KSP 2 Multiplayer Discussion Thread

[t_v]

23 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

This idea does look promising. A "ghost ship" that time warps when you do might work, but to avoid the jump, how about there is a way to coordinate time warp between the active vessel and the target?

Actually, since the only time this rule applies is when there is a stable orbit, the ship could time warp to the new position, avoiding the jump. It wouldn't really matter because a stable orbit won't be affected by time warping. One thing to consider is that if life support is a thing, warping like this shouldn't consume resources for the other ship since the other player wouldn't like seeing all their kerbals gone after someone did a really slow rendezvous. 

Edit: basically just warp the ship instead of the ghost ship, as long as the other player isn't controlling it, it shouldn't matter because it is just an ellipse and nothing bad will happen

23 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

This still doesn't deal with positions of celestial bodies too well, though. And what about contracts and their expiration dates?

For contracts, I'm sure it can be judged based on the person who has the contract and the other person's contract won't expire. Celestial bodies isn't dealt with by this case, but I was essentially thinking that for most of the game, players will be using Hohmann transfers and a ship attempting to rendezvous with another ship on a Hohmann Transfer would have to wait until that transfer window due to delta-V costs, and that would un-mess-up the positioning of the other ship. Then, because the player is at the transfer window, it is as if they had launched their craft at roughly the same time and one player can time warp their ship up to the transferring ship without breaking the game. Essentially, the other craft doesn't have to warp because it is as if the two ships had launched at the same time. And if someone wants to rendezvous with a craft outside of the transfer window, at that point they have a torch drive and it wouldn't matter if the other ship time warped or not because it would be caught up to anyways. So for non-stable orbits (which involve multiple SOIs) the other craft doesn't have to warp to keep the balance of the game. There should be a button that says "Warp to the transfer window that the other player is using" though. 

Edited March 5, 2022 by t_v

[SkyFall2489]

Life Support is another topic. You may not know how much time will pass for your ships in game while you are away, and they may run out of food. If you were to stop time for a player's ships while that player was not online, then no one could dock to them. CryoFreeze could allow kerbals to stay in space indefinitely, but it means any ship in a multiplayer server will need to have the mission flow in one sitting or carry a bunch of heavy cryo modules.

 

I still think subspace warp is the best option, and other people have thought out all the kinks already. Why reinvent the wheel?

 

I guess this idea may still be better for MMOs, but KSP2 will not be an MMO.

Edited March 5, 2022 by SkyFall2489

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, SkyFall2489 said:

Life Support is another topic. You may not know how much time will pass for your ships in game while you are away, and they may run out of food. If you were to stop time for a player's ships while that player was not online, then no one could dock to them. CryoFreeze could allow kerbals to stay in space indefinitely, but it means any ship in a multiplayer server will need to have the mission flow in one sitting or carry a bunch of heavy cryo modules.

 

I still think subspace warp is the best option, and other people have thought out all the kinks already. Why reinvent the wheel?

 

I guess this idea may still be better for MMOs, but KSP2 will not be an MMO.

The latest info from the devs is that on-the-rail resource transfers (ISRU, LS presumably, burns) have been moved to the simulation so will be handled even when on rails.   Dev post below:

 

[SkyFall2489]

No, we're talking about time warp. If a player needs to continually resupply their station, and then they go offline, 100000 years pass while they are offline, and they return to find a station full of starved dead kerbals, that's going to be bad. Hopefully, there will be a method of simulating repetitive missions without the grind, like in the MKS WOOLF mod.

[darthgently]

3 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

No, we're talking about time warp. If a player needs to continually resupply their station, and then they go offline, 100000 years pass while they are offline, and they return to find a station full of starved dead kerbals, that's going to be bad. Hopefully, there will be a method of simulating repetitive missions without the grind, like in the MKS WOOLF mod.

Ok, I am assuming that warping and non-warping would be the same for "background resources" given the dev post.  But yeah, I'm reaching

[t_v]

22 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

Life Support is another topic. You may not know how much time will pass for your ships in game while you are away, and they may run out of food. If you were to stop time for a player's ships while that player was not online, then no one could dock to them. CryoFreeze could allow kerbals to stay in space indefinitely, but it means any ship in a multiplayer server will need to have the mission flow in one sitting or carry a bunch of heavy cryo modules.

I think that if a player’s ship is being forced to time warp for some reason (rendezvous or something else) the ship’s position should change but not its internal systems. If you warp, your own ships will warp alongside their life support, but not if other players force your ships to warp. The default consumption for life support could be the consumption at 1x speed, so if you are offline for a day all your ships have moved by a day and have used up one day of resources. 

[SkyFall2489]

That would be a great idea, and that would work with subspace controlled warp as well, which I still feel is the better option. Again, why reinvent the wheel?

[Vl3d]

I think there could be a journey planner where we simulate maneuvers before starting the journey - then you don't need to stress about arbitrary time warp. You just have to sync journey plans for each player so they meet if they want to. And this way everything would be real-time and players would not control large-scale time warp.

Player A want leave from Kerbin at TA1 to arrive at Eeloo orbit - makes the journey plan with all necessary maneuvers, checks craft fail conditions before jumping from one SOI to another. Then you have predefined TA1 (departure) and TA2 (arrival), player A is not allowed to arbitrarily use time warp. Then let's say player B leaves Jool orbit  at TB1 makes plans to arrive at Eeloo orbit at TB2. Every players does his own thing. If player A and B want to interact with each other, then they just sync time TA2 = TB2 (the one that arrives first just waits in orbit for the other player by agreeing to the interaction).

So basically my idea is just have a journey planner, make all maneuvers and fail checks virtual before doing the journey, then press start trip and arrive at your destination according to plan. This journey planner can be something like virtual map mode - but because the journey would be virtual and SOI to SOI, you would also be able to revert if you made a mistake. Even in multiplayer. The game state is synced between players only when they approve this.

Is this how the mods do it in KSP 1?

Edited March 6, 2022 by Vl3d

[t_v]

9 hours ago, SkyFall2489 said:

That would be a great idea, and that would work with subspace controlled warp as well, which I still feel is the better option. Again, why reinvent the wheel?

When someone brought up this style of time warp for the first time, I mentioned that it was interesting but subspace was better tested and confirmed to still deliver a good experience. I’m trying to work out the problems with this new system to see if it could also work. 

19 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

you would also be able to revert if you made a mistake. Even in multiplayer. The game state is synced between players only when they approve this.

Is this how the mods do it in KSP 1?

In KSP 1, mods implement time warp in a way such that players can be at different times in the universe. If player leaves at TA1 and arrives at TA2, but player B hasn’t made a journey during that time, player A is in the future compared to player B. Once player B makes their trip (not necessarily pre-planned, reverting just takes them back to TB1) they I’ll have to warp forwards to synchronize their subspace bubble with player A to interact with them in real time. 

[Vl3d]

And the players de-sync real-time interactions by time warping again? But what if there are N players? How do they all sync to the same common time?

[t_v]

There's a box where you can see how far ahead/behind each player is and you can click a button to timewarp to a certain time. Physical timewarp doesn't de-sync I think, so whenever people aren't transferring between things, they will usually just warp to the furthest ahead person while managing resources or just messing around. 

[Bej Kerman]

On 8/20/2019 at 1:18 AM, Loskene said:

server control or vote system

Not at all. There are too many orders of magnitude with timewarp. One player wants to get to Jool and another wants to land on the Mun.

It doesn't matter anyway, subspace bubble timewarp is tried and true, lets you timewarp as much as you need without affecting someone else.

[SkyFall2489]

In a very small game with a few players, maybe just your friends, admin-controlled warp may work, but in larger games, subspace control is the better option.

[Vl3d]

Interesting fact: reading through the KSP 1 version history I realize that multiplayer was intended from the start.. evidenced by the fact that when flags were introduced in v.0.20, besides the fact that everyone could have custom flags that would remain planted or on ships left behind, the plaque text could only be read when approached on EVA.

I really hope this is implemented in KSP2. I want to find the ship remains, flags, plaques, wrecks (and even small skeletons) of previous explorers.

Imagine finding a derelict ship from a player what ran out of fuel ages ago, going on EVA to explore, entering the ghost ship on IVA and finding the small mummified corpse with a note on the wall: "tell mum I love her..."

Later edit: also want to be able to read ship logs for more background story and be able to scavenge or steal useful ship or colony parts. This could also be a great motivation to transition to defence and warfare in a DLC.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that KSP 2 has the potential to be one of the greatest multiplayer games ever made.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Vl3d

[sunnypunny]

Re timewarp they can just provide subspace / master controlled warp options like DMP, let players do what they like.

Overall I'd like to see a blend of DMP and LMP approaches, or maybe they could just have settings so we can configure it as desired. I didn't like the way that LMP throws everyone in together in the same program, as anyone can control any ship and potentially wreck a mission. You at least need vessel permissions for this, like DMP. Overall I prefer the DMP design, but I didn't like the way it has separate KSC states in the same universe, as this makes no sense. Facility states needs to be shared.

Best approach IMO is have each player with their own "agency" (like C7, Kerbodyne, etc) and resources, and everyone shares access to the KSC. But you might want to share an agency with your friend, so this should be possible too. And the KSC R&D could be an agency as well (as in the prequel), which controls facility and tech upgrades for all players.

[SkyFall2489]

Everyone has different opinions, I believe giving each server owner options for timewarp, permission, and agency teams is a good idea.

[t_v]

Not only give options, but also open multiplayer interactions up to modders. There will always be another style of multiplayer that players will want and they need to be able to implement it for themselves. 

[SkyFall2489]

Yep!

Wonder what else modders will do in KSP2...

[sunnypunny]

My favourite idea is a RPG style mod, which could also have roleplay servers (similar to GTAV NoPixel). It would probably need human models instead of kerbals, but then each person would only control 1 character - an astronaut, flight controller who stays on Kerbin for remote piloting, etc. Factions could exist, such as space pirates hiding around Duna who attempt to hijack passing ships, and also a kind of police force or security agencies to protect ships. With multiplayer and resource management, this kind of mod should definitely be feasible.

[SkyFall2489]

There was some old mod called Kerbal Kommander which was like this, but in single player.

It doesn't work anymore, though.

Edited March 27, 2022 by SkyFall2489

[Vl3d]

I think this video captures the essence of competitive multiplayer KSP. We are adventurers and want to be the first ones to plant the flag. I hope we get space race seasons.

 

[SkyFall2489]

I feel like there's also smaller things, like plane races through river canyons, or collaborative work, like building a station together.

[Vl3d]

I hope some day we'll have a KSP MMO.. there are so many crazy fun ideas for activities and competitions and mods out there. Just imagine bringing your best craft to compete in the Stunts Olympics or X-Races or Robot Battle Arenas. Players would line up..

[SkyFall2489]

18 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I hope some day we'll have a KSP MMO.. there are so many crazy fun ideas for activities and competitions and mods out there. Just imagine bringing your best craft to compete in the Stunts Olympics or X-Races or Robot Battle Arenas. Players would line up..

There was something like that already, called Project Runway.

Scott Manley used an auto pilot to send viewer submitted aircraft into aerial dogfights using BD armory. However, KSP2 has been confirmed to not be an MMO, and given timewarp, it's just not the type of game, mechanically, to be an MMO. If you dropped the realistic orbital mechanics, you could, but now it would be a completely different game...

[darthgently]

29 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

There was something like that already, called Project Runway.

Scott Manley used an auto pilot to send viewer submitted aircraft into aerial dogfights using BD armory. However, KSP2 has been confirmed to not be an MMO, and given timewarp, it's just not the type of game, mechanically, to be an MMO. If you dropped the realistic orbital mechanics, you could, but now it would be a completely different game...

Maybe if some limits were placed on MMO it could be doable.  Like each MMO instance would be limited to a single SOI with no warping or something.  One would go effectively single player when changing SOIs and so entering a different MMO.  Solar SOI would have no MMO.  I don't know, just brainstorming.  So a bunch of players could meet at the Laythe MMO for a battle or whatever, but they'd need to time their arrival, or maybe for MMO there would be a "legal cheat" to the SOI or similar.  I cannot imagine a Kerbol system wide MMO with warping (too complicated) or without warping (too boring)