Archipelago Sim Version 4.0 introduced the multiplayer option. This is an exciting new feature as you will be able to navigate or race with others (friends or soon-to-be-friends). But first, before attempting multiplayer mode, please familiarize yourself with the SINGLE (or regular) mode.
While in multiplayer mode, everything is as normal, except there are some minor limitations. More about this later below. There will be a new window, the multiplayer console.
- From the menu, choose File / Multiplayer
- A dialog window (the multiplayer console) will be displayed “Connecting to …..” etc… If it doesn’t connect, either you have no internet connection, or for some reason the server is down. Try again later. Notice that you can move the Console to your preferred place on the screen, at any time.
- Enter your “login” name and hit enter in the pale-yellow input line. The server will check to see if this name was already taken and let you know if it is available. If you take too long to enter a name, it will timeout and you’ll have to start all over again.
- A list with the available “rooms” is displayed:
- The default room is “#1=Open-Sea[public](0/10)” but there could multiple rooms with up to 10 players each room. There is no limit on the number of rooms. You can think of a room as different ‘games’ where up to 10 people can be sharing the same scenery.
- The first number (1) is the room ID. You’ll need it to join. The second part (Open-Sea) is just the room name. It could be anything. You could have created your own room and invite your friends to join it. And the room could be [public] or [private].
- If you create a private room, you’ll have to add any password which (obviously) will NOT be displayed in the other players console; you would have to give them the password by other means (call/text them). In that case you would type something like this: create private CoolDudes secretpw123 and hit enter.
- On the other hand, if you want ANYBODY to join your room just type something like this: create public CoolDudes and hit enter.
- To join a room just type join followed by the room ID like: join 1 (that’s Open-Sea) and hit enter. It will show the names of people currently in the room. At this point you can CHAT with them by typing whatever in the pale-yellow line. When chatting avoid starting sentences with reserved key words, like help, rooms, create, join., push, pushto, leave. Only people within a room can see each others chat.
- Let’s talk about the master: before anybody has been designated “the master” anybody in the room can become one by typing “push” (hit enter). Then, whatever SCENE he has currently active in his game is automatically pushed (sent) to all other players. This syncs all players with the same terrain and models or Situation. Now you, the occupants of a room, are all in the same “world”. The players that received the master’s situation can select an available boat to occupy. Two players cannot occupy the same boat. Each occupied boat will be labeled with the player’s name. From this point on, the position of each occupied boat is continuously transmitted to all players. You will notice that only the master can change the weather and time of day.
- Important Restrictions or Limitations:
- Once there is a master (a situation has been pushed), the scenery cannot be changed; in other words, you cannot add or delete models or change the terrain.
- Everybody in the room must have the same models than the master. If the master pushed a situation with a non-standard or “custom” boat or model that other players do not have, they will get a model (OBJ) NOT FOUND error while displaying “Loading Scene…Please wait!”; the situation will still load and that model will be ignored, but things will probably not work for you. So…at least for multiplayer, better stick to the standard models published with the program.
- Every player in the room better have the same version of the program (like Archipelago version 4.0 or later) or unexpected things may happen.
- You can start races (the G key) but Challenges are not supported yet in multiplayer mode and will be ignored
- There could be more players than available boats in a situation. That is allowed but because only one player can occupy a boat a a time, those extra players would just be “flying around” as observers. However, they can still chat.
- Late arrival situation: suppose that you arrive late to the game, and others are already racing. You can just join the room and ask the master to send you an update by typing pull (and hit enter). The master will get a message saying that you are a late arrival and he can enter pushto yournamehere and that way all will be good. You still can take over an unoccupied boat and try catch up. The master should not just push to all players, because they will be kicked out of their boats.
- To leave a room just enter leave, or quit. If you quit it will close the console and you would have to log in again, but if you just wanted to enter another room, you can just leave and then join ## where ## is the id of the other room. Notice that if that new room is private you must enter the password; example: join 2 passwrd
- At any time to see which rooms are available type rooms
- For a quick list of commands type help
I hope you have a lot of fun with the new Archipelago Sim MULTIPLAYER option!
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