VGA Planets is a shareware game. While the hosting programs are free, you should register an official client program if you play often. You get a few benefits when you do that:
- registered players can buy all tech levels. Unregistered players can only buy up to tech 6. Unregistered players can still access tech 10 (when they find a planet with the right natives), but registered players can do so much easier.
- there are a number of registered-only friendly codes and missions. These will simply not work for unregistered players.
- the registered Winplan offers many more features over the shareware version (for DOS Planets, differences are minor).
There is a gentlemen's agreement in the VGAP world that 3rd party Client only offer you registered functions when you have registered an official client.
When two players share a registration key, they will be attacked by the Tim Continuum. When you play two races in one game, you must play them both in the same directory, always run Maketurn at the same time, and send in the TRN files as a group to avoid being attacked.
