the ship and click on the "Extended Missions" button at the bottom of window. You will now see the list of missions to choose from in a selection window. Click on the mission you wish to perform.
Depending upon the mission you've chosen, you may be told that there is an "Intercept Required" and a "Tow Number Required". These are the parameters 1 and 2. Enter the desired values in the respective edit fields. Click "OK" to confirm.
VPA
VPA supports the mission.ini file in the same way as Winplan does. Place it in the game directory to let VPA know about the extended missions.
When you go to select a ship's mission, you will see the extended missions listed along with the normal missions. Enter the optional parameters if prompted.
► Note: Note that VPA 3.50a has a slight bug in this interface. If you enter a parameter value that is 0, VPA will ignore the extended mission. To work around this bug, do not enter extended mission parameters with a value of 0. This bug is fixed in VPA 3.51 or higher.
PCC
PCC knows about the PHost extended missions and will automatically offer them along with the standard missions when applicable. PCC also supports the mission.ini file.
DOS Planets
DOS Planets does not know about extended missions, and does not know about mission.ini, so you will need to enter new missions using the extmission command processor command. Briefly, the syntax of the command is
extmission <ship> <mission> [<parm1> [<parm2>]]
where <parm1> and <parm2> need only be specified for missions that require parameters. For example, to perform the Transfer Credits to Ship mission, which is number 28, you would send the command
extmission 105 28 317 5000
This will tell ship #105 to transfer 5000 mc to ship 317. Since planets.exe won't let you edit messages afterwards, it makes sense to collect these commands on a sheet of paper and send them afterwards as a group.
Note that the word extmission can be abbreviated up to the letter e.
The extmission command overrides the normal mission setting. If you set a mission on the regular ship screen, and send an extmission command, the ship will only perform the mission set using extmission.
