For the VGA PLANETS players out there, I have created a wormhole program which will not destroy the trn files and allows for the claiming of wormholes. You can charge tolls for use of the wormholes that you own. The only reported problem with that wormhole program is that it required about 113K to run. Version 5.0.5should use less than 16K, being written in Assembly. Presently it's 11K long.

NOTE: Version 5.0.5 has been released.


There has been little activity in the version 3 arena of VGA PLANETS since the beta testing for version 4 began. I'm still keeping an eye on this program, but it will not be needed in version 4. Right now, I'm thinking about writing custom utilities needed by game hosts. In essence, you tell me what you need and I write the code for you on a contract. Maybe a couple of dollars, some older software, or a version 4 registration. When the project is finished, I release it to the community. You just sponsor whatever project you wish to see written.

Work will continue on updating the wherem program to complete the program's ability to interact with planets, requiring that wherem now be run as auxhost1. The wormhole editor is finally functional. It now saves all the data from the edited wormholes and the graphing routine no longer clips before graphing the whole wormhole. Other than that, there are no known errors at this time. Send bug reports to my main address. I would like to allow for editing wormholes with a mouse, however, my graphics skills are not that good and there has been no call for it.

Bug Reports


One bug has been reported. I forgot to put the wormhole.txt file into earlier archives before distributing them. I have corrected this.
Wherem will create a wormhole.txt file for you if you run wherem on the game directory. I don't like it, but all the programs in this archive require a path to act on or they crash.
The Message routine had an odd bug in that it accepted the assertion that Host.exe would cut the index file back after all the message were sent. This was not the case so some blank messages, left-overs from messages in the last host run, were being sent. These messages contained fragments of message text from the current turn. My message indexes were written to the end of the file and host never reached those. I cought it and fixed this obscure bug.
My UFO handling wasn't up to par. In fact, it crushed the ufo.hst file. I do not run winplan, I don't even have it, so I didn't notice. Somebody told me about this problem recently and, unable to find the heart of the problem, I rewrote the procudure. It now works.


Worm Version 5.0.1 has been released, in pure assembly language.
Worm V5 started beta testing on November 10, 1997.
Worm V5 meta 5 Released on December 15, 1998.
Worm has FINISHED a feature by feature test.
    Thus far:
  1. The registration routine is working
  2. The configuration data loads correctly
  3. The /c switch allows worm to run on the current directory
  4. Worm,wconfig and wherem run on the current directory without a path.
  5. The Glory Device works
  6. Fuel burns
  7. The tolls will shut down and engage
  8. Messages are sent when a ship uses your wormhole
  9. Both the wormhole's owner and ship's owner get Glory Device messages
  10. Ships names--as well as numbers--are now in the messages.
  11. Object numbers have been added to the messages for VPA users like me.
  12. Wormholes advertise if they're black holes or one way
  13. Captain's log messages tell you the wormholes you own
  14. The ships do move throught the wormholes-including the one way limit.
  15. Wormhole scanning works
  16. Wormhole sighting works
  17. Sends only the Scanner messages if worm is registered, sightings to others.
  18. Sightings tell you if the toll feature is off. (Thanks J-mac .)
  19. Reads the race.nm file in to use custom race names. (thanks Linwood)
  20. UFO records are written. To conserve space, only the entrance of
    ONE WAY wormholes is loaded into ufo records. One record for black holes.
  21. Wherem is not run by worm any longer (Thanks Duck )
  22. Wherem has an option to work with stationary and moving wormholes in one file.
  23. Wormholes can effect planets going so far as to collide with them!
  24. The mouse can be disabled with wconfig. (thanks Mike.)
  25. A new wconfig.exe was written in C so that everybody can use the mouse.
  26. Wconfig's graphics routine works finally.
  27. The DOCs have been rewritten and simplified.
This version of worm will support the new alliances created by the newest HOST.exe programs from Tim Wisseman. Worm V5.0 will also work across drives, a feature not supported by the earlier releases, and uses current registration numbers.

WORM V5.0 has passed it's beta tests!


Worm has, at this time, been through a 1 by 1 test of features and everything checks out. Only the docs are still in beta. I've had complaints about the documentation and somebody mentioned that worm should account for registered and unregistered. I have no idea what that was about, since the address was beyond my ability to reply to, however, if you come across this bug, please inform me at once.
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Animal Tech Games also has a Freeware Unpack and Maketurn pair written in assembly. These programs require a 32-bit processor for the checksums. Each of these programs is enhanced, although there is no client which currently uses these enhancements. Parse will unpack minefield data, the first 100 UFOs and, if the host puts a file called LEACHn.DAT in the game directory containing your copy of the xyplan.dat file, it will be extracted as well. Tim has the source to this program, but did not wish to add to his support workload by offering it as a product. If Animal Tech Games was going to produce its own client, coding one for LINUX is more likely than producing a new one for DOS.

NETWORKERS

After contact with Tim Wisseman, Animal Tech Games set about creating a race for version 4.0 of VGA PLANETS which we named the networkers. The background information is available online for your comments. The Networkers have been submitted to Tim and he reports that he can add this race to version 4.0 as I submitted it. As a courtesy to others, I have converted to html all the information Tim sent me on what it takes to create a race into a web page of its own to help other potential race authors.
    Networker Pages:
  1. Networker race packet sent to Tim.
  2. Warp Theory as sent to Tim.
  3. VGA PLANETS version 4 race specifications
  4. Aruri Race
  5. Tim's site.
  6. Proposed Aruri Race.
  7. Crayon World
Back to my main page.
Contact Animal Tech Games.