What features would you expect in orbiter Multi-player?

[squeaky024]

But the planets will be in different locations still, if the planets were stationary this would work.

I think just to get multiplayer up and running there should be the request method, then later on add the bubble method, but leave the request method in just in case people do a scheduled group activity like the forum mission to Mars, or just friends doing things as a group or whatever. Each method has its own advantages over the other, the bubble method is better for public servers that you can just join to be with other people, and the request method is for synchronized activities.

Also just to add on to the bubble method, there should be a option in a MFD to sync the times automatically so we don't have to press F4 and do all the settings through there.

 

[Face]

perhaps i need to elaborate some more on the target-sync possibility...

<snip>

and yet, simply reporting positions through the server on a nearest-target local space, eliminates the magic-jump problem, as well as solving the time-warp riddle

You are starting to get on the right track. Indeed the position reporting needs to be relative to nearby targets due to precision issues. But forget the "through the server" idea... without P2P reporting, lag will kill you.

The MJD synchronization is nevertheless an important thing to do. Here is why:

• With your proposal, A and B have a meeting at "target" ISS.
• A says "wow... look... what a nice view of the great lakes"
• B says "what are you talking about? this is Africa!"
• A says "well, whatever, lets do our checklist before the sun goes down..."
• B says "what are you talking about? it just showed up!"

Whenever you only focus on details in the Orbiter universe regarding synchronization, you will get such inconsistencies. With your last proposal, you'll still get jumps on the SOIs of "targets". E.g. going from earth SOI to sun SOI to moon SOI with a fleet. On every boundary, members of the fleet suddenly jump away, almost resembling a BSG episode...

Not to mention that you have to provide a initial position of the targets. And what about situation where you don't have targets, only player vessels? You can't just handle them like targets, because player vessels move due to user input.

You can very well get away with this, if you have multiplayer support for a special purpose like combat or MMORPG, though. But if you want to do a general multiplayer framework, this is not the way to go IMHO.

Anyway, as the topic of the thread is about what features to expect and not how the design should be, I'd be interesting what the OP has to say now for his system .

regards,
Face

 

[statickid]

if there were a racing league (heh heh) FIRST, it wouldn't have any time acceleration, as it would just be a simple proof of multi-player. so it could have a kind of "gamers" style join-up room. when the race is going to start, it would start everyone on the same scn, at the exact same MJD, or all docked to the ISS or all on landing pads, lined up on the runway(etc). In terms of controlling i would compare it to several people controlling ONE Single-Person session, for controlling the vessels, it might be comparable to ONE ultra skilled player remote controlling several vessels in one scn by playing with time on 0.1x or if one player were to switch between vessels and input commands one after the other, thereby simultaneously controlling n amount of vessels. The most important part being that each player can control a separate ship, the race could totally imaginary as in the program itself does not acknowledge the race in anyway, I know I won or lost or started simply because it happened and everybody saw it happen.

 

[fireballs619]

If multiplayer just becomes a racing league, I will be very disappointed...

 

[Face]

I think just to get multiplayer up and running there should be the request method, then later on add the bubble method, but leave the request method in just in case people do a scheduled group activity like the forum mission to Mars, or just friends doing things as a group or whatever. Each method has its own advantages over the other, the bubble method is better for public servers that you can just join to be with other people, and the request method is for synchronized activities.

I don't see a way how you could add-on the bubble method later. IMHO it needs to be in the design of the framework right from start, otherwise you'll end up rewriting all your code. Been there, done that.

regards,
Face

---------- Post added at 10:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 PM ----------

if there were a racing league (heh heh) FIRST, it wouldn't have any time acceleration, as it would just be a simple proof of multi-player. so it could have a kind of "gamers" style join-up room. when the race is going to start, it would start everyone on the same scn, at the exact same MJD, or all docked to the ISS or all on landing pads, lined up on the runway(etc). In terms of controlling i would compare it to several people controlling ONE Single-Person session, for controlling the vessels, it might be comparable to ONE ultra skilled player remote controlling several vessels in one scn by playing with time on 0.1x or if one player were to switch between vessels and input commands one after the other, thereby simultaneously controlling n amount of vessels. The most important part being that each player can control a separate ship, the race could totally imaginary as in the program itself does not acknowledge the race in anyway, I know I won or lost or started simply because it happened and everybody saw it happen.

If multiplayer just becomes a racing league, I will be very disappointed...

I think you both missed something here. And again: been there, done that...

 

[statickid]

you wouldn't have to race, i was just saying it would be a nice first step or proof of concept, and also that it would be ONE activity that people could actually do with a barebone multiplayer setup.

Of course I agree completely that if multiplayer support were to stop here i would also be thoroughly disappointed! lol

 

[squeaky024]

My idea was that a admin or mod of a server has the ability to control time warp for all players simultaneously, and players can opt out of that and time warp on their own if they want to.

 

[statickid]

p.s. i actually got the racing idea from the ORL and the ksc-wideawake scn that someone was posting a thread and recordings about. I was posting this concept on here because (i believe) isn't this a multi player project that a new person is asking for ideas to implement?

 

[Salun]

The only way this would work is if one person hosts a session. Determining all the accelerations and overall the destinations. Not big 128 person servers. SO it will be 2 or 3 people per server. Better than coming up with some over complicated system to sync everyone.

 

[Face]

p.s. i actually got the racing idea from the ORL and the ksc-wideawake scn that someone was posting a thread and recordings about. I was posting this concept on here because (i believe) isn't this a multi player project that a new person is asking for ideas to implement?

Yes, features you expect in it. What you proposed was a design roadmap, a "how", that the person should follow on starting his project. And since you got the idea from ORL, why not link to it? So features from there could be investigated by the OP.

---------- Post added at 11:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:17 PM ----------

The only way this would work is if one person hosts a session. Determining all the accelerations and overall the destinations. Not big 128 person servers. SO it will be 2 or 3 people per server. Better than coming up with some over complicated system to sync everyone.

So you essentially mean the only way for it to work is a server-wide acceleration setup? IMHO you have to sync everyone, otherwise players' simulations would drift over time (I measured up to 10 secs per minute with 5 clients on a LAN), even when you restrict individual time-acc to be server-bound.

 

[statickid]

face- hey sorry for not linking, i don't mean that i got the idea directly from it. i just mean that i knew i saw that there were orbiter users that were interested in racing. to be honest i didn't know that the ORL was so far along, I actually couldn't remember the name of it or who made it I just knew I saw some kind of racing add-ons in O-H a while back. In fact I am glad to be reacquainted with it now I will probably download it and try it!

 

[Face]

face- hey sorry for not linking, i don't mean that i got the idea directly from it. i just mean that i knew i saw that there were orbiter users that were interested in racing. to be honest i didn't know that the ORL was so far along, I actually couldn't remember the name of it or who made it I just knew I saw some kind of racing add-ons in O-H a while back. In fact I am glad to be reacquainted with it now I will probably download it and try it!

Ah, I see... that's why I posted the links. I'm not sure if this really is a feature, more like a possible starter setup to attract people. Then again, the "attract people" thing is not working ...