How does multiplayer work?

[solfizz]

Do I just start a game, and eventually I'll see that there are other players, and I just reach out to them? Or are there MP lobbies, a MP-only mode, etc... how does it all work?

Thanks in advance!

[Dirak2012]

It works... barely.

You play until you can access the space anomaly, that it's the mp hub of the game. Then you can find people there, hopefully.
Still, this is a single player game at heart.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

At least right now, this is not a great game if your main goal is to play MP. It works, barely, and suffers from syncing issues where you might be attacked and the other player can't see why you are jumping around like a monkey. Also weather often is not in sync from what I have read.

A lot of player avoid the multiplayer option. First it was an addded feature, but HG got a lot of heat from the existing clients that we did not want it to take over our game. So they designed it so it was possible, but not any advantage over playing SP.

Depending on where your are, if you bought this for MP as a major feature...refund soon.

[Other]

A couple of other notes:

- All multiplayer is peer-to-peer, since there are no servers for the game. If you end up as the host, or get someone nearby, your connection will be better than if you somehow get stuck with a host on the other side of the world. If you have any in-game friends who are online, you can chose to join their session when entering the game, but I'm not 100% sure how that works.

- Unless you really want it, and know what you are getting into, you will almost certainly want to turn off PvP in the settings (it defaults to on for each new save). Modding is allowed, if not necessarily encouraged, so there are some people who give themselves damage per shot of 2^31, infinite range, and so on. Which makes pvp more or less equivalent to five year olds playing cops & robbers, and shouting "bang! you're dead". There may be organised pvp groups that don't tolerate such behaviour, but I've never gone looking for them.

[1P27]

if you like exploring with friends and base building it's fun but other than that it's trash PvE is so buggy (e.g: Steve: OH MY GOD CHRIS THERE'S A GIANT SENTINEL SHIP HEADING OUR WAY RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! Chris: Where I can't see it?) Story missions are just straight up impossible

And then there's the people in creative and custom that grief and kill players because they're depressed your just better off on your own

[solfizz]

Thank you all for your good responses! I was merely curious in case MP is a different offering than the SP sandbox and crafting from what I gather. I got Everspace 2 which is more my style game these days. Nothing against open worlds, but nowadays I prefer games that are quick and easy to learn like those in the arcade genre.