Nice thread That upgrade trick is one of my favourite little loopholes.

Heh.

Yes, that's an interesting way to play for sure. Galcon has presets for generating different kinds of games, which is a feature that would probably be worth copying, just to expose people to the range of experiences you get with different parameters. That would definitely be one such scenario.

It's always nice to discuss strategies, I'll look forward to your thoughts.

I know, right? Totally superior.

I have a list of AI improvements I'd like to try out some day. I'll keep you posted if/when I get around to implementing them.

You're welcome.

For future reference, settings are kept in %appdata%/MayhemIntergalactic/options.ini; deleting or editing that file would likely have done the trick as well.

Yep. The AI could definitely do with some love.

Hi Flap, welcome to the forum! Thanks for your thoughts.

There are some good ideas in there, definitely. As you said, it's unlikely that many new things will make it into the game, but who knows. Maybe one day!

I can exclusively reveal that I am, in fact, currently in the pre-production stage of an MMO. It is called Star Vapor. In addition to the game, I hope to develop the multi-property potential of this exciting new IP, starting with a spin-off line of merchandise called Star Vapor Wares.

Seriously though... I have no current plans for any sequels. Or MMOs.

Don't worry about it. The sales trickle is sufficient to pay for the site; and even if it wasn't, I'd keep the site up anyway.

Cheers!

Yeah, Steam doesn't have the multi-copy discount. Bug Valve.

I'm currently working at a larger game development studio, hence the admittedly-glacial pace of Inventive activity. Good luck with your platformer!

Hey Kumlekar! Nice to see the forum get some love.

My pricing policy has always been to hold out at the higher price, in the belief that halving it (for example) wouldn't double the sales. But you raise a good point. Of course, if people specifically want TF2 or Morrowind or whatever then they're not going to buy Mayhem Intergalactic, no matter how cheap it is - games aren't massively interchangeable, unlike most other software categories. Still, it may be time to reduce Mayhem's price, at this point in its life cycle. I'll think about it.

In the meantime, if you can convince two friends to band together, there is a discount for multiple copies!

(BTW, the sales of the game are something like one copy per month at this point.   So it's just about paying for the web hosting.)

Why, yes. Yes I am.

On a completely unrelated note, apparently someone's selling some kind of game.

 

Just played a Quick Start game on Highest difficulty, and as soon as the AI had 3 planets they started doing upgrades every turn. I guess it's an intermittent problem. If you see it again, I'd appreciate seeing as many details as you can provide, including screenshots etc., to help me track it down. Thanks!

1. My very first game was set-up on a "huge" map, against 7 comps, with ship movement defined as "fast". I was located in the NNW position, at a 1-turn distance of a comp located at the North position and at a 2-turn distance of the comp located (below me) at the West position. I'm 100% certain of that, but I don't have a screenshot to illustrate it.

Oops! Must be a rounding bug. Thanks for the report, I'll make a note.

2. Concerning the "stupid" A.I., I find it strange that on the "average" level, my 7 enemies did not build one single factory. In my 2nd game, at the "higher" level, the 7 of them built factories, but some did not build enough. Strangely, in my 3rd game, at the "highest" level, the 7 comps did not build one single factory! I'm not a programmer, but I wonder if it would be so difficult to force the A.I., at the average, high & highest levels to always build factories. If you don't build factories and the surrounding natives keep on growing, it's difficult to overwhelm them with few losses.

Hmmm. They are supposed to build factories on "highest" exactly the same as they do on "higher". I'll take a look.

Welcome! I like your sense of priorities.

[What are the maximums of unoccupied planets we can indicate for the different map sizes? What is the absolute number of planets that the program code allows?]

(I just purchased the game, directly from your website, instead of using Steam. Proceeding in that fashion had 2 advantages : my game program would be free from Steam's installation constraints, and your smaller "indie" company would get more revenues. I'm very happy with the ease of processing my credit-card info (no need to use Paypal or Moneybookers accounts, for example), and with the ease of re-obtaining the game's installation file if I need to reinstall.)

Thank you! Glad to hear it went smoothly.

QUESTIONS > What are the maximums of unoccupied planets we can indicate for the different map sizes? What is the absolute number of planets that the program code allows?

The maximum number isn't defined explicitly. It just keeps placing planets at random locations until it runs out of room. (There is a minimum distance enforced between planets.)

* PS > Well, what you mean by "huge" does not seem to match the definition of "huge" found in other space-strategy games! I created a random/huge map with 300 unoccupied planets (but I doubt it had 308 systems). The big problem was that my starting position was located at only 1-turn distance from an enemy home-world, and at a 2-turn distance from another enemy! So I got attacked very early. Of course, you can tell me to reduce the number of enemies, but on a so-called "huge" map, I expected that the distances would be greater. May I suggest that you revise your random-map generation algorithm to code-in a minimum distance between the starting positions, depending on the size of the map? A "huge" map should not have enemies so close to each other!

The random map generator always places planets in a ring, so that the distance between adjacent starting locations is exactly equal (unless there are rounding errors, but I've never seen that happen). The size of the ring does depend on the map size. You shouldn't be seeing players start so close together.

Did you change the ship speed? How many AI players were in the game?

If you think you've encountered a bug, maybe a screenshot would help me understand the problem.

The AI, as you've noticed, is quite stupid; it doesn't do much in the way of strategy. I would like to improve it one day.

Thanks for the purchase!

What size map was this? The AI won't upgrade any factories unless it owns at least 3 planets.