Quantum Star: Generations

Quantum Star: Generations project is an easy to install and manage space strategy browser-based game.

Quantum Star: Generations is a browser-based space strategy and trading game played across a mapped galaxy against other players. Utilizing mining, trading, research, and production through easy-to-use tools, QS enables both broad micro-management of resources or more "aggregated" methods. Players compete, combat enemy fleets, and manage planets to become the "last man standing". No user downloads are required, and the game is free to host or play.

Quantum Star: Generations Evolved is a browser-based space strategy game. It is playable from any modern browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. It is written in the PHP programming language and utilises either MySQL or PostgreSQL as a backend database. It is also free for download and may be hosted independently by any user. The game is released under the terms of the Affero General Public License.

Quantum Star: Generations Evolved is a free open source application. Being open source you may modify and redistribute the source code under the terms of the Affero General Public License, or at your option the GNU General Public License version 3 (not version 2).

Here are some key features of "Quantum Star: Generations":

· Free
· Its fun!
· Easy installation
· Support for all versions of MySQL and PostgreSQL
· Support for both PHP4 and PHP5
· Platform independent
· Multiple language support with UTF-8 the standard character encoding
· Focus on security and resource efficiency
· Automated administration tasks
· Did we mention it is fun?

Requirements:

· PHP 4.3.0 or higher
· MySQL 4.0 or higher
· PostgreSQL 7.4 or higher
· a Webserver (e.g. Apache, IIS, etc.) capable of supporting PHP

What's New in This Release:

+ Bug fixes
- Multiple purchased used ships get named with the proper numeric suffix
- Fixed new fleet creation for newly purchased used ships and alien ships
- Various other minor bug fixes
+ Combat changes
- Battleship conversions now work correctly for freighters
- Only the planet with the most hostile fighters may be attacked
- Planets cannot be claimed while other planets have hostile fighters
- Planet names cannot be abused to "hide" planets from attacks
- Only one message is sent when a ship attacks a planet (never two)
+ Fleet menu changes
- Fleet Summary is now a sortable table with fleet details plus Command links for every fleet
- Fleet Management layout improved; Fleet Rename and Delete links added for easier management
- Create a Fleet uses a free fleet number
+ Clan improvements
- Fixed custom clan colors
- Clan score and fighter kills displayed
+ Interface enhancements
- Number of free orbits reported during planet creation process
- Player planet summary includes colonist allocations and overall totals
- Support per-category message deletion
- Clicking on the resource pictures in a star system takes you to the Mining page
- On the Mining page, the Metal/Fuel/No Mining column headers set all ships to mine that resource
- Removed message about taking command of a new ship costing turns (command changes are always free)
- Signatures properly shown in private messages
- User option to not show signatures is now honored
- Multiple ship upgrades fixed and slightly enhanced
+ Gameplay improvements
- Several ship types changed:
o Human and Blackstar specific ships are more balanced
o Man O Warp is fixed and may be purchased
o All ships (except the Mega-Flex) have at least a minimal number of fighters
o Some ship points adjusted to make more sense
- Orbital Bombardment completely disabled
- Damage of Mass Drivers decreased and damage of Terra Maelstrom increased
- Mass Driver now controlled by enable_superweapons
- Terra Maelstrom upgrade no longer removes the Quark Displacer (but one is still required)
- Artificial worm holes consume dark matter each DM and failure to have enough dark matter has consequences
- Black markets and alien shipyards move locations every few days
- Cost of all bombs changed to be more reasonable
- Delta bomb changed to do 2000 damage
- If enabled, SuperNova effecters can be purchased as intended
- Colonists sold at ports cost 20% more because the colonists have to travel from your homeworld
- Turn costs fixed for all buying, selling, loading, and emptying operations as follows
o All Buying/Selling costs 1 turn per ship affected up to a max of 5 turns
o All Loading/Unloading costs 1 turn per ship affected up to a max of 10 turns per fleet;
meaning when >10 ships in a single fleet are affected, you are charged a discounted 10 turns for that fleet
+ Bilko's changes
- Some interface cleanups and improvements
- Cost and chance of being generated for most items changed
- Items that may not have been generated before will be generated now
- Shield upgrades properly upgrade the max shields of the current ship
+ Random Event changes
- Star systems no longer renamed when affected by random events
- Metal mining rushes and Nebulas changed to have an infinitely refreshing guaranteed minimum metal/fuel plus an advanced regeneration rate
- Nebula mining rate increased to 3x and damage done to ships significantly decreased
- Fix to allow multiple Nebula clusters to be created as intended, but never in homeworld systems
- Fixed bugs in Supernova explosions destorying ships and planets
- More powerups should be available in the universe, but some powerup types are less likely to appear
- Cash, tech, and turn powerups should be more useful
+ Admin improvements
- Several new and enhanced admin only reports
- All admin ships can subspace jump
- Dark matter may be configured to be bought/sold at black markets
- Give money to all players fixed
- allow_signatures fixed
- Nebulas only created when random_events > 1
- Mining rush/Nebula advanced regeneration rate and guaranteed minimums based on uv_metal/fuel_max and rr_chance_metal/fuel_max variables
- Resources created in a Supernova explosion are based on rr_change_metal/fuel_min/max variables
- Powerup turns and tech amounts based on hourly_turns and hourly_tech
- flag_bomb changed; 0=no bombs, 1=alpha/gamma sold and in Bilko's, 2=1 + delta in Bilko's
- Bilkos items are only generated if enabled (e.g. Terra Maelstrom only when enable_superweapons is on)
- When appropriate, the cost and amount of Bilko's items is derived from config vars
- max_fleet_size minimum lowered to 10 (from 25)
+ Server improvements
- Several innocuous httpd errors eliminated