Arcen Games

General Category => AI War II => Private Alpha Discussion => : Lakshata February 27, 2017, 06:01:05 PM

: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Lakshata February 27, 2017, 06:01:05 PM
I see a Debug: Connect to (change in playerdata/alphamptarget.txt) but I don't see an AlphaMPTarget.txt nor any obvious way to try and start a networked multiplayer game. Is it possible?
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe February 27, 2017, 06:07:29 PM
Hmm, it appears that file was not propogated to the steam build. To correct this:

1) Create a txt file in your game's PlayerData directory named AlphaMPTarget.txt
2) Put the text 127.0.0.1 in there
3) Start the game twice on your machine so that you have two windows, move them around so you can see them both
4) On one, click the start new game button
5) When that one is looking at the mapgen view, click Connect on the other one
6) After a moment you should see the same view on the second one, and be able to play

To play multiplayer with a remote IP, replace the text of the file with that IP and do the above, just with one being on one machine and the other on the other.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: bladeravinger February 27, 2017, 06:12:52 PM
so we have in effect 'Direct connect' available via this manner?
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe February 27, 2017, 06:13:26 PM
so we have in effect 'Direct connect' available via this manner?
Correct.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: bladeravinger February 27, 2017, 06:14:20 PM
#Sticky? #Blade=Clutter xD
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: BadgerBadger February 27, 2017, 06:15:47 PM
Will this be corrected in a future build? If so, might be easier to just wait.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe February 27, 2017, 06:17:30 PM
Will this be corrected in a future build?
Yes. I hope to sort out the textboxes very soon so we can do direct-connect like semi-rational creatures.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Lakshata February 27, 2017, 06:17:46 PM
Hah, got it "working" so to speak after two map type changes the gui stopped loading on both clients.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe February 27, 2017, 06:19:00 PM
That is weird with the gui stopping working so much for folks. I haven't had that at all. It's probably offended at being shown to the world in such a state.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Lakshata February 27, 2017, 06:25:03 PM
Well after testing it (I'll post it to bug reports)

Start Game/Map Type button dissapears after the CONNECTING Client changes the map type from Cluster MicroCosm to whatevers after it. The buttons dissapear on both clients.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Zogheen February 27, 2017, 07:48:36 PM
That is weird with the gui stopping working so much for folks. I haven't had that at all. It's probably offended at being shown to the world in such a state.
You can reset the mapgen by pressing '[' (left bracket). However, you still get extra arks after that.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Lakshata February 27, 2017, 08:38:24 PM
That is weird with the gui stopping working so much for folks. I haven't had that at all. It's probably offended at being shown to the world in such a state.
You can reset the mapgen by pressing '[' (left bracket). However, you still get extra arks after that.

I read that in your bugreport, when my gui crashed in MapGen it didn't recover with that.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Lakshata March 01, 2017, 11:41:11 PM
Managed to play a remote multiplayer game.

it took us 8 minutes to deduce that my friend neither had an arc, or any units, and was actually just spectating me. this build seems a lot more stable than the last though.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe March 02, 2017, 09:58:28 AM
Ah, yes, it doesn't actually create the other human side any more. I need to fix that.

But yea, if you were able to play and he was able to see what you were doing, and there were no desyncs, then that constitutes a successful remote MP test, and I'm very happy to hear that :)
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Cinth March 02, 2017, 10:01:08 AM
Ah, yes, it doesn't actually create the other human side any more. I need to fix that.

But yea, if you were able to play and he was able to see what you were doing, and there were no desyncs, then that constitutes a successful remote MP test, and I'm very happy to hear that :)

Couldn't that be a feature?  An observer slot maybe?
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe March 02, 2017, 10:03:27 AM
Couldn't that be a feature?  An observer slot maybe?
I'll retain the capability, sure :) Though it probably won't be available in the interface for now.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Cinth March 02, 2017, 10:05:55 AM
Couldn't that be a feature?  An observer slot maybe?
I'll retain the capability, sure :) Though it probably won't be available in the interface for now.

I figure it would be nice and/or useful :)
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe March 02, 2017, 10:10:12 AM
Yea, we had the helper role in AIWC for this reason, as well as for the "just an observer, but other players can share control with them" purpose, which actually worked here in an earlier version except for the fact that control was automatically shared without the option to turn it off :)
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Lakshata March 02, 2017, 03:13:33 PM
Any timeline on having a multiple player start? Multiplayer is basically the only way I played AIWC :p.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe March 02, 2017, 05:29:01 PM
Any timeline on having a multiple player start? Multiplayer is basically the only way I played AIWC :p.
I hope to deal with it tomorrow.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: treyra March 02, 2017, 06:22:40 PM
I'm hoping to try out the multiplayer with my brother over the weekend. We'll use Hamachi and report if that is working.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: treyra March 05, 2017, 02:59:52 AM
And no multiplayer test. But hopefully we can try out he multiplayer start next weekend.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe March 05, 2017, 07:54:03 AM
Yea, sorry, I didn't know Chris wasn't planning to push 0.105 until Monday. But the MP fixes are in it :) I was able to play a 2-player game for a bit, anyway.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: treyra March 11, 2017, 01:31:16 AM
So I tested multiplayer with my brother (he was remote) and unfortunately it failed. We tried both with and without Hamachi (using the Hamachi IP address that worked in classic as well as our generic IP address a search engine returns). We both tried being the host and connecting to each other and while the frame rate dropped while attempting a connection, that was all we noticed. My game kept crashing during the process, which I'm not sure if that is the result of a failed connection or the build and my machine are not agreeing with each other (.109 has been the most unstable build for me so far).

I'll make a note on mantis too.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: Lakshata March 13, 2017, 12:04:12 PM
I'll try and test it when I get home with a friend. We did direct connect without hamachi or anything. It worked like 6 builds ago, I don't see any reason it would break in future builds unless something changed.

It probably comes down to routing and port forwarding issues though.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: BadgerBadger March 20, 2017, 04:09:37 PM
I can confirm that in patch .113, multiplayer worked on over LAN. I have not tried doing anything with port forwarding.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: keith.lamothe March 20, 2017, 04:13:12 PM
I can confirm that in patch .113, multiplayer worked on over LAN. I have not tried doing anything with port forwarding.
It did work? Great :) I have some mp issues still on my list to investigate (tied up in some UI stuff right now), but glad to hear it's not totally busted.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: BadgerBadger March 20, 2017, 04:24:21 PM
There are a few problems (only the host player can capture planets, for example) that I opened on Mantis. There's also a several second lag, even for machines sitting in the same room. But it's at least working "enough" that I can test things.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: treyra April 29, 2017, 02:03:47 AM
What are people's experiences with multiplayer right now? I've been away from the game for a month or so and not really following with updates but it looks like there haven't been any multiplayer changes for a while. I still haven't been getting hamachi multiplayer to work (using the hamachi IP which worked in classic). Anyone else having luck? I can try just straight port forwarding too.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: BadgerBadger April 29, 2017, 10:24:19 AM
Multiplayer via the same LAN seems to work; keith fixed an obnoxious bug where the sidebars were all messed up recently. There are a few known bugs (in Mantis); things like "Regardless of which player captures the planet, it winds up owned by the host player", but nothing that would make it unplayable.

I have not tried having a game across the broader internet.
: Re: Is there a way to do Multiplayer?
: treyra April 30, 2017, 08:00:35 PM
Well good to hear it is working better over LAN (I remember you reporting extreme lag). I might try a few more attempts to get a remote connection going, but I have not had success so far.