Galactic Tracker 2.0 - Table of Contents

Minor Release version 2.01

What's New in Galactic Tracker 2.0

Release History

General Overview

How to Register Galactic Tracker

Ship List

Starmap

Ship Details

Fleet Analysis

Ship Tracking Database

Display Options

Troubleshooting


Ship Tracking Database

The Galactic Tracker Ship Tracking Database

The ship tracking database keeps track of the status of every ship you encounter in VGA Planets.  It is available only in the registered version.  After you unpack your RST file, you should run Galactic Tracker to update the database.  New ship information is added to the database, but old information is left alone.  Over time, the database will contain many ships, including ones that you lost contact with (of course, these ships could still be wandering the galaxy, hiding behind planets or cloaking)  Once Galactic Tracker records the ship, its last location and vital specs are recorded.  This information could be invaluable when planning attacks on your enemies.

The easiest way to update the database on Options/Auto-Save Database.  This way, Galactic Tracker will save all new information automatically when you exit the program.

Galactic Tracker adds ships to the database when your scanners (short or long range) detect them in deep space, when your ships in planetary orbit spot a ship at the same planet, and when your ships encounter them in battle.  The database file is stored as GTRAKn.DAT, where n is the player number between 1 and 11.

Combining Databases With Your Allies

Galactic Tracker 2.0 allows you to combine other Galactic Tracker databases with your own.  By including information that your allies have saved, you will have much more complete information about enemy ships.

To combine databases, simply copy your ally's database file into your game directory (where you unpack your RST file), and click on File/Load Allied Database.  You will be presented with a list of databases you may add to your own.  Double-click on the one you want and it will instantly update your database with any new information.  Only the most recent information will be saved.

Viewing Database Information

By checking Options/Include Database in Scan, all known information about all known ships will be available for review.  If this option is not selected, only information from the current turn will be presented.


How to Register Galactic Tracker

If you find Galactic Tracker useful in helping you to play our favorite game, VGA Planets, please register.  By registering, the ship tracking database will be enabled.  Until you register, ships won't be recorded!  Your registration code will register all future versions of Galactic Tracker should they become available.  You can register by filling out the registration form (REGISTER.TXT) and sending $5 (All European orders add $2) to:

USA:	Europe:

Karl Eric Beisel              	The Survival BBS

1965 Fountainbrook Ct.        	P.O. Box 1538

Woodbridge, VA  22192         	DK-2700 Bronshoj

                                             	Denmark

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, or any problems running Galactic Tracker, please contact me through one of the following addresses:

The BBS2:  (703) 491-2272    (14400-n81)

                   	Internet:  kbeisel@mason1.gmu.edu

                 	Compuserve:  73223,612

Questions and information about registration in Europe should contact Henrik Moerk at one of the following networks:

The Survival BBS:  +45 38 89 52 53   (9600-n81)

FIDONet:  2:231/306

The latest version of Galactic Tracker will always be available at my BBS or The Survival BBS in Europe (both listed above).


Fleet Analysis

Technology

Calculates the average warship hull technology of each race.  This can be used to compare your enemies' technology with your own.

Fleet Strength

The total firepower of each race's fleet.  This is calculated by finding each race's average Combat Rating and multiplying that times the number of warships in the fleet.  The more enemy warships you have recorded, the more accurate this will be.


Ship List

Summary

The Ship List is where you can review the specifications of all known enemy ships side-by-side.  You can organize the list in many ways to help you look for specific information.

Viewing Different Information

You can adjust the combo boxes at the top of the Ship List to display different combinations of information.  You can also use one of the two filters to display ships owned by particular races or particular types of ships, such as freighters, carriers, torpedo ships and beam weapon ships.  The filters are available from the View menu.

Sorting the Ship List

The first combo box allows you to sort the list by race, mass, ID number, name, class, speed, location or Combat Rating.  Using this feature, you can organize ships into an order that can be easily referenced, depending on what you are looking for.

Deleting Ships

You can delete old ship entries from the database by pressing the Delete key when you have highlighted the entry on the list.  (You can also delete ships from the Ship Details dialog.)


What's New in Galactic Tracker 2.0

New Features

*  Interactive Starmap.  It is now fully resizable and contains many configuration options.  You can zoom in and out and click on the ships on the map to activate the Ship Details dialog.  It can also reside on the desktop side by side with the Ship List, so you can better analyze the information.

*  Enhanced Galactic Tracker database now records ships you encounter in battle and ship armament.  You can also save your own notes with each ship in the database.

*  Automatic minefield detection.  Minefields detected by your ships will be graphically displayed on the Starmap.

*  Flexible Ship List sorter.  The first combo box now acts as a ship sorter.  You can sort the entire list by ID, ship class, ship name, race, speed, total mass or Combat Rating.  From the menu you can filter out different types of ships, including beam weapon ships, torpedo ships, carriers and freighters.

*  Enhanced Ship Details dialog.  It now lets you list nearby ships and the nearest planet.  It also tells you how many turns ago the ship was recorded (in addition to the turn when it was recorded) so you can see how old the data is at a glance.  Combat Rating and ship armament are also displayed.

*  Automatically deletes your ships when they are no longer in service.

*  Galactic Tracker now looks at data from only one race's perspective.  This is to prevent accidental mix-ups with old or unwanted game information.  If there is more than one race in the same directory, you may switch between them from the Player menu.

*  Ability to combine databases from other races for more complete, accurate information about the enemy fleets.

*  Starmap prints the starmap exactly how you have it on the screen, including ships and minefields as well as planets.

*  Ability to choose the color that represents each race.

*  Faster execution.  Often-used dialogs stay in memory and are displayed much faster.  Galactic Tracker uses the built-in Windows INI functions to read its INI file (before it used its own INI-read/write routines) and is has tighter code.

*  This Help file.

*  Supports custom race names.  Simply put your custom RACE.NM file into your game directory, and Galactic Tracker will use it instead of the one in the VGA Planets directory.


Ship Details

Hull Specifications

Lists the ship's hull's specifications, including number of weapons, hull mass, engines, tech level, and crew compliment.

Combat Rating

The ship's ability to fight in a battle.  It is a rough means by which you can compare two ships.  It is calculated using the following formula:

(Hull_Mass / 80) ^ 2 + (Beam_Weapons ^ 1.5) + (Torpedo_Tubes ^ 2) + (Fighter_Bays ^ 2.8)

The Combat Rating is also used to calculate fleet strength in Game Analysis.

Last Known Location

Displays the last known location of this ship in X,Y coordinates and the name of the nearest planet to that location, or the planet at that location if one exists.

Last Report

Displays the turn number in which the ship was last recorded.  This is to help you determine how old the data is.  If the information is very old, that ship may have been destroyed or recycled and should be considered for deletion.

Course

Displays the current heading of the ship in degrees.

Speed

Displays the current speed of the ship in Warp Factors.

Mass

Displays the current mass of the ship, in kilotons

Armament

Displays the ship's known armament.  It always knows the armament of your own ships, but it will only report the armament of enemy ships if you encounter them in a battle or receive the information from an allied database.

Notes

This is a place you can record your own notes and information about each ship.

Mark Map

Press this button to activate the Starmap and cause the mark that represents this ship to blink.

Scan Area

Press this button to display the Area Scan dialog, which lists ships within 15 LY; planets and minefields within 5 LY.  You can switch to the Ship Details of nearby ships from this dialog.


General Overview

Before You Begin

You must have VBRUN200.DLL in your Windows system directory before you can run Galactic Tracker.  If you do not have this file, you may acquire it from many BBSs, on-line services or networks free of charge.  You can also find it on my BBS by calling (703) 491-2272.

What is Galactic Tracker?

Galactic Tracker will allow you to record the location and specification of every ship you encounter in VGA Planets and provides an alternative scoring method.  You must register Galactic Tracker to save the ship database or use any of the database commands.

Before I wrote Galactic Tracker, I resorted to trying to write down everything I could about every ship I encountered.  I wanted to keep a complete record of all of their ship types and location, so I would always be able to know approximately where enemy ships were, even those that were now behind planets or out of range of my scanners.  Galactic Tracker does more than you could practically write down on a sheet of paper, and does so with almost no effort on your part.  Simply run Galactic Tracker after you unpack each RST file to record the ships in the database (provided you registered the program).  Once a ship is recorded, Galactic Tracker never forgets its specifications and last location, even when it goes behind a planet or leaves your scan range. You can then use Galactic Tracker's powerful tools for a comprehensive analysis of the enemy fleets' strengths and weaknesses.  You can also print out the complete listing of ships and the starmap, just like you have formatted it on the screen or combine your database with that of an ally's for more accurate information about the enemy fleets.

Also provided is a tool for analyzing each enemy fleet's Technology and Fleet Strength.  This is useful when comparing what really counts -- how many and how powerful are your warships.  In many ways, this is a much more accurate way of keeping score than VGA Planets' scoring method.  In VGA Planets, planets and starbases are counted much higher than they should be.  Just because an empire has many planets does not say much for their offensive abilities.  VGA Planets also counts all warships the same, when in fact, a warship may be as much as 200 times as powerful as another.  Counting a small scout the same as a huge battleship does not make sense.  Galactic Tracker tells you the real story.

Technology displays each empire's average hull technology.  You can compare this with your own to determine where you stand in the galactic technology race.

Technology and Fleet Strength are based on Galactic Tracker's knowledge of the enemy fleets.  The more it knows, the more accurate these values will be.  These values will never be very accurate until Galactic Tracker is registered.  Otherwise, these values will grow increasingly accurate as you near the "front lines" and encounter more enemy ships.

Getting Started

Copy the unarchived files to the directory of your choice (you do not have to put it in the main VGA Planets directory if you don't want to).  If your game uses custom race names, copy the RACE.NM file with the custom names into the game directory, where you unpack your RST files.  Galactic Tracker automatically looks for a RACE.NM in the game directory.  If one is not found, it will use the one in the main VGA Planets directory.

Run GALTRAK.EXE.  It will present you with 2 setup screens, one for the main VGA Planets directory and one for the game directory and title.  Again, the game directory is the one you unpack your RST file to and the main VGA Planets directory is the one where PLANETS.EXE is located.  Press OK and you're done!


Display Options

Color Options

Here, you can select the fore and background colors of the map and grid, and determine the color that represents each race on the map.  Select the option you want to change from the list, then click on the colors to the right.  The left mouse button selects the foreground and the right mouse button selects the background.

Star Brightness

Sets the size of the planets as they appear on the Starmap.

Show Grid

Determines whether or not the grid is displayed on the Starmap.


Troubleshooting

Won't load; Windows displays a "missing one of its components" error.

Galactic Tracker requires a special file called VBRUN200.DLL to run.  It can be found at many BBSs, on-line services, and networks.  You can also find it on my BBS at (703) 491-2272 (14.4K, 8N1).  All users receive free and immediate access and free downloads.

Text is not aligned correctly in Ship List.

This is common with Large Font display modes.  It may not look perfect, but it does not affect the way the program runs.

It seems to run OK at first, but eventually pops up an Error message and quits.

This is not supposed to happen, but if it does, I goofed somewhere.  If possible, contact me via Internet, Compuserve or my BBS to tell me of this error and I will try my best to fix it.

The Ship Tracking Database contains incorrect values.

This can happen when an enemy ship is destroyed or recycled and a new ship appears with the same ID number.  In this case, you should decide if it should be deleted to purge it of incorrect information.  If the ship is visible in the current turn then the new information will put the deleted ship back into the database with the correct values.

The Starmap isn't displaying any minefields.

Before Galactic Tracker can detect minefields, your ships must detect them using the Minesweep mission.  Galactic Tracker reads these reports in the VGA Planets messages.  Also, make sure you are using the same RACE.NM file that Host uses.  You should put the custom RACE.NM file in your game directory (where you unpack your RST file).


Starmap

Using the Starmap

The Starmap is where you can view the galaxy as a whole.  You can see the locations of ships, planets and minefields.  Using the Zoom In and Zoom Out buttons, you can increase or decrease the Starmap's level of detail.  The map grid marks off 100-square LY areas of space and is useful for estimating distances.

The Starmap is useful when you need to determine the approximate location of enemy ships.  Each race's fleet is represented with a unique color, allowing you to quickly see their position in space.  In VGA Planets, if you are not careful, it is possible to miss enemy ships while they sneak behind one of your planets.  You can either check the ships in orbit around each and every one of your planets every turn, or do it the fast and easy way with Galactic Tracker's Starmap.

Only ships that have been specified in the Race and Ship Filters will appear on the Starmap.  Clicking on a blip will cause it to blink and the ship's name to appear on the status bar at the bottom of the map.  Double-clicking on any area of the map will display the Area Scan dialog, which lists all objects, including ships within a 15 LY radius; planets and minefields within a 5 LY radius.  From there, you can view Ship Details on any ship in the Area Scan's list.

From the Options/Display menu, you can change the default race colors, star brightness, map color and toggle the map grid on and off.

Detecting Minefields

Galactic Tracker must read the messages you receive from your ships to detect minefields.  It does not record them in the database since they are always changing.  You should always keep several of your ships on the Minesweep mission.  Also, if your Host is using custom race names, you MUST put the custom RACE.NM file in that game's directory.  Otherwise, Galactic Tracker won't be able to determine who owns the minefields.


Release History

Version 2.00

*  Initial Release of version Galactic Tracker 2.0.

See What's New in Galactic Tracker 2.0.

Version 2.01

*  Fixed Starmap scrolling problems.

*  Fixed "Subscript Out of Range" error when switching between races from the Player menu.

*  Clicking on the Location option in a Shiplist combo box now reorders the list in 1/5 the time it previously took.  Some people thought Galactic Tracker had frozen up, but it was just taking a very long time.  This will greatly help the situation.