How well does the co-op mod work?

[Gadzooks]

My wife doesnt own the game, but was interested in the idea of playing co-op with me. My concern is, like with many mods, they can tend to be a bit.... lackluster.

Anyone tried the mod? Is it easy to use? Does it allow for fully functional gameplay with 2 people? Any restrictions or issues?

[Paroe]

Do you mean zenriths co-op or open world?
Because iirc zenriths co-op isnt 1.4 and open world isnt the kind of co-op youre looking for.
otherwise you might want to just do Parsec and "fake local" co-op it instead.

Or try stardew valley.

[Astasia]

I've never used it, I've watched streamers play multiplayer though and it seems to work pretty well and do what is expected in an otherwise vanilla environment. If you start throwing additional mods on top of it you can run into issues with some of them, sometimes it's still playable but requires frequent resyncs/reloads, some mods just don't work with it.

Originally posted by Paroe:

iirc zenriths co-op isnt 1.4

Yes it is. At least it's tagged as 1.4 on the workshop page. I will note I haven't watched anyone play with the mod in 1.4 so I can't say how stable the current version is.

[Paroe]

Originally posted by Astasia:

I've never used it, I've watched streamers play multiplayer though and it seems to work pretty well and do what is expected in an otherwise vanilla environment. If you start throwing additional mods on top of it you can run into issues with some of them, sometimes it's still playable but requires frequent resyncs/reloads, some mods just don't work with it.

Originally posted by Paroe:

iirc zenriths co-op isnt 1.4

Yes it is.

Oh. Huh, neat. Last i checked it wasnt and there was no indication it was still live, since it hadnt been updated in over a year prior.

That changes things for sure. The main issue with zenriths multiplayer is and always has been Desync.
If the OP wants to have the best experience, youre going to want to grab frameratecontrol and use the throttle function to put both computers at the same level, and adjust lower as needed. Light mods shouldnt cause desync, but anything with custom workbenches might cause an issue. If you can go with a small mostly vanilla+ modpack your experience will probably be pretty good, zenriths multiplayer is a great mod thats fairly easy to use once you figure out a good modset to use with it... Or just go pure vanilla with the expansions. You both will need rimworld for zenriths though.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1591142767

[Gadzooks]

interesting about the framerate control

Both our computers are identical, and we typically force vsync capping our framerates at 60 because we hate screen tearing.

Ill check it out none the less. Thanks!

[Paroe]

Originally posted by Gadzooks:

interesting about the framerate control

Both our computers are identical, and we typically force vsync capping our framerates at 60 because we hate screen tearing.

Ill check it out none the less. Thanks!

Framerate control is important for zenriths multiplayer IMO.
If you didnt know, rimworlds performence - and tick rate - is based on your framerate and rimworld does NOT have vsync controls by default, if you have them, a mod is adding them.

Framerate control can also throttle the engine, reducing desync by putting everyone playing at the same (level) point so minor inconsistencies are less likely to make one person fall behind.