Traditionally, programs have been scanning subspace messages to figure out certain information. For example, to display minefields, programs read your subspace mail for messages from your ships saying "we have laid N mines at (X,Y)". This only works when you use English messages. When you set your messages to another languages, the programs will no longer understand them. This is also the reason why English messages read a bit strange sometimes: we will not change them to not break message scanners. If your program does not rely on message scanning, you can switch to your native tongue, or to "NewEnglish" (PHost 3.4c and later) using the language command.
Programs that need message scanning:
- VPA before version 3.61
- Informer
- iron-age versions of PCC and EchoView
