For those of you who are playing on my server, thank you very much!

This thread is intended to provide a mechanism for gaining feedback about the games that are hosted on my server.

My goal for the server is to provide numerous high-quality games that appeal to all different playing styles from the fast-paced PvP to the slower buiding style and everything in between.

The resources that I have at my disposal are a reasonable budget for maintaining the server and supporting software, access to some creative software engineers, and a personal interest in experimentation and learning. My limitations are primarily time-based, in that I can't spend significant time playing or doing daily maintenance/updates to a game, as well as a lack of familiarity with the details of the game, server, community, and scripting.

I have no desire to get involved in any arguments over anything, nor do I wish to see any drama. You won't offend me by expressing your opinions, but I will not be responding to anything that is emotionally charged or inflamatory. First it will be ignored, second I will address it via PM, and if it continues I will request mod assistance.

*~*~*~* Current Games and Notable Details *~*~*~*

Monthly Rebang Series

A - September
First of the monthly rebang games. Designed to have abundant resources (unlimited turns, max port regen, max colonists, max starting holds, etc) except for time. Access is limited to 4 hours a day.

How has the limited time access affected the game? Do you enjoy the challenge or dislike the limitations?


Builder Games

D - Large Universe
First of the builder games. Very large universe maxed out at 30,000 sectors with unlimited turns. Colonists were minimized to try to encourage players to spread out and not be tied to Terra. Interestingly, players have been creating planets to get the starter colonists.

Has the lack of Terran colonists allowed players to spread out?

Unique Games

E - Sandbox
Very small game. Limited to 10 players,100 sectors, and 500 turns a day. The design is to force players to interact often and intuitively. The limited turns should encourage people to play more thoughtfully.

How does the small universe effect your game-play?

T - Test

Created to allow software development and testing for my simulator project. Password protected. Any interest in the project is welcome, contact me via PM.

A general comment.. severely restricting colonists tilts the game completely to the red side, so much so that whoever gets into the game first and turns red, wins.

This is also generally the case for unlim games with no truce, so kind of a double whammy - first player in wins by default if he's any good at all.

And to answer your question, I think limited colonists cause players to bunch everything up into 1 or 2 sectors rather than spreading out - more colos means you have to have more planets to hold them, and thus have to go secure more territory.

A question though - the planets in this game come with colonists loaded on them? I didn't know that was possible, except if the "starter planet" option is enabled where you start game on a free planet rather than at Terra - those come with colos.

If planets can be banged with colos on them, a beginner scripter could easily modify Oreinator/pimp to strip colos from new planets made, then destroy them and make more. This gives effectively unlimited colonists - effectively only because you need 20k creds / planet made, which is not much at all in an unlim.

Thanks for the feedback!

I haven't checked to see if they are making new planets and stripping colonists, or new accounts. Recently there was a spike from the six players to nineteen, and a not-so-close look shows it was the same fellow. I imagine it only applies to new player planets, though I'll dig in and see if there is a setting for creating planets with colonists. Wouldn't make sense for a genesis torpedo to be able to create people...

I'll be banging a new set of games come the first, so I'll probably make another large game but allow for more colonists. Any suggestions for encouraging players to spread out in a large universe?

Well, I've always liked the idea of setting winning conditions for the end of the game so it isn't all about ship-to-ship combat. E.g. team with largest # of colonists wins, or largest grid, or who captured the most enemy planets, or a combination of things. All of those things encourage expansion rather than turtling up in a small area.

A very fine point!

I'm still learning exactly how to measure these types of things without actually flying around the game (which is a disruption, to be sure). At the moment I'm somewhat limited to hosting open-ended games and letting people work through some of the game designs as opposed to actual end-game scenarios. I'd love to get some advice on that front.

In other news, I've upped the colonist regen rate on Game (D).

BTW, I'm thinking of keeping/moving the 'inactive player deletion' value to 7 days. Thoughts?