Multiplayer! Suggestions on how it could work.

[Vas]

I know that I'm going to get a lot of troll posts here because of me suggesting multiplayer so I will report any of them that show up.  That includes stupid shit like "How about Z levels too?" as I've seen in other posts, just general sarcasm.  Be constructive, not a nuisance.

I've had several ideas for multiplayer that I wanted to share.  I went through my history of all posts and found out WOW, I've been around since Alpha1/2!  Holy crap! xP What I wouldn't give to play Alpha 1 and 2 again to remember the good old days!   Anyway, I know that many people have suggested multiplayer and want it however it just doesn't fit in Tynan's goal for the game.  People like competitive play and some like coop like me or at least friendly competitive.  So, I'm going to list a few methods of multiplayer here, that I hope may be considered eventually.



Method 1: Co-op Multi-Map
Alright, I know this is a survival game.  So what about a co-op survival game where two colonies land on the planet on two different parts of the world file so each has a different map basically.  Like one can land in a desert, and one can land in a forest.
Anyway, the way this would work is both colonies are able to send supplies to each other using the trade beacons as the available tradable supply list and they open an interface that lets you send supplies or offer a trade.  The trade offer is received on their end and they can accept, edit, or reject the trade.  If you don't request anything, it instead of sending an accept or reject thing, sends a notice that "A gift was delivered by player x".
You would also be able to aid them in a dire situation like their colony is under attack.  You can do this by clicking request aid, and the other player accepts or rejects, during this time the game is paused on both sides and you specify who you want to send to help them, and depending on your distance it takes that long to get there and you arrive at the appropriate side of the map too from where you came.  Now you are both looking at the same map and your colonists are in full on military mode and your choices of buildings are limited and such where you can't make anything but sand bags or mortars, maybe a turret or such.  When you leave, you can leave the buildings or deconstruct them to take back as much of your material with you as you can.  The other player will have to "claim" the structures to take them down for you.  You return to your map, and your colonists return later on when they walk back (takes 40% more time than it took to get there).
When you both start to get to the late game point, and are ready to build a ship to get out, you can invite the other player to join you on your ship, assuming you have enough pods available.  It will tell them on the invite how many pods are available and they can click a button saying "need more pods" or even just chat to you saying it's not enough pods yet.  Then they can send you resources you need to make more or whatnot if they want.  You work together on two different parts of the map to accomplish the same goal.
As for the speed of the game, to increase the speed you must both vote to increase the speed, but speed can be reduced by either player without a vote and auto decreases for both in the event of raids or other game speed reducing things.  Both players get a speed cross out line like normal.  Otherwise both or all players must consent to a speed increase (in the event of more than 2).
In the event of a modded game, all players must have the same mods.  Can be verified by making an MD5 hash of all the files, who knows.



I'll type more later, I need a break cause my wrists hurt and fingertips are numb.  Carpal tunnel sucks don't it?   I'll copy and paste something here for me to remember later though;

Code Select Expand

12:40 AM - Vas: I had this idea for multiplayer though, what do you think? ;;  Two people join on te same map.  On map spawn, instead of the standard story of crashing, you have a story about how you were in a debate over how to rule over a territory with some fellow ship mates when the ship came under attack and you both ejected to seperate escape pods.  You now have to decide, whether you are going to work together, shared control over all the land, or if you are going to control half the land but still be at peace with each other, or whether you are going to defend your land as if they are hostiles.  After that, the game appropriately selects an "area" and restricts your colonists to it, and theirs to their land.  People who are always stressed in your colony can choose to leave your colony and join theirs.  "Dave has decided to leave your colony because of the conditions here.", also depends on how much better stuff the other colony has.  So basically whoever loses all their colonists, loses.  They can choose to stay in the game and wait to see if a wanderer joins, or their colony has people leave to return to yours, or they can simply exit and give the victory to the other guy.  And if working together, you simply play the game normally while colonists are marked Colony 1/Colony 2 and they control number 2 and you can't but you both get shared control of the map and can designate whether you help mine and such.
12:50 AM - Vas: We're running out of link flags in this game! D:
12:57 AM - Vas: What did you think of the multiplayer idea?
1:07 AM - Itchy Flea: It's good. Post it in the suggestions forum if you haven't already.
1:07 AM - Vas: Oh I've posted things like that before.  I know it won't happen.  :P
1:10 AM - Vas: I really don't like using SMF to post all my stuff, I had hoped the forum would have been upgraded by now to XenForo but Tynan canceled that in favor of keeping all the current posts in the community (I think).  When he could have made https://old.ludeon.com/forums/ instead and prohibited posting on it, and created a XenForo forum and active users would start moving their stuff over.
1:11 AM - Vas: SMF is absolutely horrid for this game and it's current setup and stuff and the community's preferences.

I intend to re-type my idea with more details and such and separate the methods out and think about every aspect I can, I jut need a break in typing right now.

[killer117]

i pushed for multiplayer just after first getting the game, but i recieved a similar response as you. id just like to have 1-2 of my friends with me on the same map, where we can all build our own bases or one joint base, and where we can help each other, hurt each other, have the occasional friendly war, then band together to fight off raiders. i know this game is all about lore and story and playing it solo, but i think playing with friends to interact with adds a whole new level of depth and meaning to that story. imagine one guy in my colony distracted a centipede long enough to let my friends people tool up and get ready, and for mine to run over and help, but was killed doing it. my friend and i could build a nice small tomb between our towns and put the hero in there. id find the expirience so much more meaningful if it was with my friends.

[g3trans]

i pushed for multiplayer just after first getting the game, but i recieved a similar response as you. id just like to have 1-2 of my friends with me on the same map, where we can all build our own bases or one joint base, and where we can help each other, hurt each other, have the occasional friendly war, then band together to fight off raiders. i know this game is all about lore and story and playing it solo, but i think playing with friends to interact with adds a whole new level of depth and meaning to that story. imagine one guy in my colony distracted a centipede long enough to let my friends people tool up and get ready, and for mine to run over and help, but was killed doing it. my friend and i could build a nice small tomb between our towns and put the hero in there. id find the expirience so much more meaningful if it was with my friends.

These were my thoughts, multiplayer would be amazing... Especially now that steam is getting closer, this is what would make this game break the market and be one of the craziest best sellers.
Well, two things, that and integrated 'approved' mods which you can choose when hosting a co-op game.

I thought more about how exactly a co-op mode would work and I have it all figured out, just haven't put it on paper since it probably won't happen

[BranHerz]

Method 1: Co-op Multi-Map
Alright, I know this is a survival game.  So what about a co-op survival game where two colonies land on the planet on two different parts of the world file so each has a different map basically.  Like one can land in a desert, and one can land in a forest.
Anyway, the way this would work is both colonies are able to send supplies to each other using the trade beacons as the available tradable supply list and they open an interface that lets you send supplies or offer a trade.  The trade offer is received on their end and they can accept, edit, or reject the trade.  If you don't request anything, it instead of sending an accept or reject thing, sends a notice that "A gift was delivered by player x".
You would also be able to aid them in a dire situation like their colony is under attack.  You can do this by clicking request aid, and the other player accepts or rejects, during this time the game is paused on both sides and you specify who you want to send to help them, and depending on your distance it takes that long to get there and you arrive at the appropriate side of the map too from where you came.  Now you are both looking at the same map and your colonists are in full on military mode and your choices of buildings are limited and such where you can't make anything but sand bags or mortars, maybe a turret or such.  When you leave, you can leave the buildings or deconstruct them to take back as much of your material with you as you can.  The other player will have to "claim" the structures to take them down for you.  You return to your map, and your colonists return later on when they walk back (takes 40% more time than it took to get there).
When you both start to get to the late game point, and are ready to build a ship to get out, you can invite the other player to join you on your ship, assuming you have enough pods available.  It will tell them on the invite how many pods are available and they can click a button saying "need more pods" or even just chat to you saying it's not enough pods yet.  Then they can send you resources you need to make more or whatnot if they want.  You work together on two different parts of the map to accomplish the same goal.
As for the speed of the game, to increase the speed you must both vote to increase the speed, but speed can be reduced by either player without a vote and auto decreases for both in the event of raids or other game speed reducing things.  Both players get a speed cross out line like normal.  Otherwise both or all players must consent to a speed increase (in the event of more than 2).
In the event of a modded game, all players must have the same mods.  Can be verified by making an MD5 hash of all the files, who knows.

I also has some similar ideas. I think that there should be some way to make this work in a mod. I was thinking along these lines:

• Player 1 starts a game with a random access key. This creates a file (probably xml since Rimworld loves those) and puts it in a place accessible to others (probably would need a server or a good filehost or something for this part) in the mods folder a script could be posting and reading the files. This file would keep a modOrder so that save games would work together only if they modOrder was the same
• Other players join and can either enter a key, or view a list of all available keys. It will then read the associated xml file and the script would keep a copy of the main file stored in the mods section
• players can then go into their game and have an option in the trade beacon or comms console to put items up for sale or view purchasable items. This would run the script to grab the most recent file, upload it into rimworld, and so each time you look it could be a little bit different. as soon as you click buy or sell, it saves the file and the script uploads the file back up to the server. I would think that javascript would allow a lock to be placed on the file so only one person could be editing/uploading the file at a time
• players can now buy and sell between others who are using the same access key

Any other thoughts on this?

[killer117]

I know next to nothing about coding so feel free to tell me im an idiot, but would it be hugely difficult to have multiple players working off a networked save file at the same time, and implement a voting system for changing the time speed. If the game is modded then the game could auto link the correct mod folder to the networked save file and any other joining pcs could then use that folder. The different players could name thier colonys faction at the start and to the other players on the map thier pawns would be just like those of visitors, with the colony name under the pawns name

[Fluffy (l2032)]

@killer; save files are a snapshot of a single moment. True multiplayer through saves would require all peers to continuously write their game state to the same file. That's just not possible.

Theoretically, netcode for a realtime multiplayer is possible. Practically, it's a ton of work to get done properly, and considering the storytelling focus Tynan is going for (which is really only suited for single player IMO), I highly doubt it's even on his wishlist of things he could do if he had infinite money/time.