[Release] 32 Player Multiplayer Lobby Mod

[Trent]

Here it is, the multiplayer mod everyone has been begging for. It took some time to release it as I was waiting for Nobby's blessing to release it, what with it being a mod which effects multiplayer and circumvents any and all modified data protection.

Grab it from here: http://www.carmatools.com/downloads/mods/32PlayerMP.zip

Realistically I could have set the maximum limit to anything but I assumed 32 players would be the absolute maximum limit of what could feasibly be playable, if anyone can even get 32 players together to play in the first place! I would recommend starting with a lower number of players and working up to higher player counts to find out what runs well for your connection.

To install just extract the Data_Core folder into your Carmageddon: Reincarnation folder and host a multiplayer game. You'll be able to increase the player count all the way up to 32 players. It should work in both normal vanilla C:R and CarMODgeddon.

Here is the Readme file:

32 Player Multiplayer

by Trent

A little UI mod to enable potentially up to 32 players in a single multiplayer game.

While technically the game should support any number of players, the most we have tested together so far has been 10. The game only "officially" supports 6 players so any more than that has potential to lead to poor performance and desyncs causing the multiplayer game to pause to resync all the players, so use it at your own risk. If you're hosting a large game make sure you have a powerful computer and a fast internet connection!

Only the host needs to have this mod, so you don't have to worry about other players having the mod if you want to host more than 6 players.

Installation:

Just extract the Data_Core folder (and all it's contents) from the ZIP into the game's main directory (it's usually installed to something like C:\Path\To\Steam\SteamApps\common\Carmageddon_Reincarnation)

[Fr0ntj3]

Awesome work Trent, thanks for releasing it, and Thanks to Nobby for allowing it to be released. Let the testing begin :D

[Sa1cor]

2016-03-07. From now on, multiplayer will never be the same again. This is beyond amazing. Thank you!

[Psyrgery]

32 players

32

Players

32 players

Thirty-two

[STShotgun]

Bloody awesome work, Trent! This'll definitely make MP a lot more interesting (and crazy) :D

[nobby]

Thanks Trent - top work as ever. I look forward to giving it a try!

['80s Time Warp]

As always Trent, Great work. :)

I'm just imagining a 32 Player 'Le Plow 50' hehe

[ender]

We had some 8-10 player games, except for the very first one it went without any problems.

[ender]

OK, correction: there are problems with grid start on some maps (on Monorail Tour about half of us were spawned outside the map boundaries, and on Landing pads race I was spawned below the ground and wrecked instantly)

[Sa1cor]

Now we just need a 20 player 100 lap le Plow grand prix.

[FatCat]

Now we just need a 20 player 100 lap le Plow grand prix.

We need a date, a prize, and 32 players.

[Trent]

OK, correction: there are problems with grid start on some maps (on Monorail Tour about half of us were spawned outside the map boundaries, and on Landing pads race I was spawned below the ground and wrecked instantly)

Yeah, that's to be expected unfortunately. The game designers who put the race routes together were working on the assumption that only 6 cars would ever be on the grid so they only made a conscious effort to leave room for 6 cars. Nothing can be done about that unfortunately, unless the grids are repositioned but that can't be done as a host-only mod so everyone joining would have to have the modded versions of the level.lol scripts to join, which is obviously not convenient.

[CzechDeath]

wait ... that means thats more players than CR cars.. it also means that it is more cars then in CMD... conclusion: We need more cars! MOAR!

...and it is all Trent's fault!

[Fr0ntj3]

even if 32 will never happen, just having 2or4 more players in game is fantastic. And who knows what optimisation C:MD brings us.

[Espyo]

You legend! A new age of Carma online play begins now!

[superwizzman]

GG Trent good work !

[nicbou0321]

Awesome, sadly i doubt ill ever have any friends to play 32 player multiplayer. would it be possible to do this for single player as well?

[superwizzman]

Yo! New patch will come for Max Damage? :)

[archaea]

Trent,

I'm hosting a LAN party in July of 2018 with a bunch of old LAN party buds that have played together for years. There will be 16 to 18 of us.

We cut our teeth on LAN parties with Carmageddon, Carmageddon 2, Carmageddon TDR2K!

We LOVED all these games. I'm going to purchase a copy of the GOG Carmageddon Max Damage even though I already purchased it on Steam so that I can share it for the LAN party. Most of the guys already have a copy of it on steam but the six player limitation was terrible.

I know some of the guys won't have much patience for a bunch of bugs in a game --- they'll just say we should play something that doesn't crash. Are there certain maps I should take out of the rotation? I don't have a way to test until LAN day with that many people.

If I mod the GOG version, and then just copy the game folder to my NAS and everyone pulls it down and thus has the 32 Player modded version will that allow the starting grids to all work? This will be on a single 24 port Gb switch and everyone in attendance will have modern machines. I can host the game either on a dedicated server if helpful/possible, or on my own machine which is an i7-6850k with 16GB of RAM and a 1080TI. Will that be sufficient in your testing to host 16-18 people?

Thanks for making this mod. I'm so pumped this is an option. It's like a throwback to the old days with Carmageddon TDR2K and 2 that we used to play with larger groups!

[Fr0ntj3]

if i remember correct, this only worked for Carmageddon Reincarnation.

[Trent]

This mod only works for Reincarnation as it makes use of a bug in Reincarnation letting you load data from outside of the ZAD folder without any checks, validation or restrictions while still using the ZAD data as the base. That bug doesn't exist in Max Damage.

HOWEVER! If you have all the ZAD data extracted and run the game using the -use_zads 0 command line parameter then it will allow you to modify the UI scripts without locking out multiplayer. If you grab Minge from my website you can use that to extract the ZAD data into the correct folder structure and you can set launch options for the game to launch from Minge using the -use_zads 0 parameter.

The UI scripts in this mod pack are old and from Reincarnation, so it's probably best not to dump them into C:MD. Instead I've quickly altered a C:MD script to add options for up to 32 players. After you have extracted all the ZAD content, go into the game's folder then into Data_Core\Content\UI\Logic\Frontend, find a file called network_preliminary_options.lol in that folder and open it in your favourite text editor (e.g. Notepad, Notepad++, Sublime, whatever), ignore the fact it's a garbled mess of compiled code, and then copy the code from this link into that file. Save it then launch the game with ZADs disabled and you should be able to set up to 32 players in a lobby.

Your mileage may vary, I've not tested this in Max Damage further than starting a lobby and seeing the options are there, but it should work. Just be aware that some races will result in people getting stuck in walls if too many people are in the event due to where the grids are placed. It should be fine for events which use random spawn points instead of grid starts, but it's worth being aware of. Your machine will be ample good enough for hosting, what's more of a concern are the people joining the game if they don't have strong enough CPUs to handle so many players crashing at once. Most should be fine, but I can't say for sure what the performance impact is on CPUs of different speeds or core counts, just be aware that each additional player adds a significant amount of extra physics processing to the game.

[tonrac]

Remember some great and funny moment into Réincarnation with Front and many others thanks to this mod...

Like the grid wasn't changed the bug still exist on max damage ... But the game run a lot better than réincarnation ... I think that playing with 10 players could be possible. Thanks a lot Trent