Why no Multiplayer Mod

[Hardscript]

I have been playing x3 for about 800 hours now and there is one thing that has annoyed me from the start, and that is i cant play with my friends.

I in NOO way mean i want x3 to be an mmo like eve "I hate EVE"

What i want is to be able to set up a server and have 2-40 of my friends play in the same universe, have huge fleet battles with them or take over their sectors.

After speaking to my friends who play x3 they all have stated that they would like this kind of function very much.

why has no one made it?

[TrixX]

Limitations of the engine and what we can access as a community. Trying to get a Server/Client setup going to run MP X games would instantly break SETA usage. That coupled with location tracking on a single threaded game is going to cause issues.

I think we'll have to wait for Rebirth before either considering the idea or it being implemented in Rebirth already

Though you may want to check out X-Timelines for some interested developments in the MP arena over the next few months. We are working hard to get Phase 1 out at the moment, but Phase 2 should have some things that would interest those wanting to play X3 with friends

[Hardscript]

so are you working on a way to play with friends?

[TrixX]

As much as possible with X3 unfortunately it doesn't extend to full in universe multi-player, but we are doing what we can to enable working as a team

Hence Jack08's release of the XTL Chat mod

[HotSake]

Clever. I assume XTL is going to pass game data between friends through your proprietary software so you can affect each others' universes?

[Hardscript]

Has anyone thought of rewriting seta to work with mp, make it only increase your speed instead of the entire universe?

[TrixX]

Hmm, I can't release any more details than I have HotSake

For a start Jack08 will kill me

[Hardscript]

[X2-Illuminatus]

The german users j.gue and LaT3St are currently working on a Mulitplayer Mod in the german forum X3 Terran Conflict MP! (TCMP).

But that

[Hardscript]

[X2-Illuminatus]

So? That doesn't change the way you can exchange data within two games.

[Jack08]

[djrygar]

even if tools were there...

someone once calculated approx. bandwidth requirements for such game in 1vs1 multiplayer

see, while data that cover all OOS action could be more or less passed, as they are not realtime (currently there is update every 30 sec), but IS even medium battle witch 30-40 ships would require pretty huge upload rate. Currently there is no infrastructure for such games

[Roger L.S. Griffiths]

I think the bandwidth argument is inaccurate... I have worked in simulation for training purposes for over 10 years and I can tell you that there are ways of reducing the bandwidth used for in sector work (but even in the training arena there is potential for glitches/lag)... the only real issue that I can see will be with firing and damage calculation since the engine does not support AI controlled ships firing beams continuously nor charging of lasers (these would probably need to be excluded from the MP version).

The way an MP mod for X3:TC would probably have to work would be for the server to do pretty much all the calculations and the actual game engine would end up being just a rendering engine for the effects (local damage calculations/regen would be zero). Downloaded data to each game would be the IS entity states as maintained by the server - would have to be not your classic home network machine for larger games but smaller games may be possible (c/f Freelancer) - and the uploaded data would be minimal (player position, and local player interaction events).

In this scenario, the server would need to maintain IS states for each of the active areas, as well as OOS state for the inactive areas. Also quite a few in-game features would be lost by necessity - SETA, Pause, etc.

I am unsure if the above is really feasible (would require file I/O support at the MCSI level probably in order to implement), it would require also alot of development effort to achieve it. The level of effort required would most likely be tantamount to writing a whole new game (probably the better option - there are free 3D game/simulations engines out there that already implement much of the infrastructure (whether it is efficiently done or not is another matter).

Well that is from my experience anyway...

[Requiemfang]

Your best bet to wait for a game that'll come along that'll be close to what X-universe is.

number 1 on the list from what I see is

Infinity Online

though don't expect to see this game anytime soon, it's going through the process of having the engine licensed, So it'll probably be another 2 or 3 years before this game rolls around. Maybe less depending on how quickly the licensing process goes.