The purpose of this program is to enhance the abilities of the player client VPA. Many good players use this client to make better and faster turns. But VPA has some disadvantages/bugs and therefore players have to use WinPlan and other 3rd party utilities (like EchoView by Stefan Glasauer.) to get the information VPA can't give them.

Well known disadvantages of VPA are:

no UFO information
unreliable minefield information
no 50+ target support with WinPlan RSTs

UFO4VPA can fix these problems and, additionally, gives many other useful information that WinPlan can't give you.
WinPlan only users can use this program, too. But to get most out of the information you should use VPA instead.

UFO4VPA analyses many binary files that are extracted from your RST. It then rewrites your 'MDATAx.DAT' file. You can read these new messages with WinPlan or VPA but the real purpose is to provide this information to the VPA message parser. VPA will then draw many new markers on the map screen.

UFO4VPA will remember all enemy ships (hulls) you can see on the map. It will also extract the armament data of surviving enemy ships from the VCRs. This should give you an overview about enemy fleet/ship strength.

UFO4VPA is a player utility. This program has NOTHING to do with the host add-on UFO4DOS which has to be run by the HOST and NOT by the players. UFO4DOS gives UFO/minefield information to players who do not have a registered WinPlan copy. UFO4VPA can't do anything for those players.

  YOU MUST HAVE A REGISTERED WINPLAN COPY !!!  

This is not to encourage you to pay more money to Tim Wisseman. The reason is that UFO4VPA uses a special file that only players with a registered WinPlan copy will get from the host.
This special file ('KOREx.DAT') is absolutely necessary because it holds all data concerning UFOs, 'true' minefields or 50+ targets.

This utility doesn't support PHOST or other 3rd party host versions other than TimHost.

UFO4VPA supports Host999. But you should have in mind that the actual officially supported version of VPA (v3.51e) does NOT support Host999. There are some newer versions of VPA floating around in the net. These versions are NOT officially supported by the author and have many bugs. Please keep in mind that these versions are NOT SUPPORTED by UFO4VPA.

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 UFO4VPA ...

writes a message for every UFO object which VPA can display on the map
calculates corrected waypoints for Asteroids
writes additional messages for UFO waypoints (non-enhanced)
allows VPA to draw circles and waypoint vectors for UFOs on the map
(enhanced only)
analyses all minefield scan messages and the starchart minefield data
remembers and ages all minefields that are out of scan range
remembers and ages all minefields that are covered by ion storms
deletes needless minefield scan messages
analyses mine explosion messages
rewrites a corrected minefield message for every minefield ('true' minefields)
writes additional minefield messages including all mine laying and sweeping activities
helps you to find out the beam type of sweeping enemy ships
helps you to find out the torp type of mine laying enemy/ally ships
allows VPA to display minefields out of scan range or covered by ion storms with the
correct (aged) size (enhanced only)
writes 'Warp Signature' messages for enemy ships destroyed by mine hits and allows
VPA to draw tracers on the map (enhanced only)
supports 'moving mines/webs' (Gryphon/Jupiter add-on) and allows VPA to draw
tracers on the map (enhanced only)
writes messages for ion storms which normally can't be seen in VPA and allows VPA
to display them ('true' ion storms)
writes ion storm forecast messages
writes additional messages for joining ion storms
allows VPA to display ion storm forecast information on the map (enhanced only)
writes very detailed 'Ion Advisory' messages for ships threatened by ion storms
writes special 'Ion Advisory' messages for alternative waypoints in heavy ion storms
rewrites third party add-on messages so that VPA can paint a marker on the map
deletes futile host messages (terraforming, fighter building, ...)
analyses and remembers all scanned enemy/ally ships
analyses distress messages and VCR data
writes enemy fleet/ship messages
allows VPA to display remembered crew, damage, engine tech and armament
information on the screen (enhanced only)
writes score messages (basic & PTSCORE) for you and your allies
writes 'TARGETx.EXT' file and allows VPA to support more than 50 targets
imports allied planetary data from messages generated by EchoView
(enhanced only)
analyses data from allied RSTs
supports and merges allied maps (generated by Explore Map) and allows any client to
display all planets examined by your allies
supports Host999

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Fixed: some ion storm joining messages corrupted message base
some minor changes (better EV and PCC compatibility)

improved ship name recognition routine
(important for minefield activity messages)
one-way alliances supported
'FFx' alliances supported
'NTP' is now treated correctly
crew experience points are no longer deleted if a ship has been destroyed
some performance tuning
Fixed: web mines from ally caused error in second run of enhanced mode
Fixed: allied dummy 'KOREx.DAT' files are no longer used
as usual: some minor changes & bug fixes

improved crew experience accuracy
Fixed: ship names could interfere with VPA data base identification strings
which caused enhanced mode to fail
Fixed: allied minefields sometimes marked as old when completely swept -
now allied minefield information is always 100% accurate
as usual: some minor changes & bug fixes

Fleet analysis now supports crew, damage and ammunition of starships
'Warp Signature' messages introduced
'Moving mines/webs' supported (Gryphon/Jupiter add-on)
Fixed: some ion joining messages corrupted message base
Fixed: only first general object treated correctly
Fixed: old messages from missed turn(s) corrupted message base
as usual: some minor changes & bug fixes

ENHANCED MODE introduced
Host999 support (not tested)
general objects supported
UFO4VPA database format completely changed, ALL older turns are now
saved & remembered
enhanced minefield activity messages
a lot of new add-on features supported
VPA can now draw 'real' UFO objects with correct radius and direction
(enhanced only)
old minefields (out of scan range, covered by ion storms) are now displayed
(enhanced only)
VPA now displays minefield type always correctly (enhanced only)
VPA can now display engine and armament type of enemy/ally ships
(enhanced only)
allied planetary data from EchoView supported (enhanced only)
number of messages are now recognized correctly by VPA, VPA /M switch
no longer necessary
ion storm forecasts introduced
energy vorteces partially supported
EchoView compatibility mode introduced (necessary for mine explosions)
quiet mode introduced
Fixed: engine type calculated from from E-S bonus erased armament data
Fixed: own web mines that were not scanned by ships caused corruption of
message base
this time: MANY minor changes & bug fixes

UFO4VPA now remembers all minefields out of scan range
added background aging for all minefields out of scan range
more detailed minefield messages
more detailed information about enemy/ally mine laying activities
calculation of possible torp types for mine laying enemy/ally ships
UFO4VPA now tries to extract the engine type of enemy ships from VCRs
if E-S bonus is enabled
again, more accurate mine/web decay calculation ;)
as usual: some minor changes & bug fixes

UFO4VPA now writes score messages (basic & PTSCORE)
stupid bug in fleet analysis FIXED
more accurate mine/web decay calculation
some minor changes & bug fixes

completely rewritten minefield analysis
mine laying & seeping activities are now displayed for every minefield
calculation of possible beam types for sweeping enemy ships
calculation of correct heading for Asteroids (fix for 'Asteroid moving bug')
change of PBPs is displayed (useful for blank score games)
Fixed: ships influenced by two or more heavy ion storms caused corruption
of message base
some minor changes & bug fixes

UFO4VPA leaves beta status !
UFO4VPA now writes additional waypoint messages for UFOs with WARP > 0
UFO4VPA now writes special 'Ion Advisory' messages for ships in heavy ion storms
Fleet analysis now supports engine tech level
Fleet analysis now supports 'Remote ID' feature (Gryphon/Jupiter add-on)
Fixed: too many mine sweep messages had been removed
Fixed: Known hull percentages over 100%
some minor changes & bug fixes

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 Special thanks to ...

all UFO4VPA users who have voted for my page
Alex Ivlev for programming VPA, the best planets client
Stefan Reuther for the documentation of the VGA Planets 3.x file formats
and investigation of ion storm physics
Christoph Doerfler for programming support
Dennis Weise for comments and beta testing
Pawel Keller for comments and beta testing
Nate Olsen for Spaceport Andromeda, the successor of Spaceport Hamburg
Armin Trott for Spaceport Hamburg, the best hosting site we ever had
The former players at Spaceport Hamburg for using lots of add-on features against me ;-)
Oleg Shvartsman for programming Gryphon & Nemesis
Dan Gale & Dave Killingsworth for programming Race+, Asteroid and Jumpgate
Michael Jordon for programming Ahost
and all the other programmers who are responsible for add-ons and utilities

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You can click to send a message to the author of UFO4VPA.

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