KSP 2 Multiplayer Discussion Thread

[ImANoob]

2 hours ago, BigStar Aerospace said:

Should we address the problem of the fact that people are just going to be able to launch ICBMs at our bases and so therefore if our VAB gets hit we can't strike back unless we have enough funds to repair. Are we going to need a governmental system established by players or a bot government or can we declare independence from the government in the game and then have relations or something, honestly this kinda freaked me out when I thought of the complications of political space entities?!?!?

 

Fortiter Ad Astra

Maybe there should be togglable space center destruction by other people in the creation of a server, giving the option for war, and the option for peace. Also politics? In a society of space plants with a single goal of space exploration? why would they ever complicate themselves so much (even though we humans did)

[Wubslin]

2 hours ago, BigStar Aerospace said:

Should we address the problem of the fact that people are just going to be able to launch ICBMs at our bases and so therefore if our VAB gets hit we can't strike back unless we have enough funds to repair. Are we going to need a governmental system established by players or a bot government or can we declare independence from the government in the game and then have relations or something, honestly this kinda freaked me out when I thought of the complications of political space entities?!?!?

 

Fortiter Ad Astra

There's two ways this can play out. The first way is that KSP 2 multiplayer is a "with your friends" basis, in which case the barrier to being griefed is your friends not being jerks. The second way is that KSP 2 multiplayer is large servers with lots of people, in which case they may need to add some of the militaristic elements I was mentioning earlier in the thread. After all, you need to be able to defend yourself somehow against randos. Or maybe there would be admins with the ability to roll back your stuff, or anti-griefing rules, or a passive mode that you can enable. I wouldn't worry about it, it's kind of a solved problem in multiplayer video games. I do hope the multiplayer ends up like the second of the two options, though. More people can always allow for more interesting gameplay.

[BigStar Aerospace]

3 minutes ago, Wubslin said:

There's two ways this can play out. The first way is that KSP 2 multiplayer is a "with your friends" basis, in which case the barrier to being griefed is your friends not being jerks. The second way is that KSP 2 multiplayer is large servers with lots of people, in which case they may need to add some of the militaristic elements I was mentioning earlier in the thread. After all, you need to be able to defend yourself somehow against randos. Or maybe there would be admins with the ability to roll back your stuff, or anti-griefing rules, or a passive mode that you can enable. I wouldn't worry about it, it's kind of a solved problem in multiplayer video games. I do hope the multiplayer ends up like the second of the two options, though. More people can always allow for more interesting gameplay.

I agree that the second option would be much more interesting say we could have somewhat of 200 people on a single sever, maybe the challenge of having to form a governing body or factions would be a good aspect in which to increase trade (If Available), if you look at it on the other hand you could get bored because you know you don't have to worry about your next scheduled mission being delayed because a rando decides that you are a good target to take out their anger on. Anarchy is impossible with humans because we strive to be in groups, so we should at least plan for needing a governing body.

[InfernoSD]

Excuse me for not reading this whole topic and prior discussions, but the idea of a big server with many individual players running their own space programs simultaneously seems ludicrous to me. How do you solve the problem of time warp?

Maybe you can come up with some kind of warp-by-consensus system. Time warp only occurs once everyone agrees to it. This would be dreadful for obvious reasons.

Perhaps a five day time warp takes place on the hour every hour. Thus you have around 55 minutes to perform launches and manuevers before getting back into a stable orbit or landed position. This would be a real bummer if you got caught by the time warp while you're in the middle of flying a plane or something, but any such problem could be planned around. Presumably any manuevers you had arranged for orbital burns during the five day warp would be executed automatically by whatever automation the game will include. Even with all this, you would have to waste enormous amounts of time waiting, especially if you make a trip to some of the more distant planets.

Maybe you create a separate instance of the universe for each player. Everyone controls time warp for themselves, therefore everyone sees the planets in a different alignment. This allows you to have full control over things like quicksaves and the revert button. In spite of this, other player's creations still appear if they're in a stable orbit or landed on a planet. Anything currently moving or travelling to another SOI turns into a ghost vessel that cannot be interacted with. 

It's all nonsense however you do it. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm excited for multiplayer in whatever form it takes. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Wubslin said:

in which case they may need to add some of the militaristic elements I was mentioning earlier in the thread.

Luckily the Devs confirmed multiple times that war will not be a part of the game and on Steam the game is tagged as "coop".

Not every game needs to be about shooting at each other.

 

46 minutes ago, InfernoSD said:

How do you solve the problem of time warp?

It doesn't need to be a problem, without complicated systems:

Everybody plays in his own timeline, to interact with another player's structure you have to sync up with him, otherwise you only see his craft in the map view.

You can obviously get more complicated than that, making rules and exceptions to allow people to work on the same station from different timelines but you don't really need to.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Master39

[Wubslin]

5 hours ago, Master39 said:

It doesn't need to be a problem, without complicated systems:

Everybody plays in his own timeline, to interact with another player's structure you have to sync up with him, otherwise you only see his craft in the map view.

You can obviously get more complicated than that, making rules and exceptions to allow people to work on the same station from different timelines but you don't really need to.

So let's say you're trying to assemble a big space station in LKO, and while you're doing it I decide I want to use some kind of constant acceleration drive to go to a distant star and back. You take two hours to put together your space station (warping to year 1, day 23 in the process) and I take two hours to swing around the star and come all the way back, but by the time I get back into LKO from the trip it's year 520, day 402 for me. If I want to go to your station, are you saying you need to click a button and then loiter in LKO doing nothing for almost 521 years?

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Wubslin said:

If I want to go to your station, are you saying you need to click a button and then loiter in LKO doing nothing for almost 521 years?

If one player is 521 years ahead of the others they're not really playing in multiplayer in the first place.

[Wubslin]

10 minutes ago, Master39 said:

If one player is 521 years ahead of the others they're not really playing in multiplayer in the first place.

You do know there's going to be interstellar flight in this game, right?

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Wubslin said:

You do know there's going to be interstellar flight in this game, right?

Yes, that doesn't change that there's no point whatsoever in multiplayer if one player is half a millennium ahead of the others.

Whatever solution you may want to implement if a player warps 500 hundred years into the future and the other doesn't want to they are basically playing single player.

[Wubslin]

2 minutes ago, Master39 said:

Yes, that doesn't change that there's no point whatsoever in multiplayer if one player is half a millennium ahead of the others.

Whatever solution you may want to implement if a player warps 500 hundred years into the future and the other doesn't want to they are basically playing single player.

You said yourself that playing multiplayer meant needing the ability to synchronize with other players.  All I'm doing is bringing up an extreme example of this happening. Why would this situation be "basically singleplayer"? I'm just saying that when you hit the synchronize button you may be warping forward potentially hundreds of years without doing anything.

[NutellaSandwich]

I wonder, instead of having missiles to explode and destroy other players, what if we setup trading resources, with a Co-op competitive ( which seems really weird but i'll explain) Basically, each player wants to be first ( some huge reward or something like that) to do something. Now each player also will need the others to help them survive ( It will get expensive to try and get everywhere first, do everything first, without some buddies) People could trade resources,  make a kerbal ISS to help everyone accomplish stuff, and alliances and trade deals. Here's how one conversation could go :

Player 1 : Hey, I need some steel, player 2. I'll give you some plastic

Player 2 : What the heck man, you literally just stole that plastic from player 3, I'll never give you that steel! 

Player 1 : Then I'll go to player 4!

Player 2 : Fine, fine, here's the steel, now give the plastic.

Player 1: Nah, I'll just keep this steel

Player 3: He scammed you too? Let's make a alliance and stop supplying him steel and plastic!

Player 4: I'll stop supplying you guys this rarutim stuff then.

Player 2 and 3 : Fine.

 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Wubslin said:

Why would this situation be "basically singleplayer"?

Because those two player wouldn't be interacting that much if one of them is doing a ISS replica and the other planning a multi-century trip to another star.

 

[Wubslin]

1 hour ago, NutellaSandwich said:

I wonder, instead of having missiles to explode and destroy other players, what if we setup trading resources, with a Co-op competitive ( which seems really weird but i'll explain) Basically, each player wants to be first ( some huge reward or something like that) to do something. Now each player also will need the others to help them survive ( It will get expensive to try and get everywhere first, do everything first, without some buddies) People could trade resources,  make a kerbal ISS to help everyone accomplish stuff, and alliances and trade deals. Here's how one conversation could go :

Player 1 : Hey, I need some steel, player 2. I'll give you some plastic

Player 2 : What the heck man, you literally just stole that plastic from player 3, I'll never give you that steel! 

Player 1 : Then I'll go to player 4!

Player 2 : Fine, fine, here's the steel, now give the plastic.

Player 1: Nah, I'll just keep this steel

Player 3: He scammed you too? Let's make a alliance and stop supplying him steel and plastic!

Player 4: I'll stop supplying you guys this rarutim stuff then.

Player 2 and 3 : Fine.

 

I'm not trying to say the game should become some sort of war game. I'm trying to say that in the scenario you described, there being  zero ability to get physical in the midst of dispute and conflict over resources is an artificial restriction of an entire dimension of who we are. It will fundamentally flatten what can be done when interacting with lots of players. As far as what we know about KSP 2, chances are the multiplayer won't even support enough players in one game for factions and trading disputes to even develop. In which case any weapons or guidance systems modders may develop will be as much toys as the thruster tool in Garry's mod is. So there's either limited multiplayer, where weapons are a silly mechanic to reach for when trying to have fun and screw around with your friends, or there's expansive multiplayer, in which case you'll have to literally put serverwide bans on high speed ship collision if you don't want violence to arise. People are violent animals. Whether you want them to or not, they'll find a way to kill you with a sepratron unless you specifically bar it from gameplay. Might as well make doing it fun, right?

Edited February 2, 2021 by Wubslin

[Guest]

I would be really surprised if there are any kind of persistent servers with large numbers of players. There are just too many headaches with that, not least that they would quickly disperse themselves all over the timeline, never even mind griefing or other fun stuff. 

On the other hand co-op multiplayer with a few friends getting together to do a mission together could be a lot of fun and work very well. I’d like to play that, say, with my nephew – he’ll be big enough to appreciate it by the time KSP2 comes out.

[Mr.Evil]

Maybe you are only able to interact (and damage) with other vehicles, if the owner invites you to a group. Otherwise they are untouchable.

I'm sure, the developers have a good solution. 

[Wubslin]

9 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

I would be really surprised if there are any kind of persistent servers with large numbers of players. There are just too many headaches with that, not least that they would quickly disperse themselves all over the timeline, never even mind griefing or other fun stuff. 

On the other hand co-op multiplayer with a few friends getting together to do a mission together could be a lot of fun and work very well. I’d like to play that, say, with my nephew – he’ll be big enough to appreciate it by the time KSP2 comes out.

As much as I know this is totally how the game is going to turn out, I kind of hate it as well. Being a big spaceflight nut is a rare enough interest that I really don't share it with any of my real life close friends. A few of my friends have said they'll buy KSP 2 when it comes out to play with me because they know how much I get out of KSP 1, but the truth is that I know they're not going to stick with it like I have to KSP 1 and so I'll have to reach out to find people to play with. And at that point, it's the more the merrier. I would totally love to join a vibrant server with like 35 people tooling around three solar systems. And having some sort of communication system with like one voice chat channel per system or something would be perfect for that. It would be great to meet people that way. But with KSP 2 as it's looking like it'll turn out, I guess I'll just have to join a discord server or something. But how cool would it be to be able to meet other people through the game? I've got a couple of really close friends that my other friend initially met through the Rainbow Six: Siege matchmaking system (god rest that game's soul).

Edited February 2, 2021 by Wubslin

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Wubslin said:

But how cool would it be to be able to meet other people through the game?

Couldn't we have a forum or a Discord server or something for just that kind of thing? No reason small-scale co-op has to be with people you already know. Hey, that kind of "lobby" could even be integrated straight into the game!

[Wubslin]

1 minute ago, Brikoleur said:

Couldn't we have a forum or a Discord server or something for just that kind of thing? No reason small-scale co-op has to be with people you already know. Hey, that kind of "lobby" could even be integrated straight into the game!

Don't you think it would be more fun if the platform you were meeting people through was the game itself, and you didn't have to like break off into weird groups of two or three people to play the game? I'd love a community like a KSP discord all playing in the same game together.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Wubslin said:

Don't you think it would be more fun if the platform you were meeting people through was the game itself, and you didn't have to like break off into weird groups of two or three people to play the game? I'd love a community like a KSP discord all playing in the same game together.

In theory, sure. In practice, not so much, mostly because there's always going to be somebody there out to spoil other people's fun.

And with regards specifically to KSP, I can't see how it could possibly work, given the timescale of thousands of years, and size of the playground involving many, many planets spread across a really large area.

[Wubslin]

Just now, Brikoleur said:

In theory, sure. In practice, not so much, mostly because there's always going to be somebody there out to spoil other people's fun.

That's a rather salty outlook. Some of the best fun I've had has been me and my friends avoiding lunatics in games like Minecraft and GTA Online. Those games are rockin' and they are FULL of mean spirit. (Well, GTA:O used to be fun...)

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Wubslin said:

That's a rather salty outlook. Some of the best fun I've had has been me and my friends avoiding lunatics in games like Minecraft and GTA Online. Those games are rockin' and they are FULL of mean spirit. (Well, GTA:O used to be fun...)

Good thing there are so many games built for that thing around then, no?

[NutellaSandwich]

1 hour ago, Wubslin said:

I'm not trying to say the game should become some sort of war game

I didn't actually see your comment/post. I had seen someone  else bring up the idea and I thought of something different

 

[Bej Kerman]

On 1/19/2021 at 3:03 PM, Wubslin said:

and provided the physics engine is overhauled to allow multi-km/s collisions there could be...

Where's it say that?

[Wubslin]

27 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Where's it say that?

Nowhere. That's why I said "provided they do it".

[ImANoob]

has anyone considered that with the method of timewarp discussed earlier on this page, the game will need to register thousands of years of passage of time to simulate it to other players, and that if your space station from 100 years ago is harmed by someone back then, that you won't be able to do anything abut it? So i thought, how about players can literally just make their craft move really quickly when timewarping. I know this system has its flaws and could potentially ruin a mun race where both craft are in space if you just timewarp to the mun, but with refinements made, i think this timewarp solution could work.

Edited February 5, 2021 by ImANoob