Wouldn't unstable FPS cause an almost desynchronized gameplay? Unless the cap is the slowest computer it wouldn't work out.
Simple misconception. Do you think everyone playing WoW is doing the calculations for how hard some group is getting hit in Molten Core? Even just the people in the group? Hell no. There is exactly one server that actually judges what happens and then it sends that out to everyone else. For multiplayer games there can be some wiggle room to that (imagine a sniper not being able to line up the crosshairs on someone and hit them because they were always getting visuals that were late and because the bullet didn't go until even later,) but with DF that wouldn't matter very much. You say "pull this lever" and then you've got to wait for a dwarf to decide to go and do it anyway.
With something like DFterm you even have a potential small advantage- if you have access to a fast desktop computer and a slow laptop you can have the desktop run the game while you "play it" through the laptop.
THIS. I'm running this BEAST rig - it's an IBuyPower machine, so it's pretty OP - and I would run a 24/7 dedicated DF server in a heartbeat. The lag-time wouldn't be too bad, just a question of terminal-web-server-web-terminal lag... I imagine you'd have to crank down the FPS cap on the server though - I cap at 500, and between the lag and that speed, dwarves would starve by fall.
If anybody's ever played Europa Universalis / Victoria / Hearts of Iron / etc. multiplayer, then you know exactly how this can work - the game runs unpaused at all times - even in menus - and players can pause for X seconds before the other players can veto the pause and unpause the game again. The framerate is, say, 30, so you can't loose track of everything too quick.
If... if we can make the game not pause in menus, and have Dfterm2 display only to the player requesting it - instead of everybody seeing the same screen, a mem-hack or something shows the map/menus to the players requesting it (so I can look at Z1 and player 2 can see Z3 at the same time, while p3 can be on stocks, and p4 diggin out the magma sea)- then you could have a legit multiplayer fort going!
(edit for clarity:) you run a script in/on Dfterm2, filtering out keystrokes like ">" and "<" and the arrow keys, and translating them into the commands for the viewing engine to change focus. You'd need the script to alert the other players that somebody's got a cursor down - I can't imagine 2 people trying to dig in different spots at the same time can end well.
....hotDAMN THIS CAN WORK O_O. Somebody figure out how to keep the game from pausing in menus; that's the hard part i think. I don't know much about memory hacking, but if Stonesense can show map that isnt what the DF window is looking at, then it must be possible. ...infact....if it's possible to hand along commands from that... you could build what is essentially Stonesense without the fancy view, but passing input through Dfterm2 and into an edited DF running on a server...
Guys. We have 1-fort multiplayer within our grasp. I WISH I KNEW HOW TO CODE ><
(editedit:) Isn't there a viewer prog that exists already? I use 2 monitors, and if I could have the second one showing an alternate view of the fort, even just in regular DFouput, that would rock.
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Topic: Would multiplayer work? (Read 3147 times)