KSP 2 Multiplayer Discussion Thread

[Bej Kerman]

On 10/20/2022 at 4:08 PM, Superluminal Gremlin said:

but is slow and quite clunky

Multiply slow and clunky by a million, and that is what it's like trying to arrange timewarp when X wants to go forward a few minutes and Y wants to go forward several years. It's not happening.

[Superluminal Gremlin]

Yeah its not

[Denba]

this is my first time posting but has cross play been discussed?? they could make it pc has to shut down mods and it would be fine right? give me your opinion please

[K^2]

On 10/23/2022 at 5:21 PM, Denba said:

this is my first time posting but has cross play been discussed?? they could make it pc has to shut down mods and it would be fine right? give me your opinion please

This is almost always a more complicated topic than just a matter of mods. Roughly speaking, it's usually a combination of the following.

• Licensing issues. Microsoft and Sony have in the past been placing very strict limits on the crossplay. It looks like that has warmed up a bit, but last time I've seen Sony's contract on this (a couple of years ago) it was entirely prohibitive for most game studios. It is generally worse if your game has microtransactions, but even with a single upfront purchase there can be complications.
• Version incompatibilities. It's pretty common for multiplatform games to not publish patches or updates to all platforms at the same time. We're already seeing that with KSP2 as the early access is PC-only. It can be very hard or simply impossible to get crossplay to work when different platforms are running different versions of the game.
• Market mismatch. This is unlikely to ever be a problem for KSP2, but in games with player economies, the market conditions tend to be very different across platforms requiring different approaches to balancing. You can, of course, balance the overall market, but it's a much harder problem.
• Game balance. Again, unlikely to matter for KSP2, but for competitive games, having players with mouse vs these with gamepad, for example, could give one group an unfair advantage over the other.
• Friend list. A lot of games rely on the platform's service to connect you to your friends to play with. Building a service that lets you find and invite players from other platforms is additional infrastructure that has to be developed for the game.

None of these are insurmountable, except, possibly, for the licensing bit, but they do require work to address. For KSP2, the biggest chunk of it is going to be making sure that all players are running exactly the same version of the game, including any mods and patches. It's obviously solvable, but when multiplayer is already running behind, it's likely not to be a priority. If it's something Intercept considered from the start and already has working, that would be fantastic. But if it's not, I don't expect they'll be putting time into it any time soon.

[Luriss]

All this discussion of time warp in multiplayer has got me thinking; depending on implementation, would time warp be optional for servers? There might be circumstances where its useful.

 

Also as an extension of that, would anyone be crazy enough to use a server to play a career game in real time?

[Vl3d]

1 hour ago, Luriss said:

Also as an extension of that, would anyone be crazy enough to use a server to play a career game in real time?

Why do that if you need real-time restrictions only in multiplayer?

[Luriss]

2 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Why do that if you need real-time restrictions only in multiplayer?

So you can have a server tick away for months on end without needing to have your PC running KSP 24/7.

[SkyFall2489]

Been kinda out of the loop recently. I head that KSP2 early access drops late febuary, but what have you all been discussing here?

[t_v]

7 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

Been kinda out of the loop recently. I head that KSP2 early access drops late febuary, but what have you all been discussing here?

Not much, a few ideas around the different time warp ideas, collaborative control of craft and editor, and then since the announcement, some speculation on how far/how much multiplayer is implemented, and a question on cross play. 

[Vl3d]

17 hours ago, Luriss said:

So you can have a server tick away for months on end without needing to have your PC running KSP 24/7.

That's a how, not a why.

[Luriss]

41 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

That's a how, not a why.

Ah, sorry I misunderstood. I must admit I don't really understand your question; are you asking why have real time restrictions only in multiplayer?

[Vl3d]

19 hours ago, Vl3d said:

20 hours ago, Luriss said:

Also as an extension of that, would anyone be crazy enough to use a server to play a career game in real time?

Why do that if you need real-time restrictions only in multiplayer?

 

31 minutes ago, Luriss said:

I must admit I don't really understand your question;

Why would someone use a server to play a career game in real time of the server supports time-warp for non-multiplayer gameplay? Real time on a server would be used to keep multiple players in sync.

Short answer: the server would not care if you leave a vessel on-rails. It would track it like everything else that's on-rails.

On-rails calculations are deterministic, using formulas and inputs. There's no need for the server to do anything in real-time.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Vl3d

[Luriss]

5 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Why would someone use a server to play a career game in real time of the server supports time-warp for non-multiplayer gameplay? Real time on a server would be used to keep multiple players in sync.

Short answer: the server would not care if you leave a vessel on-rails. It would track it like everything else that's on-rails.

On-rails calculations are deterministic, using formulas and inputs. There's no need for the server to do anything in real-time.

I'm still not sure I follow.

You're not using a server to do calculations, you're using a server so you can run the game 24/7. If you try and play a real time career game in single player you'll have to leave your computer on all the time, and the moment you turn it off or the power cuts the game stops.

[Vl3d]

Positional calculations should not be done client-side because of cheating concerns.

2 minutes ago, Luriss said:

You're not using a server to do calculations, you're using a server so you can run the game 24/7.

 

[Luriss]

15 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Positional calculations should not be done client-side because of cheating concerns.

 

I don't think we're on the same page. All I'm saying is that using a multiplayer server, it's possible to do a career game in real time.

[Vl3d]

29 minutes ago, Luriss said:

All I'm saying is that using a multiplayer server, it's possible to do a career game in real time.

Yes, ideally in multiplayer you should be able to do almost anything you can in single player. Maybe just with some restrictions to time warp in multiplayer zones which would allow players to be synced in real-time.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Vl3d

[leopardenthusiast]

30 minutes ago, Luriss said:

I don't think we're on the same page. All I'm saying is that using a multiplayer server, it's possible to do a career game in real time.

You could do that by just having the game save the current real-world time when it saves the game and advance in-game time accordingly when the save file is loaded.  No constantly-running server required.

Edited October 26, 2022 by leopardenthusiast

[Gargamel]

On 10/25/2022 at 7:59 AM, Luriss said:

Also as an extension of that, would anyone be crazy enough to use a server to play a career game in real time?

It’s be done, way back alpha days, there threads about one to one real time missions.   I do recall some mun and minmus missions like this where the player scheduled their lives around the game if needed.  

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

I do recall some mun and minmus missions like this where the player scheduled their lives around the game if needed.  

Now do one to Eeloo.

[Gargamel]

Just now, regex said:

Now do one to Eeloo.

Even a Duna mission has a very low chance of success.  

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Even a Duna mission has a very low chance of success.  

Oh, I don't know, if we don't have to worry about any memory leaks I think it'll be fine. Might cut into my Elden Ring time though...

[Monger]

I think, as a first step, I could live with Multiplayer that is limited to the same scene (as in KSP1 the 100km bubble). This would allow to work together on the same craft, base etc. for complex docking maneuvers, construction etc.. 

It has also the advantage that time warp is straightforward, and that you actually have humans to interact with.

It obviously has the disadvantage that you can't build on different planets at the same time, to launch from there to rendez-vous missions etc. 

But it is so much easier to implement, that I expect to see that first. 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Monger

[pss88]

16 hours ago, Monger said:

This would allow to work together on the same craft, base etc. for complex docking maneuvers, construction etc.

Building something simultaneously/together in the same VAB would be nice too.

Edited October 29, 2022 by pss88

[Bej Kerman]

18 hours ago, Monger said:

I think, as a first step, I could live with Multiplayer that is limited to the same scene (as in KSP1 the 100km bubble). This would allow to work together on the same craft, base etc. for complex docking maneuvers, construction etc.. 

 

What if Player A wants to help start a Mun colony while Player B stays on Kerbin and sorts out KSC business?

[Monger]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

What if Player A wants to help start a Mun colony while Player B stays on Kerbin and sorts out KSC business?

As much as I would love to see that, I see a real risk that this won't happen. At all. So I'd rather like to play a limited multiplayer experience soon than an unlimited one maybe never.

Merging asynchronous bubbles in different time frames is unprecedent. No game has ever tried that. I don't want to wait until they may or may not figure this out.

Edit: so to answer your question: I'd assume that you can leave a Kerbal to AI control, and that you will lose control once you try to leave the bubble. If you want to control it again, host needs to recenter the bubble. 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Monger