KSP 2 Multiplayer Discussion Thread

[Pthigrivi]

34 minutes ago, DwightLee said:

I would be willing to pay that price I suppose for the multiplayer experience, but it would not be my primary game, that will likely always be my solo game.

The thing is you don’t have to pay that price to have multiplayer. There are other ways of handling timewarp that don’t cause these issues. 
 

3 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Of course you can. You do it all the time when you time warp to transfer window in orbit.

Except time warp is a bit of a misnomer here. You aren’t teleporting or folding space and jumping to another location, you’re just fast-forwarding through the in-game time it takes for your vessel to move from point A to point B. When you do that all the other planets and vessels move to reflect that elapsed time. The in-game calendar is consistent everywhere. It has to be to make transfers and rendezvous possible. 

 

3 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I have not been taking about that. What if you warp from Kerbin to Duna and then just warp back? To sync back to the Kerbing multiplayer bubble you have to be gone from that reality. You cannot meet your recorded self and other players can't see two of you. Besides, can you imagine what it would mean for a server to record and replay each player action for every other players?

Again, you aren’t literally warping from place to place, you’re traveling through space and fast-forwarding the in-game elapsed time. You’re moving along a consistent timeline with everything else moving around you. And sure, why not record every action? Starcraft was recording key-stroke replays 12 years ago and that has a way higher APM. 
 

I super appreciate your enthusiasm and creativity, I guess Im not understanding the value-add from having dozens or hundreds of other players buzzing around that you aren’t even interact with? Especially when it causes so many other issues? Whats wrong with smaller servers with 2-10 players building and flying together? 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Vl3d]

48 minutes ago, Master39 said:

This fairly random scenario would take several weeks of IRL time to play out in your system.

No it wouldn't. You get to orbit, set your shipyard as target and create the necessary maneuver nodes, time-warp to it (while exiting the Kerbing multiplayer real-time bubble, you arrive at the shipyard and sync to the local station real-time multiplayer bubble. You're too small to be seen by other Kerbin based players, so causality is preserved. When you return you resync to the Kerbing bubble and re-enter multiplayer. Done.

I' m really suggesting a hybrid system, but the bubbles configurations are controlled by the server.

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

"You can't build here Player B us already using this place press this button if you want to warp for XX:yy:zz and sync up with him"

Why would I ever want to sync with a random player B that supposedly already owns land in the future that clearly overlaps with my landed craft? (yes, player A landed there first in his reality)

General rule: stop trying to time travel on the celestial bodies. It's cheating.

 

[DwightLee]

Well the only way to handle it without the shifting of things dramatically from someone's perspective, is to vote and agree on timewarp, ( which of course generates it own problems ). Any other way you do it, someone is going to shift and planets and stations and anything else in orbit is going to shift. I am not advocating for the vote thing... that is also very problematic.

Edited April 10, 2022 by DwightLee

[Bej Kerman]

40 minutes ago, DwightLee said:

I would be willing to pay that price I suppose for the multiplayer experience, but it would not be my primary game, that will likely always be my solo game. The example I gave was just for that scale, the same thing goes for extremely large and very small scale, the position of a station in orbit, the location of 2 folks small craft when they sync, someone is going to jump, perhaps even very far away.

I trust the devs aren't going to do something like remove timewarp.

[Vl3d]

17 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

The in-game calendar is consistent everywhere. It has to be to make transfers and rendezvous possible. 

No it doesn't, it just has to be predictable in your map view so you can plan your maneuvers and rendezvous. It has to be constant for you while you're on your journey, for that specific craft.

In-game calendar can very easily be desynced for each localized bubble. You can easily jump back and forth in solar system configuration. Better yet think about it this way: instead of travelling in time, you travel from one positional configuration to another.

But you do not desync players in time on / in proximity of the celestial body. It should be written in stone.

17 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Whats wrong with smaller servers with 2-10 players building and flying together? 

The universe is empty. We all should be playing together, with the possibility of any number of players interacting in real time on / in-proximity-of the celestial body. Not just your 2-4 player space agency team. You gain space-races, inter-agency contracts, craft trading, very cool visuals and a lot more.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Vl3d

[Bej Kerman]

3 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

17 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Whats wrong with smaller servers with 2-10 players building and flying together? 

The universe is empty. We all should be playing together, with the possibility of any number of players interacting in real time on / in-proximity-of the celestial body. Not just your 2-4 player space agency team. You gain space-races, inter-agency contracts, craft trading, very cool visuals and a lot more.

And you don't need to lose timewarp for this. Kill timewarp, people won't want to play. Not everyone has a big 8 hour gap in their schedule for timewarpless KSP, and even so not everyone would want to spend it on two otherwise short KSP missions.

[DwightLee]

8 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

I trust the devs aren't going to do something like remove timewarp.

Of course not, all I am saying is it will be a compromise, it has to be. The only alternative I can see would be to stop everything in its orbit, and I do not see that happening.

Edited April 10, 2022 by DwightLee

[Bej Kerman]

Just now, DwightLee said:

8 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

I trust the devs aren't going to do something like remove timewarp.

Of course not, all I am saying is it will be a compromise, it has to be.

It doesn't need to be a compromise and it won't be a compromise. I don't know if everyone has forgotten or not, but Dark Multiplayer does everything fine without silly half-baked compromises.

[Vl3d]

Just now, Bej Kerman said:

Kill timewarp, people won't want to play. Not everyone has a big 8 hour gap in their schedule for timewarpless KSP, and even so not everyone would want to spend it on two otherwise short KSP missions.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm advocating for the extensive usage of time warp outside of the real-time multiplayer bubbles.

[Bej Kerman]

Just now, Vl3d said:

2 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Kill timewarp, people won't want to play. Not everyone has a big 8 hour gap in their schedule for timewarpless KSP, and even so not everyone would want to spend it on two otherwise short KSP missions.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm advocating for the extensive usage of time warp outside of the real-time multiplayer bubbles.

You're advocating to kill timewarp for the sake of "real-time multiplayer bubbles". Just do what DMP does and let people sync on their own terms. Literally all of this is a waste of time.

[DunaManiac]

42 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

No it wouldn't. You get to orbit, set your shipyard as target and create the necessary maneuver nodes, time-warp to it (while exiting the Kerbing multiplayer real-time bubble, you arrive at the shipyard and sync to the local station real-time multiplayer bubble. You're too small to be seen by other Kerbin based players, so causality is preserved. When you return you resync to the Kerbing bubble and re-enter multiplayer. Done.

Hold on, forgive me if I have this wrong, but I thought that the system was that each planet was in a pocket-dimension of sorts where time flows normally. Only leaving this bubble could you use time-warp, as you effectively step outside of time. Then you can time-warp for as long as you want before you re-enter another bubble, moving time backwards or forwards in order to be back to the same time as everyone else. But what if said shipyard is inside said bubble? I mean, if you've ever attempted a rendevous than you'd know that most rendevous take hours. "Just build a torchship lol" isn't an answer, especially if we're dealing with a progression-type mode. Even an autopilot doesn't solve the problem of having to leave your computer on for literal hours as you slowly orbit in real time.

And how does:

42 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

You get to orbit, set your shipyard as target and create the necessary maneuver nodes, time-warp to it (while exiting the Kerbing multiplayer real-time bubble, you arrive at the shipyard and sync to the local station real-time multiplayer bubble.

Square with your earlier statements;

29 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

But you do not desync players in time on / in proximity of the celestial body. It should be written in stone.

3 hours ago, Vl3d said:

You can't time-warp when playing inside the multiplayer real-time bubble (EXCEPT when leaving on a journey - as stated above - but in that case other players just see you burning and disappearing in the distance).

The multiplayer real-time bubble would be on and in-proximity-of the celestial body you're visiting or close to a space station, asteroid, comet.

I mean, are you arguing that you can step outside of Kerbin's time and timewarp even while you're near the planet? If that's so, then why do you need the extra step of a planetary bubble, if its simply irrelevant? Why not just use ship-based bubbles then?

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by DunaManiac

[darthgently]

The more I follow this thread, the more I think the solution is more multi-user game play style than how the game is coded.  If 5 or 6 people want to play a multiuser game, they could all start their game at the same time, plan launches and colonies for the same planet near the same time etc. 

So they are all building Minmus bases at that same time, all heading to Duna near the same time.  So they make a coordinated effort to stay sync'd.  When they don't stay sync'd, only then, would the convoluted strategies discussed here have to come into play.  Like say a 7th player wants to join them after they are all focused Duna colonies, then only would that new player have to deal with "catching up" and with Duna hopping positions when they arrived.  Or something like that. 

Anyway, the point being that not everything has to be a perfect code-based solution.  The way the players decide to structure the over all game play would be a huge factor in how strange the warp issue became.   The more they agree on the progression, the less jarring the sync'ing mechanisms would be.  So organized on the social level more like a D&D meet up than an anonymous online MMO free-for-all then things would stay much more sane.  That is the players have to try to hang together just like a D&D party for the jarring warp mechanisms to have the least effect.  Just as a D&D quest isn't something that happens like a raondom rave party, but more like a planned out adventure at a set time once or twice a week kind of thing.   Just throwing that out there

[Bej Kerman]

1 minute ago, darthgently said:

So they make a coordinated effort to stay sync'd.

Again that's much more trouble than just being able to use timewarp on your own terms.

[t_v]

On, here’s a potential helper:

@Vl3d @DwightLee

Do either of you own KSP on a computer? If so, download the DMP and/or LMP mod and join the biggest public server you can.

Vl3d, you will see how you are able to see a lot of craft in orbit with that, probably even too many for your liking. The public servers are practically MMOs because a lot of players have left their mark on the world. Play around with it and you’ll see how a lot of the issues you have are already fixed. 

Dwightlee, you should be able to see how easy it is to be synchronous, a lot of surface operations and just messing around will be in real time and syncing with people is as easy as a single click and that’s it. Yes, there are better ways to ensure interaction, but you don’t need to remove time warp to do it. 

[DwightLee]

Yes I own KSP yes I have tired multiplayer and yes it is a compromise, the orbital position will shift for one person or another upon syncing., I never ever said remove time warp ( that was someone else ), what I said was it will be a compromise and things will shift for one player or another as far as orbits are conserned. 

[Lettuce]

36 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

General rule: stop trying to time travel on the celestial bodies. It's cheating.

Until you link to a video of you performing a mun landing and return from launchpad to landed/splashed down on Kerbin in under 2 hours self-imposing the time warp rules you suggested, I think I’m done hearing about the system you’re proposing. LMP and DMP methods have already been shown to work in practice and until the community can see your system in practice we’re not going to be able to give accurate criticism.

[Pthigrivi]

@Vl3d Maybe Im the one who’s not understanding. If I enter Minmus’ SOI and  zoom out in map view where will I see all of the other planets? Still where they were when I was outside the SOI, or where they should be based on the real-time minmus calendar? 
 

Edit: And sorry if this all feels like folks piling on. This last question is genuine, just trying to understand the system you’re describing. 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Bej Kerman]

54 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

General rule: stop trying to time travel on the celestial bodies. It's cheating.

Time warp does not augment the capabilities of your rocket. All it does is allow you to do a short mission without needing to set aside the weekend. This is why the very, very large majority of people are extremely keen to disagree. If Multiplayer didn't have time warp, no-one save for the occasional challenge youtuber would play it.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Bej Kerman

[t_v]

12 minutes ago, DwightLee said:

Yes I own KSP yes I have tired multiplayer and yes it is a compromise, the orbital position will shift for one person or another upon syncing., I never ever said remove time warp ( that was someone else ), what I said was it will be a compromise and things will shift for one player or another as far as orbits are conserned. 

Oh, I see. So it is about the forced jumping when syncing, if I understand correctly. Does your idea solution allow people to synchronize without having the bodies jump? If so, here are a few interesting things which can allow you to bypass having to jump planets:

1. If a craft is orbiting in a stable orbit within an SOI, it doesn’t matter where the other planets are because they are irrelevant to the craft in question. How does the position of Eeloo matter to a station orbiting Moho? It is only when transferring that the position matters. 
 

2. During the early game, the only transfers available are Hohmann transfers. Say player A is going from Kerbin to Duna. If player B also wants to do that, Kerbin and Duna have to be in roughly the same relative position as player A. So, no jumping there because player B will be needing those planetary positions anyways to interact with player A. (And if player B doesn’t want to change positions, they won’t be able to interact with player A’s craft anyways because they are out of the window to match trajectories)

And if player A is doing a slingshot, player B when choosing to warp to player A’s time will warp to the full configuration that player A is at, allowing them to also perform the slingshots if necessary. 

3. In the late game with torch drives, planetary position will matter very little (and when it does, #2 will apply) so if two players have different configuration of planets, that has little impact on interaction. Remember, this is only interaction on transfers. Within a stable orbit, the positions of other celestial bodies won’t matter (#1) and the only thing that matters is that all craft orbiting that SOI move at the same warp (which doesn’t mean no time warp, LMP does this great and you can also ignore the synchronization step by having ghost ships sent ahead and a minor jump when docking.)

[Vl3d]

22 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

Then you can time-warp for as long as you want before you re-enter another bubble, moving time backwards or forwards in order to be back to the same time as everyone else.

If you go into details, you don't actually move time, the server changes the solar system configuration depending on where your are. Players are real-time or outside of time (and multiplayer - well actually for co-op your teammates on the same craft with you share your out-of-time bubble). The configurations of the solar system differ for each celestial body. They are virtual, specific to you, when you plan your journey.

But let's just say yes to your statement.

30 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

But what if said shipyard is inside said bubble?

It's a hybrid system, it also has its own bubble. You can travel to it both directly in real-time AND by warping in orbit. It has its own multiplayer bubble. It's on rails in the planet bubble. When you leave for another destination you plan a journey starting from the shipyard using its map view configuration. If you wish to re-enter the Kerbin bubble, you depart the shipyard and resync with Kerbin.

Yes, I admit you might need to limit map-view somehow so you don't see the positional jump. That's solvable.

[t_v]

The gist of it is that you absolutely do not need the positions of planets to be the same for two players to interact. Sure, causality and all that, but mechanically within the game, it works. LMP does this where each player can play in their own system configuration (I’m using the approximation system configuration = Time) but LMP forces players to at least equalize their system configurations before interacting, which is not necessary to play the game. 

[Vl3d]

32 minutes ago, Lettuce said:

performing a mun landing and return from launchpad to landed/splashed down on Kerbin in under 2 hours self-imposing the time warp rules you suggested

Mun is a destination with its own multiplayer real-time bubble. Time-warping to it would be allowed.

[Bej Kerman]

5 minutes ago, t_v said:

The gist of it is that you absolutely do not need the positions of planets to be the same for two players to interact. Sure, causality and all that, but mechanically within the game, it works. LMP does this where each player can play in their own system configuration (I’m using the approximation system configuration = Time) but LMP forces players to at least equalize their system configurations before interacting, which is not necessary to play the game. 

Why we come up with other "solutions" when this works perfectly fine is well beyond my grasp.

2 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Mun is a destination with its own multiplayer real-time bubble. Time-warping to it would be allowed.

You were just saying that time travel is cheating? You were just talking about how you can't use time warp around a celestial body?

[Vl3d]

34 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

If I enter Minmus’ SOI and  zoom out in map view where will I see all of the other planets? Still where they were when I was outside the SOI, or where they should be based on the real-time minmus calendar?

If you sync to the Minmus real-time bubble, you can zoom out and see the solar system as defined by the server specifically for Minmus.

No, they are not where they were when you entered the SOI, because (let's say) you've been spinning in orbit until you synced.

[DwightLee]

LOL I dont have a solution, I only see the problem.

The situations can be as simple or as complex as you want. It does matter very much to me where a planet is in its orbit, as I often plan long term, I boost to the planet in this position, do work there, they boost toward the next ( or home ). any solution that allows one person to time warp while another does not, is going to generate this issue. The solution is a compromise that one can either accept or decide not to do multiplayer as they choose, unless you buy into the whole "lets vote on a timewarp and everyone timewarps at once " which sounds good, but is terrible in practice.  ( that is not something I advocate )

Time ( whether you track it or not ) is real, planets and craft move in orbits, and when one person time warps and another does not, the position in orbits are no longer in the same place for each player, re-syncing will shift someone forward or backward ( depending on the way you do it ) in time and space.

You are saying the core of the game is no big deal... I disagree. Where a planet or station or craft is in its orbit is a very big deal ( at least to me ). The KSP game is navigation over time and space to a place in the future where these craft, planets, stations ( what have you ) line up.

Now the compromises suggested may be good or bad depending on your personal perspective, for me I suspect ( but am not sure ) it will be a pretty big deal, for others perhaps not so much. 

I am not opposed to multiplayer, not at all, I play most games in multiplayer and am involved in a large gaming community. 

But I do see problems here, it will be interesting to see what they do, which compromises they decide to make.

I will be watching with great interest.

But in the end, no solution will affect my interest in KSP2 as a single player game

Id love to play multiplayer, but we will see how they decide to manage that.