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KSP 2 Multiplayer Discussion Thread


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20 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I feel like you only read my direct response to you and not the rest of my post...

If you're arguing multiplayer is an inherently bad idea and you have no intention on using it, then why are you even bothering to argue this?

I don't *know* that it's inherently bad idea. I just think it is. But you can still implement a bad idea in the best way and I think the best way is the way DMP did it.

We're talking past each other now though and you are right that I don't actually have any irons in this fire so how well it burns isn't really any of my business. So I will pull out of it unless something I feel I've not already addressed is specifically directed at me.

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6 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

there are no campaign playthroughs to be found.

I assume you've seen videos showing what people have done in KSP multiplayer
I'm not sure what you mean by "campaign play-throughs". The word campaign makes me think of trench warfare.

Anything that involves a competition in changing the environment would not seem to work well if players also time-warp.  The method made to work in mods is to let each player time-warp at will, thereby leaving interaction with the other players.  Then if players choose to re-synchronization by time-warping to the player furthest along in Kerbal time, the mod merges the game states.  If player A and player B have touched a third craft while they are not synched, the merge tends to have two copies of that craft.  

Multiplayer mods have had a small following, and a narrow niche of use, in KSP.   But there is another area where that merging of game-states would be useful in stock KSP2: single-player operations that need two pilots, like the strato-launcher aircraft-boosted rockets, or recovering booster stages, or dropping landers from a mothership in an atmosphere. 

The mod FMRS lets us play each timeline in turn, and then merge the results.  Maybe KSP2 will have a built-in mechanism to do something similar. 
You could argue that merging timelines can lead to paradoxes.  If I fly Strato-Launcher to separation, separate the rocket, then loop the rocket back and clip off a wing of the launch aircraft,  FMRS still lets me go back to the moment of separation and fly the aircraft back intact.  I think we can choose not to be bothered by those details.

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14 minutes ago, OHara said:

I assume you've seen videos showing what people have done in KSP multiplayer
I'm not sure what you mean by "campaign play-throughs". The word campaign makes me think of trench warfare.

Yes, I have seen those videos, I've watched quite a few. By campaign I mean a playthrough similar to science/career mode where there are objectives to be accomplished. This could extend to sandbox as well if the group creates their own long term goal. But so far of the videos I have watched, I haven't seen the group go off to separate planets simultaneously then reconvene. It always ends up with people playing on or near Kerbin.

14 minutes ago, OHara said:

Anything that involves a competition in changing the environment would not seem to work well if players also time-warp.  The method made to work in mods is to let each player time-warp at will, thereby leaving interaction with the other players.  Then if players choose to re-synchronization by time-warping to the player furthest along in Kerbal time, the mod merges the game states.

 I have a fair understanding of how DMP works and functions.

14 minutes ago, OHara said:

If player A and player B have touched a third craft while they are not synched, the merge tends to have two copies of that craft.  

This answers a question I had earlier, thank you for answering. I feel this is a bit game breaking and personally, I'd rather like to avoid physical craft spontaneously being created without being launched. I'm not a stickler for realism personally, as this is a game to be enjoyed and some creative license should be afforded to it, but IMO spontaneously making new craft goes a bit too far.

14 minutes ago, OHara said:

Multiplayer mods have had a small following, and a narrow niche of use, in KSP.   But there is another area where that merging of game-states would be useful in stock KSP2: single-player operations that need two pilots, like the strato-launcher aircraft-boosted rockets, or recovering booster stages, or dropping landers from a mothership in an atmosphere. 

The mod FMRS lets us play each timeline in turn, and then merge the results.  Maybe KSP2 will have a built-in mechanism to do something similar. 
You could argue that merging timelines can lead to paradoxes.  If I fly Strato-Launcher to separation, separate the rocket, then loop the rocket back and clip off a wing of the launch aircraft,  FMRS still lets me go back to the moment of separation and fly the aircraft back intact.  I think we can choose not to be bothered by those details.

I'm aware of FMRS, though I dont use it (stage recovery does fine enough for me), but I agree it would be enjoyable to have multiple pilots per craft. I do need to ask though, does FMRS work with DMP? I could see it working as timelines aren't synchronized anyways so traveling to the past shouldn't be a problem, but it looks like it requires making a separate game save state and backtracking to the point of staging apart the 2 seperate vessels then rejoining to the original save timeline while giving credit for the vehicle that has landed and been recovered then deleting it from the original. But if this is the case, combined with DMP, would it not also duplicate all other craft in the game while everyone else has been flying uninterrupted? 

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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10 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

does FMRS work with DMP?

I am pretty sure no, because they save the various versions of the game-state differently.  Luna (an active multiplayer modeinspired by DMP) explicitly dis-allows pausing, so holding the booster in time until you can go back to land it would not be allowed .   I don't see any fundamental problem, though, in letting one of the 'players' pause the game and re-synch later.
Of course, the idea of these multiplayer mods is to let one player recover booster stages while the other flies the upper stages.

On the game-breaking-ness of duplicated craft when players synch, that does seem to be the price to pay for allowing players to independently time-warp, interact with the environment, and ask some computer code to re-synchronize their timelines.  The players just have to decide which reality they want to keep and which is the duplicate craft to delete.

Honestly, though, I suspect the type of multiplayer mode in planning for KSP2 is simply a way for several players to temporarily pilot craft in a single safe-file, keeping their Kerbal times in-synch, so no separation of timelines.  If that suspicion is correct, it would not allow anything on the scale of colonization of the star systems to be shared using the multiplayer infrastructure.  I suspect multiplayer play off Kerbin would be done by one person setting the craft there, saving the game, and then inviting others to join some real-time operation.

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10 minutes ago, OHara said:

I am pretty sure no, because they save the various versions of the game-state differently.  Luna (an active multiplayer modeinspired by DMP) explicitly dis-allows pausing, so holding the booster in time until you can go back to land it would not be allowed .   I don't see any fundamental problem, though, in letting one of the 'players' pause the game and re-synch later.
Of course, the idea of these multiplayer mods is to let one player recover booster stages while the other flies the upper stages.

On the game-breaking-ness of duplicated craft when players synch, that does seem to be the price to pay for allowing players to independently time-warp, interact with the environment, and ask some computer code to re-synchronize their timelines.  The players just have to decide which reality they want to keep and which is the duplicate craft to delete.

Honestly, though, I suspect the type of multiplayer mode in planning for KSP2 is simply a way for several players to temporarily pilot craft in a single safe-file, keeping their Kerbal times in-synch, so no separation of timelines.  If that suspicion is correct, it would not allow anything on the scale of colonization of the star systems to be shared using the multiplayer infrastructure.  I suspect multiplayer play off Kerbin would be done by one person setting the craft there, saving the game, and then inviting others to join some real-time operation.

Pretty much in total agreement. Off Kerbin play could also be done by everybody launching there together in the same ship, separate ships, or possibly having KSC spawn locations on other planets. Theoretically multiple star system colonization could be possible but would be a decent hassle or require a lot of organization among the players. At that point though, I don't see much point in playing multiplayer if everyone is in completely different places without interacting with one another. Though, if making that kind of large colonization is the goal then everyone managing their own several projects for a common ultimate goal then a large amount of organization will probably exist anyways and large timewarps can be group planned.

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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3 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:
  • How are LAN co-ops not multiplayer? I thought multiplayer was more than 1 player in the same game and that's it
  • Campaign isn't the only mode for KSP
  • Multiple people interacting with vessels is a bit more than:

Just like Minecraft, you can share your LAN world to show something to a friend or you can open a dedicated server to actually play together.

If everybody is stuck at the same timeframe nobody is going to start a campaign together, just jump in in their friends game sometimes for a single mission or to watch some notes craft.

 

I can't understand how nobody is getting that yes, avoiding paradoxes require a bit of coordination with multiple timelines, but playing with everybody on the same warp require a lot more coordination to do anything except flying the same craft or a small subset of crafts in the same physics bubble.

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58 minutes ago, Master39 said:

Just like Minecraft, you can share your LAN world to show something to a friend or you can open a dedicated server to actually play together.

Playing together doesn't necessitate career mode 

59 minutes ago, Master39 said:

If everybody is stuck at the same timeframe nobody is going to start a campaign together, just jump in in their friends game sometimes for a single mission or to watch some notes craft.

Apparently even if nobody is forced to be in the same time frame they wont do a campaign either. If you can find any video where a group has gotten to duna please show me because I've been looking for it and haven't found it

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

I can't understand how nobody is getting that yes, avoiding paradoxes require a bit of coordination with multiple timelines, but playing with everybody on the same warp require a lot more coordination to do anything except flying the same craft or a small subset of crafts in the same physics bubble.

Why does single time frame necessitate being in the same physics bubble? Also, have you read any of the thread beyond that post? Because apparently in DMP if an intermediary craft is touched by multiple players and then they sync it leaves 2 copies of the intermediary craft. I'd like to hear how this is solved in a non-convoluted manner. It feels to me that both manners would require sufficient coordination to manage a campaign but only one leads to a bunch of paradox problems with roundabout workarounds.

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36 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Apparently even if nobody is forced to be in the same time frame they wont do a campaign either. If you can find any video where a group has gotten to duna please show me because I've been looking for it and haven't found it

To me the only apparent thing is that nobody has done a video series of them playing very niche multiplayer mods, no data can be extrapolated from that alone, from the fact that the vast majority of players never post video series of their gameplay to the fact that being a niche mod it's pretty difficult to know of its existence in the first place.

 

41 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Why does single time frame necessitate being in the same physics bubble?

Because if you're not playing the same exact mission/craft you're just playing in turns spectating the single player that is playing in that moment.

43 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Because apparently in DMP if an intermediary craft is touched by multiple players and then they sync it leaves 2 copies of the intermediary craft. I'd like to hear how this is solved in a non-convoluted manner.

DMP is not KSP2, you can't give for granted that KSP2 will have the same bugs.

The non convoluted way is communication between players, and even the convoluted one is all done one time by the devs when programming the system, not by all the players every time they don't want to play the same single mission. 

My owner-token system thought in 5 minutes has no paradoxes and it's easier to use than it is to organize together every single move and I've never tried multiplayer mods nor I'm a game developer.

 

It seems to me that most of the people in this topic just don't plan and don't want to play multiplayer and are advocating for the option that require the least work from the developer hoping that they save that time to work on other, more desired, features.

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I REALLY want multiplayer to happen and tons of people on my side here really want to play together by having races and doing different things at the same time to make the work go faster. But ya time warp is a big problem... Maybe the first person to connect or something can time warp when they want giving players a yes or no question if they want time warp. If all yes then time warp, if no, no time warp if they take too long to answer it will count as a yes and you can do the rest.

Can there be a chat in the game for multiplayer? Then if you connect from far away and you can't talk you can chat with the other player?

Thank you and can't wait for KSP 2 to come out!:D

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The only way I can imagine MP working in a game like KSP is either The Expanse-like spaceships with super engines zooming around using brachistochrones, shared vessels where multiple players fly the same ship and control their own crew members and subsystems or sandbox where everyone can spawn wherever they want. Timewarp available only in the 'shared vessels' type of MP. It would be more of an annoyance than a feature otherwise.

Edit: more on Brachistochrones: they would still be pretty slow BUT if you include auto-manouvres into the game (set the manouvre and the vessel performs it by itself without the need of you sitting in front of the computer) it becomes much more manageable. If you think about it, there are and were plenty of online browser games that take this long for things to happen (anybody remembers OGame?). You would add a thing or two to your village/base/whatever and wait for the action to be completed sometimes even for more than a day. It's the kind of KSP multiplayer which I would absolutely love to play (even though I hated those browser tribe games). Launch your Rocinante towards Jool, set one manouver to slow down, another to enter Laythe's orbit and then come tomorrow to a ship waiting for you in a stable orbit.

Perhaps we could have mission black box logs where, if something went wrong, you could check the log to see why the mission failed (ran out of fuel, kerbals blacked out Epstein-style and flew out of the solar system, crashed into a planet, etc.).

TL;DR: Real time and super engines solve all the problems with time warp democracy.

Edit 2: I just used this website to roughly calculate the worst case scenario, which is travelling from one end of the Kerbal system to the other (the whole system measures less than 2AU) and it would take about 4 days or less at 1G. I know MMO and mobile games where events and some actions take this long (or longer) and people still wait patiently for them to complete. Not to mention you could do plenty of other things in KSP waiting for your colony to arrive at Jool. IMO this seems like the most sensible option.

Edited by Wjolcz
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  • 3 weeks later...

Multiplayer can be more like a co-op mode with a limited number of players.
The host can be the one with timewarp privileges.
And the possibility for multiple players managing the same craft, so one player can be the pilot and others can manage fuel/science or navigation (maneuver nodes, map view info, etc).
and I'm sure the most fun part will be each player controlling a kerbal  in EVA... :P

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  • 2 weeks later...

Honestly all I really want is an easy user-friendly way for multiple people to log in to the same universe and modify what's there. You could do that right now by passing a save file around with some coordination, but if it were built in, I could open up the game and see that a friend has added on to my space station, etc.

Being able to play at the same time would be a big bonus, whatever compromise they make on the time warp, but just letting other people change the world while I'm gone would be really cool. I have a buddy who is thinking about getting into the game, I would love to leave stations and ships around for him to find as he progresses to orbit and interplanetary space.

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My dudes, please chill. If you don’t want mp in ksp2, don’t use it. And for kraken drives, ladder exploits, etc. the deva will likely het rid of those. Sorry. But there could be countless new ways to kerbal our way to insane speeds. Mp will likely be like a minecraft set up, where the host must invite people to their sever. And as for warfare, if it’s you and your friends you’ll know the effort y’all put into a colony or space station, so you all would respect your accomplishments and not nuke them. Does this make sense?

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  • 2 weeks later...

My thoughts on Multiplayer:

It needs to be enabling and non-prescriptive, just like adding new parts for ship design doesn't change the unchanged parts. From there users can choose how they wish to use or not use the features. Some flexible features I see are:

  • Private Servers - hosted map/instance. Similar to Terraria or Stardew Valley where the host computer has the copy of the persistent save. Allow others to have local ship files and even saves for their ship in flight while they are in control of the ship.
    • A copy of a local VAB/SPH craft-file is uploaded to the host when it is launched, but the in-flight version is local to the player in control of it.
    • A hosted instance can be either sandbox, or science, or career.
    • Collected science would be shared across the instance. A temperature reading of the Mun eastern crater can only be collected once.
    • Funds could be shared or separate according to the game instance settings depending on whether there is a cooperative single space agency or multiple space agencies. Possibly different launch-pads on Kerbin.
  • Placing "locations" similar to nav-points in the tracking station or locations in the "Making History" mission builder. I suggest maybe the administration building is the loci for this functionality...
    • Locations can have simple but versatile functionality like recording a list of players/ships who have: entered the location, and/or a timestamp. This can allow custom challenges/missions to be built by the players, or allows setting up of racecourses, or even just setting up useful markers in the tracking station to identify where future planned colonies will so other players can coordinate colonization efforts.
    • Locations can have "custom names" and maybe a selectable set of icons for display.
  • Many features will depend on the colonization system. I don't know how that is planned, but presumably multiplayer will allow some-sort of sharing of any extra-planetary launch pads?
  • Players may control any craft not currently controlled by another player, and can spectate any craft which is being controlled by another player. Maybe this requires permission from the craft creator (whoever launched it).
  • Timewarping is a core feature of Kerbal Space Program so must be supported. See below for suggestions:

On the technical side related to time-warp:

  • The save file must be 4 dimensional including yet-to occur events from a player further along the time-line. This can be accomplished in a transactional manner by recording certain events like: when there are accelerations, when there is docking, or landing, when a craft is recovered, and whenever a player returns to the spacecenter. Basically every instance when a craft goes "on rails" the basic parameters are recorded and a few other events as well.
  • Events before the earliest players current time can be deleted because they are already recorded in the persistent save which can follow whatever the earliest time is.
  • Docking with a craft performing a maneuver already performed is not permitted. To dock two players have to be synchronized for their current times.
    • Interaction within physics range of a de-synchronized craft event can be simplified: Orientation fixed at average prograde of burn, de-synchronized craft is invulnerable, unalterable trajectory (allowing collisions without affecting saved event)
  • A timewarp option for an earlier player to synchronize to a later player's current time.

This solves some of the problems of paradox between allowing time-warp

  • Interaction with 3rd vessels (those currently uncontrolled on any time-line by any player)
    • allows transferring fuel/resources (This allows a minor exploit of delivering fuel/resources before a future burn of the 3rd craft to allow mass-less transfer of the resource, but this seems a minor consideration). The then latest time-line instance of the 3rd craft can be updated with the addition/reduction of resources (assuming there is storage space). If no storage available at future time resources are deleted. If a reduction would reduce the latest timeline instance to less than 0 then it could either not allow the transfer, or allow it as a minor exploit. In any case the same player would not be able to use the same fuel twice even if two different players could potentially refuel from the same fuel station. Maybe this is an optional multiplayer setting. Coding-wise it seems it would be easier to just allow the resource transfer and set any negative resource numbers to zero when updating a future timeline instance of the 3rd craft.
    • may restrict picking up a kerbal if that kerbal will be picked-up at a future time-event. "I'm sorry, I am already assigned to another mission!"
    • Allows dropping off kerbals, but only if the then latest timeline instance of the crewed part has vacancy. "I can't transfer. That cabin is reserved for _name_"
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I still think multiplayer is a bad idea. I still do not see how things like parts counts, time warp, mods and the like will mesh into a wonderful thing. I know many have voiced opinions one way or another on just about everything under the sun, but, still, I have my doubts. I like others will not use multiplayer as for me, it does not make sense to have multiplayer. My opinion of course. For those who are looking forward to it, I am happy for you, may you have adventures on grand scales and make memories of happy times!

 

064304242020

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On 2/25/2020 at 4:23 PM, razark said:

A. Clarification on timewarp voting: It's not a "most votes wins" scenario.  It's a "lowest requested timewarp wins", as @mcwaffles2003 stated earlier.  There's no way for other players to force one player to a higher timewarp setting.

So, player A on a transit to Jool has to wait hours to get an encounter because player B wants to time warp then do a multihour maneuver for the sake of torturing player A? Mods like Dark Multiplayer already have timetroll-free timewarp figured out, so I don't see why so many people want trollwarp in KSP 2.

24 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

I still think multiplayer is a bad idea. I still do not see how things like parts counts, time warp, mods and the like will mesh into a wonderful thing. I know many have voiced opinions one way or another on just about everything under the sun, but, still, I have my doubts. I like others will not use multiplayer as for me, it does not make sense to have multiplayer. My opinion of course. For those who are looking forward to it, I am happy for you, may you have adventures on grand scales and make memories of happy times!

 

064304242020

1. KSP 2 will have much better performance, and massive space stations as big as the KSC itself will only be semi-physical.

2. Dark Multiplayer is fun with coordination. Didn't KurtJMac once contribute to a community space station with some other players?

3. Don't need to worry about timewarp if it works like it does in Dark Multiplayer.

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@Bej Kerman 

gonna ignore your reply to razark as that's a conversation between you and them. 

1. Semi-physical still does not account for how docking will work. I never said the game itself wont be better run, but, if it is still on unity, <I do not know if they said it will be on unity or not or if any comment was made about it at all> then, problems can still arise, and does not still account for things like resource transfer for example. what if the propellant I need is in a part that is non physical? am I forbidden from it? we do not know. I would imagine it would be locked if on a non physical part.

2. I think a lot of people contributed to that group station, but, that in and of itself brings us back to 2 core issues: part counts and mods. I do not use part mods any more, mostly because stock has given me now up to 5 meter parts and that suits my needs just fine. But, lets use Farming Simulator 2019 as a quick example. In FS19 you need to have EXACT MATCH mods down to the version in order to work if mods are involved. This can be a real issue, especially if you will not run say for example mechjeb, but, I have it. what now? are we forbidden from playing together? Or you run Eve and Scatterer but, I do not. What now? I see way too  many opportunities for systems to conflict with this. Especially if anything I put up into space vanishes when I log out <think camps from RDR2 online as an example>. 

3. From what I remember of DMP is that over its history it has been glitchy at best. If I am still remembering right is that SOME do not consider DMP to be a good implementation of multiplayer at all. I personally do not know how DMP works, never used it, never will. As again, I personally do not see multiplayer as a good fit for this kind of game. Yes, people want it, but, for me, I do not. I do truly understand the fun of playing with friends, I enjoy flying in formation and running missions with my brother from another mother in DCS, but that is a combat flight sim, this is not that. I can ramble on and on about it, but, the short and simple of it is, KSP was built as a single player game, and it should remain as such. KSP2 is having multiplayer added in, but, I again, personally think that's going to <personal opinion> work out about as well as career and science mode did, which, <personal opinion> did not work out well at all.

As I have said before, KSP and KSP2 to me are single player games and for me, will 100% remain as such. I can only voice my thoughts and concerns and leave the salt bowl out for readers and passers by to grab a pinch as they stop by my post<s> on the subject. I truly again, hope that those who are looking forward to multiplayer get all that they hope they will from it and make many a happy memory of fun adventures with friends and family. 

 

233604242020

Edited by AlamoVampire
Fixed a sentence
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Ksp 2 will defiantly have a multiplayer setup resembling certain games, like minecraft. You'll be able to invite and play with people that only you want to play with. I am looking forward to it, as it will make building space stations much easier. ea, two of us could send up rockets at the same time and follow the same ascent path, and dock in orbit without having to send up multiple rockets over and over.

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Congratulations. 

 

shakes head

1) first off what they are describe it as is multiplayer co op.

how that has always worked is that you get your friends together and play cooperatively.

1a)If one of your friends decides to be a jerk, and abuse the mechanics. you unfriend him block him from your game and move on with your life.

 

2) Second, you play with an agreed set of mods, anyone tries to force a set of mods on you that you don’t want in your game then see step 1a.

 

3) To me, the easiest way for the game to work, you, in your active screen are basically on your timeline. Your active frame of reference is to you, and his actions are in his frame of reference. and beyond that To me the easiest way to run it is to treat each player as being in his own timeline that only intersects with yours is when your active Kerbal s are is in the same World space. One player timewarps at 10 x to mun, and the others at 100x, or runs his plants on max speed to get ahead, then so be it. In co op But competitive your stuff is to touchy to him and his stuff is no touchy to you. He acts like a jerk and builds a conveyor belt over your ship, see rule one and delete his crap. if your in competitive 4 player, well it’s up to you guys go setup your match. Granted that will mean if player one was running things at max time warp and player two is now 10 years behind based on there respective clocks player one and two will look like they are coming in at weird angles, fun frankly so be it.

to me the biggest  part of all of this to be balanced is partly the science tree. 
 

player one gets a discovery, player two gets it at 1/2 price, player three gets it at 1/3 price, and player 4 gets it at 1/4 price. Because the players) before them proved it works.

 

same with income. Basicaly the more one player gets ahead the more the other players governments/ backers send in to support there efforts. See Tesla ( the scientist not the car) westing house, Ford, and the Wright Brothers for real world examples of this in action.

 

granted this all pre supposes that we have a tech tree, science ,and finding system like it is in KSP 2, and they already said it will not be like that this time around

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by [email protected]
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I just had a great idea-

Formation flying. I’m going to build f-18 super hornets and hopefully, with the new paint mechanic I can paint ‘em blue and gold. Me and some friends will do formation flying...cus why not?

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