Anomalies
Author: Dennis Weise
I. Introduction
“Anomalies” is an addon written for “VGA Planets 3”.
It emulates & enhances the Anomalies known from the great Addon AHost.
Since AHost is a bit buggy Armin Trott from Spaceport Hamburg asked his players
for an emulation, thats the reason why i programmed “Anomalies”.
II. Installation
1. Copy Anomalies.exe somethere, usually into the host directory
2. Copy Anomalies.cfg to the game-directory
3. Edit Auxhost.ini files:
Auxhost1.ini: Anomalies.exe <gamepath> 1
Auxhost2.ini: Anomalies.exe <gamepath> 2
NOTE: You have to include the path to Anomalies.exe if it is not
located in the host directory
“Anomalies” will create 2 log files (Anomaly1.log & Anomaly2.log) into the game-directory,
they are just for debugging purposes.
A file called Anomaly.dat will be created in the game-directory, it contains all
external information.
In the game-directory a subdirectory AnTemp will be created.
III. Configuration
The configuration file Anomalies.cfg can be edited with a simple editor.
All line beginning with “;” are comments. You can add as many comments as you like,
just don’t change the order of configuration values.
IV. Anomaly behavior
Anomalies can only be detected by ship (default scan range is 150 ly)
Anomalies center
—————-
Whenever a ship reaches the center, depending ony the anomalies type
certain things can happen. (see chapter V: Anomaly types)
Gravity wells
————-
All ships inside an anomaly (there radius varies, default: 30-150 ly)
and not in orbit of a planet are pulled towards the anomalies center.
The distance that they are pulled depends on the anomalies strength (1-9),
the strength of gravity wells (default: 5), the radius of the anomaly, the distance
to the anomalies center and the hull mass of the ship:
distance = anomalyStrength * gravityWellStrength
* (anomalyRadius – shipsDistanceToAnomalyCenter) / anomalyRadius
+ 8 – (hullmass * 0.04)
(a negative distance will be set to zero)
Cloaking
——–
Cloaking inside an anomaly only possible if the ship is equipped with an
advanced cloaking device. Even these high tech cloaking devices may fail
(default: 10% failure rate)
Cargo transfer
————-
Cargo transfer between a ship and a ship/planet is disrupted,
the Beam up missions are not working, too.
V. Anomaly types
There are 8 types of Anomalies:
1: Inverse Tachyon Pulse
2: Gateway to Parallel universes
3: Radiation
4: Wormhole
5: Penton Pulse
6: Crew Mutation
7: Ship Mutation
8: Crew Insane
1. Inverse Tachyon Impulse
The ship will enter cloak.
This is done by changing the mission to cloak.
2. Gateway to Parallel universes
Up to 10 identical ships from parallel universes may appear.
3. Radiation
Some crew member will be killed.
4. Wormhole
They are stable only at the starting point, the anomalies center.
The destination changes each turn and its not possible to move back
to the anomaly through the wormhole.
There is a 5% chance that each ship that travels through a wormhole
causes the wormhole to collapse.
Ships can destroy wormholes with one torpedo. Just have at least 1 torpedo
on board and set the ships FC to dwh.
5. Penton Pulse
The amount of money will change (0 – 10000 MC) and the cargo will change.
Note that the total mass of cargo will not change.
6. Crew mutation
The crew will mutate into another active race.
7. Ship mutation
A ships hull, engines, & weapons will change.
(i.e. a Small Freighter mutates into a Darkwing with
Stardrive1, 4 Disruptors and 10 fighter bays)
Note: Any hulls from hullpec.dat are possible, even if they can’t be build
by any race.
8. Crew Insane
The crew will mutate into an Alien race. This happens so fast that no distress
call is possible.
The Alien ship will move around and will try to kill whatever it meets.
VI. Analyzing anomalies
Each ship inside an anomaly can analyze the anomaly. Just set the FC to Axx
(where xx is the id of the anomaly) and have enough supplies&fuel (default: 50 each)
on board.
The better the ship is equipped (beams & engines) the faster it will finish.
Each turn the analyse progress rate will be increased by:
engineType + (beamType * #Beams div 3) + Random(engineType) + Random(beamType * #Beams div 2)
When 100% is reached there is a chance (default: 75%) that the result is correct.
VII. Order of operations
Auxhost1:
Alien ships move
Preventing cargo transfer in anomalies / disable cloaking devices
Ship are pulled towards anomalies
Auxhost2:
Preventing cargo transfer in anomalies / disable cloaking devices
Ship are pulled towards anomalies / Analyze anomalies
Affect ships at anomalies centers / destroy&create anomalies
VIII. Disclaimer
“Anomalies” is freeware. I, the author, am not responsible for any
problems that may come from the use of this program. I cannot guarantee in
any way that this program will not damage your data or your operating system.
IX. Author
To get in contact with the author, write an email to:
X. Thanks
Special thanks to:
Tim Wisseman for VGA Planets
Michael Jordon for his Addon “Ahost”
Stefan Reuther for having produced a complete list of Vga Planets data files format
Armin Trott (www.nikita.org) for hosting games at Spaceport Hamburg
Aivars Liepa for lots of suggestions (i hope i will have time to implement it)