Orbiter Server

[n122vu]

IMHO, I think to make this successful in the beginning, MP flights should be limited to the Earth-Moon "system" in real time. As others have suggested, the server would keep track of your vessel while you are logged out/crew in stasis. However, I propose this: Have individuals with server-side admin ability designated as "flight controllers" (Orbiter "Super User," if you will) for bases on the moon, i.e. if a ship approaches the moon with its crew in stasis and no corrections are made to establish a safe orbit (oops, I forgot I was flying to the moon. CRAP!), the controller has the ability to assume control of the vessel and establish a parking orbit, then replace the vessel in "stasis" mode.

 

[HiPotOk1978]

Alternatively, require new users to take off from KSC and dock with the ISS in the stock DG on a clean orbiter install and submit a flight recording, before letting them on the server, to prevent stuff like this.

Well that is a good idea, but I still have problems making to ISS myself. I may not be able to play on the server as well

IMHO, I think to make this successful in the beginning, MP flights should be limited to the Earth-Moon "system" in real time. As others have suggested, the server would keep track of your vessel while you are logged out/crew in stasis. However, I propose this: Have individuals with server-side admin ability designated as "flight controllers" (Orbiter "Super User," if you will) for bases on the moon, i.e. if a ship approaches the moon with its crew in stasis and no corrections are made to establish a safe orbit (oops, I forgot I was flying to the moon. CRAP!), the controller has the ability to assume control of the vessel and establish a parking orbit, then replace the vessel in "stasis" mode.

I kinda like that idea, but why not on places that have a base on them have that feature automatically, or it be something you pay for as a ship upgrade. Honestly I don't see why hibernation and a computer smart enough to go well crap I am going to hit the moon, crap my humans I am watching over are sleeping..... *beep* rotation... and the rest is history

Something else your would have to worry about with any multiplayer setup... are you and the rest of the people running the same code, does everyone have the same copy of orbiter so if I decide to fly the DGIV with the Shuttle A skin, will everyone see me or will I crash them

Version and add-on control are going to be key to stability and enjoyment IMO.. and having Martin and all the developers that you include their addons in your special build for server play will have to agree or well, y know

Not to mention station building!!!
lol nothing like saving your money to buy your very own Vanguard XR-5 (w the Universal Cargo Bay and the Station Building Blocks OFC) and screaming at Tex and Biscuits and Cornflakes to bring some Dragonflys with arm upgrades, extra O2, a few Turbopacks cause we are forming a guild that sells Rocket Fuel out of mars orbit to make mad bank

 

[Sherrif of Nottingham]

...
Not to mention station building!!!
lol nothing like saving your money to buy your very own Vanguard XR-5 (w the Universal Cargo Bay and the Station Building Blocks OFC) and screaming at Tex and Biscuits and Cornflakes to bring some Dragonflys with arm upgrades, extra O2, a few Turbopacks cause we are forming a guild that sells Rocket Fuel out of mars orbit to make mad bank

The MMO sounds great, just that it would really suck up your life, you have to schedule when you get on and off. A time warp ability needs to be implemented (even if its a Time Warp drive that you have to buy to go how fast you want through space) and as I said before, the time warping needs to be put so you can warp through time, but planets and other players basically would stand still. This would require new transX techniques.

Also, what would be the starting point? You know, when you first join the game you shouldn't just appear in orbit! My idea for starting is at Cape Canaveral with a DG, other ships would require a bit more money.\

MMO's need a story, always! Even if the "The End" is where you start controlling. Story's are usually the only way to put a reasonably noob-proof tutorial\driving test.

As for addons:
The creator of the server would have a list of addons required for the server, links too.

Other issues occur with the creation of vessels... You would need a way for people to buy vessels, a Garage Mod perhaps (or a mod where theres a "warehouse" of vessels on earth\moon\mars or basically thats where vessels are created.

A money system: No credits... please, either be original or use "earthling" currency. No "credits" and for the love of god no "gold"

Gateways... The Babylon 5 Jump gates are somewhat close to what we want, just remember that multiple people means gates will be constantly opening and closing. Maybe a system where the MFD just chooses your destination, no matter which gate you enter. Gates always open.

Life "guard": my final thing (for now) is a fail safe system.... (or Noob-Safe) or in other words, a tele-port home button. If you are on earth you can set it as "home" then in space you can instantly teleport back (of course if the space colony you mainly work out of is on Io, or any other body you can set them as "home" too, you just have to fly there your self first). Sure, misuse will occur so a 1 hour realtime wait before reuse. This is just so if you accidentally do the "hit the surface and get gliched into WAY deep space trick" you can get back. Or if you miscalculated and the moon\planet didn't grab you, then your not lost in space w/o fuel.

Just what I thought up before it got too late...

If somethings are misspelled please forgive me, I didn't really have time to look over it.

 

[Jarvitä]

No "credits" and for the love of god no "gold"

Haha, I can see it now

Energia
Epic orbital launcher
Requirements:
Level 70
Level 300 orbiting skill (Artisan)
100 Gold


:rofl:

The addon and installation compatibility problems could be solved if the guy who runs the server could simply put together his distro of Orbiter with all the required addons already installed. Basically Zip his orbiter folder and offer it for download - but asking Martin and every single addon author beforehand for permission might take a while.

 

[Sherrif of Nottingham]

Well I almost suggested the re-distribution thing, but it would take wayyy long for the GM to get permission. Of course this would also create little to no conflicts with the server.

Anyway, what about space station building? I mean, really how many times are noobs going to buy a hab module and toss it into space then never find it again?

Space JUNK! If collision is introduced to the MMO space junk will be a major problem, like the recent DAM maneuver.

All the people that launch un-needed vessels into space. Ugh, what a waste!

There needs to be "planning permission" that a Player-MOD would have to allow you to build the station in the first place, then make sure that the station is worthy of staying in orbit.

Also with Station Building, there really needs to be requirements. O2 should deplete and needs to be brought up or converted from CO2, electrical power should be required, and of course manpower to run the station.

Then what about Player-Characters? Would you be able to jump across the System to other ships, or would you have to move an mmu into the ship you want to control. Would your Mmu be customizable? I know this is getting more into the world of MMORPG's but still, just questions that should be asked.

I would love the Idea of Multiplayer worlds. I would like more things to do like actually be able to mine "moon rocks" or buy fuel in a cheap place, then sell it in orbit around a high demand planet.

Free fuel? You probably need a place where a refuel of your craft is free, maybe surface bases refuel you for free (notice I didn't say fill your cargo bay fuel tanks so you can sell the fuel for full profit). Then you can do stuff like move cargo from Cape Canaveral to Area 51... I dunno, that way you can build up funds planet side. Then continue the more lucrative operations Interplanetary, or maybe just in orbit around the earth.

ISS can refuel you, but it costs... stops people from doing lunar missions without any cost.

Warehouses? You buy all the modules to start your station, where do they get kept? I mean, I wouldn't leave a module sitting out where a pirate (arg) could just steal it. A warehouse at surface bases allow you to store your pieces without fear of damage/theft.

Just more suggestions.

 

[Mission_CDR]

Why can't the multiplayer be different? have the server match up 2 players (one in the ship and one on ground monitering the mission) maybe you could have one person on the ground monitering up to two missions. The server would automaticly asign you a mission (such as going to the ISS and installing a module, or landing somewhere specific on the moon) the missions it gives you would be based on your acumulated experience, which is a new idea. For every mission you succesfully do, you get more exp. This ensures that you won't have a noob doing a flight from earth to mars.
This would be especialy interesting if a more advanced version of SSU came out with more useable panels, this would allow the server to give you random problems to work out with Mission control.
Like stated earlier you would have to do something to become a member, such as launching the DG and docking to the ISS

 

[to be]

Honestly this planning has moved away from orbiter. If you are going to do all this, you might as well write your own (simple) physics engine, and add native multiplayer.

 

[Face]

Honestly this planning has moved away from orbiter. If you are going to do all this, you might as well write your own (simple) physics engine, and add native multiplayer.

No, please continue to dream about multiplayer uses. It's interesting to see what people expect from such a system and helps to outline needed features of the underlying infrastructure.

Even if it is drifting a bit...

regards,
Face

 

[Sherrif of Nottingham]

Honestly this planning has moved away from orbiter. If you are going to do all this, you might as well write your own (simple) physics engine, and add native multiplayer.

How do I feel that this comment was directed at me?

Why write a new engine? Orbiter IS an engine, the developer would just need to add Multiplayer capabilities to it! Besides... this IS an orbiter forum.

Even if it is drifting a bit...

I like to drift, but I'm interested in what has been done so far.

I really would like to know how your going to allow players to get their favorite vehicle.

Also on another note; Multiplayer SIMS never do so well, when there's an ingame economy (buying and selling fuel, space station building, freighting, stuff like that) or competition (like races) is when a game does well.

To be honest, Orbiter would NOT be a very good competitive game, unless maybe it was turned into a combat game. Nah...

 

[to be]

How do I feel that this comment was directed at me?

Why write a new engine? Orbiter IS an engine, the developer would just need to add Multiplayer capabilities to it! Besides... this IS an orbiter forum.

It was directed at no one in particular. A lot of requests here are for the remarkably cool idea of some sort of objective based gameplay, in addition to multiplayer. This is a tall order to do via addons, in fact, it might be easier to write your own engine, capable of integrating all this naturally, rather then trying to try to mold it in to orbiter somehow.

 

[HiPotOk1978]

hehehehehe
[Local Space ALERT from HipotOk: Xantcha just warped into Saturn Orbit and blew away my space station with that twinked out ShuttlePB... Looks like he has Phased Energy Weapons to lvl 15 now.... Unless your got a Twinked Vespucci Carrier and a few battle cruisers, I recommend you do what I just did and hide until he leaves

Pfff... any you don't want guns in orbiter.... Space, physics, station building, ground bases, and people twinking the shuttlePB as a light corsair..... honestly, what could EVER be better!!!

 

[Face]

I like to drift, but I'm interested in what has been done so far.

I really would like to know how your going to allow players to get their favorite vehicle.

Assuming the last sentence quoted above is direct to me and no retorical question, I'd like to answer it from the technical, "MP-infrastructure" point of view: players are allowed to choose every vehicle offered by the server.

Clearly, this means all clients share the same version of the vehicle's definition. I already played with the code-versioning-system idea, i.e. the server is an Orbiter repository and all clients synchronize with this repository before (or even on-demand during) connection. Obviously, intellectual property needs to be considered in such an approach, but since it is defined by the server, you have the server admin to handle legal issues (like it is with almost everything online).

The current state of OMP uses redirection maps. This means, that the server defines redirection from local vessel class to remote vessel class. A classic example is the DGIV-to-Deltaglider mapping. While you can choose to fly a DGIV in an OMP session, you will look like a standard Deltaglider for others. I can imagine extending this concept to handle version differences and addon-status as well.

regards,
Face

 

[TSPenguin]

It was directed at no one in particular. A lot of requests here are for the remarkably cool idea of some sort of objective based gameplay, in addition to multiplayer. This is a tall order to do via addons, in fact, it might be easier to write your own engine, capable of integrating all this naturally, rather then trying to try to mold it in to orbiter somehow.

I agree that it would be easier to model those things into a completely new enginge. But then again, we are here for the physics behind it. So you end up having to write orbiter on your own.

So many good ideas are beyond what OMP is trying to do, and that is a good thing. Once we have a working MP, we can start playing games by pretending. There is no direct need for economy. We should start simple.
Maybe with LUA in the next version, or even earlier, the least that could be implemented is a server module that records who landed where when, maybe output some more statistical data (fuel usage etc.). That data could be processed externaly and i.e. be displayed on a website attached to the server.
I guess what I am trying to say is, you actualy only need very few things from orbiter in order to make it a fun MP game, as you can externalize the game part easily. And keeping it a sim btw.

 

[Russ_H]

2 players in the same ship

What are the thoughts on a multi -player version where people can man the same ship. We could then do station building and exploring at the same time.
We could even have a big cargo dock and space dock. There could be ships sitting around in orbit that players could pilot for short times. maybe a player could lunch his ship one day and then move cargo till his ship reaches a holding orbit close to where he wants to go.

It would be cool if a group of people could work in the same place at the same time. Maybe build a space station.

Just some ideas I understand that the time thing is a big issues. I really look up to you guys for trying to make it work.

Russ

 

[Woo482]

have a look at this http://orbiter-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=45

 

[HiPotOk1978]

What are the thoughts on a multi -player version where people can man the same ship. We could then do station building and exploring at the same time.
We could even have a big cargo dock and space dock. There could be ships sitting around in orbit that players could pilot for short times. maybe a player could lunch his ship one day and then move cargo till his ship reaches a holding orbit close to where he wants to go.

It would be cool if a group of people could work in the same place at the same time. Maybe build a space station.

Just some ideas I understand that the time thing is a big issues. I really look up to you guys for trying to make it work.

Russ

Well if your going to be building a space station as a co-op, would be nice to simulate all the aspects of first getting into orbit, taking your assigned positions, as the arm operator and person that takes care of the cargo bay, to doing an EVA to get into your Dragonfly... Man this is sounding EXTREMELY addictive.

 

[Sherrif of Nottingham]

Well, if I was to build a station co-op with my friend, we would probably build it by having a multitude of ships bring up parts (ie: he would bring the parts up in his ship, he would unload the ship somehow, then I would construct them in the pre-defined way).

As for the economy thing, all I was saying was that there needs to be more things to do together... links to my Orbital Purpose thread. Basically if OMP is released so me and my friend could use it, we would probably just build stations together. I was saying that the current supply of possible co-op things is quite limited (of course thats implying that when you do EVA nobody is controlling the ship) and really, I've seen the ATC or Mission Control Mod, but really I wish for a more graphical interface. Being able to be a co-pilot, rather than the Mission controllers.

Also, making the MMO which I had been dreaming about, but realized it would never be exactly what I want (heck, I dunno if anybody actually wanted to make the MMO)

But back to economy; that was if we actually wanted to create an MMO, the MMO would require an economy in order for it to have its own system in place, from what I see Face and his developers made it so the server owner has to create vessels then allow a certain I.P to be the only modifier of that vehicle (or at least thats on way to do it). But more from the sound of whats been done, its going to be user owned universes. I would own the universe that me and my friend use, but I would allow other users to enter that universe. Stuff of that nature.

Multiplayer for just about everything should be implemented... even eating cake: eating cake should support online multiplayer.

 

[|<(FX)>|]

Trying to do one

Hey guys,

I'm trying to do one multiplayer plugin.
The time will always be synced to the server and for space travels you should use a warp drive and jump drive. There are plugins for both, and i tryed them succesfully.
The client will have to use the same plugins the server uses.
I'm not limiting the number of players, but i also don't know witch will be the best number for server performance.

 

[Face]

But back to economy; that was if we actually wanted to create an MMO, the MMO would require an economy in order for it to have its own system in place, from what I see Face and his developers made it so the server owner has to create vessels then allow a certain I.P to be the only modifier of that vehicle (or at least thats on way to do it). But more from the sound of whats been done, its going to be user owned universes. I would own the universe that me and my friend use, but I would allow other users to enter that universe. Stuff of that nature.

To be honest: it's only me and a bunch of beta-testers, no other developers :lol: . It's open-source though, therefore I'd heartly welcome anyone who wants to contribute code to the project (mind you: it's mostly C# and a bit of C++/CLI).

As for the vessel creating: The server owner defines the vessel CLASSES that can be used. The actual vessels are created by the user itself.

Additionally, I'm working on an event-system allowing other users to modify remote vessels. In fact we've tested a proof-of-concept of the event-system early in the development before the C#-switch-over happened. It was possible to e.g. flick switches inside an other user's vessel or start engines. A hand-over feature is planned, too, allowing hand-over of vessel control.

regards,
Face

 

[Sherrif of Nottingham]

To be honest: it's only me and a bunch of beta-testers, no other developers :lol: . It's open-source though, therefore I'd heartly welcome anyone who wants to contribute code to the project (mind you: it's mostly C# and a bit of C++/CLI).

Cool, but I know exactly nothing about scripting in C#,C++, or CLI

As for the vessel creating: The server owner defines the vessel CLASSES that can be used. The actual vessels are created by the user itself.

Ahh, this leads to ownership i guess. It WOULD allow Spacecraft3 vessels i suppose? Or will it?

Additionally, I'm working on an event-system allowing other users to modify remote vessels. In fact we've tested a proof-of-concept of the event-system early in the development before the C#-switch-over happened. It was possible to e.g. flick switches inside an other user's vessel or start engines. A hand-over feature is planned, too, allowing hand-over of vessel control.

Good, I would love a for the ability to hand over vessel control.

A question...
Will vessel creation be done in the Native ScnEditor, or will there be an OMP specific vessel creation module? OMP may add several things that a new editor may be required. But what do I know?

A suggestion... (I bet you did the first one already... once again, what do I know.)

A version checker, basically an Orbiter diagnostic that is run to see if your files match up to the Server Side files.

And

Viewing and help with control of other player's vessels, a co-pilot sort of thing. Back to the person who controls the RMS while the pilot keeps the shuttle in position.

And

UMmu compatibility, a UMmu can take a ride in another player's vehicle, all of this would probably require the permission of the vessel pilot/pilots.