X3:Multiplayer - Release!

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LaT3St
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X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by LaT3St » Fri, 9. Apr 21, 15:34

Hello there!

Yes, it works... kinda...

1. Preface:
About 10 years ago, i opened a thread in the german forum to announce that I am working on a multiplayer mod for the X3 games. The project did eventually get put on hold because the few guys who I had worked with lost interest on X and i didn't have all the skills I needed back then to pull it off. Anyway, I looked at it again and found solutions for the old problems. So things started to get done again. Together with this first release of my first mod ever, the question if there is still some interest in such a modification for the relative old game comes up. Back in the day (when X3 was new) there were some voices who didn't like the idea I'm having here, so please discuss.
Anyway if someone has experience with reverse engineering programs, your help is always welcome.
Working on a multiplayer mod for X4 is out of my comfort zone, so to speak. That's why I'm working on X3.
Both X3 and X4, didn't and don't come with the needed functionality to mod a multiplayer into it. This isn't a typical mod, made with the known modding tools. I needed to add the functionality directly into the engine myself. The new .cat - File is only to spawn an empty universe.

2. Features:
- One or more players can meet in an empty sector to fly around
- The possible player count is unlimited right now
- Only one sector
- Bugs
- Crashes
- Incredibly ugly Launcher

3. What is missing?
Everything that makes an X-Game into an X-Game. This mod is in a very early stage!
A few things to mention:
- Multiple sectors
- Hull
- Shields
- Wares
- Equipment
- AI
- Weapons
- Player interactions
- Chat
- Pilot info (Name, ...)

4. Installation
Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any harm this mod does to you, your data or your system!

1.Requires the latest version of X3:Albion Prelude, which at the time of this post should be version 3.3. My version is downloaded from Steam. You need the .NET Desktop Runtime too, which you can get here: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet/5.0
2. Pilots who didn't buy the game through Steam can go straight to step 3! Else you need the anti-steam-patch from Egosoft, which you can get here: http://www.egosoft.com/download/x3ap/bonus_de.php Please check Egosoft's FAQ too. My recommendation: Copy the whole game into a new folder and modify it there.
3. BACKUP! You really should backup your saves, even if you play the game through steam. The mod shouldn't break anything, but do it anyway. Things can go wrong!
4. The mod itself: You need the client on all computers. One player also has to host the server.
Link to the files: https://packages.lat3st.de/service/rest ... ds/0.1rc1/
5. The server has to be extracted in a folder. Doubleclick to run it, it's that simple. For online games, the host needs to open the port 13337 UDP in his router.
6. Copy all data from the zip-archive into your X3:AP-Folder. Please do not create subfolders!
7. Start the launcher, fill in the data from the host, have fun!

Important: In the subfolder there is a file called 05.cat/05.dat, if you want to play singleplayer, you have to remove/rename that file.

5. Hints for usage of the mod

- Do not die, all clients will crash (I'm working on a patch)
- Do not kill each other!
- The script editor is a no no, nearly everything you could do there is not in sync.
- As soon as you spawn you should fly away from spawn point. Otherwise, the next player could spawn into you and crash the game because you died.
- Never ever load a savegame, especially not an important one!

I hope I made you curious. The work I had to get done to come to this point isn't obvious at all, sadly.
I would love to receive some feedback and comments from you!

Greetings
LaT3St
Last edited by LaT3St on Tue, 12. Jul 22, 02:40, edited 2 times in total.

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XenonArchitect7
Posts: 110
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by XenonArchitect7 » Sat, 10. Apr 21, 02:45

Wow, this sounds very impressive! I can't imagine how much work has gone into this initial release... I think there is still a lot of potential interest in a concept like this, as there are still a lot of players around today playing Mayhem and LU/SWLU mods. Not to mention returning players for X3FL. I will certainly try out your release!

dinklmen
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri, 16. Dec 16, 18:16

Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release! Ein Lagebericht 10 Jahre später

Post by dinklmen » Thu, 6. May 21, 11:34

Not gonna lie im a huge fan of x3 universe even played some mods for example XRM mod but the thing that i always wanted is to play X3 MP with my friends or brother and seeing this thread finally after those long years that there is a chance of playing it is just stunning for me. Honestly go for it,Finish it,DONT STOP MAKING THIS DREAM FOR US THE X3 COMMUNITY,WE DEFINETLY WANT IT!,EVEN GET SOME HELP FROM OTHER PPL'S IF U NEED IT BUT JUST FINISH IT! BTW.. i would even pay for it.And yeah thats why i like games that can be moded it reminded me of RIMWORLD MP mod which is a game that too didnt had any MP compatibility yet... there is a mod for it and it runs well even with SOME mods. :)
Last edited by X2-Illuminatus on Thu, 6. May 21, 15:29, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: moved post to English topic

LaT3St
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by LaT3St » Tue, 18. May 21, 23:37

Nice to see some interest in it. I'm actually waiting for some help from Egosoft. I hope I will make some more progress soon.

dinklmen
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Joined: Fri, 16. Dec 16, 18:16

Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by dinklmen » Thu, 3. Jun 21, 11:35

So how is the work going sir does egosoft replied about the help u need or is it stuck for now?

hairyhermit
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by hairyhermit » Sun, 20. Jun 21, 13:23

Following ;p
“One has to understand what the enemy is all about: the enemy's history, the enemy's culture, the enemy's aspirations. If you understand these well, you can perhaps move towards peace.”

LaT3St
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by LaT3St » Sun, 4. Jul 21, 22:59

I'm still in contact with Egosoft and i'm now member in the devnet. Still waiting for specific information from them. For now i can't really show anything new. At the moment, i'm getting the whole sector vs galaxy object figured out.

Betelgeuse97
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by Betelgeuse97 » Tue, 6. Jul 21, 02:14

I will gladly love to play this. Some questions and comments:

- Will this be an MMO style where there is a real market (X3 does not have a market where everything uses real resources to produce) to buy/sell ships and equipment? ("Leveling up" is already a thing in the form of acquiring better ships and weapons; this aspect is present in all the X games.)
- How will the map be laid out? Will sector connections be static like in the current games or will these periodically change randomly?
- And the big one: because there are no saving and SETA in a multiplayer game, this means everything is saved in real time to a database (kind of like DiD mode in TC and AP where players can save only by exiting the game). The current ships and gun projectile speeds would need to be much faster than they are in TC/AP/FL. There also should be a revamped docking computer that works similar to X4 (does not instantly teleport you into the station/ship you're docking at but instead helps you dock manually).

I'd love to see Egosoft officially turn this from a multiplayer mod to a standalone multiplayer game! For almost 20 years Egosoft last hinted about a full fledged multiplayer game (before scrapping that project), but the closest we got was ventures in X4. I'm hyped!

LaT3St
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by LaT3St » Sat, 14. Aug 21, 11:22

I think you got a bit wrong expectations from this mod. I do not plan to expand the game in any way. At the moment, stuff like trading is simply not happening in the near future. For perspective: I'm working on multiple sectors and the ability to target other ships, so things you are probably taking for granted.
I'm hoping to get some kind of API for servers up and running, the galaxy could be defined by the owner of such a gameserver.
SETA and it's problems in a multiplayer environment is again of no interest for me at this moment.

In short: I'm writing a multiplayer module for the engine. I do not plan to mod the game itself.

eveningztar
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by eveningztar » Mon, 22. Nov 21, 09:25

!st, pls forgive my poor English grammar :? and if I've posted on the wrong thread :oops: , I rarely comment but this is truly interesting and awesome. I have loved the X universe from its humble beginning and I've always wanted a multiplayer option...this makes an already super interesting game even better. If possible I will play X3 multiplayer for years to come. I still play AP for hours when I can as well as X3-Reunion and the TC. Just because more games are coming doesn't mean these are left behind, in my humble opinion the X universe is the best open-ended space sim around. Thank you, and I hope you will succeed in your endeavours :D
God doesn't play dice. Albert Einstein.

LaT3St
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by LaT3St » Mon, 13. Jun 22, 02:00

There are some news to this project:

As there seems to be less interest in this mod than I hoped, I have decided to "waste" less time debugging this old engine than initially planned or needed for a rapid development. In the past few weeks I saw a couple of concurrent players max on Steam for the old X3 games. Of course, if someone is interested in helping me out, this could change quickly again.
For now, I have decided to make this open source. Egosoft sadly didn't send me anything which could speed up the development of this project. If someone is interested in the still-private Ghidra/Cheat Engine/x64Dbg files, let me know. I will happily share my findings.
There are some in-dev features like lua scripting, which was in the making and can be found in the repository.

The source code is accessible at: https://github.com/LaT3St/X3MP

Be warned, the code is a mess.

Betelgeuse97
Posts: 286
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Re: X3:Multiplayer - Release!

Post by Betelgeuse97 » Sun, 19. Jun 22, 04:48

I'm still interested in the project! Would also love to see a proper X4 multiplayer!

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