Welcome!

This is the Home Page of LuxOpponentFinder, a companion program to the game Lux. It helps Optimize your Lux experience by helping you find good games on the net to join. How? (see below)

Lux is the Risk-like game by Dustin Sacks. Lux runs on Mac OS X, Linux, and modern versions of Windows.

LuxOpponentFinder is by Randy Boring. It runs on Mac OS X only, and requires at least version 10.3.

Download

LuxOpponentFinder is shareware. It is a free download so you can try it, then purchase it when you like.

Download the Current Version 0.73 and give it a spin! It'll nag a bit until you register, but it's got practically complete functionality.

Here's a screenshot of version 0.70

Version 0.73 I don't remember what's new, LOL! But it's been a while since I updated...
Version 0.72 You can now edit the LuxAIs.plist file to customize which AIs you want listed when you click the "Bots" button
Version 0.71 Dustin broke me! (A good thing, since I was using an outdated feed from him)
Version 0.70 more color, smaller pref pane, better host links
Version 0.69 adds a Find Opponent search field, and colors with host rating
Version 0.68 lets you search all the current games for any player (a Search field)
Version 0.67 adds a "Host IP" column (and BotOMatic to the bot list)
Version 0.66 fixes a simple bug when there is no description.
Version 0.65 is faster if you're registered, leaks less memory, prefers Fun to Profit at first.
Version 0.64 has fewer bugs, shows your Seed Weight, and shows everyone else's relative to yours
Version 0.63 has improved highlights, remembers colums sizes, pointer to Rated Hosts List
Version 0.62 highlights the Map Of The Week and good hosts, has SplitView.
Version 0.61 shows details on the various sub-factors that go into measuring the Fun and Profit.
Version 0.60 shows the Seed Weights of players who are seeded and has hyper links to player histories and to the host ranking page.
And v0.58 has a cool slider so you can choose a more 'Fun' view of the game list or a more 'Profit' view. Depending on how you feel about your raw at the moment. (Previously the final score was the plain average of the Fun potential and the Profit potential.)
Versions post 0.52 finally have a TableView for the main list of hosted games! No more yucky plain text.

There is a ReadMe and ToDo and Done list for your perusal.

Purchase a License

Feel free to use the slightly limited unregistered version, but be aware that it will occasionally 'nag' you to register. The price is $6 (US). How to Purchase. I accept PayPal, cash, and I'd consider taking a personal check.

The benefits of registering are many:

• You give me incentive to improve it!
• I pay more attention to features you request. Then again, I'm kind of starved for feedback, so I listen eagerly for suggestions from anyone: KingPatrick recently asked for the Host IP address to be shown. He got a new version that did just that the same night.
• The registered version is a bit faster at some operations.
• The registered version won't nag you anymore, until the license expires.
• The registered version gets and remembers the Seedings list, and uses it to improve the accuracy of the Profit factor.
• The registered version will have other capabilities, as I implement them. see the ToDo list.

Discuss

There is a Forum Topic where you can discuss it. All feedback for improving this program is greatly appreciated!

How does it optimize your Lux experience?

It helps you find good opponents! In short, LuxOpponentFinder helps you evaluate which game, of those currently being hosted, you should join to enjoy the most fun and profit. By 'fun' I mean it satisfies a bunch of rules of thumb and personal preferences that I think contribute to having a fun game of Lux, and by 'profit' I mean you are more likely to make a higher raw score and avoid losing much raw.

There's a slider which lets you set your desired balance of fun versus profit.

It uses several metrics to do this, really just a bunch of things that I've found helpful in picking a good game of Lux to join. I'd appreciate hearing your ideas on what you find 'fun' in a game of Lux. It certainly includes the other players raw scores, but that's just one factor among many.

• There is a players list where you can give bonuses to people who have been nice to play with and negative adjustments to people who have been rude, stupid, vindictive, too aggressive, too passive, too talkative, or whatever you don't fancy.
• Similarly, there is a host list where you can remember your evaluation of a player's hosting skills.
• High raw scores makes a player valuable to play against for a couple of reasons.
  1. Beating a person with a high score gives you lots of points!
  2. Playing people with high scores gives you lessons in how to play well, even when you lose to them.
• But high raw score players are not always the best ones to play against.
  1. If a player's score is too much higher than yours, they may be too good to be much fun to play with, until you improve, since you'll usually just lose. It might be more fun to play with others who are more in your league. As you improve, LuxOpponentFinder will tend to match you with suitably higher ranking opponents.
  2. If a player's score is extremely high compared to yours, they may stand to gain nothing if they win, and much to lose if you win. This can really irritate them! Wouldn't you complain if it happened often? It is a bit raw-snobbish of them to totally refuse to play with players rated much lower than themselves, or worse, actually ask them to leave a game, but you can understand why they would feel that way. Other than "the fun of the game", what is in it for them? LuxOpponentFinder will tend to avoid matching you with these players.
  3. If you are a high-ranking player yourself, it will avoid suggesting games full of players with much-lower rankings, so this is less likely to happen to you.
• In addition to 'raw' score, the 'seededness' of a player is used. Mostly this is a negative (for you), since a player is seeded only after having a long history of winning, meaning you will likely NOT win against them! Of course, if you are seeded yourself, this factor has less impact.
• Instant gratification! Yes, it is a real kick when you join a game that has 5 players in it and they immediately restart to make a "Full House" (all Human players). Not only are you the one who made the higher value game possible (making everyone happy you showed up), but you got in on a game quickly, avoiding the long waits associated with joining a game with several players already waiting. LuxOpponentFinder puts a very large bonus on games with a total of 5 players and guests in it (and no dead players), and a fairly large bonus on 4 player games, lifting these higher on the list.
• Several other factors are used, too. These include bonuses for certain maps, faster timing, moderately fast cards, the number of guests, and how many players have died so far. Many of these factors are just my personal preferences (e.g., Middle Earth maps :-) and will someday be customizable.

Other features:

• One host and one friend are eligible for being used to notify you when they are on-line. Growl is used for notifications and is automatically installed, if you don't have it already.
• The scores of all the bots is recorded and displayed in a simple text window. You can consult this list when you are hosting so you can provide the highest ranked bots to play against, which might make you a tad bit more popular as a host.