Maxmaps Talking some MP

[B787_300]

Ah thank you 5th... I go back through and hard link the tweets

[Kerano]

Cool news. I wish we could hear more about the progress on multiplayer than just a few 140-character snippets though. If only there was some sort of forum to allow for unstilted conversation...

I can't wait to build my first collaborative space station in real time with my brothers. It'd be awesome to have the option for two or more players to perform docking manoeuvres within physics range of one another.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Kerano

[tater]

I can't wait to build my first collaborative space station in real time with my brothers. It'd be awesome to have the option for two or more players to perform docking manoeuvres within physics range of one another.

It seems rather unlikely that anyone could do anything outside of physics range in MP, as you get much beyond that, and you start entering time compression situations.

[Wanderfound]

I wonder if it's possible to turn the MP function into a built-in streaming package as well? It'd be nice not to have to mess with third-party videocap software and Twitch etc.

[T-Bouw]

I think it would be fun to compete for completing contracts.

He/she who completes all objectives first, gets awarded the payout.

Just like real life companies competing over government contracts and funding!

[CalculusWarrior]

Max is certainly poking the Hype Train with a stick...

I'm excited for Multiplayer, hopefully I can finally get my friends to play KSP with me!

[xnorb]

Although i absolutely love the idea of multiplayer, how will that ever work?

Without time acceleration this game is basically unplayable, but all connected clients need to run the same time all the time.

So, both need to agree on time acceleration but if only one reduces time acceleration it would overrule?

I think there will be many many many minutes of wasted time and playing with randoms will be more or less impossible

unless you meet somebody either patient enough to wait for you or being just as fast as you are.

[KerbMav]

Reminds of turn based multiplayer games like Civilization , Master of Orion or Birth of the Federation, sure.

But I think with the integration of some kind of KerbalAlarmClock, it might work out.

All players could be able to set their game to "willing to warp" whenever they were done with a task and as soon as all players are "wtw", the game would fast-forward until the first alarm by any player was reached.

If a player - while waiting for the others - was able to go into build-mode, waiting would be less boring.

HOCgaming, EnterElysium and (forgot his name!) played a multiplayer mod that allowed players to time warp independently and players "in the past" to sync up/forwards to any player "in the future" - seemed to work out, apart from bugs now and then.

[T-Bouw]

Time warping does not have to be a problem per sé.

If say, one player performs a time warp for instance, other players would still percieve that players actions as if they were happening at normal speed.

It's just that that players actions have already happened.

The only difference would be that players would end up not playing in sync rather then real-time and you couldn't/shouldn't collide/dock/interact with each other.

Like a ghost player.

Actually, thinking about it, that probably wouldn't be as fun...

[ScriptKitt3h]

Although i absolutely love the idea of multiplayer, how will that ever work?

Without time acceleration this game is basically unplayable, but all connected clients need to run the same time all the time.

So, both need to agree on time acceleration but if only one reduces time acceleration it would overrule?

I think there will be many many many minutes of wasted time and playing with randoms will be more or less impossible

unless you meet somebody either patient enough to wait for you or being just as fast as you are.

Look at the already-released DMP multiplayer mod. They fix that issue by having a "subspace" for each player to timewarp in, and if you want to interact w/ said player, you get near them in space, and sync your time/subspace to theirs. Problem solved!

[godarklight]

If you guys have any questions, I will happily answer any questions about DMP

[SaturnV]

What about the mod part?

Two players with different mod?

[tetryds]

What about the mod part?

Two players with different mod?

On DMP, if you allow anything, the player with mod parts that the other does not have can see the other but is invisible, simple as that.

Plugins are client side, so for example a player using FAR and stock parts will just fly faster.

I believe that KSP MP will be simmilar, if not it will just check if your mods match what the server requests/allows (there are modes for that on DMP too).

Edited January 26, 2015 by tetryds

[TJPrime]

The one thing I want KSP MP to have is easy server set up. With other games, such as Minecraft, I've tried to set up servers with no luck. Even with DMP, I have had difficulty with setting up servers. I wouldn't mind having a little button somewhere, so you can set up a small (2-3 players?) server. That would make things so much easier.

[tater]

Decent gameplay and time compression are mutually exclusive. "Subspace" is not a thing, sorry. Naval games (another interest of mine) suffer the same problem. You MUST compress time to play, but unless everyone compresses the same, any outcomes are nonsense.

This means that except for craft within physics distance or so, no MP is possible without it being ridiculous.

Ships moving in "subspace" and the space race era of KSP makes no sense whatsoever. Make a sci-fi version of KSP, with FTL as the only altered tech. Have ships "warp" by warping/jumping/whatever using the FTL mechanism, then newtonian within normal space. I'd play that.

[tetryds]

Decent gameplay and time compression are mutually exclusive. "Subspace" is not a thing, sorry. Naval games (another interest of mine) suffer the same problem. You MUST compress time to play, but unless everyone compresses the same, any outcomes are nonsense.

This means that except for craft within physics distance or so, no MP is possible without it being ridiculous.

Ships moving in "subspace" and the space race era of KSP makes no sense whatsoever. Make a sci-fi version of KSP, with FTL as the only altered tech. Have ships "warp" by warping/jumping/whatever using the FTL mechanism, then newtonian within normal space. I'd play that.

I have reasons to believe you did not ever try DMP, it works very well, very far from being ridiculous.

So yes, it is a thing, it was proven to work and lots of people (including myself and some other moderators) play with it quite often.

About space race, there are several ways to handle timewarp other than personal subspaces, DMP already has a bunch of them, what you are asking for is FORCE, LOWEST, VOTE or maybe even NONE (for kerbin only stuff) mode, which maintain everybody at the same time frame.

Also, there is no reason for warp drive mods to not work with it, as pretty much any mod I tried worked flawlessly so far, you can play whatever you want at will.

Maybe even RO works with it, you would just have weird stuff happening if you allowed someone to login without it.

But asking for sci-fi stuff on the stock game just specifically to let people go to other planets on multiplayer and avoid trouble with a better timewarp management is something that I heavily doubt to have a chance to happen.

I assume that KSP MP will be an improved version of DMP, as there are no core features that are flawed or completely broken, the issues start only when you try to play on a career mode or some other things that DMP barely has any control of.

So I expect at least one of these non subspace modes (likely the VOTE one) to be on the official KSP MP.

[godarklight]

@SaturnV: Mod parts are currently handled with a simple required/banned/allowed-parts list. Part adding mods should be in the required.

@TJPrime: Extract DMP, double click?

All other problems are network issues (firewalls/port forwarding). You're going to face this with every server, just kind of how the internet works (at least until IPv6 comes along...)

@tater: Subspace isn't time compression, they are time epochs or locks (These few lines are a subspace). After you have a time locking feature for players, it's a small step to "things from the past are applied, things from the future are held back".

There are far greater issues to be poked, like KSP's terrain: http://imgur.com/kzQgabf, or different contracts for different players acting strangely (Orbit kerbin contract with 50 craft already in orbit? KSP does not expect these things).

I'm unsure if KSPM is going to go the subspace route (better for players) or the MCW_LOWEST route (the intuitive way that you'd expect warp to work like) - but warping really is one of the easiest problems to solve here, especially because planet positions and vessel orbit positions are completely deterministic given the universe time and kepler elements

Edited January 27, 2015 by godarklight
Totally got the images mixed up there.

[tater]

Works very well is not the same as "not ridiculous." If there is any ever any difference between the position of any 2 bodies at a given moment then there would be if it was all in a single player (or 1:1 time) version, then it is ridiculous, IMO. Ie: if an outside observer in a 1:1 time frame sees anything wrong, ever, it's magic, and you might as well add FTL.

I have nothing against MP, but time needs to move in lockstep, at all times, for all vehicles/players, or it's weird.

EDIT: no, I have not tried DMP. I read the OP post, and could not for the life of me tell what exactly the mod actually does (details of the "how"). It says "subspace style" but that is meaningless without an explanation. The FAQ is no more helpful. Since subspace isn't a thing, I can only assume "magic" unless it is explained in some detail, someplace.

As I said, I have nothing against MP games, but meshing it with a game that pretty much requires time compression is nearly impossible for anything more than very narrow, scenario play. Take Silent Hunter. You could maybe do an engagement once both sides are aware of each other (after the first fish hits, or an escort detects the sub). That said, can people really hang around for a 20 hour depth charging? I think not.

KSP is worse because you have the combination of long times required, plus potentially high closing velocities.

I could certainly see noodling around with it, but again, it would be for very narrow play as far as I can tell.

Edited January 27, 2015 by tater

[dsonbill]

Works very well is not the same as "not ridiculous." If there is any ever any difference between the position of any 2 bodies at a given moment then there would be if it was all in a single player (or 1:1 time) version, then it is ridiculous, IMO. Ie: if an outside observer in a 1:1 time frame sees anything wrong, ever, it's magic, and you might as well add FTL.

I have nothing against MP, but time needs to move in lockstep, at all times, for all vehicles/players, or it's weird.

If you're not trolling, you've got some odd viewpoints, son. Either that or you aren't getting how this works - there's never a time when you won't see what should be.

Also, following your logic, I suppose we should remove warping *entirely*, as it's "magic". Oh and while we're at it, can we get rid of reverting? It's totally unrealistic

[tater]

If you're not trolling, you've got some odd viewpoints, son. Either that or you aren't getting how this works - there's never a time when you won't see what should be.

Also, following your logic, I suppose we should remove warping *entirely*, as it's "magic". Oh and while we're at it, can we get rid of reverting? It's totally unrealistic

Warping is not magic, it's changing the game time clock vs the player's. The craft ends up doing the same thing it would if you left it on 1:1 and walked away for 5 years.

Reverting is unrealistic, I usually don't do it (I do it on launch if I realize I didn't remove the crew, or somehow stage separators got switched, or some other dumb thing that would never happen---or when the SRBs separate clearly but none the less blow up the rocket because that feature is FUBAR right now). I don't quick save, either (have a couple times to work out bugs like frozen kerbal, or docking ports that would not decouple, so I could retest fixes, and or edit the QS, but never in normal play).

I read the OP in DMP, and it doesn't give enough information for anyone to have any understanding without actually playing. It's like "no pics, no clicks" I'm not going to play it to know what it does, I'll read the description, then if that makes sense I will play it. It explicitly mentions "subspace" in the OP. No place does it say that all craft behave exactly as they would in a single player's game, so how am I to know?

Edited January 27, 2015 by tater

[dsonbill]

Warping is not magic, it's changing the game time clock vs the player's. The craft ends up doing the same thing it would if you left it on 1:1 and walked away for 5 years.

Subspaces are actually the same thing - it's just the epoch the current player is in. There's actually no difference in the "space" - eventually, you will pass through the "subspace" of a player in the future, because the only thing TO the subspace is the future! I hope that made a bit of sense

Reverting is unrealistic, I usually don't do it (I do it on launch if I realize I didn't remove the crew, or somehow stage separators got switched, or some other dumb thing that would never happen---or when the SRBs separate clearly but none the less blow up the rocket because that feature is FUBAR right now). I don't quick save, either (have a couple times to work out bugs like frozen kerbal, or docking ports that would not decouple, so I could retest fixes, and or edit the QS, but never in normal play).

As an aside, I actually agree with this... Especially for mutliplayer, it seems a little cheaty if we let people revert *too* far...

EDIT: ACTUALLY, there is that mod that lets you do the test runs and removes reverting; this would be a pretty nice way to go for multiplayer. Especially considering how many people complained when reverting wasn't available on DMP (despite it's plethora of problems).

Edited January 27, 2015 by dsonbill

[technicalfool]

Warping is not magic, it's changing the game time clock vs the player's. The craft ends up doing the same thing it would if you left it on 1:1 and walked away for 5 years.

Subspaces are not magic. Every player has their own game clock, and you can synchronise game clocks with a player who is in "the future". To prevent paradoxes and other oddness, you cannot synchronise with someone who has a clock that is in "the past".

It's really quite simple to understand when you try it. Of course the Gemini astronauts didn't have their own subspaces, but then they also didn't time warp into position either. Subspaces, just like time warping, is a game mechanic to prevent boredom. A break from reality that many people who play DMP are quite happy with - and for those who aren't happy with it, there's the VOTE and NONE methods.

[tater]

I'm not trying to bash DMP, but there is simply no possible way for someone going to the DMP thread to understand any of this from the mod description content whatsoever. The last few posts have given way more information than is on the mod's own FAQ. This is the sum total of description the rest of us have to work with: "DarkMultiPlayer is a multiplayer mod for KSP 0.90. It supports subspace-style (and master controlled warp) warping & career mode, with an easy-to-edit server database."

I looked at it a few months ago, and could tell nothing about it, then looked at it just a few minutes ago. Ditto.

As I said, I'm not against MP as long as it has things where they should be. I still don't get how anyone could be in a different time (the subspace bit) to need to synchronize past possible net issues, but I'll take your word for it.

Ping times might be an issue, what if you are closing at 50 m/s, ready to brake to station-keeping with target, and you lag? Debris everywhere?

[technicalfool]

I'm not trying to bash DMP, but there is simply no possible way for someone going to the DMP thread to understand any of this from the mod description content whatsoever. The last few posts have given way more information than is on the mod's own FAQ. This is the sum total of description the rest of us have to work with: "DarkMultiPlayer is a multiplayer mod for KSP 0.90. It supports subspace-style (and master controlled warp) warping & career mode, with an easy-to-edit server database."

I looked at it a few months ago, and could tell nothing about it, then looked at it just a few minutes ago. Ditto.

As I said, I'm not against MP as long as it has things where they should be. I still don't get how anyone could be in a different time (the subspace bit) to need to synchronize past possible net issues, but I'll take your word for it.

Ping times might be an issue, what if you are closing at 50 m/s, ready to brake to station-keeping with target, and you lag? Debris everywhere?

Right. Let's try an example. For this example we will have two ships: The USS DeLorean, and the HMS TARDIS.

Now, the HMS TARDIS blasts off and gets into orbit. So far, no problem, right? So the TARDIS player is sat there in orbit while the USS DeLorean makes its own ascent.

Now here is where it differs. The USS DeLorean's player wants to get into orbit today, not next week. And so, they use the time warp to warp to apoapsis. They then use the time warp to catch up to the TARDIS.

At this point, we'll say that the DeLorean is about three hours in the future compared with the TARDIS (or maybe the TARDIS is three hours in the past, either way works).

If the two craft are directly next to each other and moving at the exact same speed to have a relative velocity to each other of 0m/s, then they will appear to float serenely next to each other, or as serenely as two guided missiles being parallel parked at 2200m/s can be.

HOWEVER.

Let's say that the TARDIS player starts fiddling with thrusters. What the DeLorean player will see, is the TARDIS will start jumping around like a mad thing. The reason this happens is because the game will look at where the TARDIS is, do a bit of math, and on the DeLorean player's screen, the TARDIS will appear where it would be in three hour's time, in the DeLorean's subspace.

If however, before moving, the TARDIS player hits the sync button to drag their game clock forward in time, their game universe will appear to jump three hours forwards. The planet will rotate quickly underneath them, celestial bodies will move by three hour's worth until their game universe matches that of the DeLorean. Now, when the TARDIS starts to move, it will appear the same on the DeLorean player's screen, because the DeLorean player's game isn't plotting where the TARDIS will be in three hours any more. Both game clocks are synced, and you can proceed with a docking manouver (or a shoot-big-holes-in-each-other manouver) without any additional time-based oddness.

That's about the best way I can explain it, although the Youtube users EnterElysium and HOCGaming have DMP-related videos that show the effect in full force. Really though, the best way to understand how subspaces work, is to load up a DMP-modded KSP install, connect to one of the public sandbox servers and find out.

As for ping times and lag, well that's a problem in any multiplayer game. If you can find a way of perfectly resolving that issue, there is no doubt a very large crowd of computer scientists who would love to talk to you. Possibly physicists as well. There might even be a Nobel Prize in the pipeline for the first person to crack that particular problem.

Edited January 27, 2015 by technicalfool

[tetryds]

I'm not trying to bash DMP, but there is simply no possible way for someone going to the DMP thread to understand any of this from the mod description content whatsoever.

Because its surprisingly simple, it's so simple and super intuitive that you don't need any guides for it, you will see the timewarp buttons working and a sync button showing up when there is someone in the future, that is all.

I really hope you try it before pointing out any issue whatsoever, becuse many of them have simpler solutions than you imagine, or aren't real issues at all.

Ping is not a big issue, no, if the other player is not piloting the station it's running on your computer, totally client.

Jitter is a bit of an issue on vessel positioning, but not ping lag, you only get a bit of delay on the vessels movements, that is all.

Up to the point where a 180ms connection runs super smoothly if the internet connection is solid.

I hope that you try it before taking your conclusions next time, what is so good about DMP is that it just works.

The game breaking bugs and glitches have been fixed since a long time, it's perfect for science/sandbox mode right now, apart from some minor issues (always disable revert/quicksave, as godarklight said, going back in time is not good, hehe).