SSSSSS N N OOOOOOO V V A S S NN N O O V V A A S N N N O O V V A A S N N N O O V V A A SSSSS N N N O O V V AAAAAAAAA S ---- N N N O O V V A A S N N N O O V V A A S N N N O O V V A A S S N N N O O V V A A SSSSS N NN OOOOOOO V A A Contents: I. Introduction. II. Installation. III. Operations. IV. Notes. V. Registering. VI. Thanks. I. Introduction. This VGA Planets add-on is an effort to "populate" the VGA Planets landscape, a feature wished for in the Planets newsgroup and elsewhere. It is a known fact, that the average distance between stars is about 3-4 light years (ly). However, not every star has a habitable planet. That is why the average distance between the VGAP planets is often tens or more ly. With the help of Super Nova add-on, these "uninhabitable" and therefore invisible on the maps stars can explode, or "go super-nova", inflicting tremendous amounts of damage to the neighboring space, destroying or damaging ships, planetary structures, and other types of hardware. The challenge here is to make maximum use of these nova stars, towing them closer to the enemy territory and detonating them as close as possible to his planets or ships (and then possibly move in with your own starfleet, mopping up the remnants of the enemy's damaged planets and shattered economy). II. Installation. To install the add-on, unzip the files to the main planets directory and run the sninst.bat file. When running sninst.bat, you may receive the "Duplicate filename or file not found" error message. Please disregard it; the installation would be successful despite the message. Please make sure not to run sninst more than once; it would produce some very unexpected results. After that, you should run the snconfig program. If it was not run, the recommended defaults will be used. We recommend the following settings: Maximum number of super-novas: 10 Maximum magnitude: 4 Mininum engine tech level: 9 Fuel used per turn: 50 Ships able to tow: battleships only (2 ships for the Cyborg) Cloaked towing: enabled Please note: This add-on was designed to work on a standard ship list. The "superfreighter" or "battleship" options may not work for alternate ship lists. ** NEW FEATURES ** For hosts with multiple game directories, please make sure to put the file called SNOVA.INI of non-zero length in all directories you want SNova to be active. SNOVA.INI file is included in this package, also you can create it by useing any editor. Running SNCONFIG GAMEPATH will also create SNOVA.INI file in the game directory. No towing option added. Also mission Sensor Sweep will be able to locate super novas. III. Operations. Super Nova is only needed to be present in the directory where host.exe resides. It will run automatically whenever the host runs. There are three new friendly codes that are used in the Super Nova. In order, they are: SSN: Scan for Super Nova, TSN: Tow the Super Nova, DSN: Detonate the Super Nova. Any ship can set its sensors to scan the neighboring space for stars ready to explode. The long-range scanners can penetrate space for 100 ly, searching for special emissions that are only produced by the doomed stars. If any are found, the starship generates a message that is sent to the ship's race. In the message, one of the most important pieces of information is the maximum age, or life-span. When a star reaches its maximum age, it will go super- nova whether you want it or not, and unless you have a strong suicidal attitude, you'd better do something about it before it reaches the limit! The super-nova's magnitude directly affects the destructive potential that the super-nova has. The radius of its "circle of destruction", or the area affected by the blast, equals 25 times the magnitude. For example, the radius of type 1 blast is 25 ly, type 2: 50 ly, and so on up to type 9: 225 ly. (Please note: this is the radius, not the diameter!) As soon as your starship arrives to the location of a newly detected supernova, it will initiate its tractor beam with friendly code (FCode) TSN and take it in tow. When this happens, a message is sent to the race's ship and, through extensive spy networks, to all the other races in the galaxy. Please be advised that it is possible to have a tug-of-war over the super- nova. If several ships are in the same spot with TSN FCode, the ship with a larger ID number would overpower all the others (its tractor beam is newer and better than all the other ships because it was built later) and tow the star with it. Please note that ALL the ships that tried to tow a super nova will lose some fuel. The design of the ship to tow the super-nova and its escort can be of very great importance. You would not want to put top-of-the-line equipment on it since it would definitely be destroyed (the detonating ship is essentially going to a kamikaze mission), but you should put enough to accomplish its task. For example, if you put low-tech engines on it the ship it would go slowly and give the enemy time to evacuate, and if you put low-tech weaponry it would be unable to defend itself in case of attack, unless the "cloaked ships towing" is set to "yes" in the snconfig program. When towing the star, a starship may expend a certain amount of fuel to keep the shields up for protection from radiation and to keep the tractor beam working. This amount is set in the snconfig program. When the ship has arrived to its designated waypoint, preferably deep within the enemy territory, you would want to detonate the deadly cargo. When the FCode of the towing ship is set to DSN, it lowers its deflector shields and emits a dodetron pulse, which effectively disrupts the forces that still keep the star in one piece. It immediately explodes, taking the towing ship with it and producing a powerful wavefront that encompasses its "circle of destruction" and inflicts damage to ships and structures of all planets within range. All ships within range that have engines below tech level 8 are destroyed at once: their shields are simply not powerful enough to withstand such a punishment. The ships that have HyperDrive 8 may or may not be destroyed. They have a fifty percent chance of surviving the wavefront, depending on their crews' experience and simple luck. On the other hand, ships that are equipped with the ultimate in propulsion technology, Transwarp Drive 9, have adequate protection: the transwarp drive would boost their shields long enough to withstand the wavefront. They will not escape completely unharmed, however: they will receive an additional fifty to ninety nine percent of damage. The ships that are orbiting planets or starbases will receive additional help: after they detect the wavefront, they would enter the planetary shadow (or planetary deflector shields, if it has any) for protection. They will receive twenty six to seventy five percent of damage, disregarding their drive tech level. However, the ships that have sustained any amount of damage, no matter how minor, would not be fast enough to enter the shadow and will be treated just like the ships that are in deep space (as described above). The planetary governments, upon detecting the approaching wavefront, would raise the planetary deflector shields, powered by the planetside defense outposts. The more defense outposts there are, the more powerful the shields would be and the less damage the planetary structures and populations would sustain. The planetary damage is computed as follows: 0 to 19 defenses: 50% damage (50% colonists and natives killed and structures destroyed); 20 to 39 defenses: 40% damage (40% colonists and natives killed and structures destroyed); 40 to 59 defenses: 30% damage (30% colonists and natives killed and structures destroyed); 60 to 79 defenses: 20% damage (20% colonists and natives killed and structures destroyed); over 80 defenses: 10% damage (10% colonists and natives killed and structures destroyed). In addition, the natives would be angry at you for not giving them adequate protection; their happiness level will drop depending on the amount of damage sustained. All the defense outposts on the planets will burn out and become inoperative due to the stresses exerted on planetary shields by the wavefront. The starbase defense outposts have no energy link to the planet and therefore not participate in the planetary shields. They will also not burn out. Some of the emissions composing the wavefront are the berthold rays, also emitted by a Fascist Glory device. They have the same effect; all amorphous natives on all planets in the "circle of destruction" die from exposure. However, because of the intensity of other emissions, they do not leave any supplies behind as they go. There is one more beneficial effect from the super-nova explosions. The shock wave, originating in the center of a dying star, carries with it some radioactive isotopes that once composed the star. These isotopes decay in a very short amount of time, therefore every planet that has been in the way of the wave will find some of the four primary construction minerals on its surface the following turn. The starbases are also taken into planetary shadow. However, unlike ships, they are much more massive and sturdy, therefore they avoid all damage and come out completely unharmed. IV. Notes. Winplan users will be able to see the super-novas as dark green boxes on their starcharts. Due to the nature of the interface, Dosplan users will not be able to enjoy this feature. Detonating the super-nova is performed just before the movement phase of the turn, so that you can better plan the explosion. Scanning for super-novas also occurs before the movement phase, therefore if you towed and have received a scanning message, it will not show the correct location, but the one BEFORE the ships moved. If you have a tug-of-war over a super-nova star, both races will receive a message that you towed AND a spy report saying that the enemy has. It is unavoidable, so I will make it a feature instead of a flaw: the anxious captain of the ship has sent a report to the superiors before bothering to check if his tow lock has been overpowered. You just have to remmember that a higher ID ship will win the tug-of-war. All ships at "ground zero" -- the same point as the super-nova when it explodes -- will be destroyed, unless they are orbiting a planet, in which case they will suffer as much damage as all other ships near planets. I am not responsible for any damage caused by this add-on, for any lost data or lost games and for any loss of hair pulled out when a super-nova explosion hits a player's fleet. (Backups are always beneficial for a host.) V. Registering. You currently have an unregistered (shareware) version of Super Nova add-on. Its features have been decreased to promote registration, namely: Only magnitude 1 or 2 super-novas will appear in the game; Only 10 super-novas will be able to detonate in the game. All the others that appear will not explode; Winplan users will not be able to see the super-novas on their starcharts; Registering will remove a shareware nag message. To register, send the form found in snorder.frm with a cash, check or money order for $5 to: Boris Psakhis 15308 Northgate Blvd. Apt. 303 Oak Park, MI 48237 USA If you have any questions, please e-mail os80308@ltu.edu or bmp1000@aol.com VI. Thanks. To Oleg Shvartsman for many ideas, product support and documentation. To Tim Wisseman for writing VGA Planets and general help.