MP CO-OP Different approch

[EaglePryde]

I made an entry in the sourcefordge proposals and i'll write it down here.

Basicly it's a co-op Kampagne Mode that doesn't invent anything new but can be expanded in the future.

It's players fighting on the same side -> Humans

Every player can build, research etc. like normal. The lowest timesetting of a player is automaticly the same for anybody else. Players can see eachothers timesetting.

If a player starts a fight with aliens, the others can join from the beginning or choose to do something else and fly there at some other point to join up in the fight.

Joining a fight at a later point will spawn the assisting player at the transports location inside the battle.
So there will be no need to change the maps but joining is at someones own risk (could be aliens waiting there). Aliens could also receive "reinforcements" by chance for added surprise.

The base of the players that are currently in a fight will be "ignored" by UFO's on the Geoscape map, thus not making it unfair or impossible.

In the future, players could transfer resources between eachother with transports that can be shoot down by UFO's, triggering rescue missions.

[EaglePryde]

While player A is in a fight and player B choose to stay on the Geoscape view to do some things bevor helping or flying to another crashsite, the timeframe will be at the lowest setting. If player B chooses to help player A in the fight, there will be something like an emergency transportation to the battle with increased flightspeed of the transport BUT you can't change the course if you decide to go there and you will be forced to battle...there's no turning back.

[geever]

Sorry to say but this won't be implemented anytime (soon (=years?)).
It would require to rewrite the whole game from scratch.

-geever

[EaglePryde]

Just thought that co-op would be easier to do because the mp code for battles is allready there and adding it on a simple basic form for story mode without changing groundmaps would cover it nicely  and could be expanded in the future somewhere without having to rewrite the game 

On the other side it would have been really bothersome to rewrite it if 1 player would go for aliens and the other for humans.

But i understand your point that it would consume some time to do so.

[vedrit]

Just thought that co-op would be easier to do because the mp code for battles is allready there and adding it on a simple basic form for story mode without changing groundmaps would cover it nicely  and could be expanded in the future somewhere without having to rewrite the game 

On the other side it would have been really bothersome to rewrite it if 1 player would go for aliens and the other for humans.

But i understand your point that it would consume some time to do so.

So, the thing is that in Multiplayer, time is universal (turns) whereas the geoscape is variable. Since players can select their own time for the geoscape, you get sync gaps, IE One player is ahead of the other. You'd have to have something like a voting system to make sure eveyone wanted to change time speeds, and either everyone would have to pause when something came up, or no one would. Same for if someone goes into their base. Either time pauses for everyone, or going into a base does not pause time.

I wouldnt be suprised if this never gets put in since, as geever says, it would require essentially a complete re-write

[Mattn]

the game Vermeer (1) had a multiplayer mode, too - and afair they suffered from the same problems - maybe (whoever would like to work on this) could have a look how they did it.

[EaglePryde]

Look at UFO TTS.That's what i'm thinking. The lowest setting a player has is used for all players.the game is running minimum on the lowest setting and you can't halt the game.works great.

And for the problem where one is in battle and another is on the geoscape nothing will be really synced except if a player get's out of battle and into geoscape again you'd have to do something like a resync. While someone is in battle, the game would run on minimum speed.

Alternativly you could force all players into the same battle if one player starts one. This would also let the game be synced all the time on the same level.

[H-Hour]

In the distant future, I'd love to see a coop game as well. But I think it should probably jettison the geoscape entirely because large-scale base management just doesn't work very well in coop.

Each player could be given a set number of soldiers that are automatically replaced when others die, and the players choose a series of missions that are available for them. There could even be in-mission things that propel things along -- picking up weapons leads to their being researched, performance can determine finances for equipping units, rescue and other missions could have special rewards.

The player would essentially be like a force commander rather than commander of Phalanx. He'd be in charge of a single unit and he could even deploy that unit in any coop (ie - it wouldn't necessarily always have to be the same coop players, each player brings his unit to a particular battle). It would only be a sub-game of the existing game, but it'd give the player the soldier leveling, a coop battlescape, development of technology/threat over time, and more flexibility which can be good for coop games where scheduling isn't always easy.

Just a little proposal to throw out there. But I don't think it would happen any time soon.