StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I only remember the (very bad) ads in PC Gamer of the 90s. I was looking through older threads about strategy games here, and saw a post by good old Graham Dice about how Dominions used many mechanics from VGA Planets.

I know Edi knows a lot about Dominions, so does anyone know if this is true? How much commonality is there? I've done some poking around and can't see much about how the game is actually played or mechanics involved.

VGA Planets was a very rudimentary play by email 4X game - one host processes instruction files from the players and generates the results like Space Empires PBEM.

There was no tech tree or anything, it was entirely 'colony ship to planet, make starbase, make spaceships."

Oh, really? In the context of the discussion I was told that Dom2/3 wasn't really innovative, because most of what it did it cribbed from VGA Planets. What you say is what I gathererd from research; that it was a primitive PBEM game of a sort relatively common at the time. Have you played Dominions? Do you know any specific mechanics it borrowed? Dominions is certainly PBEM, but that seems to be it.

No, but having quickly googled it, I don't think that's true.

VGA Planets' mechanics entirely revolved around moving individual spaceships (there was no fleet combat) that were built by starbases with resources mined from planetary colonies. I don't think there's any crossover beyond the basic 4x model.

Ghetto edit: The only uniquely VGA Planets mechanic was a three-letter IFF code every ship had which was how the game handled 'don't shoot my allies'. If ships had the same IFF code they would not attack each other. This IFF code box was also used to activate special abilities (ie the rebel alliance millenium falcon would enter HYP into its IFF to activate its long range hyperdrive).

My friends and I still play VGA Planets occasionally. I've never played Dominions so I can't compare and contrast them, but I might be able to answer specific questions about VGAP.

I was one of the originals, I actually know Tim, or did, in RL

I used to play VGA planets by myself and with my brother, but never on a BBS.

FWIW, there *is* a tech tree... you must pay for higher level torpedoes, beam weapons, engines and hulls, I believe. There is a curve in speed vs. cost, and usually it pays to get warp 6 pretty early on, IIRC.

I never bothered getting into the game because the UI was really clunky and experience would be hard to obtain, since you always had to wait so long to finish a game.

Can anyone recommend some good 2D space strategy games? I am a fan of Star Control 1 and Master of Orion 2. Something old school and simple yet with depth would be nice.

I never played VGA Planets, so I don't know just how much beyond the PBEM mechanics there is similar.

In Dominions the server (or the hosting machine in a direct connection) generates a turn file for every nation in play, each client uses the turn file for its nation to issue commands and once that is done, the client generates a .2h (to host) file, which contains all of the given orders for that turn. The .2h file is sent to the server, which hosts the game once it has all the turn files (or if the timelimit for autohosting expires). The .2h files are processed, movement, combat etc happen and a new turn file is generated for each nation for each turn.

Dominions also overwrites previous turn files, because it uses the same file name. Backing up a turn file allows a manual save, but it must be done from the OS, not inside the game.

The other mechanics of Dominions are probably less germane to a discussion of VGA Planets.

VGA Planets is alive and well in our own little community. While there are still players around the world the core groups are in North America and Europe these days.

I used to be pretty active in the VGAP 4 community. (Tim lives in the same city I do and we have mutual friends, yet I have never met him.) For VGAP 4 I created the 3rd party race of the Scavenger Tribes and the Coalition. (Plus did alot of graphics work for other people.) VGAP4 was confusing, but it was also a very complex game. It is why I loved it. The races were very unique for play styles. The borg you had to Assimilate or die, The Empire was dependent on prison labor camps, the Solarians needed bright stars, the Scavengers benefitted from others wars, etc... etc... The interface was kinda (really) clunky, and learning the order of how the turn was processed was a never ending battle. But it was a fun game because of how unique the races were. (Plus it was always fun watching a Battlestar lay the smack down on the Federation.)

By the looks of it version 5 will be out rather soon.

http://starcube.de/index_de.html

Thread necromancy is frowned upon.