There can be up to 11 players in a game. Each of them can play one of 11 races, or even a completely non-standard race, but usually, player 1 plays standard race 1, and so on. See below for more information.
Players who do not submit a turn will be treated as if they had submitted a turn which contained no commands. Their units will continue their last orders. Only turns based upon current RST files are accepted, stale files cannot be used. Auto Tasks, as offered by some client programs, will not continue when the player misses a turn, they are handled by the client and are never seen by PHost.
Players can usually interact with the host by changing various protocol settings (bigtargets, bigminefields), their language (language, CPEnableLanguage), and their empire name (racename, CPEnableRaceName). They can also request some files from the host (send, CPEnableSend).
Players can send messages to each other, which can be anonymous or not. See AllowPlayerMessages, AllowAnonymousMessages. As a special case, players can also send command messages which are messages addressed to themselves, triggering a special action in PHost. This is used to support features for which not all client programs support a graphical interface.
Players can form alliances (this is one instance of a feature controlled by command messages). PHost offers a rather sophisticated alliance system which is described on its own page. In addition, matching friendly codes can be used for access control.
By default, players see each others' scores, and the names of foreign ships on their sensors. See ScoringMethod, AllowShipNames.
