from http://www.datarealms.com/wiki/index.ph ... Controller

wondering:
A how to use
B why it exists
C if this un-validates that long-ass rage about network play never happening
D weather i should bother trying to do some crazy hacky lua stuff to attempt multiplayer at any point if this exists.

Just thought this should be brought to the community's attention, so we can all drool to the idea of actual multiplayer CC. some clarification from data would be good too, or i'd at least like the devs to pester him about it.

Probally some experiemnt data forogt to remove.

You know there's... more than one type of network.
More likely this describes an internal AI network so that they know what eachother is doing or something like that.
Nothing do do with a local area network or the internet.

Great, now we can all start raging and trolling about network play being in the game. Commence!

OMG U GUYS I'M GOING TO TELL EVERYONE CORTEX COMMAND IS GETTING ONLINE! LOL!

/thread

In all seriousness, just dredge up the last "Internet play. Discuss." topic and you'll find several references to Lua-assisted online play. If someone really wants it, it can be done easily now.

Sweet. LT made an IRC scene, so why don't we base it off that? Have several rooms that people can join and it drops you into a map with everyone else.

Great, except that each player's game has to keep track of EVERY SINGLE PARTICLE ON THE MAP! That's the issue. It isn't lack of motivation, but an online play Cortex Command would require so much network bandwidth that it can't be done.

Unless I am wrong.

AND THE MAN WINS A CIGAR!
Even if this was actually Internet or even LAN network AI, it's still only the AI, meaning you would just send commands to it. Actually playing a game online would not work.

unless people have the exact same version of CC with the exact same mods, same maps, and SAME HARDWARE, this will NEVER be possible because peoples machines will process the game at different speeds.

If player 1 gets 0.8 timescale, and player 2 gets 0.6 timescale, what will happen?

are you going to force ctrl-O and kill player 2's framerate, and generate physics inconsistencies between the two games? bad idea.

If you had one machine running the game, and all the players connected to that machine and only got the visuals sent to them as streaming video, then it would work, but then we'd need a host machine per game, that could handle it. this to me would be way too expensive for DRL to maintain. the only way it would be feasible is if 1 of the players hosted the game, and there machine would have to play the game, host all the players, AND feed 640X480 30+ FPS video to all the players. and that would also require 1280 X 960 4-way split screen.

so if 1/4 of us had supercomputers, this could be fantastic. in fact if any of us had supercomputers it would be fantastic, but with fewer options of who to play with.



This has potential, but would require massive work, and dedicated machines. does anyone want to fork up the money for a dedicated CC supercomputer, with a fast enough connection to support 4 players? we could easily make the game allow 4 teams, since we can already set actors to the other 2, its just a matter of displaying health and team color, base.rte already has 2 more team colors if you check.

The special super-de-duper online mode possible with Lua would likely be something where you ordered troops to go after the other player controlled by the AI. Entertaining, but likely not what you want.

So tetris style.

Hmm, what if you have one player (the leech, AKA, joined player) and the host. the host computer calculates all of the physics like in a skirmish, the leech just "watches". and when the leech does something, it sends info about what it is (e.g. , dropship spawns here, or bomb spawned here with this velocity) and the host calculates the rest, and basically, all the data the leech needs to be fed is graphical data. the AI receives commands of what to do from the leech. in a simple form, Physics is serverside, and the leech just receives graphical data and sends command and spawn data.

And any addons and other stuffz, are downloaded in very compressed (but accessible) form, just like when you join a garrysmod server, stuff with DUA files i think. and different hardware doesn't matter, because any lag is forced on the leech if experienced by the host. And yes, i am aware of what Miles_T3hR4t stated, but hey, if Garrys mod did it, maybe, JUST MAYBE! (maybe!!) Cortex command has a chance of a hope (lol)

also, if you never played gmod, read up about it or try it. its very entertaining.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/4000/

and to eliminate massive cost for DRL servers, (i really don't know exactly) but the data is just sent over the general internetz, again, like garrysmod (if host leaves, game ends) maybe some of the DRL people could look into how gmod does it, because garrysmod also happens to be a physics sandbox (not as intense) but it handles about 50 Semi-detailed 3d physics objects at once, online, with a not-so-very-good host. maybe even contact Garry Newman (name of head Garrys Mod developer) and get some info from him.

Just one more note, Garrys Mod is a third party game, it is an edit of Half Life 2, and uses the Hav0k physics engine, Valve made half life 2 and its game engine. Heh, Once Cortex Command goes full retail (finished game and all that) Maybe Valve might put it up for purchase on steam!

See, this is exactly what people have been whining about for ages. YOU CAN DO THAT NOW, AND IT IS EXTREMELY LAGGY. I just reviewed the thread about it, and a tester said he got 1-2 fps.

The only feasible method of realtime online play nowadays is to have graphics, sound, and controls handled by the client, and send position and/or control data over the internet. This would not work with Cortex because of the sheer amount of position data and problems with control lagtime. Physics calculations might be deterministic, but if control codes are not sent instantaneously they will not come in time to keep the two physics engines in sync.

Thus, the only feasible method of online play for Cortex would be to have two separate "games" going on, with the AI summoned by either player.

Lol, just maybe maybe, maybe, maaayyybbeeee