Multiplayer vs time compression. Why not?!

[Hello moto]

Why not have just kerbal, Minmus and the Mun and remove time warp just to see how things would work?

[swiftgates24]

Why not have just kerbal, Minmus and the Mun and remove time warp just to see how things would work?

It takes a few days to get to Minmus and back. Otherwise, that is the best answer.

That sounds interesting, and a more realistic suggestion. That is multiplayer, though.

Oh, okay then. Also, upon further thought, one person could control the craft ONLY, nothing else. And the second player could be some sort of mission control, where they have the ability to view the map and plan ahead for the controller. If you wanted to go even further, there could be 2 more players classified as "Engineers", their job would to actually build the craft for the pilot to fly. If there was more than one pod on a ship, there could be more than one pilot.

If anyone wants to expand upon this, feel free to and give me some ideas

Edited July 13, 2013 by swiftgates24

[Agent30632]

I was thinking the same, but without Minmus.

I guess that works too.

[Skyrunner27]

Oh, okay then. Also, upon further thought, one person could control the craft ONLY, nothing else. And the second player could be some sort of mission control, where they have the ability to view the map and plan ahead for the controller. If you wanted to go even further, there could be 2 more players classified as "Engineers", their job would to actually build the craft for the pilot to fly. If there was more than one pod on a ship, there could be more than one pilot.

If anyone wants to expand upon this, feel free to and give me some ideas

What if each player could control one of the Kerbals on board and in EVA. Remove timewarp if someone is on EVA to avoid issues.

[Whackjob]

I was originally thinking of giving everyone their own time warp, with the premise of having limited control of time via flux ensnackilator. But that wouldn't work... if you alter your flow of time in relation to other planetary bodies, they aren't gonna come along with. That would make trajectory plotting... difficult.

I will have to ponder this further.

[sparty48]

Why do the planets need to move? Just an idea.

[Whackjob]

Hrm. Ok, not a bad idea. For multiplayer, make planets and moons fixed objects, add personal time dialation via Kerbanesque means (flux encrustulinator found by the side of the road?) so you can "time warp" as needed, and that does solve quite a few issues. I would want the planetary bodies to still rotate, though. I'd miss my sunsets.

[Kimberly]

Why do the planets need to move? Just an idea.

Because otherwise the whole thing becomes silly. Plot any straight-line course to a planet's current position, warp, and you're there. You lose a huge aspect of the game that way.

[sal_vager]

Hrm. Ok, not a bad idea. For multiplayer, make planets and moons fixed objects, add personal time dialation via Kerbanesque means (flux encrustulinator found by the side of the road?) so you can "time warp" as needed, and that does solve quite a few issues. I would want the planetary bodies to still rotate, though. I'd miss my sunsets.

The game you'd end up with wouldn't be KSP, sorry.

[sagittary]

General response: The issue is not methodology - as evident by this thread alone, everyone's got a solution to the problem. The issue is manpower, resources, and computing power. Squad is a small team with a limited budget - any solution they'd realistically be able to use has to be done within that budget without completely stalling or taking away budget and time from other equally if not more important features. On top of that, due to the physics heavy nature of the game, any solution also needs to be computable in real time with minimal delay. Considering most people can detect 100 ms of delay in games with relatively light data packets, this is a tall order. There is a reason games with MP components devote entire teams and even outsource that part of games. It's not the solution that's hard, it's the implementation that takes a long long long time to get right.

[EvilotionCR2]

people trade saves like that already

But it would happen automaticly like when you create a save then you would have a chance to select option like "Indirect Multiplayer".And it would only download your friend's save when your game starts.It would kick you out of game(and save it) and it would show a progress bar and when it would finish it the bar would finish and close it would allow you to again get into the game,and if your friend would close the game in say 1 hour and start it then it would ask him "Download again?".I think it's already possible.

[Designer225]

Why do the planets need to move? Just an idea.

Planets need to move because if they don't move, what's the fun of flyby a planet? Certainly it would makes the game harder, but at least that is one thing that is near-realiztic.

Also, KSP is partially realistic: while launch time is not realistic (in real world it takes about 2 months to 2 years just to prepare for the launch), the physics are near-realistic (While the atmosphere does not have the same physics as our atmosphere do, otherwise the physics did follow Newton's Law of Motions, and that the plansts and moons have gravity.).

[OdinYggd]

As usual leaving this thread open resulted in people arguing over it.

The reason why time warp is an issue is because of the positions of the planets as they move. If you don't maintain time synchronization in some way you end up with ships orbiting a planet that isn't there, resulting in their being flung off into deep space because they no longer have a gravity well confining them.

My earlier post seen here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/40038-Multiplayer-vs-time-compression-Why-not-%21?p=513796&viewfull=1#post513796

explains what is known about implementing multiplayer, and the folks involved in making game mods already have it almost completely solved in theory- just not code.

But even with the theories of how to go about it resolved, there is still an absolutely titanic amount of code to write especially on the server end of things. That is probably the biggest holdup, as it is beyond what one person can expect to do in a reasonable timeframe.

If talented coders with experience writing mods for KSP were to get together and work on this as a group project, they might just get it done. But most of the threads suggesting multiplayer are being made by people with little programming experience and next to no experience modding KSP. It's not anywhere near as easy to do as you would expect because of how limited our documentation of it is, and most modders very quickly reach the complexity barrier where the whole project becomes either difficult to maintain by sheer size or unstable in-game because it causes lag and crashing.

Alas it seems that a new multiplayer thread comes up every week with the precise same ideas in it being suggested over and over, that's where you get the attitude of not this again from a lot of people.

And I'm sure it will happen again next week, so please leave the matter alone and take this time to learn how to code C# and make KSP mods, that way if a multiplayer team starts you can help them do it.

Edited July 13, 2013 by OdinYggd