As i worked on multiplayer with KitHack, I learned first hand just how true your original thinking was, on how multiplayer isn't a _feature_ you add, it's a foundational pillar at the very core of the project. It affects every system, feature and design/technical decision you make. When you work on a multiplayer game, your first thought with everything has to be, 'ok so how does this work in multiplayer?'
I was always skeptical about multiplayer in either KSP... like you said, the game wasn't really made for it so EVERYTHING has to be redone or done differently
Strange how our entire society takes the bottom-feeders from the univesities and puts them in charge of everything, then wonders why it all goes wrong.
I envision two modes of gameplay: 1) coop - everyone controls their own crafts but works towards the same goal 2) space race - players are divided into teams that compete for space exploration glory
In the racing mode (even the regular mode), they could have easily done a live “ghost” mode where you see a translucent version of the other players’ crafts (if you’re close enough) and a persistent (regardless of distance) identifier tag showing you where the craft is and the distance (and relative velocity) from the observer. So if your friend is already at the Mun and burning out to Minmus, you can see the little pip of “EatMyDust” from the surface of Kerbin as you launch to catch up. No physics overlap to worry about. No interaction to worry about. Just visual representation only.
The whole thing with it being the most fun for people who like crashing rockets sounds exactly what Nate Simpson wanted, at the end of the day he wanted wobbly rockets.
That's why to be honest I'm not really that depressed about KSP2 being cancelled the longer it went on the more I felt what Nate enjoyed about the game was everything I didn't like,
I really hope one of the former developers just decides to leak the entire source code of KSP2, then maybe the community could finish the game themselves
Considering that they reused a lot of ksp1 code, I think we would just find out that it's garbage. What we really needed was the stable foundation that ksp1 was too limited to deliver.
Yeah.. that aint gonna work Ksp2 runs on the same engine as the first, and still has the same issues w/ things like part count. And some more - the new additions to the engine are really, really badly coded
That would be great except it would just be KSP1+ (but worse). Any hope of a KSP2 is a complete and total restart, built from scratch game. Taketwo has that IP locked, up dead and buried. The kerbals are unfortunately gone. RIP.
@@Chemical_Blue If the compute problem is literally part count, why don't they have procedural parts that allow functions to be loaded by volume, and tally the mass? Imagine if you built merely on the basis of the minimal shapes and stages you needed, and then loaded the functions up to Vol_Max, and tallied the mass? Loved the Lego aspect of KSP1, but the ambition of the new desired features calls for a more fundamental new approach than KSP2 offered.
Yeah and they wouldn't have been able to, because KSP1 is spaghetti, and thus impossible to be given a multiplayer DLC that wouldn't get the same "it's okay if it's buggy or desyncs sometimes" treatment a multiplayer mod would get
@@LuciSheppyLive if the effort to make ksp2 was instead put into ksp1 by fixing the code and just a handfull of new features we would have one of the best games of the decade no doubt. it's already amazing what the modding community is doing by it self and that's without the source code of the game
I have a genius idea. What if we take KSPs code and push it somewhere else. Then we start over with a fresh slate to integrate multiplayer from the very beginning. Now all we need is funding. I've heard TakeTwo would be interested.
I just envision some sort of coop mode, everyone is working out the same space center but they can each control their own craft. So while one person was getting the final stage into an orbit, someone else could be landing the booster.
But that still all goes to hell once time warp comes into play. That’s the issue. There isn’t a multiplayer setup that can properly adapt to that necessity without being messy and convoluted, and by extension unplayable.
@@mrooshoo that immediately rules out online multiplayer, which is what Take2 wants when thinking multiplayer. And in coop that still poses difficulties if you have a stubborn friend or not everyone wants to timewarp for a various reason.
How has the company not been sued for lying to people about the state of the game? They are still selling it as early access. How can that not be illegal?
they need tangible proof that they never intended on delivering the product. since all staff has been laid off, offices closed and people still under NDA that is physically impossible, even *if* you find a lawyer that is willing to think that they can sue take 2.
@@thebluehat6814 Subpoenas don't care about NDAs. As long as you convince a Judge that it's likely they continued selling the game after they decided it wouldn't be finished, you can get to discovery and can drag people into depositions.
@@dancingferret6654 They are doing that right now. The game is selling, and they have closed the studio. The only thing they've said is that they haven't ended development. Which is TECHNICALLY correct, they COULD decide to start working on it again tomorrow. They won't, but the possibility exists, and that's enough to raise a 'reasonable doubt'. It's the same thing with Kickstarters that fund but flame out. I've seen one that is 11 years out, people complain in the comments all the time, but as long as they keep posting a status update every few months or so, there's no legal case.
@@andynonomous8558 Early Access is not a legal term. At best it is a marketing term by Steam. This might violate terms of service for Steam and Valve could pull KSP2 from being offered for sale. That is about it.
@@thebluehat6814 except that NDA's are not enforceable, especially when a Crime is involved; like the Fraud Nate and his Crew committed with their B.S. Video stating that the Game was ready for release in 2021, but because of Rona, they wanted to cook a little longer, etc.
I'll never buy an early access game published by Take Two, and will think carefully before buying a finished game. Their silence on KSP2 is unforgivable.
If literally any other studio picked up and finished the game. I'd buy it. I think everyone still wants what ksp2 was supposed to be. I don't get it. Just put a competent team on it.
Being able to crash into someone else's rocket requires solving many of the big multiplayer challanges- if you can make that work, you can do your space race and coop
When I envision a kerbal multiplayer, It has multiple people working together on the same mission. Time warp is agreed on by all parties. It would be fun because you could do various races. It would be interesting because you could do missions that are overly complex or difficult to do with just one person controlling. It would be technically viable because you don't have to worry about time related issues. In this mode having a solid mission control view would be super cool as well.
Hello, I'm a refugee from the multiverse universe that KSP 2.0 actually was released in 2022 with full multiplayer. Sure it was buggy at first, but by 2023 the science patch went in, and there were a ton of bug fixes. Everyone LOVED multiplayer. Apparently it inspired a real world company to try to harvest an asteroid by 2024. Unfortunately in my universe, that company was responsible for having the asteroid hit the earth, approximately 20 miles from Nantucket, wiping out the US eastern seaboard. China took advantage of the situation and sent in an invasion force to Alaska and Taiwan, and nukes were exchanged between NATO and the Russian/China alliance. My world is all but a burnt crisp. Out of all probabilities, the only universes where the US survives is the one where KSP 2.0 didn't have mutliplayer AND was cancelled in 2024. Consider yourselves lucky.
@@eekee6034 Apparently in some timelines where KSP2 multiplayer was not released but KSP2 development keeps going, the asteroid mining company went ahead anyways, a month later than the other universe. This apparently was enough time to accidentally set the asteroid into a much more highly elliptical sub-orbit that took a little longer to hit Earth but hits the Alps in Switzerland instead of 20 miles from Nantucket, resulting in a massive united world response to help Europe, which brings about global peace for a few years and leads to a golden age of prosperity for the US and its rapid development of an AI intelligence that quickly reaches the point of sentience. Unfortunately this path also leads directly to the world turning into burnt out crisp, not from war, but from a science experiment gone awry: AI developed a means to redirect solar energy to the earth to provide the AI with sustainable energy (fusion always remains a decade away in any universe). New Years Eve, and one highly magnified but misdirected Class X solar flare and it was all over. Earth's atmosphere - gone. The world started 2098 without a single living creature on the surface. Those in subs survived to start an underwater civilization, but it was unsustainable. Humanity dies out after 137 years of agonizing attrition and the rapidly evaporating seas turn into a sterile frozen pond. The last man, alone in the silence just 77 days since the passing of the last woman, decides to go out in a blaze of nuclear glory convinced that such an action would reset his life to live it again. It didn't. The surviving machines in that universe tried for hundreds of thousands of years to undo the damage before giving up and moving on to the Sirius system. (Time travel doesn't work, but jumping universes does). Trust me, you guys really do have it better in your universe.
@@tuplatykki6114 well the thing is majority of people who would be interested in ksp2 likely already bought the game they wont buy another copy of the game
@@awildhampter8570 Way i see it. How many copies take two ever gonna sold ksp2 at this point? Close to zero my guess so you don't make any money at all anymore. You can sell game to another company. You can't ask high price because like you said maybe majority or half potential byers already bought the game and it's reviewed moslty negative. Let's say you ask 200k? 200k is still more than zero right?. So like i sayd it depends on price like anything
KPS multiplayer: Have team-wide "alarm" to alert everyone when various ships are entering Orbits or half-way points or nearing maneuver nodes etc. Only one person can have "primary" control of any vehicle. Other can join said rocket if there are more than one Kerbal on the rocket. You can "request control-from-here" if you are sitting in a valid seat that is connected to the vehicle. While ships are in flight in transition, everyone is building the next ship, or redesigning the ship they just crashed, or that had a docking port on backwards time is always moving forward, even while building. Voice chat "Alarms" must be set and voted on by team for a time-warp to start. Anyone can pause a time warp, but the "Alarm" stays in place and time-warp can be re-engaged by a proposal from 1 and a 2nd (not needing a full vote) I know KSP1 Mod had "time slips" or the ability for one person to fast forward but I feel like it wouldn't be super clear and kinda chaotic
@@hagangray8006 Anyone with a brain knew it would be this bad, I kept telling people to NOT buy early access, as there's no guarantee the game would be finished after launching in such a bad state
@@hagangray8006 All the people who said "don't preorder"; the same people who were saying "we told you so" when the initial release was so terrible. If you didn't preorder and bought it after that, then the signs were already there after multiple delays and an awful initial release.
For me multiplayer in KSP has players able to control and perform the full suite of actions on their own vessels in real time with each other. Players have their own individual VAB instances and have labels denoting their saved vehicles that others can access depending on permissions. Time warp works that you get a notification if another player warps forward and in order to interact with that players vehicles, stations, and bases you have to warp up to their timezone. Multiplayer Kerbin has new KSCs in varied locations and you can choose co-op or compete game modes and sandbox or science. compete science doesn't give permission to share vehicles and you have to send agency requests to dock with specific other player vehicles. you share objectives but only one player can 'win' the objective. so multiple player controlled vehicles in one instance, instance generation based on gameplay state recorded over time, notification systems for players, and systems to generate permissions (can/can't access ship file, can/can't dock).
KSP1 was (is?) mainly a single player experience fro me. That being said, some of the coolest experiences I had was when I started KSP and a friend taught me orbital mechanics and docking. I remember the night, we're we spent several hours to get two vessels close enough together on Kerbin's orbit to dock, only to phase through each other and my ship exploding. :) We also did some Mun and Duna missions together, were we managed to land on Duna in viewing distance of each other. We also flew around the KSC complex with various crafts. Those were really nice experiences, but lacked a bit of long-term focus. Still, it was really nice to have these experiences with the Dark Multiplayer mod.
you nailed it. they were good experiences, but nothing with any lasting capability. a comparison i take is with no mans sky. sure its nice to see you friend in game next to you, but there is zero reason for you to travel around together. any development time spent on ksp multiplayer would be a waste in my opinion.
KSP Multiplayer = (for me): Multi vehicle so that I can play Apollo style missions with my son. Not completely independent space programs. Bridge too far.
I discovered KSP back in 2013, right after I got my first PC. At the time, I was 12 years old, and it felt like I was the only one in my country playing the game. But everything changed when I started watching your videos on TH-cam. Your content gave a whole new meaning to my passion for this game, inspiring me to dream bigger and explore the universe more creatively. A huge thank you for everything you do. Your work has not only inspired me but has also deepened my love for KSP. Keep amazing us-you're a source of motivation for so many, including myself 🤩✨
man we really need a community made KSP2. i dont mean a KSP modpack, KSP's code is too... dated. and mods make that problem worse. i mean a community made remake, with people like you, scott manley, matt lowne and other big ksp content creators helping. maybe one day, as theres currently some people working on something similar rn. but unless more people get involved, it'll go nowhere.
A KSP 2 made by "CoNtEnT cReAtOrS" would probably fail as spectacularly as Intercept's KSP 2. Rocketwerkz and Star Theory were competing for the contract but the latter won because they showed pretty pictures to the Take Two executives whereas Rocketwerkz had a far more technically detailed outline of the sequel they wanted to make. How would hiring your favourite youtubers work out differently?
@@Bruh-zx2mc the same reason mods are one of the only things keeping the game alive right now. im preeeety sure the people who've made this game such a big part of their life, would know more on what'd be better for it than a company who havent worked, or been familiar with a project like kerbal space program.
@@Bruh-zx2mcbecause they would supplement the direction for features, rather than nate brainstorming everything for devs that didnt even know what game they were working on while getting hired. not to mention having cc's embedded in the development from the start would have likely voided the problem where intercept kept all development under lock and key. if cc's were involved we would have probably known it was a sinking ship of technical debt long before the studio shut down. maybe there could have even been enough influence to encourage working on a brand new base of code
One of the modes I envision would be a co-op carreer where different players are given separate missions, all missions leading to a common goal ...say land on mun, collect science data and return to Kerbin... that way everyone gets involved in building their own designs and contribute to the common goal. Once all players complete their respective missions, there would be a final one in which players could assume different roles like pilot, navigator and specialist for example. The pilot could only maneuver the ship and handle flight related systems, while the navigator would set up routes, nodes, transfers, etc...then the specialist would be in charge of deploying other systems, like comms, experiments and performing EVAs
Multiplayer: Up to three (maximum) gamemodes can be offered. Coop: Players work together in completing the singleplayer exploration experience together (collect resources, make colonies, yada yada). Competitive: Up to 4 players (or however many launchpads there were), the host can set some predefined goal through a Body and Objective dropdown (so Duna; first to have isLanded flag on a vessel), with possible expansion to collection of some resource amount, or anything else i might be missing (maybe use some of the codebase from the mission maker from Missing History, or something like it?) Each player is assigned an instanced timer, and full interactions would be enabled by default in local system [1] (think team build from factorio if you ever bothered to play anything other than Freeplay). Sandbox: Just goof around, no restrictions, full interactions in same local system. I probably would never want to have more than 4 players in a single session (assuming this [2] wasn't updated prior to end-of-development, and assuming each player has an approx. 150 part vessel, we'd could expect ~13ms per frame, so still >60fps, but even then that's probably still too low performant). [1] Local System: This is a shared SOI, so if Player A and Player B are in orbit of Kerbin, they are in the same "Local System". Player C in the Mun SOI could not interact with Players A and B. This would be done as at these distances, player A+B, and Player C could not meaningfully interact with one another, and so alot of the physics calculations could be "removed" from each local system (So Player A and B only calculate each other, while Player C just calculates themselves [3]). [2] www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1703l8h/its_official_ksp_2_calculating_everything_at_once/ [3] Rationale: This might be done by (from Player A+B's perspective) reducing Player C to a single "vessel" part. Player C updates their velocity by 50m/s in the prograde direction, and this could be sent to the Network Manager, which would queue this update in a buffer, making sure it's a valid action, and then pushing it to all clients, or perhaps it could do a regressive check, sort of like how competitive fps clientside game's handle their anticheat (yes that means potential rubberbanding). Once the Network Manager pushes that update to all clients, Player C's "vessel" part would increase it's prograde velocity by 50m/s from Player A+B's perspective. This might help to increase performance by having the server only calculate what it needs to, and having the expensive physics calculations be performed clientside. Or maybe not, i don't know really I just make games for fun :)
i would have to imagine kerbal multiplayer in sandbox would let you and your people of choice controlling rockets and kerbals in career or science mode if someone where to launch and get funds do a quest or get science it would show for everyone and if you where to upgrade something or unlock a tech from the tech tree everyone would get it or see it. (yes this is what i imagine ksp multiplayer)
I had the privilege of playtesting the multiplayer mod for vtol VR. That was pure chaos, but hilariously fun. A bunch of guys who take their flight sims too seriously laughing until gasping after another plane spawned on top someone on the carrier. I was really looking forward to that type of janky fun in KSP2.
The first thing I thought when I learned that KSP2 will have multiplayer was "Sounds nice, but I would understand if they would scrap that feature." I mainly thought this, because it's seemed like a pain to implement it especially with timewarp.
My vision for what Kerbal Multiplayer could be was split. My worst fears were that two players could launce simultaneously and fly around each other and maybe try to dock with each other. Completely tactical, no "Space Program", just Kerbal. My fondest hopes were that it would be persistent world, kind of like minecraft with servers and scripts potentially providing themes for the server. In this scenario you could log in and control any of "your" crafts or bases. when you are offline they would drift for be automated according to craft scripts. Ideally trade and economy could be performed with or without centralized server support. Events might be hosted on popular servers at certain locations in the system-- Jool rover olympics maybe. Time acceleration would be a delicate issue. I imagine server votes for speedups to be scheduled. creating all kinds of logistics problems if not done with forethought. I would love to be on the multiplayer design team of a KSP like game.
I envisioned multiplayer to work like this: One player hosts their game and their buddies can join as their own agency or as a second player of the same host's agency via hotswap. The big problem of timewarp would have two options: Host controlled timewarp and collective Timewarp. The latter would mean, each player could set their timewarp to their desired speed and the game would pick the lowest. Unless two crafts' render-sphere intersects, each craft would be simulated clientside and only its trajectory would be synced to the host game and from there to the other players.
When I think about multiplayer it would be multiple players piloting multiple vehicles at the same time. You could have multiple kerbals in the same vehicle for instance and then undock a portion and have 1 player pilot each section. Or multiple players rendezvous different crafts. As a developer I have actually thought about the mechanics of this and I had 2 options 1. Shared timewarp. If 1 player wanted to timewarp other players had to agree to allow it and the duration. Then all players and vehicles stay at the same time. 2. Time bubbles. Multiple players could warp their vehicles separately but those would not be visible until 1 player stops warping and the other catches up.
My vision of KSP2-Multiplayer was, that i am able to play with 2 friends in 1 Savegame. At least in Cooperation, and maybe in Future in Competition. There is always the question: "how could it work in point of timewarp?" Nothing easier than that. Player A commits, that he want activate timewarp x4. Now the game shows to player B & C player A's wish for timewarp x4. If they have no problem with it, they also press x4. If all 3 players pressed x4, the game is timewarping with x4 speed. As long until one of the 3 players abort it. BTT: KSP2-Multiplayer is for me researching the starsystem('s) in coop with friends.
I'm pretty sure they just integrated the LunaMultiplayer Core inside the KSP 2 code and they created some new UIs. By the way, I'm the developer of BDArmory Multiplayer mod for LMP
I was told from people within the project that they did in fact NOT just take LMP but built their own network transport layer and the rest was bespoke as well.
@@ShadowZone That's surprisingly good :) . Don't get me wrong I think LMP was a really well implemented mod so it might be an efficient idea to reuse it's core as a prototype. I had the pleasure to speak with Dagger (the dev behind LMP) and he told me during Star Theory days that he was in fact contacted by one of the developers in charge of the multiplayer.
thank you so much for making that mod, kerbal was great but my adhd brain needs explosions approximateely every 17 seconds so having it in actually made me follow through on a full career playthrough. (full meaning every planet visited no clue if theres an actual gameified end besides tech tree ig). i love flyout but its not far along to quite scratch the itch i have for a combat vehicle designer, and BDA and Kerbal scratched just that.
what i had envisioned , personally, was bases that could get supplies and visits from other players. you wouldn't actually see them, but could trade with them, visit their bases, build infrastructure together. stations, bases, etc. also, I thought eventually, maybe it could support a 4 to 8 team player hosted game where you all had to stay near the same vessel or inside it and do different things.. like engineers, pilots, science.
Multiplayer would have been fun but I agree the way I play it would never have been the majority of my play time. If they had delivered everything on the roadmap but multiplayer it would have been much better than what we ended up with
What I envisioned KSP2 multiplayer to be was a coop mode: Tech tree advances would be universal; that is, once a new tier of parts was unlocked by one player, all players would now have access to the same tech; all science and money resources would be shared, so players would have to work together not to bankrupt the space program, especially with expensive personal pet projects.
personally I was looking for a space race thing with ksp 2 multiplayer, with possibility to destroy other colonies and stuff... how cool could it be to launche an interplanetary missile at the uranium mining facility of an other player to deny him the right to use nerva engine? or to race to the first duna landing for all mankind style?
If I had to say what I would have liked ksp 2 multiplayer to be, my minimal requirements would have been persistent spacecraft between players. So one player can launch a space station and another player can visit it, expand it, change its orbital parameters, or even destroy it. The synchronisation would have to be automatic and it should not require leaving the game. The other "KSP multiplayer" features would also be very nice, but I don't see them as necessary.
The issue is locality and time warp. If one player time warps, but another doesn’t, well, you then have some crazy weird time warping shit that I don’t even know how you’d work out. The only way I can see it working is that if one player warps time, everyone has to warp with them. Would be interesting.
I always really liked the space race idea for multiplayer, but also I think the best way to do a space race is for you and your friend to sit down with two separate single player games and either use a real time clock or go by in-game time. Basically, the thing I would want to do with multiplayer most only requires a single player mode.
As a game programmer, I would simply not have done multiplayer. It's... theoretically possible, but adds soooo much complexity and work required to a project that's already filled to the brim. If I had to make *something* multiiplayer-ish, I would've done something like this: - you add a friend to your account - now I can ask my friend if they want to connect save files, and we both choose one save file to connect - if I want to connect this save to other friends, I can, but all previously connected friends have to accept A connected save file will simply contain the completed missions of all my friends; if they build a colony, I can find it in my save file and visit it as if it were my own. We can leave gifts for each other in the world, as well as space junk, but we can't ever see each other's active spacecraft. It's barebones, but I think it would leave out most issues that crop up when adding multiplayer.
It's not so hard to do, right up until you have two players in different craft in the same physics bubble, at which point there's no answer better than someone gets a lag-fest. But that leaves a lot of room for fun. People doing parallel missions, people crewing a ship for a co-op mission, someone building a colony while someone flies transport, etc.
I have always, always, always wanted to fly a coop mission with friends in KSP - landing on the moon in IVA with instruments and a friend calling out data for you?
I played with a friend years ago on ksp one with the multiplayer mod. Building a space station together. Designing and moving different modules up to space. A space race sounds fun as well.
Kerbal multi-player is vessles controlled by multiple players in the same physical universe. Along the lines of how it works in space engineers. Controlling the same vessle, Controlling different vessles, crashing into each other, transferring resources, etc
I envisioned 'Kerbal multiplayer' as letting different people play as different space agencies, or basically the same as KSP1 but there wwre other people in the same "server"/save file. Other players could be enemy nations in a Cold War/Space Race dynamic or could work together to launch space stations modules in an ISS dynamic. You could also each control your own Kerbals, but people could "give you access" to their vehicles so you can ride together, etc. Basically, you could even be on the same missions together as if you were a part of the same agency if you wanted as well. Imagine how much more fun it would be if Jeb, Bob, Bill and Val were all separate people doing different things on the Munar surface, but all from the same lander. You could even take off and strand people lol.
i think ksp2 multiplayer is being able take your single player campaign into a shared universe with your friend's single player game, sort of like the recent SimCity game. You can play asynchronously, allowing for independent fast forward, or you can somehow play a mission together (but i don't understand how to get around fast forward really). But i think there are neat possibilities for asynchronous play, i.e. docking on your friends stations.
4:25 having server of like five people, everyone gets their own launch site. You can either play separately racing each other to different goals or play together and build space stations and bases.
I envision for hosting (paid) official dedicated servers, as well as free servers running on our own machines. Ingame, the ability to play and interact with each other in real-time with or without collisions, on a globally shared save (with options to pick from to play similarly to career/science/sandbox) where players can either share a space company/space center with friends or have their own independent one. Also (not necessarily at launch but at least in the near future) the ability to create custom goals/contracts (tasks/reward that can be done by a single player or many) just like in career mode.
I always envisioned one or both of two multi-player options. The first being for real-time in-flight synced play. This would be used primarily for aircraft and close proximity maneuvers requiring more than one vessel to be operated simultaneously. I believe KSP1 has a mod that functions like this, but I've never played it. The other would be more along the lines of long-duration flight control and would sync up regularly. This would be something along the lines of what Sim City 4(I think) did for their multiplayer.
As per your question at 4:30 ish- I envision the campaign, with multiple players all existing in the same sandbox. Perhaps they have their own launch facilities, they are on their own missions out in the world, not sure how time skip works, maybe overall time matters less in multiplayer? maybe things run slower?. They could each run their own companies or work for each other's, with specific tech tree advancement for each company. I've never seen the Kerbal multiplayer mod in action so perhaps this is the perfect pure reaction. :)
4:30 ok, each player can control a ship. each ship has its own physics render bubble around them, and if the physics bubbles overlap, the players can see each other and interact, otherwise it just plays like KSP but with extra stuff on the map. each ship can only have 1 primary driver, but multiple players can "ride" on a ship and some controls (like robotic arms) can be given to other players (optional)
4:35 there are a lot of ways to envision ksp multiplayer. For me multiplayer would be perfect if you could do aerial refueling. or visit each others bases
When I think of KSP multiplayer I think of a "world" you can host (think Valheim or Minecraft), where one or more players can access the world and perform missions independently. This would have two potential multiplayer exclusive modes in my opinion; Co-Op, where you work under the same agency and share funds and resources, and "Space-Race" where players are stationed in rival agencies with separate funds and resources, and compete to achieve milestones first and come out the most successful. Both would also have science mode and career mode versions in case they prefer one play style over another. I've given much thought to this. The big issue is, how do you solve the issue of time warp in a multiplayer setting? The only one I've heard tossed around is allowing for players to time warp as usual, but whenever a craft tries to rendezvous with a craft that will only exist in the future, the game will automatically time warp to the point at which that craft would actually exist at that point in space. This idea probably isn't perfect, you'd effectively be having multiple different instances of the same world converging and diverging constantly, but it's an idea nonetheless. Edit: Also, it's worth noting I haven't played any KSP multiplayer mods, since none of my friends play KSP.
i think a career multiplayer could be really fun. There could be two types: competitive and cooperative. For competitive, you could have the regular missions but you would have a timer and you could compete with your friends to get somewhere the fastest. Perhaps there could be optional missions like "set up a fuel station around the mun" which could help you get further more easily but direct approaches would be possible for other players. Your end goal might be to set up a colony on another planet, which would require a lot of launches. You might also get graded based on # of launches, cost of the rockets (reusability?), cost of fuel, etc. For cooperative missions, you might have a mission to dock multiple players' vehicles docked to a station at one time.
My first thought of KSP multiplayer is two people playing KSP in the same universe, and they somehow have to agree when to time warp. What I would like to see would be something like one person has only map view and one person has only (improved) IVA, and they have to communicate effectively to make the mission happen. Kinda like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, now that I think of it.
I don’t know how any KSP mod does it, but this would be how I envision multiplayer: All players share one Kerbol system/galaxy. The players either start from the same facility or multiple facilities sprinkled over Kerbin. Time Warping would be a thing where one player can decide they need to time warp a craft and than that craft would time warp, not the entire world. Transfer windows could be „reserved“ for a specific time and the server would handle time warping the entire simulation to match the reservation. It would try to do that when no players are active, but all crafts currently being controlled would not be effected by the global warp. Where the game competitive, I‘d expect something like reserving transfer windows being linked to a cost.
:( this is so sad… I was really hyped for this game, the multiplayer feature was especially interesting to me as well as interstellar travel and that stuff. I really really hope KSP2 gets saved by someone
My vision for multiplayer would involve 2 or more players existing simultaneously in a single KSP save. All players would have full game functionality with the possible exception of time warp. I would also expect players to be able to share ownership/control of certain vessels. For instance of you wanted a SpaceX style reusable booster, one player could control the payload after separation and the 2nd player could control the booster to land it.
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of multiplayer is that everyone would be on their own timelines and they could fast forward to align with others, although this would pose some issues in-terms of interacting with other peoples stuff from their past
Multiplayer was the thing I was looking forward to the most. Even if it was just faffing about with strange planes around the VAB it would have been a great way to introduce friends to the game.
(My) KSP multiplayer would be one shared game world for up to ~10 players with all players on one timeline, and time warp agreed on by the "lowest agreed warp" between all players. Players would all be able to view and (with permission?) control any active mission. Nearby craft would be able to interact as in KSP1, except multiple could be piloted by players simultaneously. Players could cooperate in the VAB & hanger, or work on their own craft independently. The 'overworld' infrastructure, i.e. launch pad and runway, would be a shared space, with FUN™ resulting.
Kerbal Multiplayer; Network communication code to sync game stats(money/rep/time), actions, vehicles(stats, position, rotation, velocity etc) to multiple clients so they can be correctly rendered to give the player the idea they are within the same game/world. My estimation for an undertaking like this: Proof of concept: 2-4 weeks dev time Actual finished reliable project: 1 year estimation, but we tell the project owner it will be 2-4 instead because we know how stuff goes.
I had imagined multiplayer would play mostly like single player and the goals would be set by the players themselves. Controlling modules would need to be updated to the way they were in KSP so you can set a priority on which module has control of naming but in the case of multiplayer, the player that produces a module controls that vessel if their module has a higher rank. In this instance, the game host would have to set a rank for each player when they join so the two vessels that joined would be controlled by the player with the highest rank. Time warp would be a permission request type of thing were you create a start date/time and end date/time to request a time warp, and all other players would have to check a box to accept that. At any time during the warp, any player can stop it and the request is canceled. A new request would have to be created to continue. The request would have to include a warp factor limit for which each player can request a lower warp factor in case they plan to cut it early. Alternatively, they could propose an end time that is sooner than what the originator proposed and this would reset everybody's votes so they can review the new end date/time of the warp. Beyond that, the game should be played like normal. Each player has a launch pad designated by their player rank order so there should be no conflicts with launches. Launches perhaps should be restricted to require no other player controlled vehicles be within 30 km of the KSP so the KSP can be culled into the background illuminating it's collision physics to improve performance.
I imagine Multiplayer as playing on the same map. So you can dock your spacecraft with other players. And get your Kerbals in the spacecraft of another play to fly with him. Or launch your Kerbals on another players rocket. Have competing missions maybe? Like you can make a Kerbal spacerace. The problem is everyone need to time warp together for it to work, like beds in Minecraft. So more then 3 players wouldn't be that great or most interplanetar stuff.
Kerbal multiplayer could be a way to share resources with other players, building ships together and doing missions with each other or against each other
For me and my friends, it was the inclusion of multiplayer that drew us into KSP2 early access. I doubt we would have been early adopters had it not been mentioned as a feature. While I enjoyed my time with KSP 1, it was a lonely experience when you consider how many multiplayer games I play. Multiplayer was a natural draw.
I kind of agree that KSP never needed multiplayer, at least not in the sense of different people flying around completely separate spaceships, though what I always wanted to see, was a sort of mission collaboration version of multiplayer, where you split up the 3 different view modes (IVA, 3rd person vessel view and map view) of the game between 2 or more people. Basically, imagine one person piloting the ship, but being unable to go into the map view at all, or plan orbits, as that is Mission Control's job, a different player who can't look at the vehicle or pilot it, but can look at the map and adjust orbit plans. With 3 or more players, there could be one player who only has access to IVA and another who's on 'engineer duty', using the vessel view to operate parts of the ship, transfer fuel, extend solar panels, run experiments as well as give visual feedback on docking alignment, etc. With vanilla KSP this would have been very limiting, but the original had a very cool set of mods that I think would have worked fantastic for this kind of co-op multiplayer. I can't remember their names, but the general idea was adding little interactive screens in the IVA view that could interact with a couple of other mods including ones that added external cameras (that could justify locking the view of the pilot to IVA even with just 2 players), display orbit info and other things that would normally only be visible on the map view. There was also an extension of this mod that added a special IVA that looked like mission control for unmanned probes, a similar idea to which could be an accessible interface for the Mission Control player so they too can access onboard cameras to have an idea of what's going on. EDIT: I could see a sort of 'sphere of influence' existing, where there is the designated active vessel, and anything within X kilometers of it is fair game for another player to take control of for docking for example, or to conduct EVA (especially if the game included the ability to do a bit of konstruction/jury rigging mid-mission like some mods allowed in KSP 1).
16:04 Well, sead. 👏 KSP2 deserves to have a future, not to be shut down by the people who left the team, but I am glad they got fired, by the way. The development of KSP2 has stopped for the moment, but you'll never know, Nate Simpson might come back for a surprise. Just keep your fingers crossed, everyone, and we will get what we want for KSP2. Just believe. ✨️
KSP Multiplayer to me was just that, 2 or more players (depending on host computer ability) working on different flights or even controlling different aspects of a shared world. Or even a "PvP Space-race" style, whoever gets there 1st gets the bigger reward. Not so much of a direct conflict style game as there are plenty of others that allow that already, but sill possible if the option is set to allow other agencies to destroy your crafts/buildings. The part that always confounded me was how to handle time-warp with multiple players?
Kerbal Multiplayer: An administrative multi team "space program" scheduling manager subsystem. Team A wants to go to try a first Duna mission they must schedule it with Teams B, C, and D. If teams B, C, and D have Kerbals with enough "Mission Experience" then their current missions would go into "Auto Mission Simulation" while Team A tries to manually complete mission successfully. On Team A's success or failure Teams B, C, and D would exit "Auto Simulation". If Team A was successful then Team A could then "Auto Simulate" subsequent missions to Duna. This means each Planet, moon, sun, system or galaxy has it own unique "Missions" to complete once by each Team before the teams could "Auto Simulate" them. This also means that in the beginning of the game, all teams would have a scheduling calendar in which the game would render up primary play time to the scheduled team. As a reward for continuing to play all other teams would receive money for parts / tech purchase, small amounts of Kerbal experience and science research points. Kerbals with no experience would need to go through manual missions before attempting "auto simulation". (They could still try "auto simulation" but with a high chance of "bad misshaps") Kerbals with an average experience level could "auto simulate" missions with the possibility of some "bad misshapps" on the missions and then Kerbals with lots of experience could "auto simulate" with a very low chance of "misshaps" during an "auto simulation" mission. "Misshaps" are just things that could happen during a mission. Not all misshaps are bad. There could be good ones too! All so missions could be divided into stages to make it easier for the player to complete like the fist time a player tries to daco a ship to a station. (I've never been able to do it in KSP 1; Still trying to this day)
To be fair, I think the physics of how craft controlled by different players move and crash into each other is a pretty important thing to be focused on first with multiplayer because it affects the other playstyles too, right? Like, you can't have cooperative play where you're docking things together if you don't figure out how things hit each other first...
I imagine 4 (or more) players all set the same as sandbox or science mode, all working in the same physical space to either do sandbox things or complete their science goals. This could be competitive or cooperative where players could choose to be part of each other's agencies or not. Time warp could go through a date/time to date/time vote that requires 100% agreement between players before it activates. This would mean slower gameplay, but it could be kept stable rather than implementing some time paradox bugs. I still believe this could be done, but maybe requiring a rewrite of the code from the ground up. (Also, the players' vehicles should be able to physically interact with each other)
The idea i had in my mind for KSP2 multiplayer was along the lines of me or a friend being able to host a 4 player server on their PC that we could connect to, we would then each be given a designated launch pad and be able to independently go on missions and take up contracts some of which would require a team effort. I had dreamt of docking with my friends space station they had set up around one of the moons of Juul that they had claimed for themselves, refuelling as we prepared to go on an interstellar voyage. All dreams, ones that will no longer be possible.
Kerbal multiplayer: 1. Definitely something in realtime. I want to be able to watch a friend pilot a ship in the same space as me. 2. Collaborative Science achievements/tech tree unlocks 3. No idea what to do about time warp.
honestly, just let host control it and put a little "can you savely timewarp rn?" prompt for the other players that could veto the timewarp so you dont accidentally sling your homie into a planet, put a request feature on so anybody can hit the timewarp button, but instead of immedeatly doing it itd ask the host to confirm. Thats the best i could come up with with 0 experience in networking, coding etc but from a playing perspective id be fine with this, and cant really see a optimal solution
Honestly, I don't really see what's so hard about timewarp in multiplayer (as long as you see ksp's MP as a coop experience)... Many games have solved it before (see paradox games, i.e. Hearth of iron, Crusader kings etc.) Just have the time warp be the minimum of every player's time warp... Player 1: wants to time warp at 100x Player 2: wants to time warp at 10x ==> actual time warp is 10x. With a little bit of UI/UX work, you could make it so players know when they are the one that "throttle" the maximum time warp. Something like : "Other players are waiting for you to increase time warp". You could even go a bit further and have each player have "preferred timewarp settings" where they can specify what amount of deviation they can tolerate The downside is that this is vulnerable to uncooperating players : someone could just "freeze" the game by always forcing time warp to 1x. For instance, what if someone just goes afk ? However, many game have this problem without it actually being a problem. CIV will just freeze if a player does not play their turn (unless there's a time limit for each turn). This solution only works if you assume that KSP's multiplayer is a "coop with friend" rather than a "matchmaking/play with random people" type of game, but that's how I personally envisioned the MP anyways.
4:37 Here is my essay about Kerbal multiplayer. The first option. When one player time warps, others get to know how far in the future that player is. They can timewarp however they want. At some point they may sync, and bring all timelines together. This will have craft pop into existance and such. However, you cannot interact with other players craft that existed before your time, without syncing time. The other option, players get to set up their timewarp points, how far they want to timewarp. Once everyone agrees to timewarp, they'll warp to the first point, then the next etc. Likely lots of waiting, although the warping can be done when you're in e.g. the VAB, unless it is your timewarp point you're warping to. Anyway... I don't really care for multiplayer in KSP.
2-4 players existing in the same game world. Each with their own VAB and ability to deploy and recall vehicles. The ability to board and co-pilot other players vessels & join other players Kerbals to be placed on launches together.
Kerbal multiplayer to me was always a multiplayer sandbox in my head. A shared save you and a a friend could play together on. I really enjoy “Parallel Multiplayer” in that style, think like how minecraft multiplayer works. My hopes were simply “be able to play at the same time” and if you want to get creative with how you do that it’d more or less just be something that was up to you to make up the rules for. It sounds like it was pretty in line with that which is a bit of a bummer.
I would have wanted all multiplayer problems ironed out (time warp/streams included) but work as nicely as MSFS 2020 multiplayer, not exactly Massive Multiplayer but at least didn't rely on people joining/hosting servers :/ ... good info, very interesting to know, another great video!
I've never played any of the multiplayer mods or seen videos on them. I always envisioned it basically as singleplayer but co-op. Just like in singleplayer, you can have more than one craft on missions at a time, but now if say you were playing 2 player co-op, two different craft could be being controlled at the same time or the two players could control a single craft together. Time would also be synced. Similar to Stellaris multiplayer or the rimworld multiplayer mod. Maybe you have a voting system for speed where lowest speed or majority vote wins, or even simpler, host always controls the speed for everyone. The core though was always co-op, otherwise almost identical in every way to singleplayer
Also Note: I'm a QA Analyst so I work in software development, one of my main jobs is helping simplify and minimize scope to prevent creep. The more bloated something is the more bugs. The most robust and simple we as a team can get the core of the project the easier it will be to later build on that structure with less issues.
Final thought, the only thing that really matters to me about KSP 2 was the multiplayer. I have half a dozen friends who all played KSP 1 and agreed it would feel lonely. Just being in the same "world" together to see each others ships and work toward goals together is all we wanted.
multiplayer should've been the biggest priority- not just because of the engineering reasons, but also because players make their own fun, if they can mess around with friends it takes the strain away from the lack of science mode etc. would probably also have expanded the community too
I thought that in Multiplayer, I could have multiple Kerbal Space Programs, and do a Space Race, that wouldve been so cool. Especially if your friends never played it, they would try to learn more, and then show off their new learnt skills in the space race
What I see is the possibility of more sophisticated missions. For example, A SpaceX starship first being controlled be one person, and the second stage being controlled be another. Another thing I see for KSP multiplayer is fighter jet dogfights like in Warthunder.
I never dreamed of playing on a live server w/ hundreds of people but a co-op lunar mission with my son on board would have been AMAZING. Now that I'm in my 40s, I don't really make time for games that I can't play with my son. I was crushed when KSP2 died bc playing with my boy was the dream.
Whenever I've thought of multiplayer for KSP. I imagine missions where multiple people are controlling multiple craft simultaneously. Docking operations is the simplest idea that comes to mind. Outside of that I imagine people having different bases in different locations and later bringing their resources together during rendezvous to complete missions. Initially the second one would involve people working alone and then later syncing up. These are fairly obvious to me. I think they are just the tip of the iceberg.
Have you considered leading a project to develop an Open-Source version of KSP? So many people have put so much time into mods and continuing to play. Maybe call it Nerdles in Space? Or is it possible to adapt an existing open project to have that sublime frothy mix of bonkers fun and serious orbital mechanics?
My hope is that this game is not lost to history, I’d be keen to see either the fan base or some development company eventually gain the rights to complete this game. I also completely understand the gamers community stance on movies/tv shows but sometimes a good director can reignite interest in games coming back to life so perhaps a fan made full length feature movie would be possible
What you said is what I would have thought multiplayer to be, except I grouped it into just 2 categories. 1), small local arenas like you said first, and 2, much more vast distances in which time warp needs to be considered. And I think that is what the issue is. How does one have multiple people planning and doing multiple launches, AND traveling vast distances that take a ton of time? I feel like you would need some kind of mechanic where you can plan your maneuver nodes and such, carry out your burns, and then put in a request for a specified time warp AND, where (or rather when) you want that time jump to end. So sure, you do your burn, request the time warp, but you just keep coasting at real time because another player is still doing something in 1:1 time. It won't be until that player (or perhaps all) have put in time requests, or allow time warps for others (e.g., just time warp me in my orbit around time planet/moon until my friend gets here). Effectively everyone is time warping or no one is. Either that, or you get REALLY weird, and have some kind of sphere of time influence, where you can time warp a little bit out of sync, as long as these spheres don't get to close, or too far apart in time. Or else... that could get REALLY messy... I think this would be way to complicated and hard. In any case, I bet most people will be waiting for others to finish their thing while they wait for the time warp they need.
When thinking of KSP multiplayer, I envision different people having their own space agencies set up in different places on Kerbin, or cooperating within one agency if they so choose, controlling separate craft. Quicksaving and reverting, I imagine, would be disabled, and the server itself could choose in settings how it handles time warp. Perhaps if there are many people, there could be designated global time warp windows that everyone knows the timing of and plans missions accordingly... not sure, to be honest
I think that if multiplayer was prioritized, the game would’ve been much more successful. Even in its bare bones release, if we were able to fly around with friends, it would’ve made the game so much better, and it would’ve given it an exclusive feature that set it apart from the first game
For the prompt: I imagined KSP multiplayer as be a mode in which more than one player can build and pilot vehicles from Kerbin, traverse the solar system, and either collaborate or compete for resources using even bigger vehicles, space stations, or colonies. Of course I've always suspected that it would be a huge challenge given the limitations of the KSP1 game engine (which I now know was largely carried over to KSP2) and the gameplay necessity of time-warp. But I never played the KSP1 MP mod. And the Intercept team claimed they had a creative solution so I was hopeful. Back to the video...
I envision that two or more players can operate one or more space agencies in either a persistent server, or while the host player has the game & save running. Players within one space agency can alternate control of any craft launched by that agency. Separate agencies can't control one another's crafts by default. Launches can be done simultaneously. Time warp would be tricky. I think it would require players to lock-in what their craft intend to do before using a calendar menu to re sync with one another in the past. Avoiding a situation where a friend uses my refueling station, but I retcon the event by destroying it with a more advanced vehicle before the refueling occurred would be hard. Perhaps inter-craft events would create safe-zones in spacetime that prevent crafts from being destroyed if they canonically exist in the established future, and would put a hold on fuel so that it can't be transferred in a way that breaks causality.
Part of me wishes that we got a refreshed, prettier, and more stable version of KSP1 with colonies and resource collection. Imagine having modern technologies like a way to reuse rocket stages, and 3D printing colonies and parts on other celestial bodies. Imagine a story mode where you have to compete against enemy Kerbal nations to create a colony first on certain locations (like the South Pole of the mun and duna lava tubes). So basically just for all mankind but with kerbals. They could’ve called it “Kerbal Space Program 2: For all Kerbalkind”. Just so much missed potential :(
KSP multiplayer was something I never wanted and never planned to engage with. I'm grateful to have found Archean. The difference in dev team competency is simply mind blowing. MP from day one of early access. It makes more sense to have MP in a game like Archean due to thrust and ISP being so high. It'll be interesting to see how MP evolves by players as more distant planets and moons are added to the solar system as early access progresses.
Ever since it was announced, I was worried about multiplayer. Reworking KSP is hard enough, I think we all know how rough it was when it first released, and it took years to get to where it is now. Doing that from scratch and somehow surpassing the original was next to impossible, and multiplayer was the final nail in the coffin.
15:59 there are still amazing mods that adds other system and gigantic parts for mothership in KS1, like the Kcalbeloh one so you can do interstellar travel with your kids!
I agree totally. My multiplayer dream was to run a "family venture" with my kids. Setting up infrastructure and exploring together. Joint IVA and EVA. Daughters as astronauts while me at mission control.
As i worked on multiplayer with KitHack, I learned first hand just how true your original thinking was, on how multiplayer isn't a _feature_ you add, it's a foundational pillar at the very core of the project. It affects every system, feature and design/technical decision you make.
When you work on a multiplayer game, your first thought with everything has to be, 'ok so how does this work in multiplayer?'
It's a shame they didn't consult you
I was immediately concerned by how far down the road-map multiplayer was.
I'm glad you realized this and made KitHack the way you did. It really turned out great!
I was always skeptical about multiplayer in either KSP... like you said, the game wasn't really made for it so EVERYTHING has to be redone or done differently
Harvester no way
'Organizational Incompetence' is the name of my new development studio.
Sounds promising, keep us updated!
Hire me as an entry level 😂
Strange how our entire society takes the bottom-feeders from the univesities and puts them in charge of everything, then wonders why it all goes wrong.
Bring nate simpson back he's great at hyping up the community with false promises
hey i'm the best at that can i get in 🙋♂
I envision two modes of gameplay:
1) coop - everyone controls their own crafts but works towards the same goal
2) space race - players are divided into teams that compete for space exploration glory
Not sure I want to wait for the other team to get to Jool without time warp.
3) Mutual destruction - build the most powerful weapons of mass destruction
In the racing mode (even the regular mode), they could have easily done a live “ghost” mode where you see a translucent version of the other players’ crafts (if you’re close enough) and a persistent (regardless of distance) identifier tag showing you where the craft is and the distance (and relative velocity) from the observer. So if your friend is already at the Mun and burning out to Minmus, you can see the little pip of “EatMyDust” from the surface of Kerbin as you launch to catch up.
No physics overlap to worry about. No interaction to worry about. Just visual representation only.
3. Coop same craft, one person plans maneuver nodes, other person executes
@@sparkieT88 Better idea: one person plays the game, the other ones takes care of cold beer supply.
The whole thing with it being the most fun for people who like crashing rockets sounds exactly what Nate Simpson wanted, at the end of the day he wanted wobbly rockets.
It's a bug most people hate and it got fixed in the original game years ago.
Nate: Naaaaah, it's amazing!
That's why to be honest I'm not really that depressed about KSP2 being cancelled the longer it went on the more I felt what Nate enjoyed about the game was everything I didn't like,
I really hope one of the former developers just decides to leak the entire source code of KSP2, then maybe the community could finish the game themselves
Considering that they reused a lot of ksp1 code, I think we would just find out that it's garbage. What we really needed was the stable foundation that ksp1 was too limited to deliver.
Yeah.. that aint gonna work
Ksp2 runs on the same engine as the first, and still has the same issues w/ things like part count. And some more - the new additions to the engine are really, really badly coded
That would be great except it would just be KSP1+ (but worse). Any hope of a KSP2 is a complete and total restart, built from scratch game. Taketwo has that IP locked, up dead and buried. The kerbals are unfortunately gone. RIP.
@@Chemical_Blue Yes, but having the source code implies that all that code can be fixed by competent people who actually care about the product.
@@Chemical_Blue If the compute problem is literally part count, why don't they have procedural parts that allow functions to be loaded by volume, and tally the mass? Imagine if you built merely on the basis of the minimal shapes and stages you needed, and then loaded the functions up to Vol_Max, and tallied the mass? Loved the Lego aspect of KSP1, but the ambition of the new desired features calls for a more fundamental new approach than KSP2 offered.
If Private Division had just made an official KSP1 DLC with multiplayer, they could have raked in the cash.
Yeah and they wouldn't have been able to, because KSP1 is spaghetti, and thus impossible to be given a multiplayer DLC that wouldn't get the same "it's okay if it's buggy or desyncs sometimes" treatment a multiplayer mod would get
@@LuciSheppyLive That's right. Still, even for KSP2, early multiplayer could've saved this game.
@@LuciSheppyLive if the effort to make ksp2 was instead put into ksp1 by fixing the code and just a handfull of new features we would have one of the best games of the decade no doubt. it's already amazing what the modding community is doing by it self and that's without the source code of the game
I have a genius idea. What if we take KSPs code and push it somewhere else. Then we start over with a fresh slate to integrate multiplayer from the very beginning. Now all we need is funding. I've heard TakeTwo would be interested.
I can't believe you watched this video and your take away is: ''why didn't they just slap multiplayer on KSP 1?''
I just envision some sort of coop mode, everyone is working out the same space center but they can each control their own craft.
So while one person was getting the final stage into an orbit, someone else could be landing the booster.
Or you could launch multiple crafts independant. But yeah. That was my vision too
@@Ph33NIXx Probably multiple launchpads and runways, everyone is based out of the same space center, but can launch simultaneously.
But that still all goes to hell once time warp comes into play. That’s the issue. There isn’t a multiplayer setup that can properly adapt to that necessity without being messy and convoluted, and by extension unplayable.
@@Syntex366 Maybe vote to timewarp?
@@mrooshoo that immediately rules out online multiplayer, which is what Take2 wants when thinking multiplayer. And in coop that still poses difficulties if you have a stubborn friend or not everyone wants to timewarp for a various reason.
How has the company not been sued for lying to people about the state of the game? They are still selling it as early access. How can that not be illegal?
they need tangible proof that they never intended on delivering the product. since all staff has been laid off, offices closed and people still under NDA that is physically impossible, even *if* you find a lawyer that is willing to think that they can sue take 2.
@@thebluehat6814 Subpoenas don't care about NDAs. As long as you convince a Judge that it's likely they continued selling the game after they decided it wouldn't be finished, you can get to discovery and can drag people into depositions.
@@dancingferret6654 They are doing that right now. The game is selling, and they have closed the studio.
The only thing they've said is that they haven't ended development.
Which is TECHNICALLY correct, they COULD decide to start working on it again tomorrow.
They won't, but the possibility exists, and that's enough to raise a 'reasonable doubt'.
It's the same thing with Kickstarters that fund but flame out. I've seen one that is 11 years out, people complain in the comments all the time, but as long as they keep posting a status update every few months or so, there's no legal case.
@@andynonomous8558 Early Access is not a legal term. At best it is a marketing term by Steam. This might violate terms of service for Steam and Valve could pull KSP2 from being offered for sale. That is about it.
@@thebluehat6814 except that NDA's are not enforceable, especially when a Crime is involved; like the Fraud Nate and his Crew committed with their B.S. Video stating that the Game was ready for release in 2021, but because of Rona, they wanted to cook a little longer, etc.
Raise your hand if you're still mad at Take Two for axing KSP2
My hand has just landed on Duna. Its next stop is Laythe, then maybe even further.
I'll never buy an early access game published by Take Two, and will think carefully before buying a finished game. Their silence on KSP2 is unforgivable.
If literally any other studio picked up and finished the game. I'd buy it. I think everyone still wants what ksp2 was supposed to be. I don't get it. Just put a competent team on it.
@@33DavePaton33 Take 2 and Private Division: "No. No, I don't think I will."
I want my money back for the false advertising, such a waste of potential
Being able to crash into someone else's rocket requires solving many of the big multiplayer challanges- if you can make that work, you can do your space race and coop
When I envision a kerbal multiplayer, It has multiple people working together on the same mission. Time warp is agreed on by all parties. It would be fun because you could do various races. It would be interesting because you could do missions that are overly complex or difficult to do with just one person controlling. It would be technically viable because you don't have to worry about time related issues. In this mode having a solid mission control view would be super cool as well.
Hello, I'm a refugee from the multiverse universe that KSP 2.0 actually was released in 2022 with full multiplayer. Sure it was buggy at first, but by 2023 the science patch went in, and there were a ton of bug fixes. Everyone LOVED multiplayer. Apparently it inspired a real world company to try to harvest an asteroid by 2024. Unfortunately in my universe, that company was responsible for having the asteroid hit the earth, approximately 20 miles from Nantucket, wiping out the US eastern seaboard. China took advantage of the situation and sent in an invasion force to Alaska and Taiwan, and nukes were exchanged between NATO and the Russian/China alliance. My world is all but a burnt crisp. Out of all probabilities, the only universes where the US survives is the one where KSP 2.0 didn't have mutliplayer AND was cancelled in 2024. Consider yourselves lucky.
This is true I was the asteroid.
@@TheWorldWarrior I was the seaboard. Was.
i'm am the china, this true.
It had to be 20 miles from Nantucket :)
@@eekee6034 Apparently in some timelines where KSP2 multiplayer was not released but KSP2 development keeps going, the asteroid mining company went ahead anyways, a month later than the other universe. This apparently was enough time to accidentally set the asteroid into a much more highly elliptical sub-orbit that took a little longer to hit Earth but hits the Alps in Switzerland instead of 20 miles from Nantucket, resulting in a massive united world response to help Europe, which brings about global peace for a few years and leads to a golden age of prosperity for the US and its rapid development of an AI intelligence that quickly reaches the point of sentience. Unfortunately this path also leads directly to the world turning into burnt out crisp, not from war, but from a science experiment gone awry: AI developed a means to redirect solar energy to the earth to provide the AI with sustainable energy (fusion always remains a decade away in any universe). New Years Eve, and one highly magnified but misdirected Class X solar flare and it was all over. Earth's atmosphere - gone. The world started 2098 without a single living creature on the surface. Those in subs survived to start an underwater civilization, but it was unsustainable. Humanity dies out after 137 years of agonizing attrition and the rapidly evaporating seas turn into a sterile frozen pond. The last man, alone in the silence just 77 days since the passing of the last woman, decides to go out in a blaze of nuclear glory convinced that such an action would reset his life to live it again. It didn't. The surviving machines in that universe tried for hundreds of thousands of years to undo the damage before giving up and moving on to the Sirius system. (Time travel doesn't work, but jumping universes does). Trust me, you guys really do have it better in your universe.
I hope so much that some other studio buys KSP2 and delivers a functional game...
Yeah I wish too, but the money has been made and it won’t be making more than it costs:(
@@awildhampter8570 depends price right?
@@tuplatykki6114 well the thing is majority of people who would be interested in ksp2 likely already bought the game they wont buy another copy of the game
@@awildhampter8570 Way i see it. How many copies take two ever gonna sold ksp2 at this point? Close to zero my guess so you don't make any money at all anymore.
You can sell game to another company. You can't ask high price because like you said maybe majority or half potential byers already bought the game and it's reviewed moslty negative. Let's say you ask 200k? 200k is still more than zero right?.
So like i sayd it depends on price like anything
@@tuplatykki6114 You can only scam people so many times before they stop buying into it..
KPS multiplayer:
Have team-wide "alarm" to alert everyone when various ships are entering Orbits or half-way points or nearing maneuver nodes etc.
Only one person can have "primary" control of any vehicle. Other can join said rocket if there are more than one Kerbal on the rocket.
You can "request control-from-here" if you are sitting in a valid seat that is connected to the vehicle.
While ships are in flight in transition, everyone is building the next ship, or redesigning the ship they just crashed, or that had a docking port on backwards
time is always moving forward, even while building.
Voice chat
"Alarms" must be set and voted on by team for a time-warp to start.
Anyone can pause a time warp, but the "Alarm" stays in place and time-warp can be re-engaged by a proposal from 1 and a 2nd (not needing a full vote)
I know KSP1 Mod had "time slips" or the ability for one person to fast forward but I feel like it wouldn't be super clear and kinda chaotic
Still can't believe I got scammed by a game company for 50 euros...
We told you so...
@jesusramirezromo2037 Who? No-one thought ksp2 would be this much of a disappointment, so who do you mean when you say “we told you so”?
@@hagangray8006 Anyone with a brain knew it would be this bad, I kept telling people to NOT buy early access, as there's no guarantee the game would be finished after launching in such a bad state
@@hagangray8006 All the people who said "don't preorder"; the same people who were saying "we told you so" when the initial release was so terrible. If you didn't preorder and bought it after that, then the signs were already there after multiple delays and an awful initial release.
just do the same thing I did with Sony/SOE. they'll never get another dime from me.
For me multiplayer in KSP has players able to control and perform the full suite of actions on their own vessels in real time with each other. Players have their own individual VAB instances and have labels denoting their saved vehicles that others can access depending on permissions. Time warp works that you get a notification if another player warps forward and in order to interact with that players vehicles, stations, and bases you have to warp up to their timezone. Multiplayer Kerbin has new KSCs in varied locations and you can choose co-op or compete game modes and sandbox or science. compete science doesn't give permission to share vehicles and you have to send agency requests to dock with specific other player vehicles. you share objectives but only one player can 'win' the objective. so multiple player controlled vehicles in one instance, instance generation based on gameplay state recorded over time, notification systems for players, and systems to generate permissions (can/can't access ship file, can/can't dock).
That’s how I thought it would be. Space race and stuff.
KSP1 was (is?) mainly a single player experience fro me. That being said, some of the coolest experiences I had was when I started KSP and a friend taught me orbital mechanics and docking.
I remember the night, we're we spent several hours to get two vessels close enough together on Kerbin's orbit to dock, only to phase through each other and my ship exploding. :)
We also did some Mun and Duna missions together, were we managed to land on Duna in viewing distance of each other.
We also flew around the KSC complex with various crafts. Those were really nice experiences, but lacked a bit of long-term focus.
Still, it was really nice to have these experiences with the Dark Multiplayer mod.
you nailed it. they were good experiences, but nothing with any lasting capability. a comparison i take is with no mans sky. sure its nice to see you friend in game next to you, but there is zero reason for you to travel around together.
any development time spent on ksp multiplayer would be a waste in my opinion.
KSP Multiplayer = (for me): Multi vehicle so that I can play Apollo style missions with my son. Not completely independent space programs. Bridge too far.
More detail: I would make all the secondary players linked to one particular Kerbal avatar.
@@kennethmurphy2235 yes, we can leave them stranded on Minmus
@kennethmurphy2235 even in ksp independent space programs are possible, check out for all kerbalkind. And you can play coop using the Luna mod!
I discovered KSP back in 2013, right after I got my first PC. At the time, I was 12 years old, and it felt like I was the only one in my country playing the game. But everything changed when I started watching your videos on TH-cam. Your content gave a whole new meaning to my passion for this game, inspiring me to dream bigger and explore the universe more creatively. A huge thank you for everything you do. Your work has not only inspired me but has also deepened my love for KSP. Keep amazing us-you're a source of motivation for so many, including myself 🤩✨
man we really need a community made KSP2. i dont mean a KSP modpack, KSP's code is too... dated. and mods make that problem worse.
i mean a community made remake, with people like you, scott manley, matt lowne and other big ksp content creators helping.
maybe one day, as theres currently some people working on something similar rn. but unless more people get involved, it'll go nowhere.
Exactly. KSP Mods are great but it makes the game so stuttery and laggy
A KSP 2 made by "CoNtEnT cReAtOrS" would probably fail as spectacularly as Intercept's KSP 2. Rocketwerkz and Star Theory were competing for the contract but the latter won because they showed pretty pictures to the Take Two executives whereas Rocketwerkz had a far more technically detailed outline of the sequel they wanted to make. How would hiring your favourite youtubers work out differently?
@@Bruh-zx2mc the same reason mods are one of the only things keeping the game alive right now. im preeeety sure the people who've made this game such a big part of their life, would know more on what'd be better for it than a company who havent worked, or been familiar with a project like kerbal space program.
@@danzstuffthis is why modding can’t really fill the KSP2-shaped hole in my heart
@@Bruh-zx2mcbecause they would supplement the direction for features, rather than nate brainstorming everything for devs that didnt even know what game they were working on while getting hired. not to mention having cc's embedded in the development from the start would have likely voided the problem where intercept kept all development under lock and key. if cc's were involved we would have probably known it was a sinking ship of technical debt long before the studio shut down. maybe there could have even been enough influence to encourage working on a brand new base of code
One of the modes I envision would be a co-op carreer where different players are given separate missions, all missions leading to a common goal ...say land on mun, collect science data and return to Kerbin... that way everyone gets involved in building their own designs and contribute to the common goal. Once all players complete their respective missions, there would be a final one in which players could assume different roles like pilot, navigator and specialist for example. The pilot could only maneuver the ship and handle flight related systems, while the navigator would set up routes, nodes, transfers, etc...then the specialist would be in charge of deploying other systems, like comms, experiments and performing EVAs
Multiplayer: Up to three (maximum) gamemodes can be offered.
Coop: Players work together in completing the singleplayer exploration experience together (collect resources, make colonies, yada yada).
Competitive: Up to 4 players (or however many launchpads there were), the host can set some predefined goal through a Body and Objective dropdown (so Duna; first to have isLanded flag on a vessel), with possible expansion to collection of some resource amount, or anything else i might be missing (maybe use some of the codebase from the mission maker from Missing History, or something like it?) Each player is assigned an instanced timer, and full interactions would be enabled by default in local system [1] (think team build from factorio if you ever bothered to play anything other than Freeplay).
Sandbox: Just goof around, no restrictions, full interactions in same local system.
I probably would never want to have more than 4 players in a single session (assuming this [2] wasn't updated prior to end-of-development, and assuming each player has an approx. 150 part vessel, we'd could expect ~13ms per frame, so still >60fps, but even then that's probably still too low performant).
[1] Local System: This is a shared SOI, so if Player A and Player B are in orbit of Kerbin, they are in the same "Local System". Player C in the Mun SOI could not interact with Players A and B. This would be done as at these distances, player A+B, and Player C could not meaningfully interact with one another, and so alot of the physics calculations could be "removed" from each local system (So Player A and B only calculate each other, while Player C just calculates themselves [3]).
[2] www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1703l8h/its_official_ksp_2_calculating_everything_at_once/
[3] Rationale: This might be done by (from Player A+B's perspective) reducing Player C to a single "vessel" part. Player C updates their velocity by 50m/s in the prograde direction, and this could be sent to the Network Manager, which would queue this update in a buffer, making sure it's a valid action, and then pushing it to all clients, or perhaps it could do a regressive check, sort of like how competitive fps clientside game's handle their anticheat (yes that means potential rubberbanding). Once the Network Manager pushes that update to all clients, Player C's "vessel" part would increase it's prograde velocity by 50m/s from Player A+B's perspective. This might help to increase performance by having the server only calculate what it needs to, and having the expensive physics calculations be performed clientside. Or maybe not, i don't know really I just make games for fun :)
i would have to imagine kerbal multiplayer in sandbox would let you and your people of choice controlling rockets and kerbals in career or science mode if someone where to launch and get funds do a quest or get science it would show for everyone and if you where to upgrade something or unlock a tech from the tech tree everyone would get it or see it. (yes this is what i imagine ksp multiplayer)
I had the privilege of playtesting the multiplayer mod for vtol VR. That was pure chaos, but hilariously fun. A bunch of guys who take their flight sims too seriously laughing until gasping after another plane spawned on top someone on the carrier. I was really looking forward to that type of janky fun in KSP2.
The first thing I thought when I learned that KSP2 will have multiplayer was "Sounds nice, but I would understand if they would scrap that feature."
I mainly thought this, because it's seemed like a pain to implement it especially with timewarp.
My vision for what Kerbal Multiplayer could be was split. My worst fears were that two players could launce simultaneously and fly around each other and maybe try to dock with each other. Completely tactical, no "Space Program", just Kerbal. My fondest hopes were that it would be persistent world, kind of like minecraft with servers and scripts potentially providing themes for the server. In this scenario you could log in and control any of "your" crafts or bases. when you are offline they would drift for be automated according to craft scripts. Ideally trade and economy could be performed with or without centralized server support. Events might be hosted on popular servers at certain locations in the system-- Jool rover olympics maybe. Time acceleration would be a delicate issue. I imagine server votes for speedups to be scheduled. creating all kinds of logistics problems if not done with forethought. I would love to be on the multiplayer design team of a KSP like game.
i envisioned multiplayer as something similar to for all kerbal kind, where save files merge at set points allowing for time warp without interference
to me Kerbal multiplayer would be being able to play the game with a small friend group - cooperatively or competitively
I envisioned multiplayer to work like this: One player hosts their game and their buddies can join as their own agency or as a second player of the same host's agency via hotswap. The big problem of timewarp would have two options: Host controlled timewarp and collective Timewarp. The latter would mean, each player could set their timewarp to their desired speed and the game would pick the lowest. Unless two crafts' render-sphere intersects, each craft would be simulated clientside and only its trajectory would be synced to the host game and from there to the other players.
When I think about multiplayer it would be multiple players piloting multiple vehicles at the same time. You could have multiple kerbals in the same vehicle for instance and then undock a portion and have 1 player pilot each section. Or multiple players rendezvous different crafts. As a developer I have actually thought about the mechanics of this and I had 2 options
1. Shared timewarp. If 1 player wanted to timewarp other players had to agree to allow it and the duration. Then all players and vehicles stay at the same time.
2. Time bubbles. Multiple players could warp their vehicles separately but those would not be visible until 1 player stops warping and the other catches up.
The 2nd is a great solution!
My vision of KSP2-Multiplayer was, that i am able to play with 2 friends in 1 Savegame. At least in Cooperation, and maybe in Future in Competition.
There is always the question: "how could it work in point of timewarp?" Nothing easier than that. Player A commits, that he want activate timewarp x4. Now the game shows to player B & C player A's wish for timewarp x4. If they have no problem with it, they also press x4. If all 3 players pressed x4, the game is timewarping with x4 speed. As long until one of the 3 players abort it. BTT: KSP2-Multiplayer is for me researching the starsystem('s) in coop with friends.
I'm pretty sure they just integrated the LunaMultiplayer Core inside the KSP 2 code and they created some new UIs. By the way, I'm the developer of BDArmory Multiplayer mod for LMP
I was told from people within the project that they did in fact NOT just take LMP but built their own network transport layer and the rest was bespoke as well.
@@ShadowZone That's surprisingly good :) . Don't get me wrong I think LMP was a really well implemented mod so it might be an efficient idea to reuse it's core as a prototype. I had the pleasure to speak with Dagger (the dev behind LMP) and he told me during Star Theory days that he was in fact contacted by one of the developers in charge of the multiplayer.
@@jesusrv2009 interesting! Everything I saw was implemented after the Star Theory days.
thank you so much for making that mod, kerbal was great but my adhd brain needs explosions approximateely every 17 seconds so having it in actually made me follow through on a full career playthrough. (full meaning every planet visited no clue if theres an actual gameified end besides tech tree ig). i love flyout but its not far along to quite scratch the itch i have for a combat vehicle designer, and BDA and Kerbal scratched just that.
what i had envisioned , personally, was bases that could get supplies and visits from other players. you wouldn't actually see them, but could trade with them, visit their bases, build infrastructure together. stations, bases, etc. also, I thought eventually, maybe it could support a 4 to 8 team player hosted game where you all had to stay near the same vessel or inside it and do different things.. like engineers, pilots, science.
Multiplayer would have been fun but I agree the way I play it would never have been the majority of my play time. If they had delivered everything on the roadmap but multiplayer it would have been much better than what we ended up with
What I envisioned KSP2 multiplayer to be was a coop mode: Tech tree advances would be universal; that is, once a new tier of parts was unlocked by one player, all players would now have access to the same tech; all science and money resources would be shared, so players would have to work together not to bankrupt the space program, especially with expensive personal pet projects.
personally I was looking for a space race thing with ksp 2 multiplayer, with possibility to destroy other colonies and stuff... how cool could it be to launche an interplanetary missile at the uranium mining facility of an other player to deny him the right to use nerva engine? or to race to the first duna landing for all mankind style?
If I had to say what I would have liked ksp 2 multiplayer to be, my minimal requirements would have been persistent spacecraft between players. So one player can launch a space station and another player can visit it, expand it, change its orbital parameters, or even destroy it. The synchronisation would have to be automatic and it should not require leaving the game.
The other "KSP multiplayer" features would also be very nice, but I don't see them as necessary.
The issue is locality and time warp. If one player time warps, but another doesn’t, well, you then have some crazy weird time warping shit that I don’t even know how you’d work out. The only way I can see it working is that if one player warps time, everyone has to warp with them. Would be interesting.
I always really liked the space race idea for multiplayer, but also I think the best way to do a space race is for you and your friend to sit down with two separate single player games and either use a real time clock or go by in-game time. Basically, the thing I would want to do with multiplayer most only requires a single player mode.
As a game programmer, I would simply not have done multiplayer. It's... theoretically possible, but adds soooo much complexity and work required to a project that's already filled to the brim.
If I had to make *something* multiiplayer-ish, I would've done something like this:
- you add a friend to your account
- now I can ask my friend if they want to connect save files, and we both choose one save file to connect
- if I want to connect this save to other friends, I can, but all previously connected friends have to accept
A connected save file will simply contain the completed missions of all my friends; if they build a colony, I can find it in my save file and visit it as if it were my own. We can leave gifts for each other in the world, as well as space junk, but we can't ever see each other's active spacecraft. It's barebones, but I think it would leave out most issues that crop up when adding multiplayer.
It's not so hard to do, right up until you have two players in different craft in the same physics bubble, at which point there's no answer better than someone gets a lag-fest. But that leaves a lot of room for fun. People doing parallel missions, people crewing a ship for a co-op mission, someone building a colony while someone flies transport, etc.
I have always, always, always wanted to fly a coop mission with friends in KSP - landing on the moon in IVA with instruments and a friend calling out data for you?
I played with a friend years ago on ksp one with the multiplayer mod. Building a space station together. Designing and moving different modules up to space.
A space race sounds fun as well.
Kerbal multi-player is vessles controlled by multiple players in the same physical universe. Along the lines of how it works in space engineers. Controlling the same vessle, Controlling different vessles, crashing into each other, transferring resources, etc
I envisioned 'Kerbal multiplayer' as letting different people play as different space agencies, or basically the same as KSP1 but there wwre other people in the same "server"/save file. Other players could be enemy nations in a Cold War/Space Race dynamic or could work together to launch space stations modules in an ISS dynamic. You could also each control your own Kerbals, but people could "give you access" to their vehicles so you can ride together, etc. Basically, you could even be on the same missions together as if you were a part of the same agency if you wanted as well. Imagine how much more fun it would be if Jeb, Bob, Bill and Val were all separate people doing different things on the Munar surface, but all from the same lander. You could even take off and strand people lol.
i think ksp2 multiplayer is being able take your single player campaign into a shared universe with your friend's single player game, sort of like the recent SimCity game. You can play asynchronously, allowing for independent fast forward, or you can somehow play a mission together (but i don't understand how to get around fast forward really). But i think there are neat possibilities for asynchronous play, i.e. docking on your friends stations.
4:25 having server of like five people, everyone gets their own launch site.
You can either play separately racing each other to different goals or play together and build space stations and bases.
I just want to think that ksp 2 is still being developed, and one day I can try it...
I envision for hosting (paid) official dedicated servers, as well as free servers running on our own machines.
Ingame, the ability to play and interact with each other in real-time with or without collisions, on a globally shared save (with options to pick from to play similarly to career/science/sandbox) where players can either share a space company/space center with friends or have their own independent one.
Also (not necessarily at launch but at least in the near future) the ability to create custom goals/contracts (tasks/reward that can be done by a single player or many) just like in career mode.
I always envisioned one or both of two multi-player options. The first being for real-time in-flight synced play. This would be used primarily for aircraft and close proximity maneuvers requiring more than one vessel to be operated simultaneously. I believe KSP1 has a mod that functions like this, but I've never played it. The other would be more along the lines of long-duration flight control and would sync up regularly. This would be something along the lines of what Sim City 4(I think) did for their multiplayer.
As per your question at 4:30 ish- I envision the campaign, with multiple players all existing in the same sandbox. Perhaps they have their own launch facilities, they are on their own missions out in the world, not sure how time skip works, maybe overall time matters less in multiplayer? maybe things run slower?. They could each run their own companies or work for each other's, with specific tech tree advancement for each company.
I've never seen the Kerbal multiplayer mod in action so perhaps this is the perfect pure reaction. :)
4:30 ok, each player can control a ship. each ship has its own physics render bubble around them, and if the physics bubbles overlap, the players can see each other and interact, otherwise it just plays like KSP but with extra stuff on the map. each ship can only have 1 primary driver, but multiple players can "ride" on a ship and some controls (like robotic arms) can be given to other players (optional)
4:35 there are a lot of ways to envision ksp multiplayer. For me multiplayer would be perfect if you could do aerial refueling. or visit each others bases
When I think of KSP multiplayer I think of a "world" you can host (think Valheim or Minecraft), where one or more players can access the world and perform missions independently. This would have two potential multiplayer exclusive modes in my opinion; Co-Op, where you work under the same agency and share funds and resources, and "Space-Race" where players are stationed in rival agencies with separate funds and resources, and compete to achieve milestones first and come out the most successful. Both would also have science mode and career mode versions in case they prefer one play style over another. I've given much thought to this.
The big issue is, how do you solve the issue of time warp in a multiplayer setting? The only one I've heard tossed around is allowing for players to time warp as usual, but whenever a craft tries to rendezvous with a craft that will only exist in the future, the game will automatically time warp to the point at which that craft would actually exist at that point in space. This idea probably isn't perfect, you'd effectively be having multiple different instances of the same world converging and diverging constantly, but it's an idea nonetheless.
Edit: Also, it's worth noting I haven't played any KSP multiplayer mods, since none of my friends play KSP.
i think a career multiplayer could be really fun. There could be two types: competitive and cooperative.
For competitive, you could have the regular missions but you would have a timer and you could compete with your friends to get somewhere the fastest. Perhaps there could be optional missions like "set up a fuel station around the mun" which could help you get further more easily but direct approaches would be possible for other players. Your end goal might be to set up a colony on another planet, which would require a lot of launches. You might also get graded based on # of launches, cost of the rockets (reusability?), cost of fuel, etc.
For cooperative missions, you might have a mission to dock multiple players' vehicles docked to a station at one time.
My first thought of KSP multiplayer is two people playing KSP in the same universe, and they somehow have to agree when to time warp. What I would like to see would be something like one person has only map view and one person has only (improved) IVA, and they have to communicate effectively to make the mission happen. Kinda like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, now that I think of it.
I don’t know how any KSP mod does it, but this would be how I envision multiplayer:
All players share one Kerbol system/galaxy.
The players either start from the same facility or multiple facilities sprinkled over Kerbin.
Time Warping would be a thing where one player can decide they need to time warp a craft and than that craft would time warp, not the entire world. Transfer windows could be „reserved“ for a specific time and the server would handle time warping the entire simulation to match the reservation. It would try to do that when no players are active, but all crafts currently being controlled would not be effected by the global warp.
Where the game competitive, I‘d expect something like reserving transfer windows being linked to a cost.
:( this is so sad… I was really hyped for this game, the multiplayer feature was especially interesting to me as well as interstellar travel and that stuff. I really really hope KSP2 gets saved by someone
My vision for multiplayer would involve 2 or more players existing simultaneously in a single KSP save. All players would have full game functionality with the possible exception of time warp. I would also expect players to be able to share ownership/control of certain vessels. For instance of you wanted a SpaceX style reusable booster, one player could control the payload after separation and the 2nd player could control the booster to land it.
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of multiplayer is that everyone would be on their own timelines and they could fast forward to align with others, although this would pose some issues in-terms of interacting with other peoples stuff from their past
Multiplayer was the thing I was looking forward to the most. Even if it was just faffing about with strange planes around the VAB it would have been a great way to introduce friends to the game.
(My) KSP multiplayer would be one shared game world for up to ~10 players with all players on one timeline, and time warp agreed on by the "lowest agreed warp" between all players. Players would all be able to view and (with permission?) control any active mission. Nearby craft would be able to interact as in KSP1, except multiple could be piloted by players simultaneously. Players could cooperate in the VAB & hanger, or work on their own craft independently. The 'overworld' infrastructure, i.e. launch pad and runway, would be a shared space, with FUN™ resulting.
Kerbal Multiplayer;
Network communication code to sync game stats(money/rep/time), actions, vehicles(stats, position, rotation, velocity etc) to multiple clients so they can be correctly rendered to give the player the idea they are within the same game/world.
My estimation for an undertaking like this:
Proof of concept: 2-4 weeks dev time
Actual finished reliable project: 1 year estimation, but we tell the project owner it will be 2-4 instead because we know how stuff goes.
S. Manley said: "Dont screw this up!".... they laughed and we cry.
I had imagined multiplayer would play mostly like single player and the goals would be set by the players themselves. Controlling modules would need to be updated to the way they were in KSP so you can set a priority on which module has control of naming but in the case of multiplayer, the player that produces a module controls that vessel if their module has a higher rank. In this instance, the game host would have to set a rank for each player when they join so the two vessels that joined would be controlled by the player with the highest rank. Time warp would be a permission request type of thing were you create a start date/time and end date/time to request a time warp, and all other players would have to check a box to accept that. At any time during the warp, any player can stop it and the request is canceled. A new request would have to be created to continue. The request would have to include a warp factor limit for which each player can request a lower warp factor in case they plan to cut it early. Alternatively, they could propose an end time that is sooner than what the originator proposed and this would reset everybody's votes so they can review the new end date/time of the warp. Beyond that, the game should be played like normal. Each player has a launch pad designated by their player rank order so there should be no conflicts with launches. Launches perhaps should be restricted to require no other player controlled vehicles be within 30 km of the KSP so the KSP can be culled into the background illuminating it's collision physics to improve performance.
I imagine Multiplayer as playing on the same map. So you can dock your spacecraft with other players. And get your Kerbals in the spacecraft of another play to fly with him. Or launch your Kerbals on another players rocket. Have competing missions maybe? Like you can make a Kerbal spacerace. The problem is everyone need to time warp together for it to work, like beds in Minecraft. So more then 3 players wouldn't be that great or most interplanetar stuff.
Kerbal multiplayer could be a way to share resources with other players, building ships together and doing missions with each other or against each other
Multiplayer was the feature I was most excited for
Me and some friends made plans to build a space station with people from different countries.
For me and my friends, it was the inclusion of multiplayer that drew us into KSP2 early access. I doubt we would have been early adopters had it not been mentioned as a feature. While I enjoyed my time with KSP 1, it was a lonely experience when you consider how many multiplayer games I play. Multiplayer was a natural draw.
I kind of agree that KSP never needed multiplayer, at least not in the sense of different people flying around completely separate spaceships, though what I always wanted to see, was a sort of mission collaboration version of multiplayer, where you split up the 3 different view modes (IVA, 3rd person vessel view and map view) of the game between 2 or more people.
Basically, imagine one person piloting the ship, but being unable to go into the map view at all, or plan orbits, as that is Mission Control's job, a different player who can't look at the vehicle or pilot it, but can look at the map and adjust orbit plans. With 3 or more players, there could be one player who only has access to IVA and another who's on 'engineer duty', using the vessel view to operate parts of the ship, transfer fuel, extend solar panels, run experiments as well as give visual feedback on docking alignment, etc.
With vanilla KSP this would have been very limiting, but the original had a very cool set of mods that I think would have worked fantastic for this kind of co-op multiplayer. I can't remember their names, but the general idea was adding little interactive screens in the IVA view that could interact with a couple of other mods including ones that added external cameras (that could justify locking the view of the pilot to IVA even with just 2 players), display orbit info and other things that would normally only be visible on the map view. There was also an extension of this mod that added a special IVA that looked like mission control for unmanned probes, a similar idea to which could be an accessible interface for the Mission Control player so they too can access onboard cameras to have an idea of what's going on.
EDIT: I could see a sort of 'sphere of influence' existing, where there is the designated active vessel, and anything within X kilometers of it is fair game for another player to take control of for docking for example, or to conduct EVA (especially if the game included the ability to do a bit of konstruction/jury rigging mid-mission like some mods allowed in KSP 1).
16:04 Well, sead. 👏 KSP2 deserves to have a future, not to be shut down by the people who left the team, but I am glad they got fired, by the way. The development of KSP2 has stopped for the moment, but you'll never know, Nate Simpson might come back for a surprise. Just keep your fingers crossed, everyone, and we will get what we want for KSP2. Just believe. ✨️
KSP Multiplayer to me was just that, 2 or more players (depending on host computer ability) working on different flights or even controlling different aspects of a shared world. Or even a "PvP Space-race" style, whoever gets there 1st gets the bigger reward. Not so much of a direct conflict style game as there are plenty of others that allow that already, but sill possible if the option is set to allow other agencies to destroy your crafts/buildings.
The part that always confounded me was how to handle time-warp with multiple players?
Kerbal Multiplayer: An administrative multi team "space program" scheduling manager subsystem. Team A wants to go to try a first Duna mission they must schedule it with Teams B, C, and D. If teams B, C, and D have Kerbals with enough "Mission Experience" then their current missions would go into "Auto Mission Simulation" while Team A tries to manually complete mission successfully. On Team A's success or failure Teams B, C, and D would exit "Auto Simulation". If Team A was successful then Team A could then "Auto Simulate" subsequent missions to Duna. This means each Planet, moon, sun, system or galaxy has it own unique "Missions" to complete once by each Team before the teams could "Auto Simulate" them. This also means that in the beginning of the game, all teams would have a scheduling calendar in which the game would render up primary play time to the scheduled team. As a reward for continuing to play all other teams would receive money for parts / tech purchase, small amounts of Kerbal experience and science research points. Kerbals with no experience would need to go through manual missions before attempting "auto simulation". (They could still try "auto simulation" but with a high chance of "bad misshaps") Kerbals with an average experience level could "auto simulate" missions with the possibility of some "bad misshapps" on the missions and then Kerbals with lots of experience could "auto simulate" with a very low chance of "misshaps" during an "auto simulation" mission. "Misshaps" are just things that could happen during a mission. Not all misshaps are bad. There could be good ones too! All so missions could be divided into stages to make it easier for the player to complete like the fist time a player tries to daco a ship to a station. (I've never been able to do it in KSP 1; Still trying to this day)
To be fair, I think the physics of how craft controlled by different players move and crash into each other is a pretty important thing to be focused on first with multiplayer because it affects the other playstyles too, right? Like, you can't have cooperative play where you're docking things together if you don't figure out how things hit each other first...
I imagine 4 (or more) players all set the same as sandbox or science mode, all working in the same physical space to either do sandbox things or complete their science goals. This could be competitive or cooperative where players could choose to be part of each other's agencies or not. Time warp could go through a date/time to date/time vote that requires 100% agreement between players before it activates. This would mean slower gameplay, but it could be kept stable rather than implementing some time paradox bugs. I still believe this could be done, but maybe requiring a rewrite of the code from the ground up. (Also, the players' vehicles should be able to physically interact with each other)
The idea i had in my mind for KSP2 multiplayer was along the lines of me or a friend being able to host a 4 player server on their PC that we could connect to, we would then each be given a designated launch pad and be able to independently go on missions and take up contracts some of which would require a team effort. I had dreamt of docking with my friends space station they had set up around one of the moons of Juul that they had claimed for themselves, refuelling as we prepared to go on an interstellar voyage. All dreams, ones that will no longer be possible.
Kerbal multiplayer:
1. Definitely something in realtime. I want to be able to watch a friend pilot a ship in the same space as me.
2. Collaborative Science achievements/tech tree unlocks
3. No idea what to do about time warp.
honestly, just let host control it and put a little "can you savely timewarp rn?" prompt for the other players that could veto the timewarp so you dont accidentally sling your homie into a planet, put a request feature on so anybody can hit the timewarp button, but instead of immedeatly doing it itd ask the host to confirm. Thats the best i could come up with with 0 experience in networking, coding etc but from a playing perspective id be fine with this, and cant really see a optimal solution
Honestly, I don't really see what's so hard about timewarp in multiplayer (as long as you see ksp's MP as a coop experience)... Many games have solved it before (see paradox games, i.e. Hearth of iron, Crusader kings etc.)
Just have the time warp be the minimum of every player's time warp...
Player 1: wants to time warp at 100x
Player 2: wants to time warp at 10x
==> actual time warp is 10x.
With a little bit of UI/UX work, you could make it so players know when they are the one that "throttle" the maximum time warp. Something like : "Other players are waiting for you to increase time warp".
You could even go a bit further and have each player have "preferred timewarp settings" where they can specify what amount of deviation they can tolerate
The downside is that this is vulnerable to uncooperating players : someone could just "freeze" the game by always forcing time warp to 1x. For instance, what if someone just goes afk ? However, many game have this problem without it actually being a problem. CIV will just freeze if a player does not play their turn (unless there's a time limit for each turn).
This solution only works if you assume that KSP's multiplayer is a "coop with friend" rather than a "matchmaking/play with random people" type of game, but that's how I personally envisioned the MP anyways.
4:37 Here is my essay about Kerbal multiplayer.
The first option. When one player time warps, others get to know how far in the future that player is. They can timewarp however they want. At some point they may sync, and bring all timelines together. This will have craft pop into existance and such. However, you cannot interact with other players craft that existed before your time, without syncing time.
The other option, players get to set up their timewarp points, how far they want to timewarp. Once everyone agrees to timewarp, they'll warp to the first point, then the next etc. Likely lots of waiting, although the warping can be done when you're in e.g. the VAB, unless it is your timewarp point you're warping to.
Anyway... I don't really care for multiplayer in KSP.
2-4 players existing in the same game world. Each with their own VAB and ability to deploy and recall vehicles. The ability to board and co-pilot other players vessels & join other players Kerbals to be placed on launches together.
Kerbal multiplayer to me was always a multiplayer sandbox in my head. A shared save you and a a friend could play together on. I really enjoy “Parallel Multiplayer” in that style, think like how minecraft multiplayer works.
My hopes were simply “be able to play at the same time” and if you want to get creative with how you do that it’d more or less just be something that was up to you to make up the rules for. It sounds like it was pretty in line with that which is a bit of a bummer.
I would have wanted all multiplayer problems ironed out (time warp/streams included) but work as nicely as MSFS 2020 multiplayer, not exactly Massive Multiplayer but at least didn't rely on people joining/hosting servers :/ ... good info, very interesting to know, another great video!
I've never played any of the multiplayer mods or seen videos on them. I always envisioned it basically as singleplayer but co-op. Just like in singleplayer, you can have more than one craft on missions at a time, but now if say you were playing 2 player co-op, two different craft could be being controlled at the same time or the two players could control a single craft together. Time would also be synced. Similar to Stellaris multiplayer or the rimworld multiplayer mod. Maybe you have a voting system for speed where lowest speed or majority vote wins, or even simpler, host always controls the speed for everyone. The core though was always co-op, otherwise almost identical in every way to singleplayer
Also Note: I'm a QA Analyst so I work in software development, one of my main jobs is helping simplify and minimize scope to prevent creep. The more bloated something is the more bugs. The most robust and simple we as a team can get the core of the project the easier it will be to later build on that structure with less issues.
Final thought, the only thing that really matters to me about KSP 2 was the multiplayer. I have half a dozen friends who all played KSP 1 and agreed it would feel lonely. Just being in the same "world" together to see each others ships and work toward goals together is all we wanted.
multiplayer should've been the biggest priority- not just because of the engineering reasons, but also because players make their own fun, if they can mess around with friends it takes the strain away from the lack of science mode etc. would probably also have expanded the community too
I thought that in Multiplayer, I could have multiple Kerbal Space Programs, and do a Space Race, that wouldve been so cool. Especially if your friends never played it, they would try to learn more, and then show off their new learnt skills in the space race
This is some insane investigative journalism right here. Harsh words but they had to be said, nice job shadow
What I see is the possibility of more sophisticated missions. For example, A SpaceX starship first being controlled be one person, and the second stage being controlled be another. Another thing I see for KSP multiplayer is fighter jet dogfights like in Warthunder.
As for the state of KSP2 multiplayer, I am actually genuinely impressed that two people were able to do what they did to make it even a thing.
I never dreamed of playing on a live server w/ hundreds of people but a co-op lunar mission with my son on board would have been AMAZING. Now that I'm in my 40s, I don't really make time for games that I can't play with my son. I was crushed when KSP2 died bc playing with my boy was the dream.
Whenever I've thought of multiplayer for KSP. I imagine missions where multiple people are controlling multiple craft simultaneously. Docking operations is the simplest idea that comes to mind. Outside of that I imagine people having different bases in different locations and later bringing their resources together during rendezvous to complete missions. Initially the second one would involve people working alone and then later syncing up. These are fairly obvious to me. I think they are just the tip of the iceberg.
Have you considered leading a project to develop an Open-Source version of KSP? So many people have put so much time into mods and continuing to play. Maybe call it Nerdles in Space? Or is it possible to adapt an existing open project to have that sublime frothy mix of bonkers fun and serious orbital mechanics?
My hope is that this game is not lost to history, I’d be keen to see either the fan base or some development company eventually gain the rights to complete this game. I also completely understand the gamers community stance on movies/tv shows but sometimes a good director can reignite interest in games coming back to life so perhaps a fan made full length feature movie would be possible
What you said is what I would have thought multiplayer to be, except I grouped it into just 2 categories. 1), small local arenas like you said first, and 2, much more vast distances in which time warp needs to be considered.
And I think that is what the issue is. How does one have multiple people planning and doing multiple launches, AND traveling vast distances that take a ton of time? I feel like you would need some kind of mechanic where you can plan your maneuver nodes and such, carry out your burns, and then put in a request for a specified time warp AND, where (or rather when) you want that time jump to end. So sure, you do your burn, request the time warp, but you just keep coasting at real time because another player is still doing something in 1:1 time. It won't be until that player (or perhaps all) have put in time requests, or allow time warps for others (e.g., just time warp me in my orbit around time planet/moon until my friend gets here). Effectively everyone is time warping or no one is.
Either that, or you get REALLY weird, and have some kind of sphere of time influence, where you can time warp a little bit out of sync, as long as these spheres don't get to close, or too far apart in time. Or else... that could get REALLY messy... I think this would be way to complicated and hard.
In any case, I bet most people will be waiting for others to finish their thing while they wait for the time warp they need.
When thinking of KSP multiplayer, I envision different people having their own space agencies set up in different places on Kerbin, or cooperating within one agency if they so choose, controlling separate craft. Quicksaving and reverting, I imagine, would be disabled, and the server itself could choose in settings how it handles time warp.
Perhaps if there are many people, there could be designated global time warp windows that everyone knows the timing of and plans missions accordingly... not sure, to be honest
I think that if multiplayer was prioritized, the game would’ve been much more successful. Even in its bare bones release, if we were able to fly around with friends, it would’ve made the game so much better, and it would’ve given it an exclusive feature that set it apart from the first game
For the prompt: I imagined KSP multiplayer as be a mode in which more than one player can build and pilot vehicles from Kerbin, traverse the solar system, and either collaborate or compete for resources using even bigger vehicles, space stations, or colonies.
Of course I've always suspected that it would be a huge challenge given the limitations of the KSP1 game engine (which I now know was largely carried over to KSP2) and the gameplay necessity of time-warp. But I never played the KSP1 MP mod. And the Intercept team claimed they had a creative solution so I was hopeful. Back to the video...
I envision that two or more players can operate one or more space agencies in either a persistent server, or while the host player has the game & save running. Players within one space agency can alternate control of any craft launched by that agency. Separate agencies can't control one another's crafts by default. Launches can be done simultaneously.
Time warp would be tricky. I think it would require players to lock-in what their craft intend to do before using a calendar menu to re sync with one another in the past. Avoiding a situation where a friend uses my refueling station, but I retcon the event by destroying it with a more advanced vehicle before the refueling occurred would be hard. Perhaps inter-craft events would create safe-zones in spacetime that prevent crafts from being destroyed if they canonically exist in the established future, and would put a hold on fuel so that it can't be transferred in a way that breaks causality.
Part of me wishes that we got a refreshed, prettier, and more stable version of KSP1 with colonies and resource collection. Imagine having modern technologies like a way to reuse rocket stages, and 3D printing colonies and parts on other celestial bodies. Imagine a story mode where you have to compete against enemy Kerbal nations to create a colony first on certain locations (like the South Pole of the mun and duna lava tubes). So basically just for all mankind but with kerbals. They could’ve called it “Kerbal Space Program 2: For all Kerbalkind”. Just so much missed potential :(
KSP multiplayer was something I never wanted and never planned to engage with.
I'm grateful to have found Archean. The difference in dev team competency is simply mind blowing. MP from day one of early access. It makes more sense to have MP in a game like Archean due to thrust and ISP being so high. It'll be interesting to see how MP evolves by players as more distant planets and moons are added to the solar system as early access progresses.
Ever since it was announced, I was worried about multiplayer. Reworking KSP is hard enough, I think we all know how rough it was when it first released, and it took years to get to where it is now. Doing that from scratch and somehow surpassing the original was next to impossible, and multiplayer was the final nail in the coffin.
15:59 there are still amazing mods that adds other system and gigantic parts for mothership in KS1, like the Kcalbeloh one so you can do interstellar travel with your kids!
I agree totally. My multiplayer dream was to run a "family venture" with my kids. Setting up infrastructure and exploring together. Joint IVA and EVA. Daughters as astronauts while me at mission control.
4:30
I would say that multiplayer would be 2 or more players sharing a save being able to independently launch missions and interact with each other