Regarding Multiplayer Synchronization

[plebeian]

Greetings,

    Firstly, I am a new member to this forum, so apologies in advance in case I mess up with my first thread. Secondly, great job with the mod, Sir Mantera! It´s really incredible how it´s possible to turn a buggy, infuriatingly unplayable and unbalanced game into something workable, enjoyable, complex, yet with the original feel. My friend and I have been having a blast playing the game on Multiplayer so far, despite the set-backs, which I am certain we have your GS5 mod to thank for.

    Now, onto my concern... As I´ve mentioned, my friend and I have got the multiplayer to work. We use Hamachi with the IPX protocol for the LAN network connection, which we managed to get it to work. However, in larger maps like Giganta256, the multiplayer sessions start losing synchronization fairly often, often during the turns of the AI (sometimes with a critical error, forcing a hard restart), or large battles with many units of level 8-11 dwellings (bringing out the combat-interrupting de-synch message). Spamming Stealth with the Thief champions also seemed to encourage a de-synch faster (also possible cause for perma-freezing on the second dungeon level, when there is a brief combat pause before units resume). Uncertain, but I suspect that pausing/unpausing also contributes, basically any complex action that may be too much for the connection to follow.

    So, I was wondering... Maybe someone here knows more about the net-code and how it works? I´ve learned that ¨forced¨ re-synchronizations work during loading a save, or entering combat, but maybe it´s possible to do so in a more convenient, automatic way? The game itself in it´s current stage is definitely playable, much better than other multiplayer games of a similar age that we´ve tried, but it is somewhat immersion-breaking, which is a small price to pay for it being actually playable! Regardless, if anyone could and is willing to, any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Boaster]

Jul 14, 2018 22:37:43 GMT -6 plebeian said:

Greetings,

    Firstly, I am a new member to this forum, so apologies in advance in case I mess up with my first thread. Secondly, great job with the mod, Sir Mantera! It´s really incredible how it´s possible to turn a buggy, infuriatingly unplayable and unbalanced game into something workable, enjoyable, complex, yet with the original feel. My friend and I have been having a blast playing the game on Multiplayer so far, despite the set-backs, which I am certain we have your GS5 mod to thank for.

    Now, onto my concern... As I´ve mentioned, my friend and I have got the multiplayer to work. We use Hamachi with the IPX protocol for the LAN network connection, which we managed to get it to work. However, in larger maps like Giganta256, the multiplayer sessions start losing synchronization fairly often, often during the turns of the AI (sometimes with a critical error, forcing a hard restart), or large battles with many units of level 8-11 dwellings (bringing out the combat-interrupting de-synch message). Spamming Stealth with the Thief champions also seemed to encourage a de-synch faster (also possible cause for perma-freezing on the second dungeon level, when there is a brief combat pause before units resume). Uncertain, but I suspect that pausing/unpausing also contributes, basically any complex action that may be too much for the connection to follow.

    So, I was wondering... Maybe someone here knows more about the net-code and how it works? I´ve learned that ¨forced¨ re-synchronizations work during loading a save, or entering combat, but maybe it´s possible to do so in a more convenient, automatic way? The game itself in it´s current stage is definitely playable, much better than other multiplayer games of a similar age that we´ve tried, but it is somewhat immersion-breaking, which is a small price to pay for it being actually playable! Regardless, if anyone could and is willing to, any thoughts would be appreciated.

Playing multiplayer with AI is what is creating most of the problems. I will try to cover more later.

[plebeian]

Jul 15, 2018 6:16:44 GMT -6 Boaster said:

Jul 14, 2018 22:37:43 GMT -6 plebeian said:

Greetings,

    Firstly, I am a new member to this forum, so apologies in advance in case I mess up with my first thread. Secondly, great job with the mod, Sir Mantera! It´s really incredible how it´s possible to turn a buggy, infuriatingly unplayable and unbalanced game into something workable, enjoyable, complex, yet with the original feel. My friend and I have been having a blast playing the game on Multiplayer so far, despite the set-backs, which I am certain we have your GS5 mod to thank for.

    Now, onto my concern... As I´ve mentioned, my friend and I have got the multiplayer to work. We use Hamachi with the IPX protocol for the LAN network connection, which we managed to get it to work. However, in larger maps like Giganta256, the multiplayer sessions start losing synchronization fairly often, often during the turns of the AI (sometimes with a critical error, forcing a hard restart), or large battles with many units of level 8-11 dwellings (bringing out the combat-interrupting de-synch message). Spamming Stealth with the Thief champions also seemed to encourage a de-synch faster (also possible cause for perma-freezing on the second dungeon level, when there is a brief combat pause before units resume). Uncertain, but I suspect that pausing/unpausing also contributes, basically any complex action that may be too much for the connection to follow.

    So, I was wondering... Maybe someone here knows more about the net-code and how it works? I´ve learned that ¨forced¨ re-synchronizations work during loading a save, or entering combat, but maybe it´s possible to do so in a more convenient, automatic way? The game itself in it´s current stage is definitely playable, much better than other multiplayer games of a similar age that we´ve tried, but it is somewhat immersion-breaking, which is a small price to pay for it being actually playable! Regardless, if anyone could and is willing to, any thoughts would be appreciated.

Playing multiplayer with AI is what is creating most of the problems. I will try to cover more later.

   That was surprisingly quick... I really appreciate the reply! It´s helpful to know that it is not the connection, though it does make me wonder how the AI is connected with the de-synchs, especially since moving and interacting from person-to-person was nearly flawless, but I will have patience. Shame that many players are kind of stuck having the AI as an opponent, even if it´s braindead and amusing to observe and study at times.
    As a small update, please ignore the mention regarding perma-freezes in the second level of a multi-dungeon. The issue was my friend not being in the same section of the battle, which caused the game not to update and proceed, but it´s not a fault.

[Boaster]

The game mechanics of this game are such that the response times and processing power between two computers can cause variations in what each computer sees.

Basically, sync issues come when events witnessed between the computers of Players A and B are not happening in the same time and place.

On one computer, a projectile may have landed and hit for 3 points of damage, and on another it may have hit for 2 points of damaged, or in other cases no hit/no damage, or missed.

I have done as much as I can to reduce this from happening, such as locking out arrow keys and the PageUp/Dwn keys for rotating the view. Spell projectiles will actually travel faster when a player repeatedly taps a view altering button. The game is very flawed in regards to spells.

Also, sometimes when a unit moves around a tight corner, it's possible that one computer sees the unit get stuck and try to move over the same tiles again while the other computer sees the unit move without encumbrance.


I have put forth what I can in combat in attempt to avoid desyncs, but they will still happen.

[plebeian]

Jul 15, 2018 13:49:22 GMT -6 Boaster said:

The game mechanics of this game are such that the response times and processing power between two computers can cause variations in what each computer sees.

Basically, sync issues come when events witnessed between the computers of Players A and B are not happening in the same time and place.

On one computer, a projectile may have landed and hit for 3 points of damage, and on another it may have hit for 2 points of damaged, or in other cases no hit/no damage, or missed.

I have done as much as I can to reduce this from happening, such as locking out arrow keys and the PageUp/Dwn keys for rotating the view. Spell projectiles will actually travel faster when a player repeatedly taps a view altering button. The game is very flawed in regards to spells.

Also, sometimes when a unit moves around a tight corner, it's possible that one computer sees the unit get stuck and try to move over the same tiles again while the other computer sees the unit move without encumbrance.


I have put forth what I can in combat in attempt to avoid desyncs, but they will still happen.

    Very informative and helpful. It´s understandable, you have done enough as is! This game is an entirely different experience, thanks to you, but, sadly, there´s not much you can do... It was not built for multiplayer to begin with, to say the least. Thank you for the response, we appreciate the input.