The contents of a utilX.ext file will always come out after all the normal PHost reports. This might not be worthwhile when you are replacing a hosting stage. For example, when you have externalized the give command, the Ship Trade records should still come out before Battle Results, to not confuse information tracking utilities which want to track ship ownership.
To achieve this, you can write into the util.tmp file instead of utilX.ext. PHost gathers up all records in util.tmp before generating the final utilX.dat files.
Every record in util.tmp consists of the following format:
word Receiver (1..11) word Record Type word Data Size byte[N] Data
The Receiver designates the receiver race, the other fields are as in utilX.dat files.
► Note: Note that although PHost versions before 4.0/3.4d also have a util.tmp, replacing hosting stages this way will not work with these versions, because they use a different file format, and possibly keep the file open, preventing you from using it.
