What is VGA Planets

This game is designed to be a strategic and tactical game of warfare, but you will also need to be able to build an economy and service your empire. With a well-developed 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 affect your growth and production (except, of course, 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 and you 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 only things left of your former empire since the nastiest Ion Storm ever recorded hit the Echo Cluster. You will need to manage your planet’s population, money, minerals and other resources wisely, for these are your only sources of production early in the game. If you manage them well you will be able to quickly expand and broaden your economic and mineral base, while still keeping a wary eye on your potentially dangerous neighbors. Remember, while you are growing and becoming stronger, so are your neighbors.

VGA Planets is designed to be able to handle from two to eleven players in a play by EMail format. The game is designed to be played as a Web or Bulletin Board System (BBS) game (as long as file transfers are permitted and available), although it can be played solely on one computer.

The goal of this game is to build an empire for yourself and then seek out the remaining races of the Echo Cluster and destroy them in the pursuit of galactic conquest. To accomplish this mission you must develop an economic defense base upon which this empire can be built. How to accomplish this is the purpose of this section, how to build that foundation.

The main components for building an empire consist of Neutronium, Tritanium, Duranium, Molybdenum, Supplies, Megacredits, and the process of colonization. "What are these things, how do I do it and what exactly do I use them for?", that is the question.

Although colonization may not sound like the most exciting of jobs, it is by far the most important. If you fail to colonize properly it will be next to impossible for your empire to become any kind of power or threat in the universe.

When you begin the game you start off with one freighter and one capital ship, except the Feds who start with two capital ships. The most advisable course of action at the beginning is to load both of your first two ships with clans (clan is a group of 100 colonists that are loaded into starships like cargo) and supplies.

You then want to plan out a course for your ships that will allow them to reach the most number of planets possible in the shortest amount of time. It is advisable that you leave your starships special mission set to exploration, because this will give you a report on the new planets as you reach them.

If you do this properly the number of planets in your empire will grow quickly and the more planets you have the greater access you have to resources. Those first two starships are a search and locate team. You hope that those starships will find either good deposits of minerals, native races (discussed later) or both. Once these starships have located one of the above items, then you can send a much larger freighter with many more clans, supplies and megacredits to the planets that will be the most beneficial to you and this will allow you to develop them first and more quickly than blindly sending out large freighters.

The majority of players tend to build several freighters early, unless of course you have nearby hostile neighbor. These ships need to be equipped with the highest tech engines available, to make the starships as fuel efficient as possible. These first few freighters are usually sent out containing colonists and supplies. It is important to remember that a starship that is sent out to colonize needs to have some supplies or you will be handicapping the growth of you worlds, by being unable to build factories, mines or defense outposts.

It is important to note that your freighters have a dual nature. Not only are they responsible for expanding your empire through colonization, they are also a necessity for gathering up minerals, supplies and megacredits and returning them to your starbase(s) for use in production of a fleet.

• Neutronium - This is a super dense mineral that is fed into a ship’s engine core and consumed by the engines as fuel for propulsion. Unfortunately this mineral is far too unstable to be used in the construction of starship components. To be carried on starships as fuel the Neutronium needs to be stored in a magnetic bubble/inertial dampening system to help it remain stable. Thus the amount of fuel a starship can carry is limited by the size of the MB/ID field it can generate, instead of cargo space.
• Tritanium - This is an extremely adamantine and durable mineral that is easily processed into starship and fighter hulls and hull components. When utilized in this manner Tritanium is capable of resisting intense heat and temperatures.
• Duranium - This is a very rigid and strong mineral that is used to form the framework and superstructures of starships. It is also utilized in the armor skin of starbases and freighters.
• Molybdenum - This is a very heavy superconductive mineral that is primarily employed as high power energy wave guides. This means that it is mainly used to form all of the power transfer conduits in the starship, its engines, and weapon systems. Due to the nature of the mineral, in general, the Molybdenum requirement varies with the technology level of the component being built.

There are two requirements for the ability to procure minerals, for use in your empire. First you need a planet and secondly you need mineral mines.

You will find that all unexplored planets will have some small amount of minerals sitting on the surface of the planet (and I do mean a small amount). This diminutive supply is pushed up through the surface of the planet by volcanic or seismic activity in the planet’s crust. It is not advisable to try to rely on these minerals to supply your starbases, so you will find it necessary to construct mineral mines. These mines cost one supply unit and four megacredits each and the number you are allowed to construct is limited by the number of colonists present on the planet.

Mineral mines are the only structure in the VGA Planets game system that are capable of extracting minerals from the planets core. Mines will extract minerals from the ground until the cache of minerals are depleted. Once the minerals are gone the mines become useless junk, but of course if the Isotope Trans-Uranium Mutation Rate is being used in the HCONFIG.EXE the planet may conceivably never run out of minerals, although the Mutation rate provides only a very limited and minuscule amount of minerals on a daily basis. Mineral mines only remove minerals from the ground they do not create them out of thin air.

Once you are in orbit around a planet not colonized by anyone or owned by you, your ship can do a mineral survey. This survey will tell you the concentration of the minerals and the approximate amount that can be mined.

It can be advantageous or even necessary to build a large number of mines on a planet. There is one thing that needs to be considered as you choose the number of mines to build on your planets; when you build a large number of mines this can cause the colonists and natives to become unhappy or even angry. This usually happens only if you are taxing them as well as mining the planet. You will be forced to lower the tax rate on the population or risk a riot, or even a possible civil war. If a riot or war ensues, the population will destroy mines, factories and defense outposts until they become "unhappy" or better.

Once again there are two requirements needed to obtain supplies. These two things are a planet and some factories. Factories are the one and only way to produce supplies for use in your empire and without supplies you will not have an empire.

When you first colonize a planet there will be no factories on it. That is why it is recommended that you bring supplies from your homeworld, which does start with factories. Without supplies you will not be able to build anything on your new world.

A factory is a large structure on the surface of the planet that produces supplies every turn. The sup plies can be used to build more factories, mines or defense outposts. The supplies can also be converted into megacredits, or even to be shipped off planet for use elsewhere in your empire.

Factory Costs

A factory costs one supply unit and three megacredits to build. The factories will produce one supply unit per factory on the planet per turn. These supply units can be used in the construction on the planet or they can be converted ("sold") into megacredits (1 supply unit = 1 megacredit). The number of these factories that you can build will be limited by the number of colonists that are currently present on the planet.

There is one other use for supplies. Supplies can be loaded onto Alchemy ships and be converted into minerals.

How Does A Planet Defend Itself

By developing your planets well, they will be more capable of defending themselves (though this is not so when the Engine-Shield Bonus is set at more than 35%). To effect this planetary defense you need to build defense outposts on the surface of the planet.

A Defense Outpost

Defense outposts are like a small military base. These bases consist of a small pulse cannon with a technology level dependent on the number of outposts present, a sensor array and an anti-sensor jamming signal generator.

These defense outposts use their jamming signal to prevent enemy sensor sweeps from detecting mineral mines and factories on the planets surface. When the planets has more that fifteen factories or more than twenty mines there is a 100% probability of being detected by an enemy sensor sweep. Defense outposts have a 6.6666% chance of effectively jamming this sensor sweep per defense outpost.(i.e. 15 defense outposts = 100% chance of jamming the sensor sweep and 10 defense outposts = 66.66 % chance of jamming the sensor sweep).

When a planet comes under attack the game will determine how strong your defenses are, in terms of number of beams capable of firing at an attacker, tech of those beams, the number of fighters available in defense and the defense factor of the planet. The following is how the defenses of your planet are determined.

The Last Main Component-- Money, Money, Money!

When constructing your empire there is one last very important part that has not been discussed yet and that is money (megacredits). As in real life money is a very important and you really can not accomplish much without it. Thus it becomes one of the most important ingredients and an integral part of your empire.

In the supplies section it was mentioned that you could turn you supplies into megacredits and this would help you generate a megacredits supply, but it will be nearly impossible for your empire to survive on this as its only source of megacredits.

You may have noticed the mention of native races earlier in this manual. They are the key to developing a large supply of megacredits from which to fund your empire. (The specific information on the native races will be presented later).

When you have a large population of colonists* or natives on a planet you can begin taxing them (this is done from the planet maintenance screen). This taxation is the way in which you can collect megacredits directly from the population.

*This can be done to small groups of colonists but that yields only a very minimal amount of megacredits.

Colonists are not the only source of megacredits. You can also earn (make) megacredits from the different native races that you will find scattered throughout the galaxy (their exact nature to be discussed later).

Note: None of the following really applies to the Cyborg race, due to the fact that they assimilate all native life (except amorphous) that they encounter. Once the native life is assimilated they become colonists and collecting taxes is done as shown above.

To be able to collect megacredits from native life you need to own the planet and have clans present on the surface of the planet. Your clans work as a large governing body that supervises the collection of taxes, in the form of megacredits, from the native life.

Although your people collect the taxes and act as the senior governing body, all native life has its own native government. This inherent government effects the amount of megacredits you will be capable of collecting from the native life. The following Table 1.2 lists the types of native life governments that you will encounter while exploring the Echo Cluster.

All of your planets have a happiness (mood) indicator for your colonists, and planets with native life have one of these indicators for the natives. This indicator reflects how content your colonists and/or natives are with your leadership. This happiness is displayed on the planetary overview screen. This indicator lets you know if your colonists/ natives are Happy, Calm, Un-happy, Very Angry, Rioting or having a Civil War.

There is also a gauge of the natives / colonists on the planet construction screen. This is the indicator that displays how the colonists feel about the tax rate you are setting. This ranges are Love You, Like Your Leadership, Undecided About You, Angry at You, or Hate You.

When you are setting you tax rate you need to monitor how the colonists/natives are feeling about the rate you are setting. The first three "feelings" listed above are considered "green" ranges. That means that you can tax them at a "green" rate and they will not become any less happy on the global scale than what they are at currently. Although if you tax them into the "red" zones (Angry At You or Hate You), the colonists/natives will become more and more unhappy at a speed that is directly proportional to the how far into the "red" zone you go. (i.e., The higher you tax them at the faster they will become unhappy on the global scale and the quicker they will riot if the tax rate is not lowered.)

Note: Remember when the climate death rate and overpopulation IS in use in the HCONFIG.EXE the colonists may not survive on the planets surface or they may need to use supplies to survive (if arctic or desert).

Building The Fleet: Without It You Are Not Dangerous

The starbase and your fleet are very important pieces of your empire. Without a starbase you will be unable to build or produce any kind of starship (either freighter or capital) and thus be unable to produce a fleet. Being unable to build a fleet would, of course, make it nearly impossible to be conqueror of the galaxy and we do not want that to happen.

The Starbase

A starbase is a large structure that orbits your homeworld and later other planets around which you build a starbase. This structure works and serves many functions. It is a large orbiting defense platform, fighter building/storage facility, fighter base and shipyard.

The starbase is a large and integral part of your empire and absolutely necessary if you desire to build a fleet with which to rule the galaxy or even be able to colonize properly. Starbases are the one place you are allowed to construct starships of any kind either freighters or capital. Additionally it is the only place that eight of the eleven races in the game can build fighters. The excepted races are the Rebels, Colonials and Robots. These races have the ability to construct fighters onboard their carrier starships, but they are the only races that have this ability. In addition to fighters (the [F9] command) the starbase can construct torpedoes (the [F10 ] command ).

Torpedo Construction

When you use the torpedo construction command [F10] from the main starbase screen, you will get the torpedo construction screen. Highlight the type of torpedo you wish to construct, and then press the [+] key as many times as you want number of torpedoes or until you run out of money or minerals.

Fighter Construction

Pressing the fighter construction command [F9], from the main starbase screen, will display the fighter construction screen. From here you just have to press the [+] until you have the fighters you want or until there is 60 in storage on the starbase. Starbase are unable to store more than 60 fighters, whether or not they will be placed on a carrier starship or kept as planetary defense. Unloading some of your stored fighters onto a carrier starship will yield room to build more fighters and keep them in storage.

All starbases have four independent technology levels that are used in relation to the construction of starships. These four technology levels are starship hulls, starship engines, beam weapons, and torpedo tube launchers. These four technologies are what are used to determine the type of starships you can build and how well equipped the starships will be. Remember that the technology levels of one starbase are completely independent of any other.

Starbases can construct only one starship per turn (game turn = one month in relative game turns = 1 day {usually} in real world time). Though a starbase can construct only one starship per turn it can build as many components as you want (allowing for enough minerals and megacredits) and keep them in storage in the starbase until they are needed.

The starbase has more functions than just building starships, though this is probably the most important. This manual is going to cover the starbase’s other functions before dealing with the starship construction process, which will be covered last.

The Starbase’s Primary Missions

A starbase has six primary missions that can be selected, in addition to building a starship. This primary order instructs the starbase to carry out an automated action and response.

The Starbase’s Sensor Array

Starbases come equipped with a sensor array that effectively scans a large portion of space around the planet around which it is in orbit. This starbase scanner is the same as the planetary scanner. You can move the sensor beam (represented on the screen as a green line with a circle at the end) around the screen with the arrow keys or the mouse. You can use it to scan enemy (ally) starships traveling through open space near the starbase (planet).

Using the Starbase Scanner Beam

When using the scanner you can lock it onto enemy (ally) starships and use it to list or view any and all starships at that location. You can also view (the [V] key) or list (the [L] key) any enemy (ally) starships that are in orbit around one of your planets. The circle at the end of the sensor "beam" stays green until it "locks" onto a starship or planet at which time it turns yellow.

To initiate this "lock" all you need to do is press the right mouse button when you are near a starship or the left mouse button if you are near a planet. The clicking of the mouse will cause the beam to lock onto the target object. Once this lock established the [L] and [V] commands may be used.

Sensor Beam Commands

The [L] command will give you a list of all starships that are present at the location you "locked" the sensor beam. It will list their mass, the race that owns the starship and ID number.

The [V] command will show you a graphic representation of the enemy (ally) starship. This will tell you the starship ID number, which race owns the starship, its hull type, its current speed and it will give you the starships current heading (if it has one).

While examining space using the scanner, enemy ships (and allies for that matter) appear as red dots on the screen and your ships appear as green dots. One added benefit to the planetary sensor beam is that after it "locks" onto a planet you can hit the [X] key on your keyboard and the game will switch to that planet’s maintenance screen.

The scanner, also, shows you which planets you own. Planets that have a blue ring around them are planets that you own. Planets with green rings around them are planets that you have a ship in orbit around and planets with both green and blue rings are owned planets with orbiting ships.

Note: Enemy ships can hide behind planets that you do not own. So be careful and keep a wary eye out for ships that disappear, they may be hiding just around the corner.

Other Starbase Commands

The starbases have two other very important command functions. These two functions can and do operate independently from the primary missions of the starbase. Although these are separate commands and are independent from the primary missions they are allowed to operate simultaneously with the primary missions. The two commands are the Fix/Refit mission and the Recycle mission.

The Recycle Command

The Recycle command causes the selected starship to be disassembled into its component parts. The engines, weapons, and torpedo tubes are removed from the ships superstructure and placed into storage inside the starbase for later use. The rest of the starship is then run through a giant blast furnace inside the starbase and separated into its component minerals. To start the Recycle command you press the [R] key from the main starbase screen and then up or down arrow through the available starships in orbit and when you find the one you wish to recycle you press [ENTER] and the starship will be recycled by the next turn.

Note: Remember to remove all fighters and torpedoes from the starship being recycled because these items will be recycled if not removed. The starbase will not automatically unload these items.

Although this is a very convenient way to recover minerals from old starships it is not one hundred percent efficient. This furnace will only be able to recover a percentage of the minerals use in construction of the starship. This percentage is based on the setting of the HCONFIG.EXE program, which is set when the game begins. The percentage is usually set between 75%-85%.

Note: The HCONFIG.EXE setting for Recycle rate is also the percentage of minerals that will be recovered from a starship performing a colonize mission.

The Fix / Refit Command

The Fix/Refit command is used when you wish to load ordinance (fighters or torpedoes) onto a capital starship. When you use this command by pressing the [F] key and selecting a starship in orbit around the starbase you will get the load/unload screen. This screen shows how many of the proper type of torpedoes you have in starbase storage. It shows how much room that starship has for these torpedoes. This screen can allow you to use the [+] key to load torpedoes onto the starship, up to its maximum capacity or until you run out of torpedoes. The [-] key will unload torpedoes from the starship and place them in storage in the starbase. Remember, that for a torpedo to be loaded onto a starship the torpedo must be of the same type as the launchers on the starship.

To load fighters onto a starship is done basically the same way. You press the [F] key and select a starship in orbit around the starbase. This starship must have fighter bays to be able to accept fighters and it must have cargo space available to hold the fighters.

The Fix/Refit command allows you to do the above to as many starships as you wish in one turn, since the movement of ordinance is instantaneous. However the Fix/Refit will not let you fix more than one starship in a turn.

The Fix portion of this command is limited to one starship in any one turn. This part of the command will cause any one damaged starship to become completely repaired by the next turn. To fix a starship you press the [F] key and select the starship you want repaired from orbit and then press [ENTER]. This will cause that starship to be repaired.

Note: Make sure that the FIX command is the last one you do before your turn is done. That means select the starship to be fixed after to have done all of the loading and unloading of ordinance that you are going to do this turn. If you select the starship to be fixed first and then do some moving around of ordinance the FIX setting will be lost since you overrode the FIX command with the Refit part of this multi-command.

The Starbase’s Most Important Function: Building The Fleet

The Primary function of a starbase is the construction of starships. The starbase’s other commands will be of no use if you do not have any starships on which the starbase can perform these commands and missions.

All starbases have four independent technology levels (as discussed above). The rating of these technology levels is responsible for determining the type of starships you will be able to build. The better the technology the more effective starships you will be able to construct, allowing for sufficient resources of minerals and money.

Once you make the decision to build a starship, you need to make sure that there is enough money and minerals on hand to construct the starship. This includes minerals and money for the hull, engines (usually two), beam weapons (except for freighters), and the torpedo launchers (except for freighters and fighter carrier starships).

Starships : What The Fleet Can Do

Starships are what you use to assemble a fleet so that you can conquer the Echo Cluster. Starships are built at starbases out of three basic minerals. The minerals are Tritanium, Duranium and Molybdenum. The starships travel at very high velocities between the planets performing various tasks and missions.

The funds used in the construction of these starships are taken directly out of the planetary economy. These starships are used to transport cargo (minerals, colonists, supplies and megacredits) between the planets and starbase(s). This is usually the task of the various freighters in your fleet, and the job of defending your empire and expanding at the cost of your neighbors falls to the capital (war ships) starships in your fleet.

The Hull A Very Important Part of The Starship

The most important component of your starship is the hull. The hull is the superstructure and spaceframe on which all of the other starship components are mounted forming a starship. The various hulls will require anywhere from one engine to ten engines depending on the type of hull you are using. As a general rule the smaller starships will only need one or two engines.

Note: At technology level one you will only have about three hull types to choose from, whereas at technology level ten you can have up to twenty different hull types to use.

It is also important to note that the larger the starship the greater its mass will be. Therefore, a larger starship will likely inflict greater damage it will be able sustain more damage before it is destroyed. The higher mass will cause the shielding systems of the starship to be stronger and be able to take a greater amount of punishment before they will buckle and collapse.

Different types of hulls come with different starship systems. The freighter hulls are very simple they only support engines, sensor / navigation equipment, a tractor beam and a transporter device. Other hull types, the capital starships, can support all the systems the freighters have, plus beam weapons (in a wide variety of numbers), and either fighter bays or torpedo launchers.

Note: Currently there are no races that have capital starships that can support both fighter bays and torpedo launchers. Although you never know what my come up with the emergence of possible new races at some future date.

Weapon Banks and Fighterbays

As previously explained there are a variety of weapon systems that may be installed on a starship. The main weapon system for most starships is the beam weapon system (i.e., X-Ray lasers, heavy blasters, phasers, etc.). The auxiliary systems that may be available on a starship are either fighter bays or torpedo launchers.

Fighter bays and Fighters

A fighter bay is an integral part of a carrier starship. The fighter bays themselves take up no actual cargo space. It is the load of onboard fighters that require cargo space.

A Colonial Fighter

A fighter requires one kiloton (KT) of cargo space. In combat the starships crew quickly moves fighters from the cargo holds into the fighter launch bays. Here the fighters are fueled and readied for launch. The more launch bays that a starship has the greater number of fighters it will be able to launch in a shorter period of time. Fighters are loaded onto carrier starships by starbases or other carrier starships.

A fighter is a very effective weapon. If a fighter can reach an enemy starship or planet and is not shot down during the attack it will fire a tightly focused energy beam nine times into the enemy shields or hull. Fighters are very efficient at quickly wearing down an enemies shields and very effective against large and heavily armored starships.

Torpedo Launchers and Torpedoes

Torpedo delivery systems (No not UPS) are designed to be added to the hull of starships during the construction process. Unlike fighter bays, these systems do not require cargo space to be added to the starship, what they fire does.

Each torpedo that is loaded onto a starship requires one kiloton (KT) of cargo space. Torpedoes require the same amount of cargo space as fighters due to their magnetic anti-gravity safety systems. If these bulky projection systems are not in place there would be no guarantee that torpedoes will be kept apart from each other preventing an accidental detonation. When a torpedo is used in combat or unloaded the safety system is broken down and stored in deck compartment so that they do not use up precious cargo space. During combat the torpedoes are loaded into the launch tubes. The tube aims the torpedo and arms it.

Torpedo delivery systems come in ten different styles. The style of the launcher determines what type of torpedo the starship will be able to carry and launch. Some of the torpedoes deliver great amounts of crew killing energy while other deliver massive amounts of destructive kinetic energy. The following Table 2.1 lists the costs and power of the various torpedoes.

Beam Weapon Systems

Beam weapon systems draw their energy from the main engine core. The energy flows to the weapons on high yield superconductive energy conduits. As long as the engine is functional the beam weapons will have energy to fire.

If after a battle a starship has suffered damage the damage may be high enough to have slightly or seriously damaged the engine core and sensitive energy conduit systems. If this happens it may be possible for your starship to not be capable of firing all of its beam systems until the damage is repaired and until then you will have a limited arsenal of beam weapons.

Different beam systems are designed differently. Some of the systems are designed to release large quantities of life killing gamma rays. Some are designed to be a tightly focused beam of energy that strikes hard and is good at dropping the enemy starships shields, and damaging the starship and crippling it so as to have a chance of capturing it. Yet another system is designed to deliver huge amounts of broadly focused energy that has no other purpose than dropping the enemy shields fast and blowing the starship into its basic components. The following Table 2.2 lists all of the weapon systems and the power and quality of their delivery systems.

Starships and Fuel

All starships engine cores process Neutronium as a fuel source. Neutronium is a superdense mineral that is found in the core of almost any planet. Neutronium is millions of times denser than such minerals as lead or gold. This means that to be transported and used as fuel the Neutronium must be kept in a magnetic bubble / inertial dampening field (a MB/ID field) to prevent damage to the starship superstructure. The amount of fuel that a starship can carry is limited to the size of the MB/ID field that it can create. The size of the field is already determined and accounted for in all hull designs.

In this game starships without fuel are not allowed to be attacked by enemy starships. This is due to the treaty of Nimbus 7. The treaty states, "No starship may attack or destroy any starship that is out of fuel. Such starships are helpless and unable to defend or protect themselves. Destroying helpless starships would be a tragic and senseless loss of life." Of course there is no rule about taking the starship back to your starbase and forcing a surrender. Once you get all of the crew off of the enemy starship and onto your sovereign soil you can do just about whatever you want (your planet your rules).

Note:Starships with-out fuel will be unable to engage cloaking devices.

Further Reading

VGA Planets: The Complete Users Manual
By Dave Killingsworth
129 pages 8.5 X 11 inches
Price: $23 North America
$35 Europe / Australia

VGA Planets: Echos of the Cluster Omnibus
Issues 1 to 7 of the Echos of the cluster Magazine
Bound in one volume
116 pages 8.5 X 11 inches
Price: $15 North America
$25 Europe / Australia

* Prices include shipping

Can be ordered from:

Tim Wisseman
PO Box 204
North Fork
CA 93643
USA