Forum wide KSP2 multiplayer server

[Ryaja]

I remember hearing in a shadowzone video that KSP 2 would allow much more than 4 or 5 players in a server. So I was wondering if the developers would make a forum wide server. Of course you would need to be able to have a lot of players and we don't have a number for the amount of players on a server. What do you guys think?

[t_v]

I think it depends on how the multiplayer connections are done. On one theoretical end, the server can load the client up with just the amount of craft that it can handle and then let all the physics processing happen on the client end, with intermittent updates to allow new developments to be seen. With this somewhat lower quality system, the server could maintain quite a few players (probably tens of thousands in one server) as bandwidth and compute power are minimized.
 

However, the more fidelity you want, the more taxing each player is to the server. If you want players to not be able to cheat themselves anywhere, duplicate crafts, and generally break the game, you need the server to be running its own instance of KSP 2 to determine what is reasonable and what is hacking. With a few thousand players burning, transferring resources, and doing things, this becomes much more taxing for a single server. Then, the amount of bandwidth will get limited when the server tries to show a hundred players that a vessel has started burning, and consistently updates and synchronizes all of the connected clients. 
 

Finally, if the time warp system (yes, we are all tired of hearing about it) allows people to see the past, does the server have to store all of the events that have happened? This could quickly reach a rather large file size, even with some smart logic and optimization. 
 

So it really comes down to implementation. I think that the practical limits of a dedicated server running KSP 2 will reach a few hundred players with reasonable fidelity, but I hope to be surprised. 

[Ryaja]

1 hour ago, t_v said:

but I hope to be surprised.

I do too.

1 hour ago, t_v said:

With a few thousand players burning, transferring resources, and doing things, this becomes much more taxing for a single server.

There most likely will only be a few hundred active players, just look at the currently online part of the forum. But it would have to store a lot of data so we need to know the technical specifications of KSP2 to see.

[mcwaffles2003]

22 hours ago, Ryaja said:

There most likely will only be a few hundred active players, just look at the currently online part of the forum.

I have a feeling KSP 2 will bring a wider constant audience thann KSP 1 does. Especially if there is a multiplayer community holding the games general relevancy on for a longer period after launch. Depending on how well it goes I think the game has potential to take a swing at minecraft levels of p2p interactivity.

Edited November 5, 2022 by mcwaffles2003

[Snark]

Some content has been removed.

Folks, we understand you mean well, but please don't discuss decompiling the game.  It's not allowed (see section 9, "Legal boundaries", here), and discussion of it doesn't belong in the forum.

Thank you for your understanding.

[SSTO Crasher]

I love this idea, I’m gonna destroy so many of your spacecraft 

seriously though i think this is a great idea, but what it is spark rivalry’s and sabotage  

[Guest]

14 hours ago, SSTO Crasher said:

I love this idea, I’m gonna destroy so many of your spacecraft 

seriously though i think this is a great idea, but what it is spark rivalry’s and sabotage  

That's what moderation if for.

If it's not a server that's specifically dedicated to war any kind of sabotage should be met with a permaban.

[mcwaffles2003]

8 hours ago, Master39 said:

That's what moderation if for.

If it's not a server that's specifically dedicated to war any kind of sabotage should be met with a permaban.

Aww cmon, what's the point of the internet without a little greifing

[Cpt72Bug]

On 11/4/2022 at 6:13 PM, Ryaja said:

I do too.

There most likely will only be a few hundred active players, just look at the currently online part of the forum. But it would have to store a lot of data so we need to know the technical specifications of KSP2 to see.

Doubt this could be functional. Would take about 1-2 players griefing 1000 part ships to make the server unplayable. 

[Ryaja]

Just now, Cpt72Bug said:

Doubt this could be functional. Would take about 1-2 players griefing 1000 part ships to make the server unplayable. 

I thought there was going to be a hard part limit

[shdwlrd]

54 minutes ago, Ryaja said:

I thought there was going to be a hard part limit

No, not really. There maybe a target part count range before the games' performance begins to drop noticeably, but no hard limits on part counts. The actual limitations on part count would be your system specs and your tolerance for game slow downs. Nate describes this in one of the early interviews. The only promise that Intercept has made regarding part count is that you should be able to make an interstellar ship by an orbital colony with little to no performance degradation. So 1000+ parts in physics range should be at playable frame rates (24+ fps), not the current slide show that KSP1 presents with as few as 300 parts. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by shdwlrd

[K^2]

Given that my previous post stepped over some ToS/EULA bounds (sorry), the short version is that I severely doubt that this would be workable out of the box. But it might be possible with some extended modding. Whether that extent would be possible without violating EULA, and therefore, the ToS of the forum is a big question. But maybe we can get some sort of a sign-off from Private Division under an NDA to dig in the internals. There is precedent of this sort of thing happening in other games.

It might also be possible to build a custom server under clean room conditions, therefore, not being in violation of EULA, but that's another level of challenge and time requirements. I've done that kind of work for Minecraft, but that's a much simpler game with much simpler server-client relationship, to put it mildly. A custom server would also need an access to all the stock parts, and whether extracting that data will be in line with KSP2 EULA is a big question. Some moddable games do come with EULA that allows this, so it remains to be seen what the case with KSP2 will be.

[Vl3d]

Quick question: do you think the community will be able to tell what kind of multiplayer implementation KSP2 will receive based on the files (network scaffolding) of the Early Access version? @K^2

[Nazalassa]

3 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Quick question: do you think the community will be able to tell what kind of multiplayer implementation KSP2 will receive based on the files (network scaffolding) of the Early Access version? @K^2

It depends. I would say no, but it may be possible, by studying the files (and not decompiling them), to see something -- althrough I don't really know.

[K^2]

9 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Quick question: do you think the community will be able to tell what kind of multiplayer implementation KSP2 will receive based on the files (network scaffolding) of the Early Access version? @K^2

Depends on how clean Intercept keeps their builds. My general experience, both as a developer and from my past as a modder and a dataminer, is that features get disabled in the most lazy way possible. I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there manages to get some early WIP version of multiplayer working in early access by making some config changes. In general, a lot can usually be learned about upcoming features from studying early access and beta builds, but I also expect that much of the relevant discussion will be against the forum rules, so we'll probably be learning about these finds through hearsay or other sources.