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[mason531]

Hello People I made a post a while ago about DF Multiplayer and I believe it is possible! As a new player of this game and still quite learning I think its a huge possibility as a player of many strategy games such as many key games such as Hearts of Iron 4, Total war Etc it quite well possible with all of the player it has in the games it can really be a possibility in my belief and I was wondering If there any modder out there that can do it and if there is please give them lots of support. I know its a weird thought for the game but just think about it you and your fired two fortress sending each other supply and weapons and helping each other in direr  needs and assisting each other in raids and possible soon in later updates even invade goblin camps and so forth. I personally think it would be fun and just to have someone by you along the step of the way in your journey would be pretty cool. Me my cousin and my friends would like this cause me and him are playing the Masterworks mod ( good mod!!) and were playing as dwarves, humans, elves kobolds ( yes kobolds my cousin  ) and we want to survive together from the harsh world!

[KittyTac]

Running multiple forts in one world (like in your idea) is literally impossible (and I mean it), but modding in multiplayer in one fort or in the arena is what Warmist is doing. It seems to have run into a wall, though. And this goes in the Modding forum.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I disagree that it's entirely impossible. It might just be incredibly, infeasibly hard. Suppose that all interactions between sites were "quantized" to perhaps a day or a week. Then the game could theoretically run any number of player-controlled sites independently. Every day/week, the game would wait for all players to reach that point and then run inter-site interactions.

Heck, the quantization is only a QoL change. You could just require that time only passes when all players are unpaused. That would be nearly unplayable with more than two players, though.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I disagree that it's entirely impossible. It might just be incredibly, infeasibly hard. Suppose that all interactions between sites were "quantized" to perhaps a day or a week. Then the game could theoretically run any number of player-controlled sites independently. Every day/week, the game would wait for all players to reach that point and then run inter-site interactions.

Heck, the quantization is only a QoL change. You could just require that time only passes when all players are unpaused. That would be nearly unplayable with more than two players, though.

You're saying it's possible to make a mod, not an official add on, which allows Dwarf Fortress to open two player fortresses at once and not get totally confused with what's going on in the world? I'm more inclined to agree with 'currently impossible' here.

But once the windows on other sites Toady's talked about are introduced, plus maybe a little extra modding support, and I think it'll start to become less impossible.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Clarification - it would likely require two separate instances of Dwarf Fortress, along with one application to bind them. (Regular and frequent synchronization, and preventing one instance from progressing beyond the end of the quantum before the other caught up.)

It would probably be a nightmare to create, and it might take almost as much work as DF has already. I'm not saying it's practical, I'm saying it's theoretically possible.

[Rufflikerex]

I say completely remove the "pause" feature in DF to accommodate for multiple forts, thus the fortresses could be both played in realtime and there would be no syncing issues regarding time. Sure, you lose the ability to plan more carefully, but where's the !FUN! in that?
This is totally possible, but it will require some feature sacrifices, and a really beefy server.

More about the removal of "pause": This would mean that the game would continue running in the background while in menus, designating workshop buildings, etc. The game will become significantly harder, but that could be a charm of the mode itself. There's also the question of how embarks should be handled, but a good placeholder would to just make the dwarves appear out of nowhere for the time being.

There's so many other things that could be thought of, such as player-sent caravans and player alliances, maybe even carrier pigeons to act as a way to communicate with other players instead of a traditional chat system. Of course, all these things could just be avoided for the time being to just focus on making a working build of a multiplayer fortress.

[KittyTac]

I say completely remove the "pause" feature in DF to accommodate for multiple forts, thus the fortresses could be both played in realtime and there would be no syncing issues regarding time. Sure, you lose the ability to plan more carefully, but where's the !FUN! in that?
This is totally possible, but it will require some feature sacrifices, and a really beefy server.

More about the removal of "pause": This would mean that the game would continue running in the background while in menus, designating workshop buildings, etc. The game will become significantly harder, but that could be a charm of the mode itself. There's also the question of how embarks should be handled, but a good placeholder would to just make the dwarves appear out of nowhere for the time being.

There's so many other things that could be thought of, such as player-sent caravans and player alliances, maybe even carrier pigeons to act as a way to communicate with other players instead of a traditional chat system. Of course, all these things could just be avoided for the time being to just focus on making a working build of a multiplayer fortress.

I think the game is fundamentally made to pause when designating things, and it's hardcoded. And imagine spending years during the Big Wait to make a working build of a multiplayer fortress, only to have it broken by the new magic release. Not worth it. And player-sent caravans are not moddable even with DFHack. Playing multiple forts at once is also not possible due to the game's limitation of only loading one map tile at a time.

[Fleeting Frames]

There's plenty of dfhack scripts that designate things and no-pause interface screens are quite possible as well (as shown in putnam's mouse gui prototype).

You could have player-sent caravan to another instance of running player fort in a different DF world by by borrowing heavily from createitem, spawnunit and forceequip, and using luasocket to send the data over.

Multiple forts in same world instance is the problem. Though, I got an idea with map tiles and secondary interfaces rn:
Have a separate interface (like you had to have anyway) for the forts, and split the map in two (i.e. 6x3 embark, functionally two 3x3 forts).

Then, have a dummy 3x3 elsewhere in the world for the second fort from where the geography is copied from with either regionmanipulator or tiletypes-based scripts, and reroute any armies, visitors, etc. it gets to the second half of the 6x3 embark with a daily timeout.

If second fort falls, briefly unretire the dummy fort, and port the changes over while restoring the second half of 6x3 to its initial state.

Not perfect, but shouldn't take years either.

[Shonai_Dweller]

There's plenty of dfhack scripts that designate things and no-pause interface screens are quite possible as well (as shown in putnam's mouse gui prototype).

You could have player-sent caravan to another instance of running player fort in a different DF world by by borrowing heavily from createitem, spawnunit and forceequip, and using luasocket to send the data over.

Multiple forts in same world instance is the problem. Though, I got an idea with map tiles and secondary interfaces rn:
Have a separate interface (like you had to have anyway) for the forts, and split the map in two (i.e. 6x3 embark, functionally two 3x3 forts).

Then, have a dummy 3x3 elsewhere in the world for the second fort from where the geography is copied from with either regionmanipulator or tiletypes-based scripts, and reroute any armies, visitors, etc. it gets to the second half of the 6x3 embark with a daily timeout.

If second fort falls, briefly unretire the dummy fort, and port the changes over while restoring the second half of 6x3 to its initial state.

Not perfect, but shouldn't take years either.

There are currently still events that are weighted towards happening at player foetresses more than others, like migrants from previous fortresses. Would a mod be able to handle that? And is Legends mode robust enough to Just Work when you have multiple player fortress events occurring?

Finally, you'd need more than just two sites to get close to what players think of as "multi-player" these days. 8, maybe 16 players?

If you can do it fantastic. A lot of people will be very happy. But there seems to be a lot of reliance on "so long as Toady's code doesn't just break' circumstances.

[KittyTac]

Seems too complicated to reasonably implement and would likely get broken with each new release and reimplemented almost from scratch again. Horrendously impractical and likely extremely laggy.

[Starver]

Clarification - it would likely require two separate instances of Dwarf Fortress, along with one application to bind them.

"One application to rule them all, One application to find them,
One application to bring them all and on the interwebz bind them"?


The problem, OP starts with:

Hello People I made a post a while ago about DF Multiplayer and I believe it is possible! As a new player of this game (...)

I saw that thread, and it did not inspire me with confidence that all the myriad prior threads about the subject were not notably referred to, or even acknowledged.

There are ways to make a toaster into an autonomous flying drone, or maybe give a drone the ability to toast bread. But there are some fundamental things about either base item (power, weight) that means bolting on the other's necessary parts makes for something clunkily self-defeating. Which is not to say you couldn't strip each down, perhaps to create something, but you'd be better designing a completely new flying-toaster from the ground (as it were) up!

Comparatively, externally socketising two DFHacked games to share and 'synchronise' the gamestates of two/more instances of DF is likely more possible, but with masses of clunk and design compromises. There's been some work, as discussed before, but the rough edges still need much smoothing to be acceptable to many, in efforts that are working without reference to Toady's core redesigning, so may (like Therapist or other 3rd-party tools) need revamping after he has rejigged things he wants/needs to rejig himself.

As an academic exercise, I say try it (as others are trying it) if you're capable of trying it. But I'll take a punt at any functional LNP-packaged expansion (for example, to give this ability to the masses) is much too remote a prospect any time soon.

[Fleeting Frames]

@Shonai Dweller:

Yeah, would probably be better to just simply split the incoming events to one or the other 'fortress'. You can generate armies and migrants as needed, though mass unit creation has been...crashy in the past.

Well, in truth this is just the old "multi-burrow fortress" with a really heavy coat of varnish. 8 forts at once...That's what, at least 640 dwarves? FPS would be like 1-2, going by Goatmaan. Maybe more nowadays? - let's say 3-4.

@KittyTac: More complicated things have been implemented, and none of the releases while I've been DF player would have broken it (beyond the standard updating addresses for new version).

But yeah, laaaag. I'd much prefer the "multiple players controlling same fortress" at once said lobster creator is working on, so this is just an idle thought experiment.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Clarification - it would likely require two separate instances of Dwarf Fortress, along with one application to bind them.

"One application to rule them all, One application to find them,
One application to bring them all and on the interwebz bind them"?

Yes, and the joke works on another level - a successful and stable multiplayer DF would be about as hard to craft as the One Ring itself!

Spoiler: interwebz? (click to show/hide)

And that reminds me: no matter what, it will be S L O W if even one person has laggy or sporadic internet. There's no way around that without sacrificing key features of the game. There is one relevant variable that can be changed: the unit of time synchronization. The larger that variable is, the less realistic the game is - why should I have to wait a month to send one dwarf a mile away from my fortress?

[Rufflikerex]

I say completely remove the "pause" feature in DF to accommodate for multiple forts, thus the fortresses could be both played in realtime and there would be no syncing issues regarding time. Sure, you lose the ability to plan more carefully, but where's the !FUN! in that?
This is totally possible, but it will require some feature sacrifices, and a really beefy server.

More about the removal of "pause": This would mean that the game would continue running in the background while in menus, designating workshop buildings, etc. The game will become significantly harder, but that could be a charm of the mode itself. There's also the question of how embarks should be handled, but a good placeholder would to just make the dwarves appear out of nowhere for the time being.

There's so many other things that could be thought of, such as player-sent caravans and player alliances, maybe even carrier pigeons to act as a way to communicate with other players instead of a traditional chat system. Of course, all these things could just be avoided for the time being to just focus on making a working build of a multiplayer fortress.

I think the game is fundamentally made to pause when designating things, and it's hardcoded. And imagine spending years during the Big Wait to make a working build of a multiplayer fortress, only to have it broken by the new magic release. Not worth it. And player-sent caravans are not moddable even with DFHack. Playing multiple forts at once is also not possible due to the game's limitation of only loading one map tile at a time.

Dude, anything's possible with enough work, time, and lots of alcohol.

[Starver]

[ spoiler=interwebz? ]

A tossup between that, the "blagosphere" or (with some poetic assonance, but less obvious practicality) "darknet".

And that reminds me: no matter what, it will be S L O W if even one person has laggy or sporadic internet. There's no way around that without sacrificing key features of the game. There is one relevant variable that can be changed: the unit of time synchronization. The larger that variable is, the less realistic the game is - why should I have to wait a month to send one dwarf a mile away from my fortress?[/spoiler]

PlayByEmail would be a bitch. Especially if it involved a sneakernet link.

Dude, anything's possible with enough work, time, and lots of alcohol.

I'll drink to that!