An interesting bad event could be a fire and explosion, destroying the mule and any pipes. It would require a complete restart of mules to get operations going again.

In fact, the explosion could affect other Buntenol plots around them. Say something like a 0 to 25% chance that they too would catch on fire and explode, including other player's Buntenol plots. You could have a veritable runaway firestorm wiping out all the nearby Buntenol plots. In this way its more of a global event rather than limited to just one player.

Also, a quake might cause a Buntenol plot to gusher - the compacting forces of the quake squeeze the fluid to the top sort of thing. of course any mules on the plot would be wiped out when it did that, similar to a meteor strike or moving mountain.

Couple of differences I've noticed with planet mule and original (atari) mule.

In atari, you had to have your mule over your "house" before you could lay/swap him on the plot. Just being in the plot wasn't enough. I actually like the planet mule method better, but if you are looking to trim the time people have down and forcing them to use tactics a bit more this would help.

As I remembered it, not only did you have to be right on top of the wumpus, but you could only catch him if he was "active" or lit up, and if you placed your mule too close to the mountain waiting on him he wouldn't come out and probably appear elsewhere.

I enjoy the free rebate on a mule swap, but would be totally on board with a no rebate.

Someone elsewhere mentioned making the various stores located randomly so that crystite wouldn't nesisarily benefit the left side all the time. I really like that idea.

One other suggestion, buying crystite in the store. As players dump crystite into the store, have it build up a reserve like any other resource. Say that 3/4 or 20 unites (whichever is higher) of what is in the store is sold each turn to the galactic market. In any event might make for an intersting option in MULE II

I wasn't looking to alter the characters themselves, but the plot outline colors. Those are the hardest to differentiate during play, and the text for the blue player is completely unreadable to me through my monitor.

The bots make it easy. They may mess up driving up ore costs or what not, but in exchange for that you really don't need to worry about energy or food because they tend to choose that over other stuff and quite often supply food and energy for pretty cheap.

In an all human game you might find someone who sells you food/energy, but usually if they do its going to cost you big if you aren't producing any yourself and humans will leave you high and dry if it is to their advantage. The ai don't work in those terms so one can focus on just aquiring stite or smith plots and building them up knowing that the AI will usually keep them fed and powered.

IMO the AI take a crucial element of planning and tactic out of the game.

In a recent game I was in last place and the cost of food was something like 128. I needed 1 more in order to have a full stash which I wanted in order to have that wee bit more time for converting plots to stite. I moved my little one eyed icon up to the buy line and it did read "128" yet the 3rd place person, also on the buy line with a "128" got preference for the buy. The only thing I noticed that might account for it was that his icon was about 1 pixel higher than mine, but they both read 128.

One of the other players insisted that my price said "Buy", indicating I wasn't properly on the buy line for price, while the other also said that they saw it read 128.

I'm not sure if fractions are used or if that 1 pixel difference in height makes a difference. I don't think either of these should matter and what the number itself reads should be the final say.

Quite often the lobby is bare and we have to sit for a bit to wait for enough players. I'll usually go to another screen to read stuff or do other things and listen for the sound of people joining the game. But sometimes people ask questions and I never see them because I'm not on that screen. A small, non invasive, sound for when text is entered would be useful.

My monitor is wearing out and dark and I have trouble with the light blue on that light back ground. Also the purple and the orange can get confusing. I wanted to tinker with different shades of colors to best show up during play but couldn't find anything that would allow you to do that. Is it not part of the skinning files?

Atari 800XL. My brother and I worked all summer to raise $200 bucks to buy a friends Atari system with all his games. The best one he had was MULE (along with Bruce Lee and Arcon). We would play until the wee morning hours, leave the computer running, and then start playing soon as we got up the next morning.

I've recently stopped playing a game called Starfleet Commander. I found it through facebook, but its a stand-a-lone that doesn't require facebook to play. It's a multiplayer game of space combat with colonizing, technology, building up, etc.

I played for about a year and then sold my account. Was quite happy to get over $400 for a game that is free. The game developers have no problems with people selling their accounts. My wife also sold her account for $320 but she is still enamored with the game and still plays.

I've moved on to a game called Empire Universe 2. Similar to the above, but in my opinion much more diverse and intricate. Only been playing it about a month

I've played with sockmonkey once. I'll not do it again. He's racial, boorish, and immature. He talks like everyone else playing does so to forward his game and anything done that doesn't benefit him means you are a poor player. I cannot believe that the MULE developers tolerate his abuse against other players.

Here's my run in with him:
http://www.planetmule.com/server/chats/chat_game_33006_user_18152.html

It's because of the automation that the MULES provide. As time goes on and you sit on your butt you get bigger and bigger and your belly has much more space for food!

Or its because the colony is actually "renting" the planet space from local inhabitants and one of the agreements is an increased expenditure of food parcels that are payed to the planet owners.

Or as the custom with all colonies, the players are injected with super vitamins so that they can withstand the harsh conditions of the initially barren planet, but as time goes on those supplement booster shots wear off until you need normal portions of food again.

Another thought is similar to the second in that the colony is being established for a food shorted empire. Initially you need only feed yourself, but as time goes on you must start paying back the cost of colony establishment in the form of food back to the empire. If you don't have enough food then you must waste a lot of time explaining why you are short on your payment, which leaves you less time to develop your plots.

I'd be interested in seeing the crystite map at the end of the game. It could be accessed just like the game map when the final scores are tallied and hitting the space bar would shuffle through the 3 screens.

Can we just end this thread??

I thought it had ended ... until you posted again.

I've always wondered why people say something like that. As a newer player on the field I find discussions like this interesting. If I didn't find it interesting then, well, I wouldn't read it. It's not like its a hardship to my existence if it continues and I don't find it interesting enough to read.

Thanks for the response. I suspected it had something to do with game latency, but was really hoping it was something the programmers could address. I was told about pressing during the 'gray phase' of the plot indicator, but its still frustrating to see a plot go to a higher placed player when you are struggling in last place.

I am new yet and still reading through older posts. It can be confusing because older issues talked about have been addressed.

On the lost/gain plot thing. I've both benefited and suffered because of it. My mind on that is its great if you gain a plot or see an advisory lose one and it sucks when you lose a plot or see someone else get one. Just another element of randomness in the game. I guess my biggest aversion to it is that its effect early in the game can dramatically effect the end game. A gain or loss early on can really be an advantage or a handicap.

Not sure if this has been discussed before. Sorry if it has. I have 2 problems I've noticed for last place.

The first is the beginning round land grab. As I understand it the lowest placed person gets preference on a plot choice. Last has preference over all. But many times I've lost plots to people above me because of some timing issue. It just doesn't seem to me that it should matter when you press the button so long as the indicator has not moved away from the plot. A couple people pointed out to me to press the button when the indicator is on still on plot just before the one you want and it turns gray. Ok, that's all fine and good, but the nitpicky side of me thinks that if the indicator hasn't left the plot yet then lower placed should still get preference.

I think my second problem might be a game bug, but perhaps its an inherent design? A couple times now bidding on a plot of land and when the timer ran out I lost the plot to a lower placed person even when my bid was ahead of theirs. I was literally ahead of the bidding the entire time, my icon flashing that I had the lead, and I kept the up arrow pressed the whole time, yet miraculously when the ending bell rings they get the plot. I could understand it if when the bell rings both players are exactly matched on bids, but not when one person is obviously ahead.

Oh, one other thing. I thought I'd read somewhere that you had to be in first place to lose a plot of land from an event. I've had it happen and seen it happen to others in second place quite a few times. Maybe I misremember reading it that way? Looking around to find where I read that but not seeing it.