Vecter: Online - Phase 1 [1.1.0.4]

Disclaimer: This is functionality very much still in development and may cause bugs / issues. If you don't want to put up with that, scroll to the bottom to see how to turn off multiplayer and not have any problems.

What fresh hell is this? you may be asking yourself. Well... I'm bored... And when I'm bored things happen. Game gets updated, features get added, stuff gets done.

Over the past few weeks there has been a lockdown in the UK: No going outside unless for essentials, no cinemas, no theatres, no karting, nothing... So I've been EXTRA bored. I started working on NetCode. Three weeks later:

I'm delighted to announce that Vecter is getting Online Multiplayer.

This is/will be a big change and it will happen pretty slow, but right now I'm eager to make it happen. It will happen in a few phases which are not clearly defined yet since it all depends on how I feel about the various things I need to implement.

So instead of making promises I won't keep (throws shade), I'll just tell you what I have so far. Welcome to Phase 1!

Phase 1 is kind of like a tech demo, a proof of concept if you will. You will be able to see other people in-game, and they'll be able to see you, but that's it. There is no organized races around the multiplayer aspect of the game yet, and you can't affect each other's worlds, you can just see each other.

Each seed basically is its own game-world. So if you play TopDog, you'll be able to see everyone playing TopDog, if you're playing Hardcore, you'll see everyone playing hardcore, if you play seed 1234567890 you'll see everyone playing seed 1234567890.

That last bit is important, because you can basically tell your friends "Let's play seed x" and you'll all see each other in seed X, making it a semi-private game. Yes people can crash your party right now, but it's a feature that exists.

If there are other people playing at the same time, on the same seed, you will be able to see how far ahead they are via the bottom part of the score tracker. This is a helpful tool to help you find each other (or run away from each other).

Training and casual do not have the multiplayer feature, as they are different for everyone every time they load up, so it would be pointless to have it as all players would be on completely different tracks and would never meet each other.

You can, of course, turn off multiplayer completely if it's something you don't fancy. It's on by default but you can just switch it off and not bother with it again. This is a different setting from the shadows so you can combine them however you wish: Shadows + Multiplayer, Just Shadows, Just Multiplayer, None of them and feel completely alone. Up to you!

You can read a bit more in-depth on the tech behind it here. Some requirements for multiplayer are:

• An internet connection (derp)
• A router compatible with UPnP with the UPnP feature turned on
• If you don't have a UPnP compatible router you need to open ports 40200-40300 and set up port forwarding from those ports to your PC
• Vecter whitelisted on your PC's firewall since it needs access to the internet to play on the internet

And finally, the patch notes before I get hanged:

• Multiplayer Phase 1 - Server code, client code, net code, UPnP, Christ Himself
• Multiplayer toggle in the options menu, to easily turn it off. It's on by default.
• Added multiplayer name and ship colour entries to the colour picker so you can customize what others look like
• Fixed bug in linux when race wouldn't start because of the lack of youtube support
• Fixed bug where the colour picker sliders would move lightning fast
• Fixed DS4 controller support
• Added Minecraft-style main menu quotes because I think it's cool. Feel free to leave comments with quoted to add if you like.
• In-game FPS will ne lowered to 10 if the game window looses focus (if you alt-tab) this is to make it use less resources when you're not playing it and save the environment! (or just save on your power bill)
• Fixed YouTube yet again because they keep changing the DAMN DATA STRUCTURE
• Fixed discord button in main menu
• I do not like cheaters -.-