Imagine this: You send a message to 2 friends saying: "let's play?" and they say: "sure". Then the 3 of you log in your world... Where each of you control your own pawn... the gameplay would be essentily the same... but you control you... and they control they...
And there could be a feature where the pawn become AI if his player isn't online or something like that. I don't know if this could be a "in-game" feature or some mod but I sure would love it...
Meh
Ehem...
You might want to check out Zetrith's Multiplayer (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=47445.0) mod...
But you have to share the same colony and the same pawns with your friend... As you both control the same colony...