You will need- A paid-up copy of Mayhem Intergalactic (the demo won't do)
- An internet connection
- The port you're hosting on (7465 by default) must be allowed through any firewalls you're running
- If you're behind a NAT router (most home users are, especially if there is more than one computer connected to the internet in the house), then the port you're hosting on must be forwarded through the router. See "Troubleshooting" below.
Basic operationAdd the --dedicated-server option to the command line when starting the game, like this:
mayhemig.exe --dedicated-server
You can do this either using the Windows command line, cmd, or by creating a shortcut to mayhemig.exe on your desktop and then adding the --dedicated-server option to it.
Steam: mayhemig.exe can be found in C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\mayhem intergalactic
Non-Steam: mayhemig.exe is wherever you installed the game (by default, C:\Program Files\Mayhem Intergalactic)
What about dedicated LAN servers?By default, dedicated servers will announce their presence to the entire internet. If you'd prefer to create one just for LAN play, add --lan to the command line as well:
mayhemig.exe --dedicated-server --lan
ConfigurationConfiguration is done using options.ini, which can be found in the folder %appdata%\MayhemIntergalactic. You can change the server's name by typing
servername=Your Server Name under [general]. To password-protect the server, type
serverpassword=yourpassword under [general]. Certain other in-game options can also be set here. For example, here is Mayhem Central's options.ini, which as well as setting the server name also sets the AI intelligence to Highest:
[general]
servername=Mayhem Central
[ai]
intelligence=6
TroubleshootingQ: Help! Nobody can connect to my server!
A: There are two usual causes for game networking errors: Firewalls and routers.
The first thing to try is to turn off all your firewalls. If that fixes the problem, turn the firewalls back on and add appropriate exceptions. If your firewall works on a per-application basis, you just need to allow the Mayhem Intergalactic program full access to the internet. If you're having problems with hosting the game, you may also need to allow incoming connections on the port that you're hosting on (the default port is 7465, but you can change it to any port on the "create server" screen).
If you've turned off all your firewalls and people still can't join the game that you're hosting, and especially if you have more than one computer in your house, then you probably have a router issue. Most home routers are
Network Address Translation (NAT) routers, which means they share one public IP address between multiple computers. Each computer shares that one
public IP address, but has its own
private IP address.
Computers on the internet only know your public IP address, and all information directed to any computers in your house is sent to that public IP address. So your router needs to know how to sort that information and deliver it to the private IP address (this is the step that puts the "NAT" in "NAT router").
For normal web browsing, email, etc., the router is smart enough to figure it out on its own. But if you're hosting a server (for example, a Mayhem Intergalactic game server) then you need to
tell your router that you're doing that, so that the router knows where to send incoming connections.
Telling the router that you're hosting a server is called
"port forwarding". It's a little complicated to set up, but you only have to do it once.
Different routers have different methods for forwarding ports. The first step is to find out your router's brand and model number. This will usually be written on the side of the router, and on the packaging that came with it. For example, my router has "D-Link DI-704P" on the side. D-Link is the brand, DI-704P is the model number. Yours will probably be different.
A router physically looks like a little box, and has all of your computers' network cables plugged into it. (Or, if you use wireless networking, it might have an antenna instead.) It will typically also have another network cable plugged into your
modem, which your ISP will have supplied (or required you to buy). Occasionally the modem and router are integrated into one unit.
Once you've found your router's model number, visit
this page at PortForward.com and search the page for it. Click on your model number, and then go to the "Default Guide". You'll get a detailed guide, specific to your router, on how to set up port forwarding. When it asks for a port, put in
7465, unless you changed that number on the "Create game" screen. You should forward
both TCP and UDP.
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