Introduction to

The following is an introduction to the game sourced from the VGA Planets Homepage

VGA Planets is a graphical, multi-player, play by electronic mail, space war game. This game simulates combat in spacebetween galactic scale empires. The game emphasizes colonization of space and the development of the planets that you willfind, colonize and/or conquer. How well you develop these resources will determine what kind of starships (freighters andcapital ships) you will be able to produce and how well you will be able to defend your space and attack your neighbors.

This game is designed to be a strategic and tactical game of warfare, but you will also need to be able to build an economyand service your empire. With a well developed strong economic base you will have a greater potential for winning the game.

As the leader of your empire you are responsible for all of the decisions that effect your growth and production (excluding, ofcourse, being attacked by your neighbor). You will decide how to best develop your planets with the resources available to you. You will decide what type of starship(s) to be built at your starbase(s). You are the mastermind behind your race andyou are in a race to see which empire can first conqueror the universe.

At the start of the game you are left with a homeworld, a low tech starbase, and two low tech starships. These are the onlythings left of your former empire since the nastiest Ion Storm ever recorded hit the Echo Cluster. You will need to manageyour planets population, money, minerals and other resources very wisely, for these are your only sources of production earlyin the game. If you manage them well you will be able to expand quickly expand and broaden your economic and mineral base quickly, while still keeping a wary eye on your potentially dangerous neighbors. Remember while you are growing andbecoming stronger so are your neighbors.

VGA Planets is designed to be able to handle from two to eleven players in a play by mail (electronic mail) game format.The game is designed to be played as a Net or Bulletin Board System (BBS) game (as long as file transfers are permitted andavailable), although it can be played solely on one computer. Many of the Net players are playing using E-mail and UUENCODE.

WINPLAN is the latest version of the VGA Planets Player Client. WINPLAN offers the users of VGAP a lot of integratedfunctions that were formerly taken care of by external utilities. WINPLAN offers auto-plotting of minefields (based onminesweep messages), plotting of Ion Storms, Explosions and a whole lot more.

---

The VGA Planets Homepage

Tim's VGA Planets Homepage is a great starting point for all your VGA Planets needs. Here you can download shareware versions of DOS host and client and the new Windows client WINPLAN.

---

The Portable Host Project

The Portable Host Project have produced at set of free alternative host programs and utilites for platforms other than (but including) the IBM-PC. The projectcurrently supports many hardware-software platform combinations includingDOS (of course), SunOS, Sun Solaris, DEC Alpha, IBM RS/6000, NeXT, DEC Ultrix,Linux, FreeBSD, BSD/386, HP-PA, Windows NT/Win32, 88K DG/UX, and OS/2.

If you would like to know more, you can go direct to the Phost Project Homepage.

Here is one of the best sites for strategys that may help you play some of the races.

Links to Other VGA Planets Sites

WWW Sites

This page is maintained by Steven Murphy
Last updated Friday May 22, 2000

---