A program that plays a race, instead of a human player. Usually abbreviated as "CPlayer". Computer players are sometimes used to fill in for players who missed a turn or dropped out, or for practice games.
It is close to impossible to make a good AI for Planets, so most computer players have their weaknesses and do harm gameplay. In particular, managing resources (freighters, ...) seems to be a critical point.
Some computer players:
- CPlayer: the original computer player. Plays rather bad and cheats a lot. However, this one comes with source, so there are a few improved successors to it.
- Dominate: a CPlayer successor. Designed not to cheat. Therefore, it plays a bit weak, but is a good candidate for using as a drop-in for a human player.
- The Q: plays quite strong, but uses quite massive cheats (free fuel for Q ships).
- Spacelord: unique in that it plays client-side and hence has no chance to cheat. Reportedly plays quite good. (Of course, every computer player author claims his player to have beaten all the others in test games :-)
- Kattivik: a CPlayer successor.
- Admiral
- ACP / Omega
