Stars! AutoHost

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First and foremost, Stars! AutoHost is an automatic web based host for the game Stars!. Running since May 1997, it has grown to be much more than that. Hosted by Ron Miller, SAH was built on the ideas and core code of Thomas Tong and his Stars! TurnXChange. Since the start of SAH, Ron has adapted, heavily modified, and improved the PERL cgi code received from Thomas Tong. Including Home World Forum, SAH has grown to become the single best place to find other Stars! players, share ideas and organise games. Other provided services: KN-2050 central computer (downloads), Starbase Epsilon-42 (links to other Stars! sites) and Player Postcards from around the world.

Hosting services

SAH Host Utility screenshot
Each game hosted at SAH has its own game page where players can view the game's current status and access their turn files. While Ron must set up each game himself, the Host Utility provides game hosts with options for management of turn generation(game-wide) and file logistics(per player). Turn(or multiple turns) generation may be set to occur every X hours, at specified times according to a weekly schedule(with an additional option for early generations), or put on hold altogether. For each player, hosts may either have their turn files(.m#), or a notification, emailed to them; may specify multiple email addresses for allied players or archiving; or may set them to inactive or dead/banned. Finally, a host may force an immediate generation(useful at times) or restore a prevously backed-up turn (usually as a last resort).

Having a game hosted at SAH is almost as simply as asking Ron and sending him the game files(detailed instructions at SAH).

See also:

Home World Forum

Powered by FUDForum, Home World Forum(HWF) is the discussion forum of SAH for Stars! players to meet and talk. Each moderated by a variety of players, HWF provides many sub-forums including:

  • The usual general discussion and Stars! AutoHost related forums.
  • A new game forum for announcing new games and finding players.
  • The Academy: a forum for strategy discussion. Here you will find many tips and tricks to help you along.
  • The Bar: for general Stars! discussion. Also for finding replacement players and discussing possible game concepts/themes(as opposed to actual game adverts)
  • Specific forums for each PRT, FreeStars (Clones), Hosting, the Duelling Club, Ranking and the VML Lounge for games created using StarEd

On request, Ron will also provide private forums for individual games, moderated by the game's host.

KN-2050 Central computer

The downloads section of SAH, it contains contains not only the latest executable files, but also past versions, patches to upgrade those to higher versions and a variety of utility programs to assist playing Stars!.

Stars!wiki

Since of October 2010 Stars!wiki (this wiki) has been hosted at SAH with the continuing aim of collecting and preserving all things Stars!.

Andre

A good friend of Ron's with whom he played Stars! and started AutoHost. Andre Noel created the Host Utility and did the HTML layout for the Stars! AutoHost website.