KSP MMO [Warp problem, maybe solution]

[Meowxiik]

I'm not going to write something like "KSP MMO this would be awsome!", I've actually read lots of threads like this. And always there was one problem. Time warp. So I got an idea. At the start player would not got KSC or ship, but he would got fully customizable kerbal at the start.(Of course you would get an option to hire more kerbals later) He would started at some Giant-Death-Star-like-thingy(GDSLT) with little atmosphere. At the GDSLT he would get quests an other this MMO stuff and also respawning there. At GDSLT he would also have his first hangar, where he could build little space ships to get to the "orbit" of GDSLT and also to the "moon" of GDSLT. (Something like second station) From there it starts to actually solve the time warp problem. Every player would have his own random star system.(After finishing some quests at GDSLT) Only 3-4 planets for player. He could time warp in his system as he would wanted. But every midnight there would be all-server-synchornization where every single star system would be synchronized to the one with highest date. (I don't know if this makes sense, just if there were theree - 1 year, 6 year and 15487 year, everybody would jump onto the 15487 year.) And if you wanted to visit your friends in their own system, you would use the same time warp solution as DarkMultiplayer.(Relative sync I think) But you maybe ask what if there was a ship in way out of the solar system and midnight would come? The ship would get destroyed. And will the players be angry? Yes. Probably. I was thinking about some Quantum freezer which would freeze you in event of midnigh. Thoug it is highly not scientific. There would be also main solar system, where would everybody timewarp on their wish. BUT the planets would actually needed to stay in place or something. Didn't actually figured out this one. I got and idea you could only timewarp in very hight altitudes when is little chance, that you meet someone. But still doesn't solve the moving planets problem though. Well, hope you can finish this idea!

P.S.: I Can't really write in English properly. :/ Sorry.

[Alshain]

Not an MMO, but there are mods for multiplayer. Unfortunately, Multiplayer is something that is hard to add on as a mod, so they tend to be buggy. It really needs to be a core part of the game, not an afterthought.

However, the Mods do show us the concepts. In these mods, players get their own instance when ever they use time warp. At any point a player can click a button to "sync" with another players instance who is in the future from him. It then simulates the new positions of the craft and changes your clock forward as if you had time warped to meet up with them. This instancing allows you to stabilize orbits and get your craft into safe positions, and only jump to the current players time instance when you are ready. It works quite well in theory and in practice, if it weren't for all the bugginess.

[Meowxiik]

I know, I did a DarkMultiplayer reference somewhere in this. I agree they are now pretty buggy. But I still think that my idea pretty good. Though the core problem still stands: the moving planets problem..

[Caelib]

Multi-player is coming and something that has been in development for about a year now, but they haven't set a date yet.

[michaelhester07]

I don't think a ksp MMO would be possible due to time warp requirements. There are two distinctive warps:

Online warp: players who are online and in the same instance need to agree to timewarp together (that was easy). Time warps at the slowest selected speed of all players online. If one selects 10000x and another 2x, it warps at 2x.

Offline warp: offline players are updated to the current time. KSP online games would process ships while logged off as time progresses. Other players might interact with the ships if they're "authorized" to, otherwise they can't interact with them or even collide with them.

The problem with sync is this:

once you catch up to the guy in the lead you're now ahead of his time. He needs to sync to you now. You'll warp 1-10 years past his time. What happens if you interacted with his ship (you docked to his space station, dropped off supplies and then left, or you left your ship connected and time warped 2 years).

How I would think of handling offline KSP play:

- The game universe time updates as any player passes it. If one player is logged into the universe then time passes in that universe , including warp.

- Players may authorize interaction with their ships or not. If offline interaction is authorized then any player may interact with that ship, including docking to it, undocking their owned modules on it, and potentially destroying it. If a ship is not authorized then it will not be possible to collide with it or dock to it.

Offline burns: handling long trips with multiplayer

- If players planned offline burns then their ship should simulate the burn as if it happens in real time. It would thus be possible for a player to plan a trip to Jool out, then log off while another player passes time. Their ship would arrive at Jool as expected, assuming it had the capacity to perform the burns that were planned.

- Stages can be marked as "thruster" stages. When their ship executes burns offline the thruster stages may be separated to get additional deltaV. It would be like cutting loose a transfer stage.

KSP online would have some things for players (space agencies) to remember:

-Make sure all orbits are stabilized and won't possibly interact with another body's SOI. If a ship clips a planetary body's SOI it may get thrown out of orbit.

-For long trips make sure burns are planned ahead of time.

- double check closed loop resource systems

Could KSP online work? Yes. MMO? no. The logistics of handling timewarp with that many players is stupid.

[luizopiloto]

instead of timewarp... what about a warpdrive part? you go faster w/o changing time...

[michaelhester07]

Timewarp is not just for travel... its for resource collection and construction. Approaching a space station from 1km out at 5 m/s. In a multiplayer universe with no revert you'll be as careful as NASA is in real life.

[luizopiloto]

that will be the thing about multiplayer... any error will have a high price...