Multiplayer Support

[NathanJohnstone]

Would it be possible to make a multiplayer version of Kerbal Space Program ? In Multiplayer mode there could be scenarios such as the first person to build a ship to reach the moon or complete other missions, or perhaps even co-op missions where players work together?

Written on behalf of my son, who loves this game.

[Dman979]

Part of what you're describing sound like it'll be included in the Making History expansion. There will be a Mission Builder, where you can give mission objectives, constraints, and conditions, which you can then share with other players to try.

As for a traditional multiplayer game, that's been a source of much discussion on these forums for a long time. There's a lot of threads about them, which you can find by typing into the search bar at the upper right of the screen. There's far too much in them for me to summarize, so I suggest browsing through them when you get the chance.

 

And last, but not least- welcome aboard, @NathanJohnstone and Sons!

[razark]

1 hour ago, NathanJohnstone said:

Would it be possible to make a multiplayer version of Kerbal Space Program ?

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!

[/not/pol/]

There are mods for this. Darklight Multi player is a popular choice

[AlamoVampire]

Where do I begin on why this simply cannot happen....<looks at the dossier> <nods to self>

Right. A simple list that is a partial list, but some major hurdles that must be cleared:

1. Mod compatibility as in I use SpaceY and have a ship with its parts docked to a station. You do not use that mod, since my ship is physically a part of the station do you see it? Likely no as no ship in my install survived missing parts from missing mods.

2. Part counts. You can run 40000 part ships like I run 20 part ships. Your beast comes into physics range of me and I go to 1 frame per 1,000,000,000 years. Cant play like that.

3. Trolls. Cant be avoided. Period. 

4. Time warp. Cant go beyond low kerbin orbit with out it. Lets say I am on final approach to capture at say Jool and you want to go to Eeloo. You hit warp and destroy my mission because I went onto rails and left Jool behind, now my crew are dead because my life support ran out and missed its needed supply ship. 

5. KSP is a single player game. Was designed as such, does not support the idea of multiplayer at its heart.

This list is nearly infinite. Multiplayer can be a good thing if it was designed in at code line 1 character 1 but it was not and is not so here. 

Original post time 06:10:30

Edited August 1, 2017 by AlamoVampire

[technicalfool]

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

Where do I begin on why this simply cannot happen....<looks at the dossier> <nods to self>

Right. A simple list that is a partial list, but some major hurdles that must be cleared:

1. Mod compatibility as in I use SpaceY and have a ship with its parts docked to a station. You do not use that mod, since my ship is physically a part of the station do you see it? Likely no as no ship in my install survived missing parts from missing mods.

2. Part counts. You can run 40000 part ships like I run 20 part ships. Your beast comes into physics range of me and I go to 1 frame per 1,000,000,000 years. Cant play like that.

3. Trolls. Cant be avoided. Period. 

4. Time warp. Cant go beyond low kerbin orbit with out it. Lets say I am on final approach to capture at say Jool and you want to go to Eeloo. You hit warp and destroy my mission because I went onto rails and left Jool behind, now my crew are dead because my life support ran out and missed its needed supply ship. 

5. KSP is a single player game. Was designed as such, does not support the idea of multiplayer at its heart.

This list is nearly infinite. Multiplayer can be a good thing if it was designed in at code line 1 character 1 but it was not and is not so here. 

Original post time 06:10:30

1: So agree beforehand what mods you're using. Every other multiplayer game works like this.

2: Also a problem when you're using a potato computer, and you join a Minecraft server with a metric boatload of redstone lag-machines running in spawn. Avoid those servers.

3: Same as every other multiplayer game. Guess no more multiplayer games should ever be made, because trolls exist.

4: If you want to use life support mods with non-subspace time warp, that's your prerogative. Subspace warp prevents that.

5: It is right now, yes. The DMP mod shows that multiplayer is possible, and playable.

All of the above is my take on the matter, and should not be taken as any kind of official policy or hint of development direction, your mileage may vary, caveat lector, yada yada.

[cratercracker]

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

Where do I begin on why this simply cannot happen....<looks at the dossier> <nods to self>

Right. A simple list that is a partial list, but some major hurdles that must be cleared:

1. Mod compatibility as in I use SpaceY and have a ship with its parts docked to a station. You do not use that mod, since my ship is physically a part of the station do you see it? Likely no as no ship in my install survived missing parts from missing mods.

2. Part counts. You can run 40000 part ships like I run 20 part ships. Your beast comes into physics range of me and I go to 1 frame per 1,000,000,000 years. Cant play like that.

3. Trolls. Cant be avoided. Period. 

4. Time warp. Cant go beyond low kerbin orbit with out it. Lets say I am on final approach to capture at say Jool and you want to go to Eeloo. You hit warp and destroy my mission because I went onto rails and left Jool behind, now my crew are dead because my life support ran out and missed its needed supply ship. 

5. KSP is a single player game. Was designed as such, does not support the idea of multiplayer at its heart.

This list is nearly infinite. Multiplayer can be a good thing if it was designed in at code line 1 character 1 but it was not and is not so here. 

Original post time 06:10:30

1. What if it would work just like in gmod, if the part simply doesn't exist for you (because the mod is not downloaded) then it just changes itself into a grey/pink/black part that copies  the shape of the missing part.

2.Yeah, that is a problem, but it can be solved! 

What if we had button "Not load alien objects" which will basically make ships of the other player invisible, non-existent.

Although his trajectory will appear on the map.

3. Can be solved using the same thing.

4. Now that is a serious issue.

But DLP solves it easily.

5. K

-Open world

-No restrictions in creativity

-Large amoun of space to explore freely

-No restrictions in the way you move and/or transport something.

"Single player game"

Sorry, but a lot of games with at least similar mechanics, show exactly the opposite.

 

[Geonovast]

If you switch away from "Matchmade online multiplayer with strangers" to "System link only or private connection with friends", almost all of those issues disappear.

 

[Red Iron Crown]

5 hours ago, cratercracker said:

But DLP solves it easily.

The solution is neither rigorous nor complete, just a least-bad implementation. Multiplayer time warp is and will always be: Sync issues or waiting, choose one.

That said, I don't think it's a deal breaker that would prevent a MP KSP implementation. We put up with a lot of quirks in KSP, a few in MP would not be a big deal. I would likely never play multiplayer, but it seems to be one of those ideas that is constantly in demand so I guess it could be successful.

[John FX]

If you and your son want to play together I would suggest downloading DMP (dark multiplayer mod)

If you want the stock game to have multiplayer then I am guessing you can already see this question has been visited before and causes a huge thread where people say why they think it will not work.

Squad did at one point say they wanted multiplayer in the stock game but it has been a long time now and they have stopped saying anything about it.

The long and the short of it is that currently the best option is downloading a mod, I would not hold your breath for Squad to put the feature in the game.

Hope you get to build your station

[AlamoVampire]

Let me expand on my points as I think its necessary. 

1. With regards to mods and the idea proposed to not show said parts to a player that does not use said mod, well, then what exactly is the purpose of being in a multiplayer situation then? If my fuel ship, the only one in range of you uses massive SpaceY tanks and you need fuel, but do not use SpaceY.... I fail to see the entire point then.

2. With regards to the life support example: It is but one example of how timewarp can screw things up. As RIC points out, DMP is the least bad way to TRY to make multiplayer work. 

3. With regards to trolls, not once has anyone given a logical workable way to deal with them. Some have suggested private servers with passwords to protect them, but who shall fund the upkeep for said servers? Players? Squad? TT? TT is a prime example of trolls running wildly amok, just look at GTAO. You cant get anything done unless you find away to get a server to yourself or have an armada of heavily armed escorts or in my case a fully armored gun runner 18 wheeler with massive cannons fore and aft running security. My point is this, for KSP to be a multiplayer enabled game, it would have to take a page from MMO's and have a persistent world always up and open for those who wish to use it. How then would you stop someone from going to a station you worked hours and hours and maybe days to weeks to get into place, like say the station used in Hottips conquering KSP as I think thats by far one of the most exemplary stations ive seen, from attaching a massive ship to it and forcibly deorbiting it? OR ramming it "Gravity" style with debris? Does that station vanish from the game when the player who made it logs off? If thats the case then again, whats the point? OR whats to stop someone from doing something horrible to it while he <Hottips that is> off at say Duna working on a base or tweaking something at his Minmus base from utterly destroying it? There are as many examples of what can go wrong and how as there are stars in the sky. You simply cannot account for them all. How do you police such a thing? TL:Didnt bother to read this point? Short and sweet: people are jerks, how do you stop that from happening?

If need be I will expand later again, but, this is whats on my mind. And to you @technicalfool personaly sir, seeing as you posted to this thread and not one of the "official" channels, I take your word only as a player providing point and counter point and nothing more  however had you made your reply via say the annoucements or devblogs, then I would be inclined to take it not as a players word but an official proclamation for what my opinion is worth  

original post time 23:22:30

[TheRagingIrishman]

9 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

If need be I will expand later again, but, this is whats on my mind. And to you @technicalfool personaly sir, seeing as you posted to this thread and not one of the "official" channels, I take your word only as a player providing point and counter point and nothing more  however had you made your reply via say the annoucements or devblogs, then I would be inclined to take it not as a players word but an official proclamation for what my opinion is worth  \

On 8/1/2017 at 8:28 AM, technicalfool said:

All of the above is my take on the matter, and should not be taken as any kind of official policy or hint of development direction, your mileage may vary, caveat lector, yada yada.

well ya he did make that clear @AlamoVampire

[razark]

10 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

3. With regards to trolls, not once has anyone given a logical workable way to deal with them.

Don't play with them?  Don't let them on your game?  Kick them if they do?

 

10 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Some have suggested private servers with passwords to protect them, but who shall fund the upkeep for said servers? Players?

Yes. 

I've played plenty of multiplayer games that didn't require a dedicated server.  Just two or three or a small handful of computers on a network talking to each other, with one instance of the game being the server.

 

You have a point with your repeated complaints iff multiplayer KSP were to use a MMO model.  Drop the MMO, and all your problems can be trivialized.  Do people not play modded multiplayer games?  Of course they do.  Timewarp and mods can be agreed to and enforced by the host settings.  Trolls aren't a problem (and easily handled) if you're playing with a small group of known people; have you never played Monopoly with friends? 

The part count issue remains, but that's an issue even in a single player game.  One possible mitigation would be a server rule limiting the part count of any single player-launched vessel.  This would still cause problems for large assembled vessels.  Bit humans are capable of making agreements for the benefit of both/multiple parties.