Idea: how to fix the timewarp multiplayer problem and others

[Sol469]

I have seen many people that say that multiplayer is hard or impossible due to one thing... timewarps...

 

Now, to fix this, I took the solution that luna multiplayer used and modified it a bit. Let's say you are playing with a friend, and you are going to go to duna and you time warp, this will place you in something called a subspace a moment in time different to the other player's time. Every other player will dissapear from the map, its like if you were on another different empty world, to find players, they will have to click on a button that will let you syncronize subspaces, lets say you are 1, and you have friend 2 and 3

 

2 decides to time warp 10 mins into the future, he now dissapears from the map, you, get into a stable orbit or stop moving and syncronize subspaces and now you can interact with 2, but since 3 did not syncronize, now he is not able to interact with you in any way unless he also syncronizes.

We can also add a friends system, a username system, a little list that shows you available servers and a downloadable file to make your server ,customize it and run it, you can add a password to make it private, add a feature to spectate other players and a live chat window. Change your server gamemode, select which mods are allowed in your server or disable them entirely, add a moderator system that lets you ban players or kick them, prevent trolls by making your vessel private, you cant switch to it unless you have a password, select how many players can join your server, also prevent any problems, you cant change into a subspace that is in the past. Theres a ton of possibilities for this game to have a multiplayer, it will definetly make alot of people happy and should be taken care of by patching any bugs that are found.

 

But i dont know if this is just another idea that will be forgotten, but honestly though, it would be amazing to have a stock multiplayer with servers will 10 or more people at a time.

[Ozymandias_the_Goat]

7 hours ago, Sol469 said:

Now, to fix this, I took the solution that luna multiplayer used and modified it a bit. Let's say you are playing with a friend, and you are going to go to duna and you time warp, this will place you in something called a subspace a moment in time different to the other player's time. Every other player will dissapear from the map, its like if you were on another different empty world, to find players, they will have to click on a button that will let you syncronize subspaces, lets say you are 1, and you have friend 2 and 3

This isn’t a great solution for one big reason: the positions of planets. When you timewarp, they move a huge distance in a very short amount of time. Thus, if any player on the server does not want duna jumping halfway around its orbit, there will be some problems. (I do admit that I do not use any multiplayer mods, so I don’t know if this is an accurate portrayal, but it seems like a major impediment to me).

[razark]

The problem with timewarp "solutions" is that there are so many.  What one player finds acceptable is anathema to another.

The issue isn't finding a timewarp system that works, it's finding one that everyone can agree works.

[Sol469]

Ozymandias_the_goat. Remember what I said, once you timewarp every player will dissapear from your screen unless they syncronize. Duna will stay on the same side for player 1 when player 2 time warps, to syncronize wih player 2, you will NEED to be on a stable orbit or have landed without moving, then you will syncronize and duna and the other planets will instantly move and rotate to match player 2's subspace.

 

And razark, shouldnt squad just make some sort of poll for players to decide what to add, in that way, we can see what the mayority wants, and the ones that dont like the new solution will have to accept it, the solutions to theese problems are like doors that lead to the same thing.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Sol469

[razark]

43 minutes ago, Sol469 said:

shouldnt squad just...

The answer to that is usually "No.".

 

44 minutes ago, Sol469 said:

the solutions to theese problems are like doors that lead to the same thing.

No, they really aren't.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Multiplayer would be a huge waste of limited development time and resources.

KSP is a single player experience at heart, 90% of your playtime is spent in an editor or a map screen, or time warping to a maneuver node.

Just because something would be nice to have, does not mean it's worth having.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Mr. Peabody]

We don't want no (a) multiplayer.

Edited January 28, 2019 by The Dunatian

[IncongruousGoat]

There will never be multiplayer. Squad haven't out and said so because of concerns over PR problems. Stop hoping that it'll happen/asking for it to be implemented/proposing solutions. If you really want it so bad, there are mods that will solve your problem, and please, for the love of all things good in the world, stop posting threads about it here.

Thank you.

EDIT: I see you're new to the forums. Welcome! Normally we're not nearly so prickly, but the multiplayer discussion has been done to death and a lot of us are sick of it.

Edited January 29, 2019 by IncongruousGoat

[Red Iron Crown]

Multiplayer with timewarp means you must choose at least one of the following:

1. Sync issues

2. Waiting

OP's suggestion chooses sync issues. 

[Enceos]

@Red Iron Crown I still think my model is ideal, no sync issues, no waiting :3

 

 

Links are to my discussions, not single posts.

Basically it's a model similar to the one proposed in the OP, but with some depth.

 

Edited January 30, 2019 by Enceos

[Sol469]

Although there are so many replies saying that ksp is supossed to be a singleplayer only game, I just wanted to try to give an idea about how to fix the time warping issue and what WOULD happen if squad added it. I honestly would like a multiplayer and many other people would, But i still doubt that it will be added, thats why I said at the end "but I dont know if this will be another idea that will be forgotten" but in my personal opinion I would love to see a multiplayer ksp, I Just want to share an idea.

[Red Iron Crown]

@Enceos That particular solution is sync issues rather than waiting. Consider the examples here:

 

[Duck McFuddle]

Seems like a good idea... As Ozymandias said, the positions of planets would be a problem though. 

 

However, people mostly don't want a multiplayer. Yes, this would work as a solution, but nobody really wants a huge delay in updates because squad has to code this in. If we wanted it, this would work, but the problem is... We don't want it.

[Fraston]

NO. MORE. MULTIPLAYER. I HAVE MADE MYSELF CLEAR IN A COUPLE OF THREADS ALREADY!

sorry bout that.

KSP is a purely single player game. For me anyway. It has gone 8 years without multiplayer, by then it should have gotten multiplayer if squad was ever going to do it.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Fraston

[Ozymandias_the_Goat]

On 1/28/2019 at 10:16 AM, Sol469 said:

syncronize and duna and the other planets will instantly move and rotate to match player 2's subspace.

I would still find this to be very annoying. I suppose is only proves @razark‘s point that all the “solutions” for making ksp multiplayer are highly subject to personal preference, and what works for one player would terribly irritate another.

[mattinoz]

9 hours ago, Fraston said:

NO. MORE. MULTIPLAYER. I HAVE MADE MYSELF CLEAR IN A COUPLE OF THREADS ALREADY!

sorry bout that.

KSP is a purely single player game. For me anyway. It has gone 8 years without multiplayer, by then it should have gotten multiplayer if squad was ever going to do it.

Warcraft went a couple of decades without being multiplayer, not sure why time is a relevant factor?

[Kerbart]

I’m not someone who wants multiplayer. In fact, the only reason I read these threads is the trainwreck-like fascination they bring up.

Just like some others I think that there is little that MP has to offer. But, creativity has no boundaries and surely people will find ways to make MP just that much more rewarding. I know I sound like a broken record, but “sim proto” MS Flightsimulator, with its lively mod culture, is a good example of a sim where multiplayer adds a lot of fun, and not always in ways Microsoft envisioned it. Live ATC, relay races around the world...

Making History introduces scenarios. I doubt MP wouldbe played out a lot over multi-year missions (but who am I to say so?), but more around doing things together; that’s where the fun would be, I think.

So why not make MP more scenario based? That still allows you to do Duna landings, Eeloo rendez-vous’, etc. Without a timewarp requirement, thus without the timewarp issues. Want to do a Duna mission together? Have a set of multiple scenarios, from building and launching a craft, to making it reach a transfer sol orbit, to the injection burn—just hop from scenario to scenario, instead of timeshifting. Solve the problem, not by inherently flawed bypasses, but simply by eliminating it completely.

[StrandedonEarth]

Squad did try to start working multiplayer into the game in 2014. The fact it was mentioned as early as January 2014 (and probably earlier) and they were still trying to "wrap their head around it" in November shows just how difficult and time-consuming the effort was, so it's no wonder it was (apparently) quietly dropped. Squad's last mention of working MP into KSP was Aug 2015, and that was merely in reference to a bigger framework. Here's a search for everything Squad has had to say about Multiplayer in KSP:

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/search/&q=multiplayer&author=SQUAD&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

Since these old posts didn't get through the forum updates cleanly, I'll quote the relevant parts...

On 1/21/2014 at 7:50 PM, SQUAD said:

Planning and doing some tests about how the multiplayer server would be developed.

On 2/4/2014 at 2:40 PM, SQUAD said:

Multiplayer’s First Steps</u></strong><br/> This isn’t so much a feature at this point, but it’s worth mentioning in any case. We’re starting work on the core components of multiplayer now, so by the time we’re about done with Career Mode, we’ll already have a solid platform to start building multiplayer features on top of it. Right now, the primary goal is to write the server backend that will run things. There won’t be much to show of this for a while, but we’ll keep everyone posted about the progress being made

On 11/4/2014 at 5:30 PM, SQUAD said:

This week was a busy one, I’ve been helping Chuchito wrap his head around the whole project in order to start implementing his multiplayer client into the game (chill out people, this still doesn’t mean multiplayer is coming out soon-ish).

On 8/4/2015 at 2:02 PM, SQUAD said:

Felipe (HarvesteR)

These past two weeks I haven’t quite been working on any specific features, but rather in a general framework to support large additions to the game later on. More specifically, this will be the underlying framework for the next big things, like Multiplayer. The idea with this framework is to leave the base game, as much as possible, unchanged, and by not changing it so much, we get to cut down on unity compile times, as well as making the new content much more portable and easy to work with.

So, to sum up:  (I have made a couple of memes about this too...  https://i.imgur.com/eDa95O3.png and https://i.imgur.com/6VPdSq2.png)

[Jatwaa]

As someone that has played on Dark Multiplayer, Syncrio, and Luna Multiplayer and hosted a server with each, I can say that it is indeed possible, albeit with a bit of re-coding to permit the hooks properly. Take some time and talk with the Devs for it, they have great ideas on how to make it possible. Synchronization between games has even been tackled. LMP uses subspace and it works great. Interpolation in LMP as well predicts the location of a craft offering smooth craft positioning. 

When many people hear "Multiplayer" they may be thinking "Forced Online" or "Online Only" or "MMO". No, not at all. I wouldn't mind the option to have Dedicated Servers and clients that have the Option to connect to them. 

DMP and LMP have been able to pull off some amazing feats in getting users able to sync with relative accuracy, but of course there are issues. It's a mod and the game isn't built to make such happen with ease. Refer to my "talk with the Dev of DMP\LMP" statement. They have the answers, most here just see the problems. Many of them are already tackled or they have ideas on how they can be tackled. 

After over 6k hours in the game, yeah, I feel like I have done most things, several times, but the ability to game w/others brings infinite variables into the game. You never know what others would do, my airplane was cut in half once when we where trying to fly in formation. Another time I flew a helicopter around a rocket as it lifted off. Once, we flew 8 crafts in the KSC airspace and nearby mountains. Have you ever landed on Minmus and watched another player land next to you? It's a feeling like you are not so isolated. 

Some play for single player, cool, I do at times as well. I get that. But, you cannot assume that others as a majority would never use it if it was available. The game has created a community that comes together to play a game separately and shares the experience. Why not offer the opportunity to play a game as a community with the Option to play AS a community?

Space Stations bring together people of various nationalities and backgrounds and allows them to unify together. Multiplayer as an option allows for the same in game. We come together from all over the globe and play in LMP or DMP and laugh in amazement as we see another craft piloted by another player half a world away. If you wanted to play single player and not partake, fine, do so, but unless there is an accurate count of who would be for and who would not be for such a feature, we should not assume that everyone, a majority or minority is for or against such a feature. 

The fact that it has been requested so many times should be a sign enough that it is a feature worth another look. If not soon, then down the line when the game and Squad is ready to do so. 

[Tyko]

You'll get my support for Multiplayer...after Squad fixes/adds:

• Optimizes the game and eliminates memory leaks
• A true science system with actual experiments rather than "click and you're done"
• A better career mode
• More reasons to visit planets
• Life Support
• Something else I'm forgetting at the moment.

I'm not opposed to MP, it's just not a priority for me and there are many things more core to KSP IMHO than adding it.

Edited February 2, 2019 by Tyko