Co-op Idea

[TEmmie]

ME and my friend love this game and thought it would be amazing if there was a Co-op mode to this game! In it you could either be on the same team and try to advance together, or have a rival mode were you and you friend are trying to be the best space agency on Kerbin!

[IncongruousGoat]

First, welcome to the forums!

Second... Oh dear. This again. Co-op has been suggested many, MANY times. Most of us wish it made an inkling of sense. But it doesn't, because the game gives you the ability to mess with the rate at which time flows. See, the problem is, KSP requires a lot of time warping to be playable, and there's no reasonable way to have two people playing in the same game, while allowing time warp. I mean, you could synchronize time warp across the game, but then you've got the problem where everyone's got to fly the same mission as everyone else all the time or not warp at all.

Or you could go with the solution that the DarkMultiplayer mod uses, where you allow everyone to warp at the rate of their choosing, and just.. not render ships that aren't in the same time as yours. However, this has its own problems. For example... say you and your friend each launches a rocket carrying a module for a space station. You're more efficient with your launch, so you get there before (in-game) he does. However, he's more on the ball with time warp and docking, so he (irl) docks his module first. And you both pick the same docking port to dock to. Which means that you have two things docked to the same port. Which makes no sense.

Co-op would be fantastic. It's just not possible within the framework of KSP.

[Alshain]

Welcome to the forums TEmmie.

While Co-Op is most definitely possible, there are plenty of people that like to pretend it isn't. Unfortunately it just never materialized on Squad's end.  They had a plan at one point but it may have just been too big a project to do after the fact.  Mods have proven it works in theory but unfortunately they are very buggy, and it's not really something that works as a mod because of the backend limitations of a mod.  I don't feel it is likely to every happen at this stage, though I suppose it's still a possibility someday.

[MiffedStarfish]

If you want to do co-op, the only way to do it now would be to set up a DMP server, whitch, from what I've heard from a friend, is pretty hard.

Edit: Didn't realise it's your first post, Welcome! 

Edited April 14, 2017 by MiffedStarfish

[IllyrianTheGreat]

6 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

First, welcome to the forums!

Second... Oh dear. This again. Co-op has been suggested many, MANY times. Most of us wish it made an inkling of sense. But it doesn't, because the game gives you the ability to mess with the rate at which time flows. See, the problem is, KSP requires a lot of time warping to be playable, and there's no reasonable way to have two people playing in the same game, while allowing time warp.

Time warp can be limited with finite life support resources and monthly fees for kerbals

 

[IncongruousGoat]

4 hours ago, IllyrianTheGreat said:

Time warp can be limited with finite life support resources and monthly fees for kerbals

 

That's not the problem. I'm talking about the sort of desynchronization that happens over even very short periods of time warp. It's not the lengths of time you're speeding past that's the problem-it's that you're speeding time up at all.

And, of course, you can't just remove time warp. It would make all sorts of missions (mostly anything interplanetary) prohibitively lengthy.

[Alshain]

1 hour ago, IncongruousGoat said:

That's not the problem. I'm talking about the sort of desynchronization that happens over even very short periods of time warp. It's not the lengths of time you're speeding past that's the problem-it's that you're speeding time up at all.

And, of course, you can't just remove time warp. It would make all sorts of missions (mostly anything interplanetary) prohibitively lengthy.

There are a number of solutions to that. Ideally the game would implement several and allow the server operator to choose which one.  I doesn't really matter though, as I said, I don't think we will see multiplayer at all.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Alshain

[MR L A]

On 14/04/2017 at 2:33 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

That's not the problem. I'm talking about the sort of desynchronization that happens over even very short periods of time warp. It's not the lengths of time you're speeding past that's the problem-it's that you're speeding time up at all.

And, of course, you can't just remove time warp. It would make all sorts of missions (mostly anything interplanetary) prohibitively lengthy.

Yeah there's plenty of solutions to that, any 4X game (looking at you Paradox) manages quite well. One simple solution is to have time warp work on a sort of vote system i.e. one player requests warp, other players consent to it (manageable in games with friends).

Another solution is to have it toggleable on any given server i.e. those with weapon mods will just want to dog fight so warp isnt needed. 

A slightly weirder solution is to have time zones/fields.. i.e. a player can warp as much as they like and players with in a specific radius as them remain synchronised. Player outside of the radius become de-synced, but catch up when they reach the same zone as the other players. This has the disadvantage of the game time/MET jumping around considerably on re synchronisation with the other players, but does avoid the docking problem you described... who really cares what the in game clock is doing anyway?

I imagine there's a few other solutions too, but I don't do dev work, so I don't know any more.  

[Alshain]

6 hours ago, MR L A said:

Yeah there's plenty of solutions to that, any 4X game (looking at you Paradox) manages quite well. One simple solution is to have time warp work on a sort of vote system i.e. one player requests warp, other players consent to it (manageable in games with friends).

Another solution is to have it toggleable on any given server i.e. those with weapon mods will just want to dog fight so warp isnt needed. 

A slightly weirder solution is to have time zones/fields.. i.e. a player can warp as much as they like and players with in a specific radius as them remain synchronised. Player outside of the radius become de-synced, but catch up when they reach the same zone as the other players. This has the disadvantage of the game time/MET jumping around considerably on re synchronisation with the other players, but does avoid the docking problem you described... who really cares what the in game clock is doing anyway?

I imagine there's a few other solutions too, but I don't do dev work, so I don't know any more.  

Docking port ownership.  You can't dock to something that isn't yours.  You could even have a part to allow 'foreign' parts to joint with yours... similar to that crucial ISS Unity.

[MaxL_1023]

You could synchronize on SOI transition - where the Mun is relative to Kerbin does not mean much when you are in the Mun's SOI. If the original velocity and positions are conserved relative to the parent body, there should not be as big of an issue. Solar orbits might take some work, but it is possible. 

[Red Iron Crown]

Multiplayer with time warp is sync issues or waiting, choose one. 

[DarkOwl57]

One mod: DMP

[Wjolcz]

Hey, it's another one of these firstposters asking for multiplayer that make a thread and never reply. How mysterious...

Anyway, KSP will never have the kind of multiplayer we all know and love. The devs said it will "kinda be in" so my guess is this multiplayer is part of the upcoming DLC. It will have that mission creator thing with the ability to share missions/challenges and scoreboards of everyone who has played the mission. And I'm 95% sure we won't see anything more complex than that. Unless they decide to make a new game, that is.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Veeltch

[Toriatrix]

I would gladly pay 2 or 3 Times for the same game with proper multiplayer.  

I have used Dmp alot and it works for most of the time, but have buggs with reputation, recovery, kerbals goes MIA,  and some desynch with crafts left behind even thoug the other player have recovered it.

 

However a mod or a game done properly would work. I am 100% sure of it. There are diffrent ways of synching up with other players, and there is allways the option of "agreed" time warp. For 2-3 players that is enough.

And if Squad made the same game with this kind of mechanic i would pay atleast a 100USD for it.

There us also someone wokring on a mod partly based on code From Dmp called LMP (Lunar multiplayer).  But it is really early, and i would give them my money and time if they can catch up with the functionality of DMP. 

[Regiampiero]

On 4/13/2017 at 10:37 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

First, welcome to the forums!

Second... Oh dear. This again. Co-op has been suggested many, MANY times. Most of us wish it made an inkling of sense. But it doesn't, because the game gives you the ability to mess with the rate at which time flows. See, the problem is, KSP requires a lot of time warping to be playable, and there's no reasonable way to have two people playing in the same game, while allowing time warp. I mean, you could synchronize time warp across the game, but then you've got the problem where everyone's got to fly the same mission as everyone else all the time or not warp at all.

Co-Op is definitely possible in KSP I'll be it in a different manner that most new comers might think, but possible non the less. One approach that could work to some extent is the same approach EA took with SimCity and how different Cities can interact with each other despite being on different years. Its definitely not a simple thing to do, and if it ever happens a lot of realism will have to be sacrificed. Not impossible though. 

Edited April 18, 2017 by Regiampiero

[IllyrianTheGreat]

On 16.04.2017 at 0:57 AM, Red Iron Crown said:

Multiplayer with time warp is sync issues or waiting, choose one. 

what sync issues?

 

[Alshain]

47 minutes ago, IllyrianTheGreat said:

what sync issues?

 

They are referring to a case where the person time warping gets ahead of the person not time warping.  There are many simple solutions to those issues, some people just have a hard time accepting that.

[Red Iron Crown]

53 minutes ago, IllyrianTheGreat said:

what sync issues?

 

I'll recycle a couple of example scenarios from the last time I was discussing this topic:

Imagine two players decide to race to catch a particular asteroid. Player 1 quickly plots a modestly fast intercept, burns, and cranks up the warp. Player 2 more carefully plots a faster intercept, burns, but warps less aggressively. In game time terms, Player 2's intercept happens sooner, but Player 1 arrives sooner in real time due to more aggressive timewarping, then claws and moves the asteroid. Under DMP's timewarp scheme, the asteroid will not be there when Player 2 gets there, because Player 1 has already interacted with it and Player 2 will need to sync up with that subspace. So, even though Player 2 plotted the better intercept and would have gotten there faster in game time terms, Player 1 wins the race through more aggressive timewarping which allowed him to get there faster in real time.

and

It doesn't have to be an explicit race, either. Imagine this scenario:

Player 1 and Player 2 are playing with spaceplanes supported by an orbiting fuel depot. Player 1 quickly ascends to orbit and decides to do a Mun flyby (using timewarp), and when returning to Kerbin docks with the depot and drains the fuel from it. Player 2 plays around sightseeing in the atmosphere before ascending to orbit, taking more real time but less game time than Player 1's flyby and docking. He then attempts to dock to the propellant depot. Is fuel available for Player 2 there? Should there be?

These sorts of issues are inherent to asynchronous warp, there's not a technical solution for it. Synchronous warp means waiting, most of the time. So we're back to my statement: Sync issues or waiting, choose one.

5 minutes ago, Alshain said:

They are referring to a case where the person time warping gets ahead of the person not time warping.  There are many simple solutions to those issues, some people just have a hard time accepting that.

Please share these simple solutions to the scenarios above that don't require either a) explicit player cooperation or b) waiting.

[Alshain]

Just now, Red Iron Crown said:

Please share these simple solutions to the scenarios above that don't require either a) explicit player cooperation or b) waiting.

Please read the thread.

[Red Iron Crown]

32 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Please read the thread.

I did. None of the proposals posted here solve these issues.

[Alshain]

10 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I did. None of the proposals posted here solve these issues.

Then you didn't read close enough because I specifically posted a possible solution for docking issues.

[MR L A]

9 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

I did. None of the proposals posted here solve these issues.

Yes they do. I also posted potential solutions that are at least workable ideas. 

[Red Iron Crown]

1 minute ago, Alshain said:

Then you didn't read close enough because I specifically posted a possible solution for docking issues.

You've changed the scenario to one in which only one craft can ever dock with the orbital station without permission, a different scenario. The sync issue remains. Change it up to Player 1 colliding with the station and destroying it and the problem is still there. A player that timewarps more aggressively can reach into the past and affect other players even though they get there earlier in game time.

1 minute ago, MR L A said:

Yes they do. I also posted potential solutions that are at least workable ideas. 

They all have either sync issues or waiting:

On 4/15/2017 at 11:14 AM, MR L A said:

Yeah there's plenty of solutions to that, any 4X game (looking at you Paradox) manages quite well. One simple solution is to have time warp work on a sort of vote system i.e. one player requests warp, other players consent to it (manageable in games with friends).

Waiting.

On 4/15/2017 at 11:14 AM, MR L A said:

Another solution is to have it toggleable on any given server i.e. those with weapon mods will just want to dog fight so warp isnt needed. 

No warp at all, not a solution.

On 4/15/2017 at 11:14 AM, MR L A said:

A slightly weirder solution is to have time zones/fields.. i.e. a player can warp as much as they like and players with in a specific radius as them remain synchronised. Player outside of the radius become de-synced, but catch up when they reach the same zone as the other players. This has the disadvantage of the game time/MET jumping around considerably on re synchronisation with the other players, but does avoid the docking problem you described... who really cares what the in game clock is doing anyway?

Sync issues.

The problem is inherent to multiplayer timewarp: Make it synchronous and you get waiting, make it asynchronous and you get sync issues. There are "least bad" solutions to this, like DMP's subspace system, but they do not completely eliminate the issues.

 

[HebaruSan]

In practice, people play cooperative by exchanging save games via the information superhighway. There are a number of such threads on the forums, this being one of the most active:

 

[Alshain]

5 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

You've changed the scenario to one in which only one craft can ever dock with the orbital station without permission, a different scenario. The sync issue remains. Change it up to Player 1 colliding with the station and destroying it and the problem is still there. A player that timewarps more aggressively can reach into the past and affect other players even though they get there earlier in game time.

So what?  We aren't talking about 20 player servers here, we are talking about small co-op games with 2-4 players.  There are many options to mitigate the issues and those that cant are not going to be common.  Even when they do haapen, it's just one of those quirk of KSP you would have to accept.  There are already worse incongruties in the game.  None of this is a reason that multiplayer can't happen.