PlanetsCentral

Thanks so much for keeping VGA Planets alive! I would love to try hosting a game using PHost (Win32) but I'm running into a few difficulties and am hoping for some assistance.

So far I have
-used a fresh install of VGA Planets for DOS, newest version I could find was 3.2
-created empty folder (PHTest) off root of install folder and used master.exe to create new game
-extracted contents of phost-4.1h-win32 into install folder
-using tim-host.src and standard.txt files, copied them into gamefolder as pconfig.src and shiplist.txt

At this point I believe I should be able to run phost just like I would host, but when I try this is the error I receive:

--------------------------begin quote----->
D:\320FULL>phost.exe PHTEST
Portable Host version 4.1h for PC Win32/Windows NT

Copyright (c) 1995-2014 Portable Host Project

Invoked with the following parameters:

D:\320FULL\phost.exe
PHTEST

ERROR: unable to open 'storm.nm' for reading
ERROR: Unable to read Planets global data files
ERROR: You must specify a directory which contains a VGA Planets universe.

For more information on setting up a game and hosting, consult the documentation that came with the PHost distribution.

-----------------------------end quote----->

It's clearly looking for a "storm.nm" file, but searching both my fresh 3.2 install as well as an older 3.14 game I'm running, that file doesn't seem to exist anywhere.

Here are the contents of the folder i'm trying to run phost from:

Any help greatly appreciated! Once again thanks for keeping the community alive and supporting it!!

ERROR: unable to open 'storm.nm' for reading

I'm surprised that you do not have that, it is supposed to come with the original VGAP files.

Anyway, it's also contained in hstsup32.zip (Tim's HOST 3.2 support files), a copy of which is still around here: http://space-port.de/VGAP/host/host.htm

I guess we need a download area here as well...

--Stefan

Xhumeka in PHost 4.1h Install Assistance:

ERROR: unable to open 'storm.nm' for reading

I'm surprised that you do not have that, it is supposed to come with the original VGAP files.

Anyway, it's also contained in hstsup32.zip (Tim's HOST 3.2 support files), a copy of which is still around here: http://space-port.de/VGAP/host/host.htm

I guess we need a download area here as well...

--Stefan

That fixed it of course, working great now!

I can't wait to play around with this more, after playing 6 or 7 very quick test rounds, my inital reactions are:

-WOW, phost runs sooooo fast!! After using DOSBox and TimHost for so long, I'm used to a turn taking at least 30 seconds even WITH turbo mode enabled on DoxBox

-it's soooo nice to be able to set a waypoint in PCCII 600 LY away, and actually have the ship start to move the next turn. It sure will be nice not having to use an auto-task to move in segments for long journeys (to avoid TimHost from auto-trimming far away waypoints)

Thanks Stefan!

Spontaneous intuition: if you have PCC2, you also have the specification files, no need to dig into old archives.

Under Windows, they are installed in "C:\Program Files (x86)\PCC2\specs". Under Linux, they are installed in "/usr/local/share/planets".

--Stefan