multiplayer absent-player mechanics

[goertzenator]

How is multiplayer going to work when not all the players in the game are online at the same time? One of the things that was very convenient about Minecraft multiplayer is that your little corner of the world would pause when you logged out and your friends could keep on toiling elsewhere. Is this how Factorio is going to do it? Will my turrets run out of ammo and my base be overrun by biters while my friends play without me?

[muzzy]

That's a very good question.

In minecraft the bases are safe by default, nothing bad's going to happen even if you go afk for a day while online. Technically a low pollution base is like that in factorio too, but it's a damn good question how it's going to work.

Another multiplayer mechanic that makes me curious is research. In coop multiplayer, does everyone have their own research trees and research buildings are owned by a player? Or is it shared?

[cube]

Almost nothing about the multiplayer is certain now, but it looks like the whole world will be simulated the same way it works now when at least one player is in the game. When the last player disconnects, the game will be in an ordinary save and nothing will run.

I'm actually looking forward to the low power magic that people will invent to keep the base running for hours (days?) unattended without running out of resources.

Sharing of research trees in coop is something that has not been decided yet.

[goertzenator]

Sharing of research trees in coop is something that has not been decided yet.

It's a bit of dilemma. If you share the research tree an experienced player will end up providing tech to newer players and cause them to miss out on the natural tech progression of the game. On the other hand if you have separate trees it can be demotivating for a new player to see the experienced player race light years ahead of him. Maybe you should get a research discount on a technology if another player has already researched it. The new player still has to go through the tech progression but can catch up to the experienced player more quickly.

Kerbal Space Program is also in the process of adding multiplayer. It may be useful to keep an eye on how they manage their multiplayer tech tree.

[Aarkreinsil]

It's probably necessary to have the whole map loaded, what with relying on rail connections to far away mining expeditions n all.

Or you could do it like Minecraft and add something like a chunk loader, a block that keeps a certain area loaded. That might be exploitable though, just loading an area you need without keeping the biters active, etc.
I'm just concerned about the amount of bandwidth required to play on an ever growing map, cause my connection is pretty crappy and probably wouldn't be able to handle late game servers at all, if the whole map is loaded and streamed continuously.



With tech trees, you could either do something along the lines of a toggleable option, either set it to "Shared for everyone", "Shared for faction/party" or "Private".
Then you could implement something like a group/party/faction system, where people share techs. That would open up the field for PvP factory vs factory kinda games, too.

[muzzy]

I'm just concerned about the amount of bandwidth required to play on an ever growing map, cause my connection is pretty crappy and probably wouldn't be able to handle late game servers at all, if the whole map is loaded and streamed continuously.

The idea was to have perfectly deterministic game engine, so the map itself doesn't need to be streamed, only the player actions get sent. The downside is latency, every player action needs to be synchronized with all other players before it can take place to keep everyone in sync.

There are two serious problem scenarios. One is that a player has a ping over 100ms, forcing significant latency on everyone, and another is that one of the players can't keep up with the simulation speed. These are the interesting cases and it'll be interesting to see how Factorio will handle them.

Player movement under lag will be interesting, but can be worked around easily. Player combat, however, will definitely be an issue. That's where things get nasty.

[slpwnd]

I'm just concerned about the amount of bandwidth required to play on an ever growing map, cause my connection is pretty crappy and probably wouldn't be able to handle late game servers at all, if the whole map is loaded and streamed continuously.

The idea was to have perfectly deterministic game engine, so the map itself doesn't need to be streamed, only the player actions get sent. The downside is latency, every player action needs to be synchronized with all other players before it can take place to keep everyone in sync.

There are two serious problem scenarios. One is that a player has a ping over 100ms, forcing significant latency on everyone, and another is that one of the players can't keep up with the simulation speed. These are the interesting cases and it'll be interesting to see how Factorio will handle them.

Player movement under lag will be interesting, but can be worked around easily. Player combat, however, will definitely be an issue. That's where things get nasty.

Good points. There will be some "prediction mechanisms" to deal with the most common cases. Like most of the time when player moves his movement will succeed based on locally available information (other players don't build a building in front of him, etc.). Therefore these actions can be simulated as if they really happened and only when later on we discover they didn't (very rare occurrence) the correction will be made. This will probably not be in the very first version but we definitely have it in mind. And yeah, the fight might be more tricky.

Anyway - overall it is kind of unexplored territory for us and we are learning on the go.

[MF-]

Maybe you should get a research discount on a technology if another player has already researched it. The new player still has to go through the tech progression but can catch up to the experienced player more quickly.

That definitely like an interesting option for a co-op mode. (knowledge sharing)
But perhaps for pvp mode too? (industrial espionage, reverse engineering)

[TheNarwhal]

I think they should add in the option for separate, or shared tech when you start a new server, and maybe make a console command so you can change it in game.
If you're building a large base with a few friends, then it's best to have shared tech.. If technologies were separate, then we'd have to deal with crafting three, four, etc times as much science packs so that everyone is in the same place and can all build what is needed. Though, I guess you could always have some players be specialists in certain areas of tech so each person has some sort of special use.
Meanwhile, if you're building a base in a sort of PVP, or at least just making separate bases from other players, then you probably don't want to have shared tech., because you'd just be boosting your friends, and they could sit around until you're done.
Speaking of which, I'm playing a multiplayer server with my cousin and we want to have separate bases, and separate tech. Is there a mod that separates tech, or something like that?

[cube]

Is there a mod that separates tech, or something like that?

No, maybe in 0.12.0.

[cathril]

As for science needs, or seperate systems you can also move in a multiplier.

Meaning:
1 player research cost for automation (10) red science (factor 1.0)
2 players research cost for automation (15) red science (factor 1.5)
3 players research cost for automation (20) red science (factor 2.0)
etc. etc.

This way the difficulty will go up and no difficult systems have to be integrated in the game. You basicly need more resources and more time to research.