Play Online page
Added in 0.47b is the ability to play online with other people, initially just using Quads. With the release of 0.50b the ability to fly planes online as well has been added. To start, click on the Play Online button from the Pause Menu. This will bring you to the Online Play Menu where you can enter your name and join the lobby.
There is no "sign-in" requirement here, your name is purely a nickname so people have something to call you. Obviously, if you are trying to hook up with friends in the game, then it's handy if they know who to look for.
There is a server region drop down on this page as well. In most cases you'll want to take the default option and access the fastest server (which will usually be the one located closest to you) As you can only see rooms from your own region though, in some cases, in order to play with people that are not in your region, you'll want to use the drop-down menu to choose the one your friends are in.
When you click on "Join Lobby", as you might expect, you'll join the lobby. The lobby will show you what "Rooms" are available which might be people in game, or people waiting in rooms to start a game. If there are no rooms currently being used, you'll see that as well.
Should a room (or multiple rooms be available) you'll see them listed. What you will see is the name of the room, any rules that apply, the size of the room and how many players are currently in it. In the case of the picture below we can see two rooms. "Wayne's World" that currently has 2 players in it with a maxiumum of 4 in which you can only fly planes, and "Room762" which has 1 player in it, can accommodate up to 4 players and you are free to fly quads or planes in.
From here you can join the room, or create your own. If you click on Join Room and the game is already being played you'll jump straight into the action and can start flying, if the game hasn't started yet (perhaps they are waiting for the room to fill) you'll be in the room where you can see who else is there.
At this point, it's useful to mention how the rules work, and how you choose what sort of model you want to fly online. There is another drop-down menu on the top left labelled as "Playing As" clicking on this will give you the option to choose between a Quad or a Plane.
Similarly, if you are creating your own room and want to enforce rules about what models can be used, there's another drop-down where you can select this before you create your room.
Should you choose a Quad as your model, but join a room that's "Planes only" your choice will be overridden and you will join as a plane. As a participant of the room, but not the room owner, you won't be able to start the game yourself, but instead, have to wait for the room owner to do so.
If you want to be the room owner, simply create your own room. You can enter a room name, use the drop-down to select 2, 3, or 4 players along with the rules you want to enforce and click on Create Room. If you want to be really lazy, you can ignore the room name completely and we'll make up a random name for you. As the owner of the room you decide when you start the game.
In a room with the rules of "Any Model", you can change your model at any time up until the game is started. Should you want to change your model after the game has started, you'll need to leave the room, change your model and then rejoin.
When you join the game online, depending on your player number, you will be allocated one of 4 colours. Quads are given a corresponding landing pad - this is to help distinguish who is who (and stop you all spawning on top of one another on a single landing pad)
Planes get the same colours, but are placed just in front of the pads (as they really don't like rolling over them)
The actual flying part is just as in the main game, but (at this point) you don't have access to the flight assist or scenarios menu and things like the radio setup menu is back in the main game (so you'd have to leave the online game to access those) Hint: Setup your radio and test it in the main game BEFORE you jump online. You do, however, have access to your rates/gravity/throttle multiplier controls and can swtich between regular/external camera and Acro/Angle modes. You'll also see Network messages should players join, or leave the game.
The quads in the game are modelled around a 220mm frame, this means that they are small and pretty hard to spot when racing around at high velocity. This is pretty much true to real life, chasing friends around is hard and even with great communication along the lines of "I'm by the tree", "which tree?" you can go lipos without seeing anyone.
To make things easier, I've included a few keys that can make keeping in touch with your friends easier. Firstly if you press T other quads will display a colour coordinated trail from the rear of the quad, making them easier to locate. You can also press B to make the other quads appear 4 times larger than usual. The combination of both these measures makes chasing a friends quad a lot easier. As planes are larger than quads already, the B key doesn't affect their size, but they will also display a trail in the same way that quads will.
There is one issue with making other quads appear larger and that's the fact that although they appear larger they are still the normal sized from the owner of that quads point of view. This can lead to a discrepancy in the view if the player is sat on their landing pad, the oversized version of the quad may look like it's disappeared underneath the pad! In flight, all is fine, and in the future this will be addressed.
Even with the trails on and making the quads look bigger, it's still a very large play area and so easy to lose your friends and they fly off while you weren't paying attention. In order to help track them down again, you can press the W button to toggle the radar screen. Think of W for "Who are you and Where are you".
The radar screen shows the map of the play area with coloured circles overlayed to represent each of the players in the game. It also shows who these players are above the radar.
New in 0.48b is the option to cycle through the cameras of the other players to see what they see. The remote players FOV, camera angle, whether they are hiding their props from view or not, and whether they are displaying the crosshair are all shown. In addition, while observing the other players screen, you can press V to see exactly what lens they are using and press RETURN to take a look at their rates and other data. Any changes they make will be reflected in your remote view in real-time.
Right now, without the scenarios menu, you can't spawn cars or planes to chase, but aside from chasing each other around, the ball is a networked object and with a bunch of friends can present hours of entertainment just knocking it around. In future updates, actual games involving the ball will be available.
All good things come to an end, so if you want to leave the game hit ESCAPE and you'll get a choice pop up asking if you really mean it.
The online game can't be paused, so the action will continue whilst you make your mind up. Confirming exit will take you back to the lobby, and you can continue to back out by clicking back, and hitting ESCAPE which will take you back through the menus to the main game.