KSP committed to multiplayer career and sandbox modes

[Boris_T_Roach]

I'd love multiplayer !

Will give me the opportunity to 'borrow' one of whackjobs creations and melt my PC down to a smouldering heap

But then what form would it take? MMO is right out because who wants to spend 2 days building a Jool/Laythe manned probe complete with mapsat, comm relays, rovers and a lander,

then have some aforementioned 12 yr old ram an SRB through it 'for the lolz'

So I'd suspect multiplayer would take the form of being able to setup a 2-6 person server, with voice comms (and the bleep whenever voice tramission stops) , import a craft (or 6) launch, dock in space, fly to mun/jool/into the sun etc

but the hardest thing to implement would be the time control, say 2 ships already in orbit aiming for a docking, and a 3rd at KSC waiting for the right time to launch to join up with them

I mean we all know how hard it can be when you've got 2 ships 6hrs apart and both aiming for an aero braking manuover at Duna

And also what happens if 1 person experiences a disconnection from the server.... is his ship deleted? imagining that.... he's got the descent stage on the drop towards Moho and it vanishes at 500 meters from the surface........

I'd suspect multiplayer KSP to remain on the planning board for a long while yet until the problems are sorted

Boris

or squad bodge it... wait for a modder to sort it out, then hire the modder and fold his code into KSP

[Sirrobert]

I really hope they don't do multiplayer unless they have proven market rresearch it's going to directly translate to sales which will allow them to add other stuff.

I'd hate to see other features cut so 12 year olds can ram solid boosters with a probe core on top into other players space stations.

The way the mod works is not MMO. It's just a server with a few friends

[UNSC]

Yeah the, "I don't want my stuff destroyed" argument is pretty weak. That's more of an issue of choosing your friends, not a game issue.

[Marcuzzi]

I stopped reading after the first few pages did little to no research before posting.

KSP Multi-player was annouced for "Next Year" (2014) by Squad (The Owners) saying they have seen the proof of concept provided by the community (KMP Mod) to realize that it is a feature in demand and possible to achieve.

Squad also said they will start from scratch in coding their version as to not use any code from the existing mod.

Edit: Covering my tracks

"Developers will have access to more powerful tools than modders, however, so the solution will not be based on code from the mod. “It would be entirely our own implementation,†Falanghe confirmed."

"The plan, for now, is that Squad will begin developing the multiplayer mode sometime next year. The modes will be officially announced during the closing hours of the Kerbal Kon livestream on Friday."

(Quoted from the article)

Edited December 13, 2013 by Marcuzzi

[Benjpalmer]

...Is it just me, or has hardly anyone checked what KMP DOES?

In KMP, from what I've gathered, you're able to synch your ships with other people's ships.

If you don't synch with Scumbag Steve, he can't SRB your station.

Proper KSP multiplayer would probably work similarly.

If I've made any mistakes here, please correct me, incidentally.

[jwenting]

Yeah the, "I don't want my stuff destroyed" argument is pretty weak. That's more of an issue of choosing your friends, not a game issue.

in an MMO, it's a free for all and you can't choose whose on the server with you. And as there are far too many kiddos who think griefing others is a pretty neat idea, unless things are created in such a way that griefing is impossible (essentially: you can't interact with anyone else, ergo, it's a single player game requiring an internet connection) you're going to get griefed sooner rather than later.

[John FX]

I really want multiplayer but not to play with others. I want to have five or six copies of KSP running on my machine (which can totally handle it) and use them to make stations n stuff or test KOS routines while I actually play...

I won`t have other poeple mess with my craft thank you very much though.

[Sirrobert]

I really hope they don't do multiplayer unless they have proven market rresearch it's going to directly translate to sales which will allow them to add other stuff.

I'd hate to see other features cut so 12 year olds can ram solid boosters with a probe core on top into other players space stations.

in an MMO, it's a free for all and you can't choose whose on the server with you. And as there are far too many kiddos who think griefing others is a pretty neat idea, unless things are created in such a way that griefing is impossible (essentially: you can't interact with anyone else, ergo, it's a single player game requiring an internet connection) you're going to get griefed sooner rather than later.

A single player game with multiplayer is NOT the same as an MMO dude

[Xorth Tanovar]

Multiplayer....neat idea, but best implementation would be to ensure it can take advantage of multicore systems. I've got this wonderful little server with 8 cores (OK, dual quad-Xeons), Mirrored RAID drives for redundancy, and 32GB RAM. Would be a beast if say 8 players joined in a persistent world if only 1 core were in use.

Perhaps the number of players could be influenced by the amount of core processors available....using the above specs as example, 7 players max each with his/her own dedicated core for any physics modeling, and one core dedicated to sync and inter-process comms.

[JohannesMP]

I reached out to the PC Gamer editor behind that article: https://twitter.com/jo_shadow/status/411508560367853568

Seems we'll be hearing more from squad very soon.

[lazarus1024]

I really hope they don't do multiplayer unless they have proven market rresearch it's going to directly translate to sales which will allow them to add other stuff.

I'd hate to see other features cut so 12 year olds can ram solid boosters with a probe core on top into other players space stations.

Sure, that could possibly happen. I like the idea of multiplayer, especially if we can run our own servers like Minecraft, because it would give me so much more flexible play. Currently I run KSP on my laptop, pretty much exclusively, because that is what I happen to use most of the time. I have it loaded up on my desktop, but I basically never play on it. Reason why, I am not on it as much and it is a mild hassle to remember to upload my save and craft files to my server so I can grab it with my other machine when I am done playing.

However, if I can run a server where I can interact with the same world instances between the two machines, I'd probably play on my desktop occasionally and I think in some ways it would be cool running missions from two different "space programs" operating together.

Or for that matter, I am getting a new tablet for Christmas, a T100 (bay trail). I don't know if or how well it could handle KSP, but especially if it can handle some basic rockets and the server can offload a fair amount of the "other mission management", then it could be viable to play on that thing as well (with dock and mouse).

I don't see playing with people outside my LAN at all. Internally it gives me a lot of flexibility playing between machines. Also my son is almost 6 and asks constantly to play. I don't want him accidently running one of my saves, but if I can load up a seperate KSP instances on one of my machines, we could actually play together symetrically or asymetrically, which would be cool.

That said, there are a number of other features I'd like to see fleshed out more. Economy in terms of earning/spending money for career. I'd actually like to see resources added first, before multiplayer.

Maybe fleshing out the solar system a little more.

Actually one of the whicked cool implementations to go along with multiplayer I think would be other solar systems. Each one has its own mission control and in Sandbox mode you could choose to launch from any solar system (that is within the game). In career mode you have to pick your starting KSC and expand to other solar systems. In multiplayer this could be cool to start from other solar systems and meet up with other space programs in other solar systems.

Edited December 13, 2013 by lazarus1024

[I_Killed_Jeb]

Sure, that could possibly happen. I like the idea of multiplayer, especially if we can run our own servers like Minecraft, because it would give me so much more flexible play. Currently I run KSP on my laptop, pretty much exclusively, because that is what I happen to use most of the time. I have it loaded up on my desktop, but I basically never play on it. Reason why, I am not on it as much and it is a mild hassle to remember to upload my save and craft files to my server so I can grab it with my other machine when I am done playing.

However, if I can run a server where I can interact with the same world instances between the two machines, I'd probably play on my desktop occasionally and I think in some ways it would be cool running missions from two different "space programs" operating together.

Or for that matter, I am getting a new tablet for Christmas, a T100 (bay trail). I don't know if or how well it could handle KSP, but especially if it can handle some basic rockets and the server can offload a fair amount of the "other mission management", then it could be viable to play on that thing as well (with dock and mouse).

I don't see playing with people outside my LAN at all. Internally it gives me a lot of flexibility playing between machines. Also my son is almost 6 and asks constantly to play. I don't want him accidently running one of my saves, but if I can load up a seperate KSP instances on one of my machines, we could actually play together symetrically or asymetrically, which would be cool.

That said, there are a number of other features I'd like to see fleshed out more. Economy in terms of earning/spending money for career. I'd actually like to see resources added first, before multiplayer.

Maybe fleshing out the solar system a little more.

Actually one of the whicked cool implementations to go along with multiplayer I think would be other solar systems. Each one has its own mission control and in Sandbox mode you could choose to launch from any solar system (that is within the game). In career mode you have to pick your starting KSC and expand to other solar systems. In multiplayer this could be cool to start from other solar systems and meet up with other space programs in other solar systems.

Buddy there's like -50% chance that a bay trail ATOM can handle KSP. It stutters on FTL, a 2D point-and-click.

[Wahgineer]

Multiplayer with friends = best

mmo = ok

With the mmo option: haven't any of you heard of the terms Moderator, Administrator, or Server Owner? As well as Kick, Ban, Account ban, and I.P. Ban?

[makinyashikino]

KSP really doesn't need Multiplayer, the timewarp system makes it too complicated and annoying, what with everyone having to sync due to a 5 second timewarp. It's fine as a mod, doesn't need the already strained efforts of Squad to work out the numerous kinks in a multiplayer system.

[SLAMS]

KSP really doesn't need Multiplayer, the timewarp system makes it too complicated and annoying, what with everyone having to sync due to a 5 second timewarp.

I'm just going to throw this out there, I've suggested it before but here it is anyway.

Currently your position in the game is a coordinate location above a surface X,Y,Z. So... I say just render players at that location in all games and ignore the location of that planet/moon/thing. This means it might be day in my game and night in yours, and the planet might be in a different place in both our games. I'm saying that just doesn't matter and I will show why I think so below. Lastly don't physically render players that are in any form of warp at all, maybe on the map if you want.

"But that means I can't follow another player while they transfer burn" Nope, but unless your craft was identical you couldn't anyway. It would be extremely difficult to do if you tried, and that's just a sacrifice that needs to be made.

"But people would pop in and out of existence" Isn't that the way the current mod works...? I don't actually know. Again that's just weirdness that has to happen to not have a programming nightmare.

"But people would arrive at planets coming in from a weird incorrect angle because the planets are in different places and facing different directions in each players game." Yep, I don't think that matters all that much.

"But someone in solar orbit could look like they are inside a planet in my games map(and other versions of this etc...)" Could, but it would be very hard to do, like hitting a bullet with a smaller bullet in mars orbit fired from earths surface hard.

"But someone in solar orbit could fly though a planet and hit me" If you can do this then you are a wizard and your letter inviting you to Hogwarts is in the mail, you should start packing. Also why physically render anyone that is not in you SOI anyway.

Any thing else I'm missing...? Beuller?

Edited December 13, 2013 by SLAMS

[tipsyMJT]

For those skeptics. During the Twitch live stream

yesterday just before kurtjmac came on. (Around 1:30 PM PST) the devs made a reference to a surprise and said we had to search for it but it's all over reddit so it shouldn't be hard. A viewer then posted a link to the Pcgamer article and they said with smiles that they couldn't say if that was the surprise or not wink wink. It may not be an official confirmation but it sure as hell confirmsit for me.

[Wheffle]

I really hope they don't do multiplayer unless they have proven market rresearch it's going to directly translate to sales which will allow them to add other stuff.

I'd hate to see other features cut so 12 year olds can ram solid boosters with a probe core on top into other players space stations.

This is exactly the reason to have multiplayer. SRB jousting anyone?

I doubt they would make the game MMO'ish, I was thinking it'd be more like minecraft. As long as you don't let random people into your game, it won't be a problem.

[lazarus1024]

Buddy there's like -50% chance that a bay trail ATOM can handle KSP. It stutters on FTL, a 2D point-and-click.

Yowch. That sounds more like really bad coding or extremly intensive 2D graphical resources than anything though.

I've seen bay trail run things like Medieval total war 2 just fine (heck I've seen old Cedar Trail netbooks run it, on lower graphical settings).

At least looking at single thread, a Bay Trail seems to have around 1/3rd the grunt of my laptop, which with the current setup can do a 200-300 part ship and hit around 30fps most of the time. So 10 fps? Pre-optimization, which sounds like it might net roughly double the frame rates.

Not saying it would work great and it might not work at all, but I am curious to see if it will and hopeful that maybe it will.

[makinyashikino]

I'm just going to throw this out there, I've suggested it before but here it is anyway.

Currently your position in the game is a coordinate location above a surface X,Y,Z. So... I say just render players at that location in all games and ignore the location of that planet/moon/thing. This means it might be day in my game and night in yours, and the planet might be in a different place in both our games. I'm saying that just doesn't matter and I will show why I think so below. Lastly don't physically render players that are in any form of warp at all, maybe on the map if you want.

"But that means I can't follow another player while they transfer burn" Nope, but unless your craft was identical you couldn't anyway. It would be extremely difficult to do if you tried, and that's just a sacrifice that needs to be made.

"But people would pop in and out of existence" Isn't that the way the current mod works...? I don't actually know. Again that's just weirdness that has to happen to not have a programming nightmare.

"But people would arrive at planets coming in from a weird incorrect angle because the planets are in different places and facing different directions in each players game." Yep, I don't think that matters all that much.

"But someone in solar orbit could look like they are inside a planet in my games map(and other versions of this etc...)" Could, but it would be very hard to do, like hitting a bullet with a smaller bullet in mars orbit fired from earths surface hard.

"But someone in solar orbit could fly though a planet and hit me" If you can do this then you are a wizard and your letter inviting you to Hogwarts is in the mail, you should start packing. Also why physically render anyone that is not in you SOI anyway.

Any thing else I'm missing...? Beuller?

You essentially just described KLF Plugin.

[Cordeos]

Just got confirmed

[The Jedi Master]

MP has been confirmed! I repeat, MP has been confirmed!

[chaos_forge]

mp has been confirmed! I repeat, mp has been confirmed!

wooooooo!!!!! Cue the drunken revelry!!!!!!

[[email protected]]

Very nice. Looking forward to collaboratively building some stations and bases with people. I can see all kinds of possibilities with this, especially if resources are implemented. You could trade resources for crafts, start colonies on other worlds that trade in materials for advanced ships, be a courier for supplies or resources, run a rocket company delivering supplies to staging areas in orbits, travel agency, etc.

Division of labor in off-world colonies would be really nice.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to discourage griefing. All you would do is tie the action report to the gamer and somebody would quickly develop a reputation for either bad behavior or poor docking skills.

-Or...you could just let only people you trust onto your server. Pretty simple.

[Thomas988]

Omg, it's verified!

Multiplayer, here we come!

[impwarhamer]

confirmed!