Multiplayer and the Link Bus

Multiplayer and the Link Bus

A cabinet on its own seats one player. To play together, join cabinets into a bus: up to four cabinets play one game, run by the cabinet that holds the cartridge. Every player watches the same board.

The blocks

Item	Recipe	What it does
Link Bus	Copper ingot, Nero Alloy, copper ingot; Nero Alloy, redstone, Nero Alloy; copper ingot, Nero Alloy, copper ingot.	The hub that joins up to four cabinets, through up to 16 Link Cables, into one game.
Link Cable (×6)	String, copper ingot, string in a row.	Connects cabinets and Marquee Screens to a Link Bus. Glows while a linked game is on.
Marquee Screen	Three glass panes; glass pane, glowstone dust, glass pane; three iron ingots.	A big screen for spectators.

Building a bus

1. Place a Link Bus.
2. Run Link Cables from it to each cabinet (and to any Marquee Screen). Cables connect to cables, the bus, cabinets and marquees.
3. Put the cartridge into one cabinet. That cabinet is the host: it runs the game. The other cabinets show the same screen and each seat one more player.

Limits: four cabinets and 16 cables per bus. A fifth cabinet shows BUS FULL. A second cartridge on the same bus shows LINKED — REMOVE CARTRIDGE (sneak-use that cabinet to take it out). A linked cabinet with no cartridge on the bus shows LINKED — WAITING. You cannot put a cartridge into a linked cabinet or into a cabinet someone is sitting at.

How many players a game takes is set by its Multiplayer chip: Solo uses only the host, Co-op and Versus seat 2–4 players, Turns is played at the host only.

Playing

1. Each player uses a different cabinet on the bus with an empty hand to take a seat.
2. The lobby says "Waiting for players — 1 of 2 seated" and then "Press Space when you are ready" (your A key).
3. When everyone who sat down is ready and the game has the players it needs, the 3-2-1 countdown starts.
4. If not every seat is taken, the game starts ten seconds after everyone present is ready; the lobby shows "Starting in N s". A Versus game with one player brings in the computer opponent; a Co-op game with one player is played solo.
5. After the match the results stay up for ten seconds; then "Ready for another go?".

You hold one seat on the whole server at a time. Your seat is released when you press Esc, walk more than 3 blocks from your cabinet, log out, or the cabinet is broken. Leaving during a match keeps the match going for the others where the rule allows it (Last Standing, for example, puts the last player on the solo clock).

While anyone sits on a bus, only a seated player or an operator can take the host's cartridge out. Placing or breaking blocks beside a running bus does not drop anyone; a cabinet added during a match joins at the next one.

When things break

• Breaking the host cabinet, the Link Bus or a cable during a match ends it as MATCH ABANDONED for everyone. Nothing is recorded.
• Breaking any other cabinet only frees its seat.
• If the host's chunk unloads, every seated player gets their controls back at once.

The Marquee Screen

On a bus, a Marquee Screen shows the game being played with every player's score and the timer, and rolls the cartridge's top ten between games. Without a bus it shows the NeroArcade card. Sneak-use it to change its size (1 to 4); the picture grows, the block stays one block.

Spectators

Anyone within 32 blocks in front of a cabinet or marquee sees its screen. Spectators see no HUD and no names. A cabinet with nobody near goes to sleep after a few seconds and wakes when someone comes back.

Hot-seat Turns

A Turns game is played at the host cabinet by passing one set of controls around: the HUD says "P2's turn — pass the controls". It is never recorded on a leaderboard. Turns across linked cabinets is not in this version.

For server owners

• multiplayer.enabled=false makes every Link Bus join nothing; every cabinet then plays on its own.
• runtime.maxAwakeCabinets (32) caps how many cabinets run a game at once; further ones show "ARCADE BUSY" and queue. A whole bus counts once.
• /neroarcade admin awake shows how many games run now, of the cap, and how many wait.
• /neroarcade admin unseat <player> frees a player's seat.
• See Config and Commands.