How's multiplayer lately?

[Red Spot]

11.  We don't like the new way that a trader determines its movements through the galaxy.  We thought it was fine as a half-AI benefitting half-human benefitting faction.  We don't mind that the AI now gets more goodies from it.  However, for the humans, now it's too difficult to use.  A. it's pretty hard to figure out exactly its path early enough to take a planet inbetween to make use of it.  B.  Even if you do, that planet that the trader passes through will be by definition on the frontline.  Since half the stuff the trader sells causes wave sizes to increase, or causes a substantial AI progress hit when destroyed, it's hardly ideal to build those structures on the frontline.  C. with the massive power increase on superfortresses, that's another building from the trader that is less desirable than before.  D. This leaves only a few buildings viable (counterspy, black hole machine, etc).  Those are generally not good enough to bother going through step A to get.

Isnt that the whole point of it? The AIP increase and increased wavesize are there for a reason and IMO not so that you can build them on your most tucked away, best defended planet but are forced to make a compromize. You want the 400k energy of a Z-generator, good, but you will in turn face a stronger wavesize. Want a range-decrease for the AI, good, but if they ever do catch that building it will be painfull.
Concerning armor changing building, just pro's there. IONs you capture, and the AI nukes, faster than you can buy and build them from the trader.
Counterspies are cheap and have no penalties. The only items that seem rather useless are the S-Fort(too expensive) and the ION(like)-cannons (the AI targets them so they are little more than a R-sink if you build them on frontline planets and are mostly obsolete on other planets).
Cost of the items makes no impact, it just prevents you all building it at once in the first hours of your game. Most items are still relativly cheap.
Just my 2 cents

[Dalden]

We've been playing a few multiplayer (4 player) games using the latest set of betas here is our experience so far regarding desyncs:

Played a 4 player game in 4.066 for about 4 hours without problems, saved the game to continue later.

We then all updated to 4.067 before our next session but could not get the game started. After loading up the save game and the other 3 players connected the game would start and 2 players would show as desynced in the stats page. A forced resync from the manage players page would send data to everyone but still get stuck saying 2 players were desynced.

We then decided to start a new game in 4.067 because we could not get our old savegame working. The new 4 player game in 4.067 played fine for 5 minutes and then we got a desync. I (the host) did a manual resync from the manage players page which fixed it and we continue to play for another couple of hours, then saved the game.

Not learning from our previous mistake, we again updated to 4.068 before our next session and could not get the savegame from 4.067 to start. Players would receive data and as soon as the game started some players would have desync next to their name in the stats page and also resyncing from the manage players page did not help.

So now we're about 5 hours into a new game started on 4.068 and decided we'll stay on this patch level until the game is finished no desyncs yet!

[keith.lamothe]

It would be really, really nice if you could send us the save(s) from the games that were really frequently desyncing, as that sounds almost reproducible Without some kind of reproducible case it may not be possible for us to find the problem.

[Dalden]

Sure, I'll see if I can find exactly which savegame was causing the problem. I have the option turned on not to overwrite auto-savegames so there are quite a few of them.

I was thinking that the desyncs were caused by saving a game in one version and then trying to load it in a newer version. Are you saying that should also not have caused a desync?

[keith.lamothe]

Sure, I'll see if I can find exactly which savegame was causing the problem. I have the option turned on not to overwrite auto-savegames so there are quite a few of them.

Thanks

I was thinking that the desyncs were caused by saving a game in one version and then trying to load it in a newer version. Are you saying that should also not have caused a desync?

There is a known issue where loading an older version save as a multiplayer game will desync immediately, but if you use "manage players" to do a forced resync it should be fine after that.  Since the workaround is relatively straightforward that one hasn't been a big priority to fix (though we have tried to fix it and thought it was done in the past... just one of those recurring bugbears I guess).

But once the game has actually started and is running there definitely should _not_ be _any_ desyncs.  Any found must be shot

[Dalden]

But once the game has actually started and is running there definitely should _not_ be _any_ desyncs.  Any found must be shot

Ah, ok, the issues we had was with getting a save started from a previous version and not during play. Although in each case even a sync from 'manage players' would not get it started.

Are you still interested in those savegames?

[keith.lamothe]

Yes, very much, "manage players" is supposed to work in getting those started.

[x4000]

That desync one on first load wasn't known o me. But I found and fixed it in 4.070, FYI.

[Dalden]

Yes, very much, "manage players" is supposed to work in getting those started.

Apologies, we tried to re-create it again first using 4.068 which we were all on, but could not - the savegame loaded and started fine. We then patched to 4.071 and also no desync issues.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, it caught on and went into hiding   Thanks for checking.  If you hit any others, particularly any that happen repeatedly, we'd be very grateful to have the saves and desync error logs.