VGA Planets 3.5 Shareware PBEM

From: cocomax@aol.com (Cocomax)

Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 00:00:00 +0000

New Shareware Release
Feb 5th 1996 marks the release of date of
VGA Planets 3.5 for MS-Windows Shareware Version

This is the first release of SHAREWARE version of
VGA Planets 3.5 for MS-Windows.

So if you have never tryed VGA Planets 3.5 for windows here
is your chance to see and try it.

You can download it now from:

ftp.wilmington.net/vgaplanets/share/winp35.zip

www.wilmington.net/vgaplanets

Currently There are over 28,000 registered VGA Planets
all over world, so you should not have a hard time finding
a group of people to play with. All last count I have have
counted 86 Web sites dedicated to VGA Planets there are
even a few web sites that are running games.
  Like:  http://www.islandnet.com/~dafriese/robo.html

VGA Planets has its own news group   alt.games.vga-planets

What is VGA Planets?:

VGA Planets is a graphical, multi-player, play by electronic
mail, space strategy game for DOS and MS-Windows. This game simulates
combat in space between galactic scale empires. The game
emphasizes colonization of space and the development of the
planets that you will find, colonize and/or conquer. How well
you develop these resources will determine what kind of starships
(freighters and capital ships) you will be able to produce and
how well you will be able to defend your space and attack your neighbors.

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 strong 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 effect your growth and production
(excluding, 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

VGA Planets is designed to be able to handle from
two to eleven players in a play by mail (electronic mail)
game format. The game is designed to be played as a Net or
Bulletin Board System (BBS) game (as long as file transfers
are permitted and available), although it can be played
solely on one computer. Many of the Net players are playing
using E-mail and UUENCODE.

There are over 100 third party add-ons and campaign editors
for VGA Planets plus over 40 different BBS door programs to
aid in the running of VGA Planets games.

Andrew Sterian and Thomas Vogt have even written hosting
software for UNIX systems and many other none non-Dos systems.

Put simply: VGA Planets is HUGE!

At the heart of VGA Planets is a well thought out
game system that I designed myself. Here is a short
list of the many feature you can find in VGA Planets 3.

All planets have 3 types of minerals plus fuel.
   The minerals are on the surface or in the ground. The
   rate that the mines can bring the minerals to the surface
   depends on the density and the race mining bonus.

Players can build mines, factories and defense outposts.

Factories produce supplies that can be turned into minerals
   if you run short on minerals using mineral alchemy.

There are two types of anti-ship mines WEB and Normal. WEB
   mines slows your ship down to a dead stop if your ship hits one.

Each race has special ablities that makes the game
   more interesting, things like:
     Fast ships that move twice as fast as normal.
     Able to rob enemy ships of fuel and cargo.
     Turn enemy ships into minerals and store them in the
     cargo hold.

Ships can be send out to perform a preprogramed task at each
   of the 6 different waypoints you can set for each ship.

You get to view the results of your ship to ship battles and
   ship to planet battles in what I call The "Combat VCR".

You can check all this out just by grabbing a free copy of
the shareware version of VGA Planets from my ftp site or web page:

ftp.wilmington.net/vgaplanets/share/winp35.zip