Nemesis

Author: Oleg Shvartsman

Contents:

I. Introduction.
II. Installation.
III. Operations.
IV. Notes.
V. Shareware.
VI. Thanks.

I. Introduction.

This add-on program is an attempt to better the famous game of VGA Planets. With the many new racial special abilities and a few universal ones, this program will add a new dose of spice and excitement to any game it’s included in. The new abilities, ranging from Planetary Cloaking Shield to Genesis Device and from Advanced Terraforming to Cloak-Towing will surely add depth and cause new feats of strategy in the all-time favorite space strategy game. With MANY configurable options and even a special TEAM game switch, the host can customize the game to his preferences and the players may use the team game to exchange ships and racial special abilities. And yes, it does support Phost.

• The items marked with an Ampersand symbol & signify the differences between the current version and the previous versions of Nemesis.

This is the doc file for version 1.57. Nemesis will display its version number every time nemesis1.exe is run.

NOTE: VERY IMPORTANT. If you are upgrading to version 1.53 or later from version 1.52 or earlier, you will need the file convert.exe, found in this distribution. You only need to run this file once. Copy the file to your game directory and run it. It will adjust the structure of your missiles.dat file, where missile info is stored. If you are running a competitive game, there will not be any difference. If you are running team game, all missiles’ ownership will revert to Fascist, that time only. After that, any missiles launched will “stay” with their owners. Targets or locations of missiles will not change. If you do not run convert.exe, you will get runtime error 100 when running Nemesis.

DO NOT RUN CONVERT.EXE IF YOU ARE UPGRADING FROM 1.53 TO A LATER VERSION!

• Starting with version 1.55, Nemesis comes Winplan-enabled, which means that Nemesis icon will appear next to Nemesis messages, and that several special abilities with area effect which naturally lend themselves to being shown on a map will be shown as UFO objects. These abilities are: Fascist Deep Space Missiles (dark green squares) and Viral Fields (Bright blue circles of proper radius with bright blue squares inside). Missiles will show proper warp speed and direction.
• TimHost version 3.22.008 or later or any phost version that supports ufos is required to run Nemesis. You can download new host for free from www.vgaplanets.com.

II. Installation.

You must install and configure the add-on to run in certain directories. If you have a multi-directory VGAP universe, it would be possible to specify what directories you want Nemesis to run and even have a separate configuration for every one.

To configure Nemesis for a specific directory, type the command NMCONFIG <directory-name>. The program will let you specify a variety of options and then place NEMESIS.CFG into the specified directory. If Nemesis cannot find this file when it runs, it will abort, so be sure to configure the Nemesis before using it. You should run the NMCONFIG just after running MASTER and before running HOST for the first time. You can re-configure NEMESIS as many times as you want.

a) Timhost installation.
In addition, you must add the line “Nemesis1.exe %1” into your auxhost1.bat file and “Nemesis2.exe %1” into the auxhost2.bat file. Do not type the quotes. These files must be in the main VGAP directory, where HOST.EXE resides. If these files do not exist, create them.

b) Phost installation.
Unlike Timhost, the phost program does not run the auxhost files automatically. Therefore, you must create a batch file to alternate runs of nemesis and phost. (or you can edit your own batch file, in case you run other addons). To do this, copy the following to a batchfile of your liking:

phost -1 %1
nemesis1 %1
phost -2 %1
nemesis2 %1
phost -3 %1

And then run that batchfile every time you need to run phost. For example, you have named the file nmhost and your game files are in directory mygame. Then you would type NMHOST MYGAME to run Phost and Nemesis.

The following is the explanation of options in the NMCONFIG. You can press Enter to accept the default value.

1) If you encounter a message “runtime error 003 at xxxx:xxxx” it means you are trying to run NMCONFIG on a non-existing game directory. You have to run MASTER.EXE before running NMCONFIG.
2) Give planet: self-explanatory. Press Y<ENTER> or <ENTER> to enable, N<ENTER> to disable.
3) Fed sweet-talk success rate: what chance a single Fed ship will have to successfully sweet-talk an enemy. Diplomacy class cruiser will have 4x that rate. Enter 0 to disable.
4) Fed aggressiveness ratio: the bigger the number and the more torps a Fed ship has, the less a chance of sweet-talk. A ratio of 2 and 30 torps will decrease the chance by 3%. Enter 0 to disable aggressiveness.
5) Genesis device temp variation: defines a temerature range that allows the use of Genesis device. The greater the number, the wider the range. For example, with default 25, the Genesis Device may be used between 0 and 25 and between 75 and 100 degrees, and with 10, between 0 and 10 and between 90 and 100 degrees. Enter 0 to disable it and 50 to allow its use on all planets.
6) Lizard chem strike kill factor: what percentage of the population is killed following a successful chemical strike. 0 to disable.
7) Growth at temp 50 worlds: how much faster the Liz colonists would grow on temp 50 planets. Setting 10 will cause them to grow 10 times faster, 1 would keep them growing at the same rate as host.exe does.
8) Birdman/non-Birdman cloaking shield failure: a failure % of a cloaking shield. Enter 100 to disable planetary cloaking shields.
9) Missile speed. Enter 0 to disable missililes.
10) planetary missile destruction: the greater the number, the more buildings destroyed and more population/natives killed.
11) X-Ray missile: the greater the number, the more crew dies as a result of an X-Ray missile explosion.
12) Orbital missile: the greater the number, the more damage orbital missiles will cause.
13) sweep factor: enter the chance that a 10-heavy-phaser ship will have of sweeping a missile. Enter 0 to disable sweeping.
14) cloak tow engine degradation: how many tech levels an engine degrades after a cloaked-tow. Default is 0. Enter 9 to disable cloak-tow.
15) Anti-Genesis device: The greater the number, the more amorphs will be created by the device. 0 to disable.
16) Strip planet minimum defense: enter a minimum number of defense outposts that will protect a planet from being stripped by a Quietus. 0 to disable.
17) Advanced Terraforming: how much additional heat an Onyx would deliver.
18) BMR mineral: Enter the first letter of the mineral that, combined with 1 supply, will produce 1 Robotic clan.
19) Viral field radius: enter a number of ly.
20) RSM money factor: the greater the number, the more money the Rebel ship will get after doing the Rebel Support Mission.
21) Colonial fighter range: Enter a number of ly.
22) Colonial pilot skill: the greater a number that you enter, the more Defense outposts will be destroyed and the more fighters will survive.
23) Team game: very important. This ability changes race specials into ship specials; ships can then be traded for the specials between the races.

Any player can use a planetary FC “NMC” to receive the list of Nemesis config options next turn in the mail. It is very similar to Planets’ own “con” Friendly code. When an item is yes/no, 1 signifies yes and 0 – no. In BMR, 1 is Duranium, 2 is Tritanium, and 3 is Molybdenium, 0 is disabled.

III. Operations and abilities.

The following section describes the new race special abilities and how to use them. Quick reference sheet follows the “long” explanation. For shortness, FC will refer to the Friendly code of the appropriate ship. Whenever I use “set amount” or “set percentage”, I refer to “set in the NMCONFIG.”

A. Federation.

1). Genesis device.
The Federation scientists have finally found a way to stabilize protomatter. From now on, the Genesis device has become available, and all Federation ships will come with this device installed. The Genesis Device allows ships to convert hostile planets into habitable ones (50 degrees), seed them with natives of choice and even have pre-built structures. The only requirement is that the ship has to have more than 49 colonist clans aboard. To use the Genesis Device, set the FC to “@XY”, where x is structures, y is natives.

X:
D 50 defenses, F 50 factories, M 50 mines.

Y:
A amphibious, B bovines, a amorphous, H humans, G ghipsoids, S silicons, R reptians,
I insects, V avians.

For example, to have a planet with 50 degrees, 50 factories and Bovinoid natives, set the ship FC to “@FB”. The number and government of natives are set at random. As a matter of course, the use of this device is only allowed on non-owned planets with no natives and within a set temperature range, to prohibit its use as a weapon of destruction. Genesis device will add a large meteor’s worth of minerals to the planet and set mineral density of all minerals to 100%. Genesis device instability has been removed.

2). Sweet-talk.
The peace-loving Fed captains do not like to fight. They would much rather take their ship on a diplomacy mission by setting the FC to “SWT”, Sweet-talk. If the captain is successful, the captain of the enemy ship would be sweet-talked, or persuaded, into doing nothing, including attacking, building fighters, torpedoes, or using any of the functions included in this add-on. However, the enemy ship is allowed to attack any of the other races’ ships in the same location, or the Fed ships that are not on a diplomacy mission. The suggested success rate is 25%, or it would require 4 ships to have 100% success in diplomacy missions.

The sole exception to that is the Federation’s Diplomacy Class Cruiser, which, thanks to its luxurious accommodations and conference rooms, has a 4*(success rate) chance to persuade the enemy. So, with the default 25%, a sole Diplomacy will suffice to keep an enemy ship at bay.

Federation captains cannot sweet-talk the Borg because they obey the collective, not the emotions of individuals.

A special config option allows the host to configure “aggressiveness ratio”. It decreases the chances of successful sweet-talk outcome with the higher number of torpedoes. The more torpedoes and the greater the ratio, the less chance of successful sweet-talk For example, 30 torps and the ratio of 2 will decrease the sweet-talk chance by 3% per ship. To activate it, set FC to “SWT” and intercept the target enemy ship.

Note: sweet talk cannot be given away in a team game.

Clarification: Enemy ships at Fed bases at the start of the turn can be sweet-talked into SURRENDERING if the base has FCode SWT and mission Force Surrender and there are enough ships on sweet-talk mission to sweet-talk the enemy. This was there from the beginning but people thought it was a bug.

B. Lizards.

1). Chemical strike.
The Lizards simply love their ground-attack capabilities, and they are constantly seeking ways to make it harder for the enemy to survive. Therefore, the Reptile class destroyer has been equipped with a toxin device, that takes 45 supplies and converts them into toxins for spreading onto enemy planets. After the toxins are spread, a set amount of planetary population dies out. To use Chem Strike, set FC to “CHx”, where x is any character (to prevent base force suppender), and have at least 45 supplies aboard. You must also have more ships than the enemy orbiting the planet, to provide cover for the Reptile using Chem Strike. Only one Chem Strike per turn per planet is allowed.

2). Multi-purpose Eros
Eros class cruiser will be able to heat planets up as well as cool them own. The terraform rate is the same: 1 degree/turn. Just like with default Eros ability, no special FC is required, no minerals or fule are expended.

3). Super-growth
Because the Lizards are Reptilians, they particulary like warm worlds (50 degrees) and this temperature is especially good for breeding. Therefore, their growth rate would increase 10 times on such worlds, but only if there is no overpopulation (2,000,000 colonists or more) The growth rate is configurable.

C. Bird-men.

1). Planetary cloaking shield.
Being a sneaky cloaking type, the Birds have greatly missed not being able to hide their own planets. But now they can, with the help of the planetary cloaking shield. Of course, it is quite impossible to make the planets totally disappear from view, but it is possible to fool the enemy sensors for them not to be able to achieve a transporter or a weapons lock. Therefore, no enemy ship will be able to fight or ground-assault the planet, making it extremely tough to take over.

To the Birds’ disappointment, all the enemy computers are different, making it harder to fool them. Therefore, only one race at a time can be blocked, making it necessary to have an alliance to take over Bird planets, unless you want to wait for a failure (suggested rate: 10%) to occur. Any Birdman ship can build a cloaking shield with the FC “BCS”, using 50 of each mineral and 100 MC taken from the planet’s surface.

From now on, the cloaking shield will protect the planet. The cloaking shields are permanent installations, so they will not be destroyed during any invasion. One more benefit for the Birds is that their ships can build the cloaking shields over any planet, not necessarily Birdman. So it is possible to sell the shields to allies, getting money/minerals/ships in return. One catch here: the installed cloaking shields on allied planets will be totally ineffective against the Birds themselves.

To activate an installed cloaking shield, use FC “CSa”, where is a race number to use against, 1..9, a, or b. The “CS4” will protect against the Fascists and against their missiles (see below). Cloaking shield uses 20 units of fuel per turn of use. All Birdman planets with 200 colonists or more get a free cloaking shield built automatically.

Star Bases at the planets CANNOT set their missions to “force surrender”. Otherwise, the shield will NOT work. Planets WILL protect against ships going into their warp wells.

2) The Birdmen must use enhanced energy management features in order for the cloaking devices to work. Cloakers can’t just go around expending energy since that can be detected by the crudest scanners. Now they can use the same energy-management techniques on a Neutronic Fuel Carrier and the Large Deep Space Freighter, making them twice as energy-efficient as before (and burning one half the fuel it did before!) No special FC is required. The ships cannot to or intercept to enjoy fuel economy.

D. Fascists.

1). Deep space missiles.
In their infinite pursuit of destruction, the Fascist government authorized its ships’ captains to install long-range deep space missiles on all ships tech 6 and above. From now on, any ship that has missile launchers available and is orbiting a Fascist planet will be able to launch three types of missiles: Orbital, X-Ray, and Planetary. Each missile costs 10 of each mineral and 20 fuel and moves at a set warp straight toward its target, which has to be an orbit of a planet. To launch a missile, the ship has to be of tech level 6 or above, be orbiting a Fascist planet, have the necessary minerals in the cargo hold, warp factor 0 and set a waypoint to the target planet.

The FC for Orbital missile id “LOM”, Launch Orbital Missile. This kind of missile does half a minehit damage to any and all ships orbiting the target planet.

To launch an X-Ray missile, set the FC to “LXM”. This missile would kill 1/3 (default) of the crew of any and all ships orbiting the target planet.

To launch a Planetary missile, set FC of “LPM”. This missile would destroy 1/3 (default) of all planetary structures, including mines, factories, and defense outposts. It will also kill colonists and natives and reduce their happiness levels.

The missiles can be swept when they reach the target point. To attempt to destroy the missile, you must set ships’ missions to mine sweep. The default chance of successfully sweeping a missile is TotalNumberOfBeamWeapons times BeanWeaponTechLevel. For example, a Biocide with 10 heavy phasers will have 10*10 or 100% chance. One Patriot with 2 Heavy Blasters will have 2*6 or 12% chance.

The planetary defense (not starbase defense) outposts also participate in this missile sweep. No special FC is required; the defenses will automatically attempt to sweep all approaching missiles.

The damage levels are of course configurable. If the missile is detected in space (i.e. it has not yet reached its target) then a scan message is sent to the owner of the target planet.

E. Privateers.

1). Cloak-tow.
It is widely known that the towing of ships while cloaked is not allowed because of extreme power requirements. However, the captains of Meteor Class Blockade Runners with Transwarp Drives have an option of foregoing the ship’s safety levels and attempting a cloaked-tow. Because the safeties were compromised, the ship’s engines can burn out and degrade to lower tech drives. The default degrade is 0, but all hosts are strongly encouraged to change this if they feel it gives way to Privateers abusing the ability.

To cloak-tow a ship, set the FC to “CLT”, warp factor to 9, a waypoint of less than 160 ly away, and mission to tow. You will also need extreme amounts of fuel, so be sure to carry at least 120 kt of Neutronium (depending on the towee’s mass, shape, and crew; ranges from 50 for a lowly probe to 160 for a Gorbie) when attempting a cloaked-tow. The formula for fuel burn is: round(40*ln((hull mass+cargo)/10)); this formula is further adjusted by enemy crew experience levels and the MBR’s fuel and cargo.

In addition, when cloak-towing, the tower will avoid all mine and web mine fields laid by the towee’s race. This is because the IFF indicators of the mines pick up a friendly transponder signal of the towed ship but no unfriendly signal from the tower (because it’s cloaked) and do not explode.

2). Anti-Genesis Device.
Some time ago, a privateer ship has robbed and captured a Federation starship on a Genesis mission, and the Genesis Device itself has fallen prey to Privateers. The Privateer scientists were able to understand its functions and reverse-engineer it. Now, they have constructed their own version of the device and called it the Anti-Genesis. As much as the Fede ration wanted to make planets fit for life, the Privateers want to spoil them to make them unfit for enemies. The Anti-Genesis will plant the amorphous life-forms on the planet and disrupt its temperature, however the Privateers were not able to overcome the original’s limitations. So, the Anti-Genesis can only be used over planets that are un-owned and un-populated by any native life-form. Any Privateer ship can use the device, the only requirements are warp 0 and a FC of “-@x”, where x is the temperature desired for the planet. If x is 1, the planet will turn into a freezing tundra, and if x is 9, it will turn into a hot desert. Anything in between 1 and 9 will result in the planet retaining its temperature. For example, FC of “-@1” will seed the planet with amorphs and decrease its temperature to 0 degrees.

F. The Cyborg.

1). Planet strip.
The Cyborg have found another use for their ships’ cutting beams. Now the Quietus Class Cruiser can strip the planet of all its structures and assume ownership of the planet, all without fighting. In addition, the StarBase that’s orbiting the planet will see the terrible destruction unleashed on the planet and surrender, also without a fight. So a single Quietus would be able to capture an entire planet with stocked StarBase, all without firing a single shot! All the planetary structures are cut up into pieces and converted into construction minerals, 3 per building. So if a planet has 200 factories, 100 mines and 50 defenses, it will get (200+100+50)*3 or extra 1050 kt of every mineral.

Use FC “STR” on an undamaged Quietus to “strip” the target planet. Ships on the strip mission will avoid enemy mines and may not tow or intercept another ship.

Ships can not strip planets belonging to the same race.

2). The Collective has decided to do something about those pesky amorphs who are impossible to assimilate. Now, all their ships with over 50 crewmen have an a2S device that solidifies amorphs into siliconoids. The resulting silicon population will be totally confused (in the state of anarchy) and quite unhappy. Moreover, a set percentage of them will not survive the solidification process and die. However, the result will be achieved: the Cyborgs will have a planet of Siliconoids to assimilate! To use the a2S device, set the FC “a2S” and have warp factor 0.

3). Sweet-talk immunity.
Borg ships are immune from the Federation sweet-talk. See Sweet-talk for details.

G. Crystals.

1). Self-Destruct.
The Crystals very well know what is done to the crews of ships that are forced to surrender: they are beamed into space. Now, the Crystals, wanting to avoid painful deaths when their own ships’ capture is imminent, found an easier alternative: they can detonate their ship, preventing the capture. All Crystal ships, including freighters and captured ships, have been rigged with the Self-Destruct device. To activate the device, set the FC of the ship you want to detonate to “SDS”. No other special requirements are necessary: it will work with or without fuel, with or without damage, any warp and waypoint.

Team game note: only the Opal, Ruby, Emerald, Flame and Thunder can be self-destructed if the team game is on and the ships do not belong to Crystals. The crystals still can self-destruct all their ships.

2). Advanced Terraforming.
After numerous complaints from many race Leaders, Presidents, Dictators, and Emperors, the Crystal Scientific Community have finally decided to improve their Terraforming ship. The Onyx has received a new lease on life; its terraforming ability will increase 50 times! This does not come without cost, however; a tankful of fuel is required for needed heat-up. To use Advanced Terraforming, set the Onyx’s FC to “ATF” and make sure that your fuel tank is full.

The Advanced Terraforming rate is configurable.

3). Super Alchemy.
An Emerald class battlecruiser at warp 0 can transmute minerals from one
to another or to money without penalty. To use Super Alchemy, set FC of the Emerald to “a*b”, where a is: N: fuel, M: molybdenium, T: tritanium, D: duranium and b is: N: fuel, M: molybdenium, T: tritanium, D: duranium, S supplies, $ MC.

For example, load it with 200 fuel and set FC to “N*D” to get 200 Duranium. One note-worthy thing: the Emerald can transform any mineral (or fuel) to megacredits getting 5 times more money than the amount of the mineral. For example, 200 fuel and “N*$” will result in 1000 MC.

The Emerald can completely replace both of the ridiculously expensive alchemy ships: Merlin and Neutronic Refinery. To emulate them, the Emerald must have supplies and use FCode “S*m” to emulate a Merlin and “S*N” to emulate the NR ship. As with the Merlin, 9 supplies are converted into 1 of each mineral. The NR rules have slightly changed: since minerals can safely be transmuted into supplies, to simplify the process, 2 supplies can be converted into one fuel unit. Since this process is all-or-nothing, if more fuel is made than there is empty space in the tank, the excess is vented out into space. The Super Alchemy is done after movement, and combat, so if you are transmuting fuel into something you shouldn’t worry about net being able to fight. You can also load supplies and use S*N to refuel in the end of movement (after some fuel is used up).

H. Empire.

1). Imperial Probe Droids.
Any Imperial ship with more than 100 crewmen will be able to send out Imperial Probe Droids to planets by setting FC “IPD”. It uses 20 fuel, 1 of each mineral, 1 supply unit and 1 MC. Set the Warp to 0 and waypoint to a target planet less than 100 ly away, and next turn you will receive a message telling you the number of colonists, population, type and government of natives, number of factories, defenses and mines, minerals, money and supplies on planet and the number of ships orbiting the planet. The probes will even penetrate Planetary Cloaking Shields! However, they can be shut down by defenses; a planet with 100 defenses will shoot down a probe 50% of the time, and 200 defenses will almost guarantee safety since a great number of planet’s fighters can be assigned to patrol around the planet.

Of course, you can launch the droids toward unowned planets, serving as advance recon units.

Due to space limitations, the following numbers represent the type of natives: 0 none, 1 humans, 2 bovines, 3 reptians, 4 avians, 5 amorphs, 6 insects, 7 amphibians, 8 ghipsoids, 9 silicons. The following numbers represent the gov’t of natives: 0 none, 1 anarchy, 2 pre-tribal, 3 early tribal, 4 tribal, 5 feudal, 6 monarchy, 7 participatory, 8 representative, 9 unity.

2). Gorbie Capture Beam.
The Gorbie Class Battlecarrier, being the biggest ship in the universe, has a non-standard method of capturing enemies. Instead of lowering the shields and beaming enemy crew out, this ship pulls the ship into its huge hangar and captures the ship with stormtroopers. This way, the Gorbie can capture any ship of tech 7 and below with the loss of some crew using its capture beam (FC “CPB”). The amount of crew lost is a half of the enemy ship’s crew due to superior training of Imperial stormtroopers. In addition, the Rebel crews fight even less vigorously than average, and when capturing Rebels the Gorbie loses only a quarter of enemy ship’s crew. For example, capturing a 322-crewman Birdman Valiant Wind would cost a Gorbie 161 crewmen, and a Rebel 172-crewman Patriot will only cost 43 troopers. The captured ship will have 10% damage as a result of fighting in its interior.

To use the Capture Beam, set the Gorbie’s FC to “CPB”, warp factor 0, and mission intercept. The Gorbie has to be undamaged and have Transwarp drives for most powerful tractor beams.

The Gorbie will use half of target’s hull mass (just hull, no cargo, weapons, etc) in fuel during this operation.

I. Robots.

1). Viral Field.
Due to their very nature, the Robots are proficient with computers. They have just found a way to establish a viral field. The field wipes the enemy ship’s computer core, erasing the ship’s name, resetting the FC to “VRF”, erasing destination, warp factor and transporter info. The ship that is caught in the viral field is effectively stopped dead in its tracks, unable to move, beam anything up/down and even cloak. In addition, the existing cloaking shield is no defense; Robotic viral field penetrates the cloak. Therefore, the Cybernaut, which is the only ship equipped with the viral field generator, can easily disable an entire enemy fleet and cause the enemy to assemble another one as the first fleet’s ships drift helplessly in space. To activate the Viral Field, set the Cybernaut’s FC to “VRF”, warp 0, and the enemy race to disable as primary enemy or mission kill for all races. The Cybernaut loses 5% of its crew to short-circuits as the enemy fights for control of its computers. The Cybernaut has to have at least 100 “crew-bots” to establish the field.

The Cybernaut can neither move nor be towed if the field is to be maintained. In order to prevent the creation of an impenetrable defense around the Robotic empire, no 2 Cybernauts can be present within 100 ly of each other. In this case, the Viral field will not work on both.In order to prevent an “unreachable” Cybernaut, the device cannot be operated from within a planet’s warp well (1-3 ly).

2). Build colonists.
Any Robotic ship has an opportunity to build more robot colonists from minerals and supplies. The NMCONFIG lets you specify which mineral to use; 1 of that mineral, 1 supply and FC “BMR” will build more robots. For example, if NMCONFIG is set to Tritanium (default) then a ship having 100 tritanium and 100 supplies will construct 10000 shiny new robots, or 100 clans.

This ability cannot be given away with teamgame.

J. Rebellion.

1). Rebel Support Mission.
A Rebel ship can do a Rebel Support Mission when orbiting an enemy planet. Just set the FC to “RSM”, and some public speakers from the ship will land on planet’s surface and persuade colonists to support the Rebel cause. Many of the colonists will defect to Rebels, beaming up to the ship and becoming Rebel colonists. Many others will also do monetary contributions, supplying the orbiting Rebel ship with money. The amount of money the ship can get is directly proportional to the population and then colonist level of happiness; if they are unhappy the ship can easily collect 10,000 MC in a single turn. The ship is also completely fixed by the Rebel sympathizers. The planetary taxes are set to 0, and some of the money from the treasury is stolen and turned over to the Rebels as a contribution. However, the informants from the planet will send a message to the government telling information about the ship’s armament, number and tech level of beams, torpedoes or fighters.

The ship may not be cloaked. RSM may not be given away in a team game.

2). Rebel defenses.
Any planet that belongs to the Rebellion will get 21 defense outposts for free and automatically. The defenses will also regenerate; for example, if some are destroyed by a Colonial KDP mission, they will regenerate back up to 21.

K. Colonies.

1). Anti-Defense mission.
A fully loaded Colonial Patriot class carrier can send its fighters on an anti-defense mission. The fighters will cross the space and attempt to destroy enemy defense outposts, if the Patriot’s FC is set to “KDP”, Kill Defense Posts, warp factor to 0, waypoint to an enemy planet and the primary enemy to the race that owns the planet. A number of outposts will be destroyed and a number of fighters will be shot down, depending on fighter pilots’ skill as set in NMCONFIG. Do not forget that only a full Patriot can do this mission. The Patriot must also have fuel.

Please be advised that the planet’s population will build decoys when the number of their defense outposts comes down. When the planet is completely stripped of its defenses, it will display its decoys to lure the fighters in. THERE IS NO WAY that the Colonial fighters will be able to detect these decoys! If a planet has no defenses left and a Patriot sends the fighters on a KDP mission, they will report destroying x number of defenses, however all they got were decoys and no real damage was caused. KDP cannot be given away in a team game.

2) Sub-space bubble.
THIS IS TIMHOST-ONLY MISSION. IT CANNOT BE DONE WITH PHOST.

Any starship that belogs to the colonies has a bubble device that can create a subspace bubble around the ship and propel it forward, in any direction. The ships enclosed in these bubbles are partially out of this universe and exhibit some special properties. Their properties include BUT ARE NOT LIMITED to: they totally ignore any and all mine and web mine fields; they do NOT engage in combat at the end of their movement phase; they are not affected by ion storms (unless they end their move in the middle of one, in which case they will be subject to normal ion storm movement/damage); they can resist towing (including cloaked-tow); they are not affected by fascist missiles(unless they end their move on a target planet); they cannot be forced to surrender; they are not affected by gravity wells of planets (this means a colonial ship can end its move 1 ly away from a planet); they cannot be robbed.

To create a subspace bubble, starships use fuel. The fuel use formula is:
new_fuel=round(fuel-20- (hull_mass+cargo+fuel+number_of_torps_or_fighters) / (drive_tech_level+1)) As evident from the formula, the distance travelled does not matter; ships moving 1 ly use as much fuel as those that move 80 lys. The maximum amount travelled within a bubble is 81 ly, disregarding the drive_tech_level.

The waypoint must be between 1 and 81 lys away and warp greater than 0 in order for the space bubble to work. You can’t use the bubble to sit in one spot! The FCode to use it is ISB, Initiate Subspace Bubble.

Team game note: due to the many common ships between the colonies and other races, only the following ships are available in team game for non-colonials: Cobol, Aries, Virgo, Scorpious. Colonials can still use all their ships.

Note: The cobol class ship will NOT make any fuel while in the bubble.

L. Universal.

There are several universal special abilities.

1). Orbital Defense Satellites.
The Orbital Defense Satellites are designed to make the planets much harder to take over. Any planet can build up to 5 of the Satellites using the FC “BDS”. Each satellite, when built, is taken into orbit and placed in standby mode. One can activate them with the FC “ADS”. Each satellite, when activated, will engage a search pattern for enemy ships. If none are found, it will return back to standby. However, if any enemy ships approaching the planet are found, all the present satellites will detonate, each causing 40% of a mine-hit to any and all enemy ships. Thus, the maximum damage to an enemy fleet is 2 full mine hits. In addition, the combat will NOT occur in the same turn. For example, an Emerald is 20 ly away from a Fed planet, going at warp 9. The planet has 5 ODS’s. The planet’s owner sets the FC to “ADS”. Next turn, the Emerald arrives at the planet, ODS’s explode, causing 56% damage to the Emerald. After that, the Emerald DOES NOT fight the planet. The Emerald’s owner will find it next turn sitting right over the planet, even with mission KILL!

Only the biggest ships will be able to withstand the explosions and have enough firepower left to defeat a well-defended planet. However, there is a catch to that. Some ships have a chance of avoiding the damage from the ODS’s. The larger the ship is, the better its chances are.

There is nothing anyone can do to prevent this “immunity” or to increase a ship’s chances.

In addition, there is an additional option open to a planet with all 5 satellites present. If you issue the FC “EDS”, the satellites will unconditionally explode, causing damage to all enemy ships in orbit in the beginning of the turn, doing only 50% of a minehit to each (total), but it would apply to cloaked ships as well. So for example you have some Birdman ship in orbit around your homeworld with Super spy mission. Your homeworld has 5 ODS’s. You set the FC to “EDS”, the satellites explode, causing 50% of a minehit to all cloakers. They come out of cloak and are now ready for taking.

Each ODS costs 50 of each mineral, 50 supplies and 100 MC. You can count the number of your satellites and check the presence of a planetary cloaking shield by using planetary FC “CDS”, count defense satellites.

Super Star Destroyers are immune to ADS and EDS.

2). Anchoring.
Many captains and race leaders have complained about the motion effect of the Ion storms. I am also not an exception: it is extremely annoying if you can’t keep your own fleet at your own planet. Therefore, I am introducing anchoring: a free and easy way to keep your ship in place. Any ship orbiting a planet can set its FC to “ANC” and warp to 0 and voila: the ship has not moved! No other special requirements exist.

3). Native gifts.
Some of the natives are more friendly to races that are like them. Siliconoids like Crystals, Humanoids are fond of Colonials, Avians adore Birdmen, and the Reptilians just love having Lizards nearby. In these four cases, the natives give money presents to colonists, not depending on tax rate and happiness. This does not decrease the native happiness levels. The more natives and colonists there are, the more money they will bring, up to the maximum of 1000 MC/turn.

4). Give planet.
Use the planetary FC “GPa”, where a is 1..9 or “a” or “b” to give the planet to the corresponding race. That race must have a ship in orbit. 10 percent of the population is killed in riots that follow the change in government and happiness of colonists drops 30 points. The base is given along with the planet. No base or structure damage results.

Birdman note: the Give Planet occurs before super-spy changing FC. Therefore, you will give the planet away to the Birds only if they change the FC and you leave it as is to the next turn. But that shouldn’t happen since you always read your messages, right?

5) Planetary codes.
To supplement “bum”, 6 new planetary FCs are introduced. Use the FC “BUM”, “BUD”, “BUT”, “BUS”, “BUN”, and “BUC” to beam up molybdenium, duranium, tritanium, supplies, fuel, and colonists respectively.

It is done after movement and combat, proportional distribution to all starships’ cargo holds. For example, if there is 400 fuel on the planet and an LDSF and a SDSF are in orbit, the LDSF would get 300 and the SDSF will get 100 additional fuel. At least 1 colonist will always stay on the planet.

For all you Fhost users: To avoid conflict with FHost’s BUM, you can use BuM FCode as a substitute for Nemesis’ BUM.

Team game.

The host can configure Nemesis so that it uses team game rules. It is a very important config item. This ability changes all race specials into ship specials; ships can then be traded for the same effect. For example, with team play a Fed player can give a Nebula to a Borg and then the Borg would be able to use the Genesis Device just like a Fed. Only certain ships are transferrable: only the original, race-designed ships would do. For example, a Borg Victoriuos bought from the Fascists would be able to launch missiles, but a Deth Specula would not, since the Birdmen can also build that ship. Therefore you should always check before buying a ship to use a race special. The following are the abilities that cannot be transferred in a team game: Sweet-talk, lizard growth, Eros, rebel defense regeneration, and Colonial KDP mission. All others, including build cloaking shield, are transferrable.

Quick Reference Sheet.

Federation:

• Sweet talk, “SWT”, intercept the target. Sweet-talks the enemy into doing nothing.
  Diplomacy has a 4x rate. Aggress. ratio.
• Genesis Device: “@XY”, where

X:
D 50 defenses, F 50 factories, M 50 mines.
Y:
A amphibious, B bovines, A amorphous, H humans, G ghipsoids, S silicons, R reptians, I insects.

Lizards:

• Chemical strike, “CHx”, undamaged Reptile with 45 or more supplies in cargo hold, more ships than enemy.
• Multi-purpose Eros, heat as well as cool.
• Super-growth, configurable growth rate, 50 degree planet, less than 20,000 clans.
  Native gifts from Reptians.

Birdmen:

• Planetary Cloaking shields, over any planet, ship FC “BCS”, uses 50 of each mineral, 50 supplies, and $100. To use CShield, FC “CSx”, where x is a race number. Uses 20 fuel per turn of use. Base cannot have force surrender mission.
• Fuel efficient Neutronic Fuel Carrier, burns 1/2 as much fuel as before.
• Native gifts from Avians.

Fascists:

• Orbital, Planetary, and X-Ray missiles, FC “LOM”, “LPM”, and “LXM” resp.
  Uses 10 of each mineral, 10 supplies and 20 fuel. Tech 6 or higher ship over a fascist planet, warp 0.

Privateers:

• Cloaked-tow: uses at least 100 fuel, FC “CLT”, mission tow, waypoint less than 162 ly away, warp
• Anti-Genesis, FC “-@x”, where x is 1 for cold planet, 9 for hot one. Warp 0.

Borg:

• Planet strip, undamaged Quietus, FC “STR”, waypoint to target planet.
• a2S device, Fc “a2S”, warp 0. Transforms amorphs into silicons.

Crystals:

• Self-destruct, FC “SDS”, Opal, Ruby, Emerald, Flame and Thunder.
• Advanced Terraform, FC “ATF”, Onyx, full fuel tank.
• Money gifts from silicons.
• Super Alchemy of Emerald at warp 0, FC “A*B”, where A is N, M, D, or T, and B is N, M, D, T, S or $. Merlin/NR emulation.

Empire:

• Imperial Probe droids, cost 1 of everything, over-100-crewman ship, warp 0, FC “IPD”. Uses 20 fuel.
• Gorbie Capture beam, FC “CPB”, warp 0, mission intercept, undamaged transwarp Gorbie, loses crew, 10 % damage to captured ship tech 7 or below.

Robots:

• Build more robots, any ship, FC “BMR”, uses 1 configured mineral and 1 supply for 1 new clan.
• Viral field, Cybernaut, >100 crew, FC “VRF”, warp 0. Stops other ships, including cloakers. Set primary enemy or mission kill! Cannot move or be towed.

Rebels:

• Free 21 defenses, regenerating, automatically.
• Rebel Support Mission, FC “RSM”, not cloaked, over enemy planet. Gets fixed, colonist volunteers, money. Planet’s tax is set to 0. Informer reports to planet’s owner.

Colonies:

• Anti-defenses, FC “KDP”, full undamaged Patriot with fuel, warp 0.
• Money gifts from Humanoids.
• Subspace bubble, FCode ISB, warp>0, 1<waypoint<81 ly, fuel usage.

Universal:

• Orbital Defense Satellites, to build FC “BDS”, 50 of each mineral and 100 MC, max. 5. To activate, FC “ADS”, each does 40 % of a minehit to all uncloaked approaching enemy ships after movement before fighting. To explode, FC “EDS”, does 50% total damage to all ships, both cloaked and not,before both movement anf fighting.
• Anchoring, FC “ANC”, over any planet in an ion storm.
• Give planet and starbase, FC “GPa”, where a is 1..9, “a”, or “b”. Other race has to have a ship in orbit.
• Planetary codes, BUM, BUD, BUT, BUS, BUN, BUC to beam up moly, duranium, tritanium, supplies, fuel, colonists. After movement and combat, proportional distribution to all ships in orbit.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me, [email protected]

IV. Notes.

You require 185 KB of free host _shell_ memory for this add-on to operate successfully. To find out how much you have, run Host on any directory and look for a line “XXX KB memory free” in the first screen of the host output. This does not apply to phost before 3.0, but it does apply for later versions.

BE VERY CAREFUL when assigning your ships destructive FCs. Many of them work on your own planets/ships as well as the enemy.

This add-on has been given a good amount of testing. I am pretty sure it’s bug-free, but if you find any, please e-mail me at [email protected] and you will be the first to receive the fix!

This add-on will create a file called NEMESIS.LOG in the planets _game_ directory and will log many Nemesis actions there for debugging purposes.

Warning: In using the subspace bubble and cloak-tow, I am utilizing a bug in the movement phase of host.exe. Due to this bug, combat is possible BEFORE MOVEMENT in both of these cases, i.e. if a Colonial ship tries to use the bubble when escaping combat (such as, for example, departing from an orbit around an enemy planet with ISB FCode and the planet has NUK) or when being cloak-towed out of the location where enemy ships are present. There is no way to get around this; the only way is to get Tim to fix the bug, but it would totally disable the Bubble, which is why I have not and will not report it to Tim.

V. Shareware.

This addon is being distributed as shareware. This means you will not get full-featured program until you register. To register, send a check, cash, or money order for 5 American dollars or equivalent plus a form found in the file NMORDER.FRM to:

Oleg Shvartsman
29631 Westbrook Pkwy.
Southfield, MI 48076
USA.

To encourage registration, this program will cease to function after turn 20 of the game. This does NOT mean you can start testing at turn 45 and continue for 20 turns; it means the FIRST 20 turns of the game, 1 to 20. In addition, a nag message will be sent to all players every turn. I am sorry about these restrictions, but I have spent about 100 hours writing and testing Nemesis and I consider that effort not worth wasting. Otherwise, all features of Nemesis are enabled. This is unlike many other shareware programs that disable certain features and then offer their programs to public for evaluation! How can one test a program if half of its features are disabled?

VI. Thanks.

To Tim Wisseman for the wonderful game.
To [email protected] and the Delta League for many ideas and a productive discussion.
To [email protected] for help with the messages routine and criticism. <G>
To [email protected] for many suggestions and planetary codes.
To [email protected] for the Robotic BMR and Sweet-talk.
To all members of Beta testing team for… uh… beta-testing