PlanetsCentral

Question: Is there a client that can give "WinPlan"-style orders?

I was wondering if I could use it to, say, test the hyperdrive logic that is in Host 3.22.047...

-CSY

Question: Is there a client that can give "WinPlan"-style orders?

I was wondering if I could use it to, say, test the hyperdrive logic that is in Host 3.22.047...

What do you consider "WinPlan"-style orders?

The only thing I can imagine under this heading which deserves a special name is PCC/PCC2's auto tasks, which allow you to plan multi-turn movement and quite a lot more.

--Stefan

What do you consider "WinPlan"-style orders?

The only thing I can imagine under this heading which deserves a special name is PCC/PCC2's auto tasks...

Interesting... I had a feeling the original Planets doc was faulty when I was tasked with examining this logic.

Basically, I was wondering if Host 3.22 treated HYP differently for WinPlan compared to Planets 3.0-style clients (i.e. VPA)... With the clues given and using PCC2 to hyperjump into the corner of a 2x2 square, it appears that this item has been busted.

This game has so many subtleties to learn, be it Host 3.22, PHost, or NuHost.

-CSY

Basically, I was wondering if Host 3.22 treated HYP differently for WinPlan compared to Planets 3.0-style clients (i.e. VPA)... With the clues given and using PCC2 to hyperjump into the corner of a 2x2 square, it appears that this item has been busted.

Ah, now I see where you're coming from.

There are two slightly different formats for turn files, version 3.0 and version 3.5. Version 3.5 is generated by Winplan registered, and can also be generated by PCC, VPA, etc. Version 3.0 is generated by Dosplan and Winplan shareware.

HOST treats 3.5 clients a little different at various places. One such place is waypoint trimming. Dosplan cannot set waypoints further than 170 ly away, and will crash when it sees such a waypoint. This means Dosplan cannot do exact hyperjumps. HOST will validate this and trim waypoints. All other clients don't have a problem with such waypoints.

Before 3.22.019, HOST was doing this before movement. In 3.22.019, it was moved to after movement. That is, you can now use any client (VPA, PCC, VPUtil, Winplan) to set a long waypoint, and you can do exact hyperjumps. Only after the move, HOST will trim the waypoint again, so that the Dosplan viewing the result does not crash.

Source: http://www.mortlakemagic.com/planets4/hst321.htm

--Stefan

... Version 3.5 is generated by Winplan registered, and can also be generated by PCC, VPA, etc...

I did not know VPA can currently do 3.5-style TRN files. I suspect I missed an intermittent update which allowed VPA to write TRN files directly, without the use of MakeTurn.

It is also interesting to learn that there is a third mirror of the VGA Planets 3/4 website. Unlike the other two mirrors, this one works much nicer with the Webring infrastructure.

Thanks again for answering. It does not help that there is very few VGA Planets 3.X sites still running.

-CSY

It is also interesting to learn that there is a third mirror of the VGA Planets 3/4 website. Unlike the other two mirrors, this one works much nicer with the Webring infrastructure.

In case you're referring to the "mortlakemagic" domain: that's what I got referred to from http://planets4.com/, so I expect it to be as official as it can get. (A while ago there were rumors are that http://vgaplanets.com/ is no longer under control by Tim?)

Regarding webrings, that whole idea probably went down the drain a while ago: when I open a page that uses a webring, more often than not it immediately redirects me to the webring homepage instead of the page I want to see; that I only see on the second invocation.

--Stefan

In case you're referring to the "mortlakemagic" domain...

Yes, I am.

(A while ago there were rumors are that http://vgaplanets.com/ is no longer under control by Tim?)

No telling how true this is... One thing is certain: StarCube (a.k.a. Planets 5) has been dead since February 2012. Technically, the site was still around for several months after the closed beta, but the project was never revived after being stopped.

Unfortunate, but probably for the best. Silverlight and other plug-ins have already been phased out in Firefox and Chrome. Tech Crunch and The Verge have posted that Flash will be phased out in 2020 as well.

-CSY