Can multiplayer be added via a mod?

[Afkap]

Hey guys,

Bought this one a while ago under the impression it was going to eventually get multiplayer. A little annoyed to find out after waiting a while that it now won't be getting multiplayer added...

Is there any chance multiplayer could be added by a community member? I've actually quite enjoyed the game, love the concept, strategic nature, and most importantly, that its not turn based. I talked my friends into picking this one up with the intent of real time 4X based multiplayer. Really hoping it can be added by someone!

Cheers!

[Afkap]

Interesting, I seem to remember reading something from Zero saying multiplayer was possible, was simply going to need some work...

Anyway, massively disappointed to hear that. One of the main reasons I bought this was for the multiplayer. Just goes to show, don't buy something on a promise.

Not trying to attack the game, I have enjoyed it a lot, even with the faults. Really love the way its an RTS 4X game, and not turn based! Heres to hoping the next one is RTS that actually has multiplayer.

Does anyone know of a similar RTS 4X game that has multiplayer by chance? Oh and appreciate the reply buddymcleod!

[Crunchy]

making the whole game multiplayer by mod... unlikely. making a subset of the game... possible.
like fleet vs fleet. or defend your planet.
or capture the flag planet. something like that.
I think that is possible. A little beyond my scope.

[Afkap]

Righto, damn. Cheers for the response Crunchy.

[Crunchy]

Closest modern thing i can think of is sins of the solar empire. No ship builder though.

[Afkap]

I played a fair bit of Sins, I actually prefer Stardrive.

[damnusername]

one of the problems with making it multiplayer would be the pause function. I use it when making ships so I cant be ambushed (but I still dont know much about the game) or when developing research or colonies. Putting that into a multiplayer would mean removing this feature, meaning that time consuming tasks such as research and ship design would have to be done quickly. Sins doesn't have a ship builder and the tech tree is a bit simple for a 4x game (thats my opinion) so the player can deal with these problems without pause. I don't know if I could spend the time it takes to optimize a ship if I knew I was about to be attacked at any given moment.

[Crunchy]

Originally posted by Afkap:

I played a fair bit of Sins, I actually prefer Stardrive.

Me too.

[Afkap]

Originally posted by damnusername:

one of the problems with making it multiplayer would be the pause function. I use it when making ships so I cant be ambushed (but I still dont know much about the game) or when developing research or colonies. Putting that into a multiplayer would mean removing this feature, meaning that time consuming tasks such as research and ship design would have to be done quickly. Sins doesn't have a ship builder and the tech tree is a bit simple for a 4x game (thats my opinion) so the player can deal with these problems without pause. I don't know if I could spend the time it takes to optimize a ship if I knew I was about to be attacked at any given moment.

Thats a fair point, one that I don't think is too much of an issue though. You could either disable pause entirely, limit pause use to say 4 pauses per player, per game. Or have unlimited pauses etc.

For ship design, I'd say most people will have their ship design templates already complete. Worst case, you could comm to the other players you're about to pause and want 5 mins for ship design. Most of the time, I play LAN games with friends, so communicating this isn't that big a deal.

Again, with the tech tree, you're just going to have to suck it up and admit you're not going to be able to sit there for 10 minutes sweating over each decision. These are all things that I'm sure most people would be willing to sacrifice these minor issues for having multiplayer in Stardrive.

Hell, I'd seriously be willing to pay him another $20 if he promises to actually add multiplayer to Stardrive. This game is different to all the other 4X games out there, the RTS aspect really sets it apart from the rest. If he just makes another TBS game and adds mutliplayer, along the premise of StarDrive, then it'll just add to the large pile of generic 4X games out there.

[Afkap]

Fair call, I think in this situation I'd be paying the money after the multiplayer is released :D

[Crunchy]

"A promise is a comfort to a fool" This doesn't mean to stop lending money to people. It means if you take comfort in a promise you are fool. If you loan money to people -because- of a promise to pay it back. you are a fool if it hurts you when they dont.

Like if you bought a game -because- of a promise of MP... you are a fool... but only if you are upset about it not getting MP.

[Crunchy]

The kickstarter thing. Yeah... Thats a gamble.
money... is always tricky. its very personal and very impersonal at the same time.
money itself is a promise and we are all fools for putting a lot of faith in it and yet we can not help but be hurt when we lose it.
terrible trap of the ego.

I get you on games. Sheesh most all seem to suck or just are not fun. I had a great deal of fun playing stardrive but i also had a lot of fun playing nethack which is completely free.

I would like to see more development work like nethack does. completely open. no single point of personal failure. no money involved. But games are so freaking expensive. Multi million dollar budgets, expensive tools, and art and sound... Time...

Iceberg... I dunno. they seem to put out some really cool ideas that are not allowed to fully develop before release. But the ideas... They are pretty cool.

hopefully they can turn that around like paradox did with their later games.
paradox people are kinda cool. I met one of them at a SOTS2 pre-release party during PAX prime a while back. SOTS2... looked so good at the pre-release. Such a shame to see it get all f'd up. I am sure its better now but still no doubt needs work.

Why are games so hard to get right...

[G-Man]

Originally posted by buddymcleod:

Consensus is that multiplayer can't be done as the sunburn engine it is built on has been abandoned by the developer ( microsoft?). Zero who is the developer of Stardrive is going to a
different engine (Unity) to develop a new Stardrive game which will be multiplayer. Good or bad Zero has decided it will be sold as a new game. They are debating right now whether it will be RTS or TBS .

Crunchy gremlin is the most visible modder I think and is much more knowledgeable than me - but I've seen no posts from him or several other modders saying multiplayer is possible. And Zero has flat out said it's not (on the sunburn engine).

That's not true.

MS not supporting XNA (which is what SunBurn is built on) means we can't get an x64 version.

Networking is still completly possible. Zero just decided he liked Unity engine much much better and stopped working on SunBurn.

[Afkap]

Originally posted by Gen:

Originally posted by buddymcleod:

Consensus is that multiplayer can't be done as the sunburn engine it is built on has been abandoned by the developer ( microsoft?). Zero who is the developer of Stardrive is going to a
different engine (Unity) to develop a new Stardrive game which will be multiplayer. Good or bad Zero has decided it will be sold as a new game. They are debating right now whether it will be RTS or TBS .

Crunchy gremlin is the most visible modder I think and is much more knowledgeable than me - but I've seen no posts from him or several other modders saying multiplayer is possible. And Zero has flat out said it's not (on the sunburn engine).

That's not true.

MS not supporting XNA (which is what SunBurn is built on) means we can't get an x64 version.

Networking is still completly possible. Zero just decided he liked Unity engine much much better and stopped working on SunBurn.

Well that sucks...

[G-Man]

Originally posted by damnusername:

one of the problems with making it multiplayer would be the pause function. I use it when making ships so I cant be ambushed (but I still dont know much about the game) or when developing research or colonies. Putting that into a multiplayer would mean removing this feature, meaning that time consuming tasks such as research and ship design would have to be done quickly. Sins doesn't have a ship builder and the tech tree is a bit simple for a 4x game (thats my opinion) so the player can deal with these problems without pause. I don't know if I could spend the time it takes to optimize a ship if I knew I was about to be attacked at any given moment.

Worse things exist in other games. I really don't know why anyone hides beind this point. You won't be building entirely new designs halfway though an online match. You'll create templates or solid designs and save them in your list and if the enemy ships demand a style of attack you don't have you can nip in in realtime and replace a couple of guns or modules on the ships and it will take you all fo 30 seconds.

I don't expect people to play multiplayer without any save ships; sorry but that's just silly.

[Crunchy]

Yeah that is what makes meta game all the more interesting.