Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: ApetureUnicorn on October 04, 2016, 05:19:17 AM

Title: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: ApetureUnicorn on October 04, 2016, 05:19:17 AM
Am I the only one who really wonders if I'll ever be able to battle my friends in either an mmo version of star sector or some kind of lan? I know it might be quite a stretch but can we please try to make it happen???
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: DownTheDrain on October 04, 2016, 05:26:09 AM
From what others have said you'd basically need to rewrite the entire game for multiplayer, so that's not looking too hot.

edit:
I just realized that even the FAQ on the main page explains why there will be no multiplayer in SS.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Grievous69 on October 04, 2016, 05:27:41 AM
Sorry to break it to you but I'm almost positive that it won't. Ever.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: borgrel on October 04, 2016, 05:33:44 AM
I'm not sorry to say NO!!

I'm tired of 98% of all modern games needing less than 50ms latency to be playable.

@ApatureUnicorn:
there are already THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of space sim MMO's ..... go and play one of those instead of trying to turn this into another clone!!
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: ApetureUnicorn on October 04, 2016, 05:39:09 AM
Ah well.... Let's hope some mega nerd creates a multiplayer mod. My dreams shall not be crushed!
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: DownTheDrain on October 04, 2016, 05:40:09 AM
I'm not sorry to say NO!!

I'm tired of 98% of all modern games needing less than 50ms latency to be playable.

@ApatureUnicorn:
there are already THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of space sim MMO's ..... go and play one of those instead of trying to turn this into another clone!!

Calm down, he just asked, and very politely at that.
Personally I couldn't care less about multiplayer in SS, but to each their own.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Tartiflette on October 04, 2016, 06:09:41 AM
Ah well.... Let's hope some mega nerd creates a multiplayer mod. My dreams shall not be crushed!
It has been attempted. And it failed.

Besides it would have to be truely a mega nerd, as adding multiplayer would be much more work for a modder than for Alex given his access to the source code.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Gothars on October 04, 2016, 06:37:38 AM
Recently I've been thinking how nice something like a co-pilot function would be, where one player plays the game normally and another is one of the officers and helps out. Maybe even locally in split screen/second monitor setup.

Or even the other way round, your co- player always controls one enemy officer.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: TJJ on October 04, 2016, 07:19:07 AM
Assuming Alex doesn't change the way the game is distributed*, it'll happen eventually; I just need a few months of uninterrupted time to focus on it.

Though as much of the work is engineering bytecode modifications (look at what the game code is doing -> write bytecode injection/transformation to make it do what is needed), you can imagine it is a laborious process. The changes being so low level also make it rather prone to breaking whenever a new version is released.

Don't get your hopes up for campaign though, it'll be strictly head to head battles.
My only deadline prediction is before Starsector 1.0, so I've got a good 5 years or so ;D

*native compilation or encrypted class loader would both be major inconveniences.

I'm tired of 98% of all modern games needing less than 50ms latency to be playable.

The mechanics of SS combat actually make it very latency tolerant.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: DownTheDrain on October 04, 2016, 07:23:07 AM
My only deadline prediction is before Starsector 1.0, so I've got a good 5 years or so ;D

Alright then, looking forward to playing your mod some time between now and 2036.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Grievous69 on October 04, 2016, 07:34:07 AM
That sounds nice man. I really hope my grandchildren will like these types of games so someone could play your mod :P
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Sy on October 04, 2016, 09:27:08 AM
iirc, Alex has stated several times already that there will definitely not be multiplayer. not just because of the additional dev time it would require, but because just tagging on multiplayer to a game designed for singleplayer will generally not result in a good multiplayer experience. many gameplay and balancing mechanics that are important parts of the singleplayer game would not work well in multiplayer, and vice versa.

so if multiplayer would be added one day, it would most likely have to be through an entirely seperate game-mode. being able to play standalone missions in co-op or versus another player might work, but in the campaign/sandbox (which is the main focus), it would not.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on October 04, 2016, 02:25:25 PM
The Starsector ship tournament (here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8201.0 ) showed many just how badly balanced SS is around PvP, and this was completely AI controlled and no skills were allowed.

For those that weren't around: What you did was you sent in fleet compositions, variants and any changes or additions to your fleet every round. Then the 1 v 1 matches were livestreamed (IIRC that is. But I know they were recorded) until all fights were concluded, then a new match would begin.
To sum up what happened, one fleet basically wiped out all the others through shear numbers of shuttles!! and missile spam. On and this was BEFORE the missile buff if I remember correctly

The only multiplayer that I could see happening would be something along the lines of that were you would be able to upload you fleet and officer load-outs to some kind of server were others could pull your fleet and fight them in an arena style fight
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Tartiflette on October 04, 2016, 11:38:37 PM
Heh, the Grey Swarm whipped the floor with every other fleet (and CPU: so many missiles, so much lag!). Even the Templar fleet got destroyed. The only one that put up a good fight was Helmutt's Enforcer spam with double flak. Good times.

I would love to organize a new tournament, but with simpler rules and a trick or two to prevent mindless spam.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Doom101 on October 05, 2016, 02:06:55 AM
Recently I've been thinking how nice something like a co-pilot function would be, where one player plays the game normally and another is one of the officers and helps out. Maybe even locally in split screen/second monitor setup.

Or even the other way round, your co- player always controls one enemy officer.

That is exactly how i always pictured MP would have to be, i've also always wanted that mode for my friend and i for mount & blade, he loves the campaign, i just enjoy the combat.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Thaago on October 05, 2016, 09:40:06 AM
Heh, the Grey Swarm whipped the floor with every other fleet (and CPU: so many missiles, so much lag!). Even the Templar fleet got destroyed. The only one that put up a good fight was Helmutt's Enforcer spam with double flak. Good times.

I would love to organize a new tournament, but with simpler rules and a trick or two to prevent mindless spam.

I'd be in. I was this close last time to using a Paragon with Templar weaponry, due to the complicated faction point buy rules. We probs shouldn't have that :P.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: RandomnessInc on October 05, 2016, 09:49:54 AM
I second this, I wasn't able to make the last one :P
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: Tartiflette on October 05, 2016, 09:58:13 AM
The only small little problem is that I don't have a good internet connection so uploading recordings would become a big problem fast. On the other hand I could run the battles a few times, collect some stats to determine a winner and upload the results, a couple screenshots and the actual "battle" mission for anyone to take a look themselves.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: RandomnessInc on October 05, 2016, 10:13:49 AM
I could upload them, I have a very beefy internet connection. You would hav to send me the recordings though.
Title: Re: Will star sector ever be able to be multiplayer in the Next few years or so?
Post by: CMDR_Orion on January 16, 2021, 02:30:24 PM
what if someone make a mod? like luna multiplayer from ksp