Most features of PHost are designed to work with all client versions.
More than 500 Minefields are, at the time of this writing, only supported by PCC and EchoView. For VPA users, there's a workaround (VPA10k). I guess this feature is not widely used anyway.
Remote Control and PlayerRace games, as well as extensive Hull function editing, can cause client programs to guess wrong about whether you are allowed to do your special mission (mission 9) or to cloak (mission 10).
- With all programs, you can use the replacement extended missions instead.
- VPA supports PlayerRace, check the file races.ini for details. VPA 3.61a and later also supports remote control. If it still won't let you set the missions you need, enable the DullMissions option in vpa.ini, VPA will then let you set any mission. Very recent versions support most of PHost's current hull functions.
- PCC supports remote control and PlayerRace. PlayerSpecialMission and the new hull function abilities are supported in recent versions. You can always enter any mission through the "Extended mission" window.
More than 50 Targets (scanned enemy ships) are more common with PHost than with (older) Wisseman hosts due to the alliance feature. Newer Wisseman hosts also have a comparable thing ("FF allies").
- DOS Planets users can only see 50 ships, period. This is a limitation of the program which can't be removed. The same holds for shareware Winplan.
- Winplan (registered) can display any number of targets. Reportedly, it has problems displaying the 50th target (or some-such), but all the others will be displayed just fine.
- VPA, PCC and EchoView can display all targets.
Because of the DOS Planets limitation, PHost will send only 50 targets when you submit a TRN file that seems to be made by DOS Planets. The excess targets will be placed in util.dat. Most programs that can display them (e.g. VPA, PCC, EV) will find them there.
If you are using an old program such as VPUtil which does not find the targets in util.dat, you can request to be sent all targets using the bigtargets command resp. the AllowMoreThan50Targets configuration option. In this case, you must not unpack such results with DOS Unpack, use VPUnpack or the built-in unpacker of VPA or PCC instead.
More than 500 Ships are handled by PHost in the very same way as in Host999. Every client that handles Host999 should also be able to deal with PHost configured to more than 500 ships.
- There is a version of DOS Planets with 999 ships support.
- Recent Winplan versions support 999 ships.
- VPA 3.58, PCC 1.0.11 and EchoView 1.2.14a (and later versions) support Host999.
