Planetarion

Originally launched in 2000 by Fifth Season AS and currently owned by SimTech and hosted by Jolt], Planetarion is a browser-based multiplayer war-game, set in space. The game provides players with control over a planet, with the ability to mine asteroids for resources and build spaceships to attack other planets for their asteroids. The objective of the game is to amass the highest score, which is determined by a combination of factors, such as value and experience, which in turn are based on the amount of asteroids and spaceships a planet possesses, as well as their military prowess. In addition, the player can choose to play any of several races, such as the Terrans, Cathaar, Xandrathii and Zikonians, each giving unique bonuses and advantages.

The nature of the game is a hybrid between turn-based and real-time gameplay. Updates occur once per hour, and orders given in-game take a set number of ticks, or hours, to complete. As such, building a factory may take three actual days, and attacking another player may give him an eight-hour window to make preparations for defending his or her planet.

The most important aspect of the game as frequently cited by the userbase, is the interaction with other players. Planets are grouped into galaxies, which in turn are arranged into clusters, which give bonuses in travel speed of spaceships between planets, making cooperation a necessity for adequately defending your planet. As such, the game has an active presence on the Netgamers IRC network for direct communication between players.

Races
Planetarion currently features four races that players can choose from when creating their planet, each offering particular bonuses and different styles of play.


 * Terran (Ter): Terrans are a human race, whose ships use conventional weaponry. Generally they favour the larger and heavier ship classes to attack and inflict damage with.
 * Heavy Armour and Damage
 * -2 hours on Building Construction
 * -1 hour on Ship Construction
 * Stealth Level 90


 * Cathaar (Cat): Cathaar are a humanoid feline race, who possess advanced EMP technology, resulting in the ability to use highly efficient but non-lethal weaponry.
 * Can stun any ship type with high efficiency
 * Can only destroy half of the ship types in-game
 * +1 hour on Building Construction
 * -10% time on Research
 * Stealth Level 100


 * Xandrathii (Xan): The Xandrathii are a highly advanced insectoid race using small and fast ships equipped with cloaking technology. Their high firepower and speed, combined with the unpredictability of their fleets due to cloaking technology, is offset by the fact that their ships are quite fragile.
 * Cloaking Technology makes Xandrathii immune to most fleet scanning abilities
 * High firepower and low travel time due to focus on smaller ship classes
 * Lowest armour class of all races
 * -1 hour on Building Construction
 * -1 hour on Ship Construction
 * +10% time on Research
 * Stealth Level 90


 * Zikonian (Zik): The Zikonians are a rather mysterious race on whom not much is known. It is claimed that they are an ancient race come to claim domination over the universe, others say that they are a rebel offspring of the Cathaar. The fact is that they have the rather unique ability to steal enemy ships and use them against their opponents.
 * Average armour and damage
 * Can steal all other race's ships
 * -2 hours on Ship Construction
 * Stealth Level 100

Alliances
In addition to galaxies and clusters, many players choose to align themselves within an alliance, a group of like-minded people cooperating in order to achieve the highest score as a group. Early in the life of the game these alliances were created on an informal basis outside of the game, but their presence has led to the inclusion of alliances as part of the game mechanics.

Throughout the game's history, there have been a number of notable alliances such as Blue Tuba, Concordium, The Legion (VtS), Fury, Wolfpack, Howling Rain, Oooomph, IPC, The Frying Dutchmen (TFD), Xanadu, NoS, ND, and many others. Most of these have had their glory days and have since disbanded, but some are still present such as F-crew, currently the oldest still active alliance.

Game Setup
The game takes place in so-called rounds, the length of which has varied throughout history, but which is currently at approximately two months in length. At that time, the winners are declared and the game is reset, upon which everyone can sign up for a brand new planet. New rounds generally also bring changes in gameplay, ship statistics or even universe makeup, as a result of feedback from the players during the active round.

In between rounds, speedgames are frequently held over weekends which generally run at one-minute ticks, instead of hourly ones for more fast-paced action. In the past, these speedgames have been run at LAN events such as The Gathering in Norway and the Multiplay i-Series in the United Kingdom, and been used for competitions such as the Planetarion World Cup.

History
When the game was launched in 2000, it quickly rose to great popularity, receiving no less than 11 Multiplayer Online Games Directory Game of the Month Awards, and peaking out at a total of around 180.000 planets in the universe, although it is commonly believed many of these were duplicates, with an actual userbase of close to half that amount. Many similar games sprung up as a result of Planetarion's popularity, such as Bushtarion, Planetia and StarSphere.

Whilst originally free, the crash of the Dot-Com Bubble also meant a decline in advertising revenue for Fifth Season AS, the Norwegian company behind Planetarion. As a result, the move was made to a pay-to-play model with the start of Round 5, which ultimately led to a sharp decline in the game's userbase. The exact amount of active players currently is unknown, but estimated to be a few thousand.

In 2003, Planetarion was sold by Fifth Season AS to the UK-based company SimTech Ltd., a daughter company from Jolt, who provide hosting for the game.