Multiplayer Logistics

Yo, Tycho! What would running a goverment entail? I'd like to volunteer, but don't wanna get in over my head. Blast you, Necromian! You beat me to the Azdgari! (I can speel it right too.)

And Tycho, I think it my be wise to talk to Ambrosia about this. I know you don't wanna get slapped with a lwasuit.

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"Where'd you get those
coconuts?"

I think lag in an game like ev, where only keyboard inputs were sent over the network, would be a much larger problem than with games like Marathon/Unreal/Quake because objects in EV keep moving even when there isn't any input. In a game of Marathon, where I press the forward key to move my character 20 paces forward and the other computer on the network was lagged 2 minutes, I would (on their computer) still move 20 paces forward and stop (just 2 minutes late). In EV, if I was drifting, turned 180 degrees right at the Earth and accelerated away while the other player had a 2 minute lag.. on his screen I would keep drifting past the Earth for 2 minutes and might end up at the top end of the map before turning around, while on my computer I'm on the bottom end of the map. This is an extreme example, but even with millisecond differences in lag, ships could still potentially end up in completely different positions on each client as small disparities kept adding up. You would need some way to make sure that all the ships show up in the same position on all the computers, perhaps by sending coordinates along with the key input, if not synchronizing the lag.

Naw, the theory is sound. It's called the virtual joystick method, and the key is to create two parallel world's... One plays out on the screen and is the predicted world, the other is the actual world as it stands (based on your current info). The ships on a players computer would keep track of a set of commands based on the current time index. So player A presses his accelerate key at 12:35:14 for example, and sends that command to player B. Player B's predicted world is happily humming along when his actual world processes player A's command. At this time the predicted and actual worlds are different, so the predicted world makes a series of small adjustments over the next set of frames to bring it back into sync with the real world. When player A lets go of the accelerate key, the command is sent to player B, where the actual world can carry out its next set of calculations (stop accelerating player A at this time ..... ). The predicted world finds it's out of sync again and gradually brings itself back to reality again. If done properly everything will keep itself together nicely.

Of course, with 2 min lags no real-time game would hold together (despite the network design), it would be a waste of time to try and play under such conditions...

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Aha, thanks for explaining kberg. I thought there must be some sort of synchronization going on =D I've played the builds by both of you and, like everyone else here... I'm SO psyched! I'm sure both your final products will be awesome

I've only been surfing these boards for a short time, but I don't remember seeing if either one of you are planning on making massively multiplayer ev, or just a networked ev? Just curious

Maybe in a massively multiplayer ev, the idea of an AI computer upgrade to take control of your ship in case of a disconnect (Computer freeze/ISP disconnect/etc) could still be used?

Chatting could be a planetary thing, that's what the spaceport bars are for, dedicated chat servers. Then in space there could be a simplified version for ship to ship communications, in which you can only speak to those in system and only to whatever ship you currently have targeted. This would be a system which provides the user with an area in which to use several preset commands (ie, request help, offer missions, setup alliances, etc.) and room to enter a few lines of text if those commands don't suffice. Perhaps this would be a bar at the bottom of the screeen with some buttons for various commands and a static text box for monetary amounts accompanied with another box to enter text. This could be user selectable so that say if you pressed the communication key any keyboard input after that would be in that window and pressing that same key returns you to input in the game.

I don't really know the feasability of any of what I'm suggesting since I am by no means a programmer, I just am hoping to help get this idea off the ground. This is exactly the kind of thing I've been trying to get going, and it's great to see people seriously trying to make it work.

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All things are possible
except skiing through a
revolving door

I've had a really long think about how this will work and came up with one thing. MUD.

My friends all used to play one and they dragged me in one day. Needless to say, after all my experience with a graphically orientated operating system, I thought it was crap. SO much typing and remembering commands. Reminded me of DOS, which just so happened to be what all my friends were used to.

So it hit me the other day. The MUD system was fine, the only thing it lacked was graphics. Ala, Escape Velocity. Obviously someone really thought about the online gaming system for MUD's, so why should we make up our own?

In MUD's they have this thing called quests. They are exactly the same thing as missions.
In MUD's they have this thing called houses. They are exactly the same thing as planets/systems.
In MUD's they have this thing called clans?. They are exactly the same thing as escorts?.
In MUD's they have this thing called money. They are exactly the same thing as credits. etc etc.

Another cool thing this MUD had was wars. Everybody joined a side and went to an arena and hacked each other up. I reckon that would be great.

Anyone out there who is an avid MUD player? Post your comments here.
Maybe I should start a new post."Multiplayer MUD possiblities"
Someone else want to do it?

Also I reckon we should use microsoft network for this. Just flood the messenger service with vector quantities and acceleration algorithms. Yep, that'd be good.

Tycho

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Where the Hell's my roof?