Multiplayer & graphical update?

[Regiampiero]

On 10/7/2016 at 1:48 PM, RX2000 said:

Thats funny you mention that. I love Minecraft, but I've never played it multiplayer, or even wanted to.

How can you say that you don't want to if you have never tried it? Not saying its all that and a bag of chips in public servers, due to the huge amounts of pricks under the age of 13 that I just want to...However, when you get a good group of guys in a grief-free server the game becomes way more fun. And like MC, I think KSP could also be elevated by the of a MP. 

 

On 10/7/2016 at 11:43 AM, Curveball Anders said:

I spend every working day co-operating (and sometimes trying to lead) with a large group of people trying to achieve our goals.

I spend most of hours outside of work doing very much the same but with less people and less obvious goals.

But no, I have no need to have everything I do validated by someone else, there are things that I can be pleased with just because I think they're pretty cool myself.

I've shared a few of my more hilarious failures here yes, and I often read people's stories.

I've asked some questions and I've tried to answer some.

For such this very forum works perfectly.

But that doesn't change that I see no need to try and kludge on an MP function to an inherently single player game.

As I said before you're in the minority. Not saying its a bad thing nor a good thing, Its just what it is. Most people (especially in the internet age we live in) like to share an experience with people they know, and I don't think most people can achieve that level of experience sharing over a written post or a posted video. It would be like trying to share your vacation experiences with your Facebook friends through photos and messages, its just not the same as if they were there. Agree with me or not, from a sociological stand point (in the 21st century) a MP mode is always necessary in games that have the potential of constructive interactions. Without it the game's earning potential is seriously limited, and without revenue the project can ultimately be cancelled. 

Heck the only reason why I came back here in the forums (not the game yet) is because of the new YouTube video advertising the new update. I even forgot my email/password and had to create a new account to post this. I like the new update and I will try it out, but is it going to hold my interest for more then a month? Two months? We'll see, but if there was a MP I probably would have never left. 

[Regiampiero]

On 10/8/2016 at 0:49 PM, Red Iron Crown said:

I still think it's pretty brilliant, to be honest. The problem it's trying to solve has some pretty intractable inherent issues and it handles them admirably for most cases. I consider DMP's approach to be the "least bad" solution I've seen so far.

I'm not sure if it has been discussed, but what about applying the same principals of "Kerbal Construction Time" mod to everything else in the game. Therefore as soon as you fast forward a launch/burn/landing your part of the game would go into recording mode. In this mode you'll make all the maneuvers you need to make and you will be able to see all the trajectories from everyone else's missions, and when you complete your task just press the unpaused button and you will be reverted back to the point where you started while your ship is taken over by an out-pilot that will replicate your exact maneuvers just as you did them. 

[Curveball Anders]

1 hour ago, Regiampiero said:

if there was a MP I probably would have never left. 

If KSP was an MP game I wouldn't ever got here, I would have been satisfied with EvE.

[Greenfire32]

On 10/5/2016 at 1:47 PM, RX2000 said:

I dont see the point of multiplayer in this game? I mean we're just supposed to burn towards each other & dock together? I plan the rocket & you drive the rover once we get there? lol

I dunno, multiplayer is probably at the VERY bottom of my list of features I would like to see added to the game. But then again I never really play multiplayer in any game anyways. I'm more of a Skyrim kind of guy.

While I agree with 99% of this, I will say that a "multiplayer only" mode where one player is effectively the pilot limited to first person view and no map readouts and the other is mission control with all the relevant details would be super cool/scary/omgtheimmersionisreal

[Red Iron Crown]

2 hours ago, Regiampiero said:

I'm not sure if it has been discussed, but what about applying the same principals of "Kerbal Construction Time" mod to everything else in the game. Therefore as soon as you fast forward a launch/burn/landing your part of the game would go into recording mode. In this mode you'll make all the maneuvers you need to make and you will be able to see all the trajectories from everyone else's missions, and when you complete your task just press the unpaused button and you will be reverted back to the point where you started while your ship is taken over by an out-pilot that will replicate your exact maneuvers just as you did them. 

It's not clear to me how this would mitigate the temporal paradoxes I mentioned up thread.

[Regiampiero]

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

It's not clear to me how this would mitigate the temporal paradoxes I mentioned up thread.

It would eliminate them by rewinding the time back to the current server time, so anything that happen during the command sequence is now happening on its own and can be warped with the server. i.e. You launch a satellite and place it on a stable orbit. Let's say your at the place you want to be after 25 minutes of recording your commands (including warping), and you exit command mode. Once you get out you'll be back-tracked to a point in your flight of 25 minutes in server-time. From this point you can just leave the auto pilot do its thing or you can re-enter command mode and alter its course again, but only from that point (25 minutes in) forward. 

Of course you would also need supplemental mods to compensate for the long period missions, otherwise it would take 2 years to get to Duna. This is where you would also need a warp-synchronizer and a launch window planner. The warp-sync would automatically fast forward the whole server (every 5 min. or what ever the pre-determine time of the server is) so that the longest lasting flight reaches its destination. i.e. If you have a rocket going to the Mun (20 hrs. away) and your friend has a lander going to Duna (1yr. away), when the server's warp-sync kicks in it would warp to 1 Yr. in the Future. Of course the warp-sync feature could be tweaked for the needs of the server, but you get the gist. Also in the cases where the server would use life support mods, you can set the warp-sync to only go as far as 1 week prior resources running out, or to a specified time on the calendar as per a launch window planner. This way if you need to come back before your friend reaches Duna (or your crew would starve) you can ensure time wont warp past your return window. Also the warp mechanic would have be limited to when players are off-line or agree with the use of a voting system of sorts, or a deny warp check box so you don't have to keep voting on it. This are can use some criticism to get just right. 

I don't know if any of this makes sense, but if you managed to follow my rhetoric Bravo! I had to go back and edit the hell out of it to make it make sense. lol

Edited October 10, 2016 by Regiampiero

[Red Iron Crown]

1 minute ago, Regiampiero said:

It would eliminate them by rewinding the time back to the current server time, so anything that happen during the command sequence is now happening on its own and can be warped with the server. i.e. You launch a satellite and place it on a stable orbit. Let's say your at the place you want to be after 25 minutes of recording your commands (including warping), and you exit command mode. Once you get out you'll be back-tracked to a point in your flight of 25 minutes in server-time. From this point you can just leave the auto pilot do its thing or you can re-enter command mode and alter its course again, but only from that point (25 minutes in) forward. 

But what happens when something another player does interferes with some of my commands for those 25 minutes? Say I intercept an asteroid at minute 18 and do some stuff with it, but another player has commands issued which have one of their craft intercepting the same asteroid at minute 13 and redirecting it. How does the game rectify these different timelines?

1 minute ago, Regiampiero said:

Of course you would also need supplemental mod to compensate for the long period missions, otherwise it would take 2 years to get to Duna. This is where you would also need a warp-synchronizer and a launch window planner. The warp-sync would automatically fast forward the whole server (every 5 min. or what ever the pre-determine time of the server is) so that the longest lasting flight reaches its destination. i.e. If you have a rocket going to the Mun (20 hrs. away) and your friend has a lander going to Duna (1yr. away), when the server's warp-sync kicks in it would warp to 1 Yr. in the Future. Of the warp-sync feature could be tweaked for the needs of the server, but you get the gist. Also in the cases where the server would use life support mods, you can set the warp-sync to only go as far as 1 week prior resources running out, or to a specified time on the calendar as per a launch window planner. This way if you need to come back before your friend reaches Duna (or your crew would starve) you can ensure time wont warp past your return window. Also the warp mechanic would have also be limited to when players are off-line or agree with the use of a voting system of sorts. So basically it would be a combination of the warp voting system with some automated features.

This sounds like synchronous warp, so we're back to:

Choose one: Waiting [x]    Sync Issues [ ] 

But possibly with sync issues, too.

Perhaps I'm not understanding your idea correctly, though.

[Regiampiero]

2 hours ago, Curveball Anders said:

If KSP was an MP game I wouldn't ever got here, I would have been satisfied with EvE.

Come on! Comparing one with the other makes no sense. One is a sandbox game and the other is an mmo rpg. I'm talking about making ksp Co-op at the most. Not one v. the other, but more like a group of friends coming together instead of doing things alone. You wouldn't have to do it, but I guess I'm more perplexed on what you have against it.

8 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

But what happens when something another player does interferes with some of my commands for those 25 minutes? Say I intercept an asteroid at minute 18 and do some stuff with it, but another player has commands issued which have one of their craft intercepting the same asteroid at minute 13 and redirecting it. How does the game rectify these different timelines?

Communication? I mean if you're both going after the same asteroid its ether on purpose (therefore you could wait until the server syncs you up), or its accidental in which case the first bird gets the worm. Also this is the sort of things that would make a MP very interesting to say the least. 

Edited October 10, 2016 by Regiampiero

[Red Iron Crown]

12 minutes ago, Regiampiero said:

Communication? I mean if you're both going after the same asteroid its ether on purpose (therefore you could wait until the server syncs you up), or its accidental in which case the first bird gets the worm. Also this is the sort of things that would make a MP very interesting to say the least. 

So no solution at all to sync issues, then. Where you see "interesting" I see "frustrating".

[Regiampiero]

2 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

So no solution at all to sync issues, then. Where you see "interesting" I see "frustrating".

Well, I think the communications would be key in a MP version of KSP. If nothing else it would had to the immersion. I mean there's no space mission/flight in real life that happens without a flight plan, if it wasn't the case you would have two planes at the same point and at the same time and "kaboom". And if you post your plan (which would require a certain game mechanic that doesn't exist) than why would that be a problem? I understand that you won't have the same freedom of playing solo, but that option would still be available for those that don't like the planning among a group of people. 

Also posting your goals might inspire a space race, especially if contracts are first come (completion wise) first serve. I think it would be kind of cool. 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Regiampiero

[I_Killed_Jeb]

5 hours ago, Greenfire32 said:

While I agree with 99% of this, I will say that a "multiplayer only" mode where one player is effectively the pilot limited to first person view and no map readouts and the other is mission control with all the relevant details would be super cool/scary/omgtheimmersionisreal

this is the only interesting use case I can personally conceive of

[RX2000]

7 hours ago, Regiampiero said:

How can you say that you don't want to if you have never tried it? Not saying its all that and a bag of chips in public servers, due to the huge amounts of pricks under the age of 13 that I just want to...However, when you get a good group of guys in a grief-free server the game becomes way more fun. And like MC, I think KSP could also be elevated by the of a MP. 

 

As I said before you're in the minority. Not saying its a bad thing nor a good thing, Its just what it is.

I havent had the slightest desire to play any game multiplayer in probably the last 15 years lol. I've never had my fingernails ripped out by the roots either, but I'm pretty sure I wouldnt like it.

Do you have any data to back up that the majority of KSP players want multiplayer? I doubt thats the case. Games in general, yea. All the kiddies with CoD & all the like skew the numbers waaaay over to the yes column on that count. But some games are better off being single player, & I think hardcore players of those games inherently know that & appreciate it. KSP is one of those games.

[Higgs]

@fireblade274 In simplest terms KSP does not suit Multiplayer. Yes a mod does it but that =\= a suitable idea for KSP. Between mod compatibilities, time warp issues and part counts bogging things down, there are more things that make it less than suitable.

[LameLefty]

5 hours ago, Greenfire32 said:

While I agree with 99% of this, I will say that a "multiplayer only" mode where one player is effectively the pilot limited to first person view and no map readouts and the other is mission control with all the relevant details would be super cool/scary/omgtheimmersionisreal

So, basically a spectator. That's just one step removed from watching a YouTube or Twitch streamer. Fun if your computer is on the fritz or while traveling, but would never satisfy me.

Put me in the camp of "Not interested in MP" unless it's in very limited cases like within a single planetary SOI and real-time. And even then, you'd need over 48 hours of real-time to get to Minmus, and weeks or longer to traverse the edges of Joel's system. The sync issues that frustrate @Red Iron Crown would make me nuts. Part of what makes space "hard" in the first place is the scale - spatially and temporally. Single-player time-warp solves it; KAC or an equivalently-detailed manual planning and note-taking system lets you "multi-play" with yourself to the limits of what your own computer can handle, running as many parallel missions doing all their own things independently OR in concert with other missions. Trying to do the equivalent with several people at once, scattered across different time zones, with differing amounts of their own personal free time to play, each warping as much or as little as their own goals and plans allows is fraught with exactly the sort of temporal paradoxes mentioned throughout this thread.

Edited October 11, 2016 by LameLefty

[fireblade274]

On 10/8/2016 at 9:53 AM, Red Iron Crown said:

It most certainly does not, it rewards aggressive use of time warp in any race situation as real time is more important than in game time. It may be the "least bad" solution though. With multiplayer timewarp it is waiting or sync issues, choose one.

Never tried the KSP multiplayer mod; IMO I think id rather prefer waiting for bit for people over sync issues

[CobraA1]

As far as multiplayer goes - I really don't think the game lends itself to multiplayer very well, especially with the time warp system.
 The gameplay would have to change quite drastically to accommodate multiplayer in a way that's not frustrating.

As far as graphics go: The detail of the parts has been improved over time, so they haven't been static. That said, nothing really groundbreaking has happened.

Adding some sort of physically based rendering would look pretty sweet, and maybe a few (but optional) shaders to make it emulate a film camera.

Some of the mods have added the ability to have vastly improved graphics, but at the expense of memory footprint: Even my 16 GB machine can choke on them.

To that end: I'd like to see an improvement in how terrain is generated and rendered, possibly making it easier to mod the terrain generation. Current mods (as far as I know) currently count on hand-crafted material to do so, and if you're hand-crafting a planet, that's an incredible amount of memory. I think there's a lot of improvement possible in the realm of procedural generation.

[Regiampiero]

10 hours ago, CobraA1 said:

As far as multiplayer goes - I really don't think the game lends itself to multiplayer very well, especially with the time warp system.
 The gameplay would have to change quite drastically to accommodate multiplayer in a way that's not frustrating.

As far as graphics go: The detail of the parts has been improved over time, so they haven't been static. That said, nothing really groundbreaking has happened.

Adding some sort of physically based rendering would look pretty sweet, and maybe a few (but optional) shaders to make it emulate a film camera.

Some of the mods have added the ability to have vastly improved graphics, but at the expense of memory footprint: Even my 16 GB machine can choke on them.

To that end: I'd like to see an improvement in how terrain is generated and rendered, possibly making it easier to mod the terrain generation. Current mods (as far as I know) currently count on hand-crafted material to do so, and if you're hand-crafting a planet, that's an incredible amount of memory. I think there's a lot of improvement possible in the realm of procedural generation.

I think there's a lot room for improvement in the graphic department and rendering times as well. I think they should look into how a simple game like No Man's Sky can have seamless transitions between different biomes, and perhaps implement a similar system. I've always thought the graphic engine tried too hard to render an object at too far of a distance, killing all sorts of PC performances and frame rates. Approaching a 200 part count space station is a chore at the moment for my GT 550M. 

15 hours ago, RX2000 said:

I havent had the slightest desire to play any game multiplayer in probably the last 15 years lol. I've never had my fingernails ripped out by the roots either, but I'm pretty sure I wouldnt like it.

Do you have any data to back up that the majority of KSP players want multiplayer? I doubt thats the case. Games in general, yea. All the kiddies with CoD & all the like skew the numbers waaaay over to the yes column on that count. But some games are better off being single player, & I think hardcore players of those games inherently know that & appreciate it. KSP is one of those games.

You've never had your fingernails pulled, but you've felt pain and you know its not pleasant. Not a good analogy, but regardless...I get your point and I respect you not wanting to play with anyone else, but given how many times a MP mode has been suggested in these forums and Reddit I think its a miss opportunity by Squad not to actively pursue it. Of course I think there're more pressing changes that need to be addressed, but to completely wright-off MP is in my opinion a bad business idea by Squad. If that's indeed what they're doing that is, for all I know they could almost be done with it. lol 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Regiampiero

[qromodynmc]

2 hours ago, Regiampiero said:

I think there's a lot room for improvement in the graphic department and rendering times as well. I think they should look into how a simple game like No Man's Sky can have seamless transitions between different biomes, and perhaps implement a similar system.

No man's sky has terrible system tho, incredibly low draw distance, bad transition etc, better not give it as an example.

Other than that, i'd definitely love to see graphic improvements, especially clouds, new water shaders and new skybox. Current skybox is pretty low resolution.

[Regiampiero]

7 minutes ago, qromodynmc said:

No man's sky has terrible system tho, incredibly low draw distance, bad transition etc, better not give it as an example.

Other than that, i'd definitely love to see graphic improvements, especially clouds, new water shaders and new skybox. Current skybox is pretty low resolution.

Terrible? I don't agree completely. On a visual scale, yes its kind of lacking (although not too much), but the performance boost more than makes up for the graphics imo. Could it be tuned a little more to make balance the right amount of graphic improvement vs. performance? Sure, but as it stands if far better that what ksp is using. Unless you have a dual titan rig monstrosity that is.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Regiampiero

[Suedocode]

2 hours ago, Regiampiero said:

I've always thought the graphic engine tried too hard to render an object at too far of a distance, killing all sorts of PC performances and frame rates. Approaching a 200 part count space station is a chore at the moment for my GT 550M. 

The issue is not your graphics card choking (or it really shouldn't be), but rather KSP trying to simulate very large objects. If it were just rendering the object and doing nothing else, it'd be no problem. Case in point, there's a mod that allows you to construct whatever craft you want, and then weld it all into one giant physics object. It completely breaks alters all of the physics dealing with it, but you get buttery smooth performance.

The physics, not graphics, are generally what chokes your machine. There are some mods that include clouds and distant object rendering that do hurt performance, but mods tend to do that.

2 hours ago, Regiampiero said:

I think they should look into how a simple game like No Man's Sky can have seamless transitions between different biomes, and perhaps implement a similar system.

Never thought I'd see someone use NMS as a positive example, but how exactly does KSP not have seamless transitions? I would say KSP's transitions are even more seamless, because you don't just burn right through the atmosphere into the land section. NMS has a space mode and an atmosphere mode. KSP does that, and everything in between. Both have model resolution refining details as you get closer.

It is true that KSP models are a lower polygon count than NMS, and NMS is a lot more prismatically colored. The latter is a design choice, but perhaps the former could use some work. Honestly though, I think the graphics fit the Kerbal universe just fine. I'd bet you'd get way more bang for your buck if they added clouds (mod available), (graphical) waves (mod available), fauna (NMS abuses this one), and more interesting bump-mapping on rocky surfaces (would just be visual; rovers are hard enough to drive straight). Making higher polygon-count planets and parts I think is not necessary (although re-texturing the oil-barrel fuel tanks would be nice, but there's mods for that too).

Edited October 11, 2016 by Suedocode

[Regiampiero]

15 minutes ago, Suedocode said:

The issue is not your graphics card choking (or it really shouldn't be), but rather KSP trying to simulate very large objects. If it were just rendering the object and doing nothing else, it'd be no problem. Case in point, there's a mod that allows you to construct whatever craft you want, and then weld it all into one giant physics object. It completely breaks alters all of the physics dealing with it, but you get buttery smooth performance.

The physics, not graphics, are generally what chokes your machine. There are some mods that include clouds and distant object rendering that do hurt performance, but mods tend to do that.

Never thought I'd see someone use NMS as a positive example, but how exactly does KSP not have seamless transitions? I would say KSP's transitions are even more seamless, because you don't just burn right through the atmosphere into the land section. NMS has a space mode and an atmosphere mode. KSP does that, and everything in between. Both have model resolution refining details as you get closer.

It is true that KSP models are a lower polygon count than NMS, and NMS is a lot more prismatically colored. The latter is a design choice, but perhaps the former could use some work. Honestly though, I think the graphics fit the Kerbal universe just fine. I'd bet you'd get way more bang for your buck if they added clouds (mod available), (graphical) waves (mod available), fauna (NMS abuses this one), and more interesting bump-mapping on rocky surfaces (would just be visual; rovers are hard enough to drive straight). Making higher polygon-count planets and parts I think is not necessary.

There's no question the that ksp is more seamless when dealing with one rocket going to a vacant space with nothing around, but when (as I said before) approach a large part-count station my laptop starts smoking. This is because the game is set-up to make things prier before making them smoother. At least in my situation. I've tried all sorts of settings, but not of them make a difference. I know my laptop isn't a speed demon, but with an i7, and a 2GB dedicated graphic card I should be to render a orbiting station without too much trouble. Whereas NMS is far more optimized and runs with no issues, and even though the game was a bust from a game prospective I think it has a lot of merits as piece of software.  

[Red Iron Crown]

NMS doesn't simulate multipart ships with the parts interacting with each other. It's that physics that causes slow downs, and there's no easy way to mitigate it without giving up the multiple part paradigm.

[Suedocode]

2 minutes ago, Regiampiero said:

I should be to render a orbiting station without too much trouble.

 

27 minutes ago, Suedocode said:

The physics, not graphics, are generally what chokes your machine

The physics is done on the processor, not the graphics card (for this game). It should be noted that 1.2 is very noticeably much faster as well; I had a 700+ part station without much issue until I slammed it into the ground. 

Also, it's important to specify which generation of i7 you have.

[RX2000]

3 hours ago, Regiampiero said:

You've never had your fingernails pulled, but you've felt pain and you know its not pleasant. Not a good analogy, but regardless...

No, its still a good analogy. I played multiplayer back in the day & it never was really all that great.

[Regiampiero]

1 hour ago, Suedocode said:

The physics is done on the processor, not the graphics card (for this game). It should be noted that 1.2 is very noticeably much faster as well; I had a 700+ part station without much issue until I slammed it into the ground. 

Also, it's important to specify which generation of i7 you have.

Didn't know that. I'll pull the specs of the PCU later today, but its one of the first ones. I believe a 4000 series from 2012. Not the fastest, but it shouldn't give me this hard of a time. I'll update to 1.2 tonight and see if I have any issues.