KSP 2 Multiplayer Discussion Thread

[DwightLee]

Well you were the first time I had heard of it... I like it, better than the forced resync thing, free to timewarp as you need to, in stages if you prefer

of course all of this is moot, the developers have decided long ago how it will work, we are just talking about preferences that will make no difference. It is not like the developers are watching us and deciding what to do, that decision was made years ago.

[darthgently]

40 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

And I'll say the unthinkable: of all the discussed KSP2 components the one I'd be least sad about being held back till a post-release update would be multiplayer. I'd be happy to see them get the main game tight as a drum before introducing any of this. 

This.  I hope that when the devs are approaching the final hard release date that bugs are triaged to fix single player first, then interstellar, last multiplayer

[DwightLee]

4 minutes ago, darthgently said:

This.  I hope that when the devs are approaching the final hard release date that bugs are triaged to fix single player first, then interstellar, last multiplayer

I agree with both of you, multi-player is the least of my concerns for KSP 2, an interesting topic, but certainly not what interests me the most about the game. 

 

Lets see

#1  a worthy successor to KSP ( realism etc )

#2 a full game with many of the aspects of KSP including KSP DLC content ( hopefully )

#3 colony building, do it right please, make it something interesting and immersive

#4 give us in game reasons ( as in resources ) to go to many places ( this they have said they are doing )

#5 Interstellar ( and all the aspects that go with that )

Multiplayer would be much further down the list 

Edited April 11, 2022 by DwightLee

[Guest]

6 hours ago, DwightLee said:

at your own speed, with stops along the way if you like, to maneuver other ships, exactly the same way you play Kerbal solo

I think there's a miscommunication there, I too would opt for such a system, where you warp up to other players to interact with them, and I've been referring to that as "syncing" all the time.

Especially since the original argument was syncronous system (server controlled universal timewarp or tumewarp voting) VS asynchronous systems (all the other allowing for different levels of warp at the same time).

[Rusted Iron]

If it weren't for time-warping, yeah, sure, I can see ksp MP having somewhat high player counts, but the game doesn't work without time-warp.

Here's the only way I can see MP working:

One person hosts a game, putting them in a lobby from which they can choose settings, difficulty, mods, and invite 1-5 of their friends. As they join, they appear in a list with a "ready up" checkbox and (if it will be possible to play as separate space programs instead of the same one,) a "space program" option next to their names. (Players can create their own space program with a flag, default colors, and Space center location, or they can choose to play in the same space program as another player). once everyone clicks "ready up" the game will start. 

Players in the same space program share money, tech, missions, etc. Players in separate space programs have all their own stuff, but are not necessarily competing, and can always cooperate.

Time warping is up to a unanimous vote, but once begun, can be stopped at any time by anyone or by the Kerbal alarm clock. Reverting to a previous save is also up to a unanimous vote. 

If a player stops a timewarp to perform a maneuver of any kind, other players have the option to spectate them or request to co-pilot the vehicle.

Time passes even when a player in the VAB or similar menus.
At no point should the game desync players and make them manually resync with each other like how the ksp 1 MP mods work. every player is always synced up. The way I see it, if everyone is out of sync then there's no reason to play MP.


Any number of players can quit at any point as long as every space program still has at least one player in game. 
If a space program has no players left in game, the remaining players are given the following options:
1: Save and log off.
2: Pause and wait for the player to return (if they crashed or lost connection, for example)
3: Switch to play as the empty space program (as long as that doesn't leave their previous program empty)
4: Permanently integrate the empty space program into one of their own.
5: Permanently delete the empty space program.

When the players want to play again, anyone who saved the game can host it again, inviting their friends back into the lobby. 
Just as before, the host can change settings, difficulty, and add or remove mods.
The players all appear in a list with a "ready up" checkbox and a "space program" option next to their names. 
Once everyone clicks "ready up" the game will resume, unless one of the existing space programs is empty, in which case the players are given similar options:
1: One or more players choose to play as the empty space program (as long as that doesn't leave their previous program empty)
2: Permanently integrate the empty space program into one of their own.
3: Permanently delete the empty space program.
If a new player wants to join, they can either join an existing space program or create their own new one, in which case they are given the average tech and money of all the other space programs.

[Volcomlancer]

You think there will be sats that will allow for a kind of missile warning systems when playing online in case your friends are constantly bombing you with yeeted rockets lol. Absolutely looking forward to all the shenanigans

Edited April 13, 2022 by Volcomlancer

[Vl3d]

I appreciate the effort of sharing your idea with us.

[Gargamel]

Overlapping threads have been merged. 
 

Duplicate posts have been removed ( @Rusted Iron  )

Edited April 13, 2022 by Gargamel

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Rusted Iron said:

The way I see it, if everyone is out of sync then there's no reason to play MP.

Without asynchronous timewarp I can't rendezvous because you're doing an EVA or piloting a rover or a plane. 

The point for it it's in your proposal, you said that people could play different space programs, what the point of having different space programs if past 2 player you basically start playing in turns?

 

I honestly don't understand this "multiplayer makes no sense if we're not looking ad everything that every other player is doing all the time", have you ever played Stellaris or othet similar games in multiplayer? For most of the game you can't even see what other people are doing, or where they're doing it.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Master39

[DwightLee]

I still believe multi-player will be an oddity, an interesting one off thing you do occasionally in KSP2, but never considered your primary game.

 

I hope I am wrong, but that is how I currently see it, we will see when we finally see how they accomplish it I suppose.

[Guest]

52 minutes ago, DwightLee said:

I still believe multi-player will be an oddity, an interesting one off thing you do occasionally in KSP2, but never considered your primary game.

 

I hope I am wrong, but that is how I currently see it, we will see when we finally see how they accomplish it I suppose.

It depends, if it doesn't have asyncronous timewarp there would be not much of a point in playing multiplayer, you would just use it to showcase things to a friend or to tutor someone when doing a complex maneuver for the first time.

If co-piloting in the same ship and spectating is all you can do people will soon realize how boring it actually is despite sounding cool on paper.

[DwightLee]

32 minutes ago, Master39 said:

It depends, if it doesn't have asyncronous timewarp there would be not much of a point in playing multiplayer, you would just use it to showcase things to a friend or to tutor someone when doing a complex maneuver for the first time.

If co-piloting in the same ship and spectating is all you can do people will soon realize how boring it actually is despite sounding cool on paper.

I suspect they will, however... that will be the issue, the way you sync with other players, and the more players there are, the more dramatic the results of the correction of that will be. We will see I suppose. 

Edited April 13, 2022 by DwightLee

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, DwightLee said:

I suspect they will, however... that will be the issue, the way you sync with other players, and the more players there are, the more dramatic the results of the correction of that will be. We will see I suppose. 

As I said yesterday "Syncing" can just mean that if you are at day 250 and I'm at day 300 you have to timewarp to my date. Or that if I used a station at day 260 you have to timewarp to after that to use it on your own.

The correction there is just seeing thing warp ahead exactly as if you were timewarping on your own for your own reasons.

A simple permission system is all you need to avoid that your friend uses your space station in the future forcing you to timewarp 10 years to use it or the whole "stealing asteroids" scenario.

 

When you have multiple players playing together if they're doing different mission you have to deal with the logistics of different timewarps anyway, true, an asyncronous system is more difficult to program and has edge cases that needs to deal with, but a syncronous system just offloads all that complexity upon the players, that need to organize actively, communicate a lot more and take turns at playing the game at the speed they need for a particular mission (and that could mean the dead of either plane flying, roving and EVAs or of any mission past maybe Duna because you woulnd't be able to do both).

My first and only Eve return mission was with an elettric plane bringing a rocket to altitude, a 15 minutes affair forced at 1x warp, in a multiplayer setting that would be excruciating for everyone online except me.

[Vl3d]

44 minutes ago, Master39 said:

"Syncing" can just mean that if you are at day 250 and I'm at day 300 you have to timewarp to my date.

You are breaking causality in your system all the time. Action queues are super-buggy.

Who simulates the interactions between players: is it done by the server or in their own simulation processing unit?

Because it's it's done on each person's machine, you will have cases where you will see a player crash on your PC but also simultaneously fly as if nothing happened.

If it's done by the server, you will have massive CPU & network bandwidth usage.

Same for this permission system and the "any player from any timeline can reserve space for colony" idea. It's just a hacky gimmick that destroys immersion.

Also you are right that the vote-to-timewarp system is just unloading responsabilities on the players and complicating their lives unnecessarily. Syncing should be controlled and defined by the server. Else the voting system is good for maybe max. 4 player intra-agency co-op.

In the system I suggested everyone is in sync all the time (only with) with the people around them (in the same regional / local multiplayer real-time bubble). It doesn't matter if they play co-op intra-agency or co-op / competitive inter-agency.

And it's also much much easier for the devs to implement and debug.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Vl3d

[Vl3d]

I might add that the laws of physics and our reality is more closely represented by the system I suggested:

Each place in the universe has its own simultaneity bubble where time flows regularly. You cannot travel to the future unless you are in a cyclic loop or static.

Causality must always be preserved. The speed of light is constant in any frame of reference. You cannot send information to the past. If you switch colonies or vessels, you are moving in space AND time.

But that's the key to my system: you ignore the fact that central-universal-synced time doesn't exist. All solar systems are looped when on rails. You hide temporal internal information and just sync positional configuration.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Vl3d

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

You are breaking causality in your system all the time. Action queues are super-buggy.

Who simulates the interactions between players: is it done by the server or in their own simulation processing unit?

Because it's it's done on each person's machine, you will have cases where you will see a player crash on your PC but also simultaneously fly as if nothing happened.

If it's done by the server, you will have massive CPU & network bandwidth usage.

Same for this permission system and the "any player from any timeline can reserve space for colony" idea. It's just a hacky gimmick that destroys immersion.

No, that's not true.

Sorry if I don't elaborate further, but the last 13 pages of discussion tell me it would be pointless.

26 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

n the system I suggested everyone is in sync all the time (only with) with the people around them

You added so many asteriscs that it's impossible to sum up "your system" into one system anymore.

 

26 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

And it's also much much easier for the devs to implement and debug.

The simplest system:

• You can't load a craft without timewarping until after its last edit.
• Every craft has 1 owner, to rendezvous (and thus load) or take control of that craft you have to ask permission.
• You can't go back in the past, only warp ahead.

That's the easyest asyncronous system possible, nobody goes back to the past, no planet warps around, no magic has to happen behind the scenes, and everybody can play the full game as if they were in single player with timewarp, with EVA, with quicksaves, with reverts, with time not passing when in the VAB, with colonies or station depleting their resources over time without someone else's timewarp killing them, with time based mechanics that play the same role they play in single player, with all those casual timewarp 2 or 3 minutes ahead while coasting to a maneuver that seems insignificant while playing but, added up, amount to hours of waiting during every session you play.

If you want to play in sync with one player you just stay in sync with them.

 

You can then add whatever you want to that system later, like other player actions being "recorded" and played to you in real time if you're in their past or any other fancy thing on top of that, but you can't get simpler than that, any more complex system only adds even more edge cases for every edge case it solves.

 

BTW: In the 2017 topic you linked in your proposal thread they got stuck with the asteroid problems as if it was the definitive deal breaker for any and all asyncronous system, a "problem" that isn't even there to begin with, asteroids are procedural and discovered within gameplay mechanics (AKA the game has them spawned out of nothing and can spawn as many as needed), whoever discovers a given asteroid is the owner to it, and then it follows the same rules as any other craft.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Master39
Added a few more examples to the list.

[Vl3d]

20 minutes ago, Master39 said:

You can't go back in the past, only warp ahead.

Except that you do have to send information to the past in your system to avoid the paradox of vessels and colonies overlapping at different times and then syncing by time-warping to the same common time. It's like the older iterations of the Matrix, full of time travel anomalies.

20 minutes ago, Master39 said:

Every craft has 1 owner, to rendezvous (and thus load) or take control of that craft you have to ask permission.

I agree with this.

20 minutes ago, Master39 said:

whoever discovers a given asteroid is the owner to it

I agree with putting stakes on land. But you could also let people do the tug of war or build a colony over your flag. Might be more liberal and fun.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Vl3d

[Vl3d]

@Nate Simpsonplease tell us how multiplayer will work, you're killing us here. :))

[Pthigrivi]

^Haha cant hurt asking, but I suspect it'll be one of the later reveals toward release. 

What Im hoping is that building elaborate stations and bases is a huge part, if not kind of the point of KSP2. Well, exploration is the point I suppose but it could the thing folks really get invested in. Im hoping it takes quite a bit of time to build up the infrastructure on your own to build your first interplanetary mission. If thats the case I could see groups of 3 or 8 players all kind of contributing to making huge bases and a real civilization out there. Thats what interests me anyway, both a way to collaborate creatively and also to get players who might not have made it all the way to Debdeb on their own a way to still be involved in the interstellar experience. 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Vl3d]

Here's another probably-forgotten statement that could indicate a MMO-type game:

<<To that end, Simpson says they have "fundamentally overhauled" the first-time player experience in Kerbal Space Program 2, to help teach seemingly tough concepts about rockets and space travel to newcomers. ...

"It turns out, for example, that if I describe a gravity turn to you, that sounds complicated," Simpson says. "If I show what a gravity turn looks like, you get it in [snaps fingers] 10 seconds. 'Oh, that's what an orbit is.'"

Even multiplayer, a new feature for the series, is something Simpson hopes can facilitate the learning process. He tells me about the Kerbal community and how they've been generally helpful in the past. Multiplayer, Simpson believes, could be another way for veterans to escort first-time fliers into space.

"Kerbal players are helpful people," Simpson says. "They don't lord their special knowledge over one another. They just want more people to experience the joy that they've experienced playing the game.">>

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/kerbal-space-program-2-devs-on-why-development-was-brought-in-house

That does not indicate the intention of flying just with your friends.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Vl3d

[t_v]

1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

That does not indicate the intention of flying just with your friends.

No, but playing with new people and playing in an MMO are different things. I have played on severs with tons of people I have never met before (and still don’t know) but I wouldn’t consider 15-20 people an MMO. I think that first-time to orbit experience is better served in a smaller world without all the distractions of dozens of near-simultaneous launches. 

[t_v]

18 hours ago, Rusted Iron said:

If it weren't for time-warping, yeah, sure, I can see ksp MP having somewhat high player counts, but the game doesn't work without time-warp.

Here's the only way I can see MP working:

One person hosts a game, putting them in a lobby from which they can choose settings, difficulty, mods, and invite 1-5 of their friends. As they join, they appear in a list with a "ready up" checkbox and (if it will be possible to play as separate space programs instead of the same one,) a "space program" option next to their names. (Players can create their own space program with a flag, default colors, and Space center location, or they can choose to play in the same space program as another player). once everyone clicks "ready up" the game will start. 

Players in the same space program share money, tech, missions, etc. Players in separate space programs have all their own stuff, but are not necessarily competing, and can always cooperate.

Time warping is up to a unanimous vote, but once begun, can be stopped at any time by anyone or by the Kerbal alarm clock. Reverting to a previous save is also up to a unanimous vote. 

If a player stops a timewarp to perform a maneuver of any kind, other players have the option to spectate them or request to co-pilot the vehicle.

Time passes even when a player in the VAB or similar menus.
At no point should the game desync players and make them manually resync with each other like how the ksp 1 MP mods work. every player is always synced up. The way I see it, if everyone is out of sync then there's no reason to play MP.


Any number of players can quit at any point as long as every space program still has at least one player in game. 
If a space program has no players left in game, the remaining players are given the following options:
1: Save and log off.
2: Pause and wait for the player to return (if they crashed or lost connection, for example)
3: Switch to play as the empty space program (as long as that doesn't leave their previous program empty)
4: Permanently integrate the empty space program into one of their own.
5: Permanently delete the empty space program.

When the players want to play again, anyone who saved the game can host it again, inviting their friends back into the lobby. 
Just as before, the host can change settings, difficulty, and add or remove mods.
The players all appear in a list with a "ready up" checkbox and a "space program" option next to their names. 
Once everyone clicks "ready up" the game will resume, unless one of the existing space programs is empty, in which case the players are given similar options:
1: One or more players choose to play as the empty space program (as long as that doesn't leave their previous program empty)
2: Permanently integrate the empty space program into one of their own.
3: Permanently delete the empty space program.
If a new player wants to join, they can either join an existing space program or create their own new one, in which case they are given the average tech and money of all the other space programs.

From what I can tell, this would result in something similar to a Civ game (I only play Civ V). Yes, I know you can turn on a setting in that game that allows multiple players to take actions simultaneously but between a few friends it can be fun to take things turn by turn, and it does indeed avoid all of the problems that asynchronous solutions have (and all of them have problems with causality and/or interaction). And I know that turns in Civ can take as long as a whole EVA sometimes…

While I could see myself playing this with a few friends, a lot of players would not like this. Solution? Allow people to implement their own multiplayer solutions with mods, building off of the network framework that the devs have. I know that I will try to implement my own solution once the game comes out, as that is the most fun to me. As long as there is access to time warp and craft control by the modders, all of this should be feasible. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Except that you do have to send information to the past in your system to avoid the paradox of vessels and colonies overlapping at different times and then syncing by time-warping to the same common time.

That's a pretty convoluted way to put it.

Player organization always follow IRL player time, not in-game, regardless of the system you adopt. If I timewarp at year 5 and you're in year 2 I'm not "sending information in the past" by telling you that I'm going to build a station and where we're just communicating between players, player communication always follow IRL time, regardless of what we do with timewarp.

 

When thinking about timewarp we have to consider all the timewarp uses, not only the very big and very obvious uses when we skip a whole transfer or approach. Even in the simplest Mun mission I use timewarp at least 10 or 15 times other than the big skip during the transfer between Kerbin and Mun, if you provide me a solution that only takes care of the transfer warp I still need 2 or 3 hours to do a mission that would require 1 hour with timewarp.

 

PS The game has a "no-weapons and violence" stance at its core, we don't have to think a system that allows for ostilities, if whatever solution they come up with doesn't allow other players to steal my asteroids or bomb my colonies I'm pretty fine with it, conflict is not part of the game, no need to work harder to make it possible.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Master39

[Vl3d]

@t_v said: "I think that first-time to orbit experience is better served in a smaller world without all the distractions of dozens of near-simultaneous launches."

Let's settle this:

Kerbin has a total surface area of 4,523,893.4 km^2.

Excluding water based colonies, the land surface area is roughly half of that. But let's exclude mountains and steep hills and say 40%.

Kerbin usable land surface area: ~ 1,800,000 km^2.

The KSC plateau is about 25 km^2 (from the wiki). But let's say for a 1-4 kerbal agency you would need 100 km^2.

That's a maximum of 18,000 space agencies that can fit on Kerbin and a maximum of 72,000 players.

Steam-charts says the peak player count for KSP1 was 19,079. And on average there are 3,500 players online at any given moment.

If you wanted to you could fit 5,000 players on Kerbin without any overcrowding issues on regional servers (latency reasons). They wouldn't all launch or fly simultaneously anyway.

 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Vl3d

[Vl3d]

19 minutes ago, Master39 said:

Player organization always follow IRL player time

Obviously I'm talking about in-game causality, I'm not saying you're time traveling IRL.

Say you're in the future and you create a colony right on a small island on Laythe. I, in the past, simultaneously decided to land at that spot to also make a colony. Now that place is blocked and I'm stranded.

If you respected causality, you would have a race to get there from orbit, you would know "ok I'm not the first, I'm going to fly to another island".

But in your case any N number of players can be there at different moments in time. And they don't know about it.

So then you say "ok make the players or colonies ghosted". But that's just a weird implementation of real-time MMO multiplayer! The only difference is that you want to pretend you are a ghost.