There is no reason that wouldn't work for all active ships at that second. So if you advance your time to exactly, down to the second, the time another ship is at, it would work. You could not, however, show any ship active even a second after that's history, because then, you could, for example, dock with that ship, that has already passed through that time, and move it, which would change its history. It seems that it has been chosen to handle that by limiting the flexibility of time jumps, so that anyone wanting to go ~1 day in the future will wind up on the same second. That sounds like a good solution, no one really needs down to one second time accelerations, though it could increase waits to launches and ejection burns, depending how many time universes you have.
Orbiter Server
- Thread starter Lunar Pilot
- Start date
The only way I can see a multiplayer orbiter working is to remove the time acceleration feature, and only have trips between Earth and the moon or in Orbit around both bodies. This would mean that a game would take days, and you would have to use a dedicated computer that you could leave on at all times.
Biscuit
Member
Or, the server keeps track of your orbit while you're offline. If you don't get logged back in when your orbit intersects that of the Moon, you find yourself already landed ... maybe not in one piece. :O
You'd have to time your logins ... but you could set up a rendevous with a lunar orbiting station and not have to worry about having a machine dedicated to watching it coast (I would think the server would be tracking the ships anyway to make sure there wasn't any client-side shenanigans going on).
Whether or not a player ship is still visible/interactable during logoff by other players would be totally up to management. Could make piracy interesting, though ... log off after setting up a long transfer orbit, head off for a long weekend trip, come back to find someone docked up and hauled you away.
... I would hope some system for a really dynamic economy could be evolved also ...
You'd have to time your logins ... but you could set up a rendevous with a lunar orbiting station and not have to worry about having a machine dedicated to watching it coast (I would think the server would be tracking the ships anyway to make sure there wasn't any client-side shenanigans going on).
Whether or not a player ship is still visible/interactable during logoff by other players would be totally up to management. Could make piracy interesting, though ... log off after setting up a long transfer orbit, head off for a long weekend trip, come back to find someone docked up and hauled you away.
... I would hope some system for a really dynamic economy could be evolved also ...
stjimmy225
New member
I personally don't see the problem with using warp drive mfd or similar if u wanted to go to mars etc, i know this will probably enrage some but at the end of the day if it means you can flit around as a community easily rather than worry about a dedicated server counting away for 5 months as you stroll through space. Surely that cant be a bad thing? If you were really that desperate then perform an orbital ejection and get to within 4 days sailing then you could worry about course corrections. If you gave me a choice I'd rather take some liberties with the speed i went around the system rather than wait around, but it's just an opinion
Sherrif of Nottingham
New member
Has anybody ever played FS9 (Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004)?
The Time warping function there allows users to warp during a multi-player session, it simply makes you move faster... while this might mess up some people's control style (you would have to make transX's to a basically non-moving moon/mars/pluto, or whatever) because all planets would be at x1 time, while users could independently jump through time. Also the warp gates would make life easy, but still, some people may not like that Idea...
Also what else would have to be implemented... you would have to have shared addons, otherwise a server-side CTD. Locked orbits for ISS and other player created stations, it would suck if you built a very nice lunar station just to have space pirates push it out of orbit while your logged off. And would you be able to use some OMP scneditor to create your ship/ships and stations, that would be nice. Maybe limits on user controlled vessels of different kinds, depends on the complexity of the vessels.
Really a user wouldn't need a fleet of DGs would he?
Edit: Oops, crap sorry for reviving this thread, just realized Face has his own forum for this. SORRY!!!
The Time warping function there allows users to warp during a multi-player session, it simply makes you move faster... while this might mess up some people's control style (you would have to make transX's to a basically non-moving moon/mars/pluto, or whatever) because all planets would be at x1 time, while users could independently jump through time. Also the warp gates would make life easy, but still, some people may not like that Idea...
Also what else would have to be implemented... you would have to have shared addons, otherwise a server-side CTD. Locked orbits for ISS and other player created stations, it would suck if you built a very nice lunar station just to have space pirates push it out of orbit while your logged off. And would you be able to use some OMP scneditor to create your ship/ships and stations, that would be nice. Maybe limits on user controlled vessels of different kinds, depends on the complexity of the vessels.
Really a user wouldn't need a fleet of DGs would he?
Edit: Oops, crap sorry for reviving this thread, just realized Face has his own forum for this. SORRY!!!
What if servers were dedicated to specific planet/moon combinations?
Have a server for Earth-orbit only missions. One for Earth/Moon, Earth/Moon/Mars, etc... time acceleration could then be handled on an individual server basis.
Have a server for Earth-orbit only missions. One for Earth/Moon, Earth/Moon/Mars, etc... time acceleration could then be handled on an individual server basis.
Kaito
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Okay
A question came up earlier: Different spots on planet, what earth do you use, etc, etc. How about you tell the Orbiter server WHERE you are on the planet.
Time Acceleration:
The warp bubble effect. The server would calculate YOUR ship for the time accel. thats it. So, lets say you want to go to the moon. You line up, and hit time accel. To everyone else you just went REALLY fast.
So, in effect, the Time Acceleration would ONLY effect you
A question came up earlier: Different spots on planet, what earth do you use, etc, etc. How about you tell the Orbiter server WHERE you are on the planet.
Time Acceleration:
The warp bubble effect. The server would calculate YOUR ship for the time accel. thats it. So, lets say you want to go to the moon. You line up, and hit time accel. To everyone else you just went REALLY fast.
So, in effect, the Time Acceleration would ONLY effect you
Capt. Speirs
Donator
I think a massive multiplayer version of Orbiter would be like making a Submarine Warfare Massive Muliplayer game, slow and boring...then, kapow your dead, didn't see that coming, stealth at it's best, lol.
FS9 doesnt have to consider moving orbital bodies, so it's a bad comparison. As far as I can see, the only possible way to do multiplayer with time acceleration would be to have each client have a 'token', and each player would manually have to toss their token to the server. Once the server had all players tokens, then time acceleration could happen. In other words, let's say were taking a trip to Mars. One person is in orbit ready to go, the other is on the pad at KSC. The player ready to go would toss their token to the server, but the server wouldn't start time acceleration until the other player was in orbit, ready to go, and have tossed their token to the server. Other than that, only normal time could can be used, which is what I think is the best way to go. You'd just have to do orbital maneuvers around the earth, and, at that, it's going to take alot of time to do things.
Sherrif of Nottingham
New member
Thats exactly what I was saying, the orbiting bodies wouldn't be affected, they'd be in their own "warp bubble" at x1 acceleration, then you could be at x10000 acceleration, sure you couldn't TransX as well, but if you did a token thing you would never be able to accelerate time to where you want it, some people may want time acceleration at x10 while you want x100, or x0.1!
I see the FS9 way as being the best, I know Orbital Bodies, but as I said: They would move at x1 speed forever, sure waiting for launch windows would be slow and boring, but still, its better than flying to mars real time!
Well, all simulators are boring, really
There is a reason why simulator is not among top genres of game industry. Of course, boring is subjective term, so it depends on person and mood ;-)And multiplayer for submarine sim exists
Jarvitä
New member
I like the suggestion of all vessel orbits and states being saved on the server. That way, you can take off from Earth, do a TLI burn, log off, come back the next day for a mid-course correction burn, log off, and return three days later for lunar orbit insertion and landing. Although, I imagine, multiplayer ops would be much more interesting in lunar orbit or the jupiter/saturn systems than interplanetary, where transfer times can be much smaller and you can actually get something done in real-time.
Also, multiplayer surface exploration with Orulex and UMMU.
Also, multiplayer surface exploration with Orulex and UMMU.
Sherrif of Nottingham
New member
UMMU that would be fun if you were just a UMMU that could enter vessels to pilot them, I guess that way its more realistic than multitasking around everybody, you would have to eva then enter the vessel you wish to pilot.
DevCo
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I ran throught a lot of the posts and saw some stuff similar to what I was thinking but not quite, excuse me if I did miss someone with the same idea though:
I think one of the most interesting aspects and mechanics that Orbiter has to offer a Massive Multiplayer Online community is it's true scale. I think this mechanic, along with the physics, should be promoted as the most important aspects of what drives desicion making in the world.
I envision much more than just a space travel simulation, if you fold that simulation into a sandbox open world game with autopilots for all the noobs so they can button press to get places (and die when they point somewhere they don't have enough gas for MUAAHAHA...ahem...sorry), and a switch to turn it off and save yourself a bit of gas by being a good stick jocky, manual flight, if done properly, should still pay off.
That being said, no one wants to fly for months and months and months to get somewhere, but how about for a few weeks? what if it took you several hours to get to the moon, a few weeks in real time to get to mars? Jupiter a month perhaps, at most, with good windows observed. Any more than that, and I think you start to lose people.
The trick to all this is DeltaV, of course, and keeping it interesting in the cruising stage. You could always blow a wadd of cash on boster that has DeltaV for days and get to where you need to go in a hurry (this can be tuned to find the right ballance of scale). If you were light on credits in the virtual economy, you could always take the slow route and get to the lucerative spots in a bit more time, but a lot less expense.
The important part is the economy, you let people get places fast, but you make it cost a lot. This fuels the economy itself, resource harvesting, transportation, logistics. It also keeps people near earth while they are noobs, around other people learning, and where there is the most metabolism for a virtual economy. Earth orbit, Moon, Mars, the Belt, Juputer's moons, all of these areas will eventuall be populated by in game players as they advance in the world and mass resources.
And on the back end (IT consultant o/) it also plays into a very elegent network architecture, with a central position tracking system that tracks all objests in sol SOI in real time, and a farm with each planet (and areas such as belts) SOI having it's own server, and even going so far as splitting orbit and atmos between yet more instances. As the central system tracks you passing through each layer you would be routed to a new cloud, and because of the natural scale of the system, it will take players a lot of time to initially spread out and populate the system, allowing for a dynamic response to traffic managment.
I've got endless idea's worked up already for a game based on this very concept, orbier could very well serve as the physics engine at the core of the server side postion tracking, and I've been tinkering with the idea of getting some people together to work on the MASSIVE amount of game development the rest of it would take. I don't want to give away too much just yet, I'm acctually thinking about writing a novel in this "world" to drum up interest, both in myself and with others.
All in due time though, right?
DevCo
*Edit: BTW, I realized it sounded pretty lame to expect people to even stay flying for several hours let alone a whole month at most, but I forgot to mention how another key aspect that needs to be integrated is "stasis" where basicly you can put you and your crew into stasis (log out) and the system will propagate your position in real time so when you log back in you have progressed in your flight. Anyway, I think this is KEY to playability. Again, no time acceleration, just lots of DeltaV for a big price, and state propigation when logged off (if you hit a planet, get intercepted by pirates, or miss your entry burn and fly into space, don't cry to us, space can be a ***** like that.)
I think one of the most interesting aspects and mechanics that Orbiter has to offer a Massive Multiplayer Online community is it's true scale. I think this mechanic, along with the physics, should be promoted as the most important aspects of what drives desicion making in the world.
I envision much more than just a space travel simulation, if you fold that simulation into a sandbox open world game with autopilots for all the noobs so they can button press to get places (and die when they point somewhere they don't have enough gas for MUAAHAHA...ahem...sorry), and a switch to turn it off and save yourself a bit of gas by being a good stick jocky, manual flight, if done properly, should still pay off.
That being said, no one wants to fly for months and months and months to get somewhere, but how about for a few weeks? what if it took you several hours to get to the moon, a few weeks in real time to get to mars? Jupiter a month perhaps, at most, with good windows observed. Any more than that, and I think you start to lose people.
The trick to all this is DeltaV, of course, and keeping it interesting in the cruising stage. You could always blow a wadd of cash on boster that has DeltaV for days and get to where you need to go in a hurry (this can be tuned to find the right ballance of scale). If you were light on credits in the virtual economy, you could always take the slow route and get to the lucerative spots in a bit more time, but a lot less expense.
The important part is the economy, you let people get places fast, but you make it cost a lot. This fuels the economy itself, resource harvesting, transportation, logistics. It also keeps people near earth while they are noobs, around other people learning, and where there is the most metabolism for a virtual economy. Earth orbit, Moon, Mars, the Belt, Juputer's moons, all of these areas will eventuall be populated by in game players as they advance in the world and mass resources.
And on the back end (IT consultant o/) it also plays into a very elegent network architecture, with a central position tracking system that tracks all objests in sol SOI in real time, and a farm with each planet (and areas such as belts) SOI having it's own server, and even going so far as splitting orbit and atmos between yet more instances. As the central system tracks you passing through each layer you would be routed to a new cloud, and because of the natural scale of the system, it will take players a lot of time to initially spread out and populate the system, allowing for a dynamic response to traffic managment.
I've got endless idea's worked up already for a game based on this very concept, orbier could very well serve as the physics engine at the core of the server side postion tracking, and I've been tinkering with the idea of getting some people together to work on the MASSIVE amount of game development the rest of it would take. I don't want to give away too much just yet, I'm acctually thinking about writing a novel in this "world" to drum up interest, both in myself and with others.
All in due time though, right?
DevCo
*Edit: BTW, I realized it sounded pretty lame to expect people to even stay flying for several hours let alone a whole month at most, but I forgot to mention how another key aspect that needs to be integrated is "stasis" where basicly you can put you and your crew into stasis (log out) and the system will propagate your position in real time so when you log back in you have progressed in your flight. Anyway, I think this is KEY to playability. Again, no time acceleration, just lots of DeltaV for a big price, and state propigation when logged off (if you hit a planet, get intercepted by pirates, or miss your entry burn and fly into space, don't cry to us, space can be a ***** like that.)
adamb193
Lighting Geek
Basically you'd need a warp drive then
HiPotOk1978
ReFuel L.L.C CEO
I have thought quite a bit about running a multi-player server, and even though planning a transfer from Earth to even the Moon is an accomplishment, it just takes too darn long, even in a DGIV using Velcro drop tanks or refueling with Mir, the best transfer I been able to calculate is 3.5 days approx. If I was to run a multiplayer server, I would prob have to make the sucky decision to limit it to earth orbits, moon, and if u wanna go somewhere else, use some sort of jumpgate idea. But think about this. how important is it really to simulate those journeys. And if this turned into some sort of MMORPG kind of thing, wouldn't it be more fun to jumpgate to mars to land on one of the moons, to establish a base of operation to begin mining, to make money, to obtain better rockets, and better bases etc etc etc...
As far as EvE.... ya I liked Eve... I played for their 7 day trial I think... enjoyed mining asteroids, didn't care much for the ease of the game... Now, if I wanna spy on a rival to find out when I can attack his unmanned base, I like the idea of launching satellites into orbits that will spy on him, or if your the first person to make it to Io and start looking for ore rich areas, sending probes and designing orbits to map the surface, translate raw data into something usable....
Ok, now my wife is asking me as she is reading over my shoulder why not go to college and get some degrees and work for NASA....
As far as EvE.... ya I liked Eve... I played for their 7 day trial I think... enjoyed mining asteroids, didn't care much for the ease of the game... Now, if I wanna spy on a rival to find out when I can attack his unmanned base, I like the idea of launching satellites into orbits that will spy on him, or if your the first person to make it to Io and start looking for ore rich areas, sending probes and designing orbits to map the surface, translate raw data into something usable....
Ok, now my wife is asking me as she is reading over my shoulder why not go to college and get some degrees and work for NASA....
DevCo
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No not warp, think of the firefly, Constant burn, we are still dealing with the same physics as we always have been. You will need to accept a certain level of booster technology that obviously is beyond what we have now, but with the DG style being so popular as it is, I don't think it's beyond people to accept future tech, as long as it's not rule breaking.
Now I realize someone in this forum, and rightly so, will work out the math and tell me I'm a wild dreamer for thinking humans could survive the constant Gs at the levels needed to make those kinds of trips in that frame of time. Again, I would say that along with booster tech, there would need to be an acceptable level of inertial tinkering tech as well.
I think it's a good compromise, you retain the exacting physics model, but if you absolutely need to get somewhere far away fast, do a constant burn.
Remember that in a good MMO world you have things in-between all those normal places: hidden bases, belts, stations, asteroids that were tugged in, places to go to that made that few month trip to juputer interesting.
The scale of the solar system is the driving mechanic, that's the point.
Jarvitä
New member
Days of deltaV? That must be an imperial measurement unit, I'm not familiar with it. 
So basically what you're proposing is vessels with enough deltaV to constantly accelerate half-way to their target, then turn around and brake for the other half of the way. Not a bad idea, with enough deltaV and strong enough engines, you could get to the edges of the solar system in days - but then again, constant 5g acceleration probably wouldn't exactly be comfortable for the passangers, and we'd also have to completely re-do the navigation programs (transX and IMFD) to account for constant acceleration as opposed to brief burns.
So basically what you're proposing is vessels with enough deltaV to constantly accelerate half-way to their target, then turn around and brake for the other half of the way. Not a bad idea, with enough deltaV and strong enough engines, you could get to the edges of the solar system in days - but then again, constant 5g acceleration probably wouldn't exactly be comfortable for the passangers, and we'd also have to completely re-do the navigation programs (transX and IMFD) to account for constant acceleration as opposed to brief burns.
HiPotOk1978
ReFuel L.L.C CEO
Just thought about the wonderful few months of this game existence:
NoobStickJockey: Hey can u help me?
HiPotOk: sure what's up
NoobStickJockey: Got a mission for 600,000 credits to go obtain Helium3 from the lunar Mining Colony in the northern hemisphere to power a fusion reactor, but it costs me over 800k in fuel to get there... what am I doing wrong
HiPotOk: Well what are you doing to get to the moon
NoobStickJockey: Aiming at it and maxing out that DeltaV thing, but then I have to keep turning for some reason
HiPotOk: Well how long do u have to obtain this fuel
NoobStickJockey: lots of time, that isn't the problem though, I need to save fuel....
HiPotOk: well why not do a HTO to get there, very efficent on the fuel req
NoobStickJockey: ok, what is that
HiPotOk: you plot a parabolic course to where your orbit around the earth it's highest point is where the moon will be by the time you get there
NoobStickJockey: ???
HiPotOk: Didn't u read the first page of the manual? talks about early game starting limitations like your low DeltaV and needing to focus on making money to get more thrust
NoobStickJockey: lol no
HiPotOk: oh boy.... well gl m8
=========================================================
Oh boy, someone please code this.... gonna be so much fun!!!!
=========================================================
NoobStickJockey: Hey remember me?
HiPotOk: hey dude.... sup
NoobStickJockey: Tried that HTO thingie and it took longer than I wanted to do it so I added more of that DeltaV but I ran out of fuel
HiPotOk: that sux.... did u at least make it too the moon
NoobStickJockey: Ya, but for some reason it didn't grab me
HiPotOk: well what is your Ecc, you might be able to use RCS if u got fuel for em to get into a closed orbit and I can come get ya
NoobStickJockey: it sez 3.000e+04
HiPotOk: You might wanna delete this charactor dude...... and learn to be patient cause your gonna go for a VERY long ride..... well until your O2 runs out
Tell me that doesn't excite ya
NoobStickJockey: Hey can u help me?
HiPotOk: sure what's up
NoobStickJockey: Got a mission for 600,000 credits to go obtain Helium3 from the lunar Mining Colony in the northern hemisphere to power a fusion reactor, but it costs me over 800k in fuel to get there... what am I doing wrong
HiPotOk: Well what are you doing to get to the moon
NoobStickJockey: Aiming at it and maxing out that DeltaV thing, but then I have to keep turning for some reason
HiPotOk: Well how long do u have to obtain this fuel
NoobStickJockey: lots of time, that isn't the problem though, I need to save fuel....
HiPotOk: well why not do a HTO to get there, very efficent on the fuel req
NoobStickJockey: ok, what is that
HiPotOk: you plot a parabolic course to where your orbit around the earth it's highest point is where the moon will be by the time you get there
NoobStickJockey: ???
HiPotOk: Didn't u read the first page of the manual? talks about early game starting limitations like your low DeltaV and needing to focus on making money to get more thrust
NoobStickJockey: lol no
HiPotOk: oh boy.... well gl m8
=========================================================
Oh boy, someone please code this.... gonna be so much fun!!!!
=========================================================
NoobStickJockey: Hey remember me?
HiPotOk: hey dude.... sup
NoobStickJockey: Tried that HTO thingie and it took longer than I wanted to do it so I added more of that DeltaV but I ran out of fuel
HiPotOk: that sux.... did u at least make it too the moon
NoobStickJockey: Ya, but for some reason it didn't grab me
HiPotOk: well what is your Ecc, you might be able to use RCS if u got fuel for em to get into a closed orbit and I can come get ya
NoobStickJockey: it sez 3.000e+04
HiPotOk: You might wanna delete this charactor dude...... and learn to be patient cause your gonna go for a VERY long ride..... well until your O2 runs out
Tell me that doesn't excite ya
Jarvitä
New member
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.
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