I've heard that internet lag/latency is a major reason why MP in Orbiter isn't feasible - it would cause ships to jump around on the scale of several miles when in LEO.
As a solution to this (not really a solution, since if this worked, it would probably require major reprogramming of the Orbiter core), would it be possible to define the location/velocity of each spacecraft from a moving frame of reference?
So for example, let's say your DGIV is moving towards Mars in formation (but not docked) with another player. Ordinarily, I guess you'd have each DG warping several miles around each person's screen.
In my idea, the locations and velocities of each DG would be defined by a frame of reference which moves with the players. So instead of moving at 10,000 m/s relative to a fixed point in your virtual solar system, you would be moving at 0 m/s (assuming you're not accelerating at all) relative to origin (0,0,0) of a set of axes following closely behind your two starships.
The obvious problem of this would be that latency would cause your centre point (0,0,0) to be moving all over the place. My response to this is that some sort of algorithm could be written so that the location of this point would continue along a fixed line (or curve, if you're in the influence of a nearby planet) and only would be updated periodically (whereas you could continuously be updating the relative velocity/location of the spacecraft, since those would be close to zero). If you fired your engines in the time between the centre point is updated, your velocity and location probably aren't going to be changing so much that latency will have a massive effect.
So, any ideas on if something like this would (or even could) work?
As a solution to this (not really a solution, since if this worked, it would probably require major reprogramming of the Orbiter core), would it be possible to define the location/velocity of each spacecraft from a moving frame of reference?
So for example, let's say your DGIV is moving towards Mars in formation (but not docked) with another player. Ordinarily, I guess you'd have each DG warping several miles around each person's screen.
In my idea, the locations and velocities of each DG would be defined by a frame of reference which moves with the players. So instead of moving at 10,000 m/s relative to a fixed point in your virtual solar system, you would be moving at 0 m/s (assuming you're not accelerating at all) relative to origin (0,0,0) of a set of axes following closely behind your two starships.
The obvious problem of this would be that latency would cause your centre point (0,0,0) to be moving all over the place. My response to this is that some sort of algorithm could be written so that the location of this point would continue along a fixed line (or curve, if you're in the influence of a nearby planet) and only would be updated periodically (whereas you could continuously be updating the relative velocity/location of the spacecraft, since those would be close to zero). If you fired your engines in the time between the centre point is updated, your velocity and location probably aren't going to be changing so much that latency will have a massive effect.
So, any ideas on if something like this would (or even could) work?
