From the team:
We haven't gone in great detail on multiplayer yet since we prefer announcing results instead of mere intentions. So let's get this party started ;).
Vehicle loading
V14 vehicles are bigger and more complex and more detailed. Since the general file size has increased we decided to take a new approach to ensure that players don't have to wait for the vehicle to sync with everyone. Here's how it works:
To you, spawning a vehicle will feel exactly as if you'd be playing offline; you can immediately enter the seat and control it as you please. For other players a blue box will appear to indicate that the vehicle is transferring. When the transfer is completed the box disappears and they'll be able to see the vehicle.
Less network traffic
In the older version all parts sent their state over the network, which is highly unoptimized and can cause some strange artifacts. In the new version however only your button presses are passed on and this reduces the network traffic by a lot in general, then your button presses will apply on the seat as if you were playing in offline mode.
Port forwarding
Port-forwarding is needed only when you are trying to host a server, if this doesn't happen people can't connect with you. Sometimes however people don't necessarily know how to do this because it can get quite complex. Therefore we've built in a function which tries to automatically port-forward when you're attempting to host a server. Will this work in all cases? In most cases yes, but not always since there are so many networking set-ups.
Optimization
Vehicles are optimized A LOT when compared to hb13; this means more players in one server and better overall experience. In theory there's no limit on the amount of players in one server unless the host sets a limit. Your overall online experience will highly depend on settings, how many vehicles are spawned and their sides. This immediately brings us to our next topic
Server modes
HB13 desperately needed some server mode settings, so why not include it right away this time. What this means is: your server = your rules/preferences.
By default you'll be given a set of predefined server modes, but you can make your very own custom server mode as well.
Now what can we do with this server mode system?
Well for starters you can optimize servers, you can set the max vehicle file size and set a cooldown on how long a player must wait to spawn a new vehicle.
You can also make a dogfight server mode where rocket/jet engines are not allowed for example. Some of the settings are listed below:
- Maximum vehicles that a player can spawn (that's right each player can have 2 or more vehicles at the same time)
- Part whitelist/blacklist: determine which parts are allowed/disallowed
- Property whitelist/blacklist: determine if a property is allowed (greater than, equal to, less than, between).
- Maximum vehicle file size
- The time that a player has to wait before he can spawn another vehicle
- Enable/disable player dots (go invisible)
- Disable/enable default vehicles that can be found in the world
- ect...
What's next
There's still a lot of stuff to cover before the update goes live and in the next post will shed some light on a fun addition that has been made to improve overall gameplay.
If you have additional questions don't hesitate to post them here or in DISCORD.
Cheers!
Copybugpaste Team