SinglePlayer/Multiplayer MTA?

[XeroXipher]

Hey guys, by now I'm sure some people know I am working on a Roleplay Server in MTA SA...
I am at the moment considering moving in a different direction. I'll explain the dream and the problems.

The dream for SinglePlayer/Multiplayer MTA mode is to add the NPC Characters into the Game and script paths they can walk and drive on and populate the world and gameplay with NPCs from GTA SA...

The Problem is, I live on Welfare and I am always broke... I will not have to host the SinglePlayer mode which is good because it would cost a ton to host all of those NPCs walking and driving around --but, if I make an English RP and host that server, I might be able to make a Profit... With the SinglePlayer mode, I don't have to pay for server hosting but there is no way to make money off of it either...

So my question is: Should I consider making a Multiplayer Roleplay mode and hopefully become popular and make a little profit or should I make a SinglePlayer mode for the dream of it... Also, can anyone here think of a way to make a little bit of money from a SinglePlayer Gamemode?

I hope I posted this in the right place and look forward to getting input from you guys.

[DiSaMe]

I can somewhat relate to you, but it's a little different.

I don't have any specific plans for MTA at the moment, but I also have thoughts on single player vs multi player occasionally. It's nice to have your own server, but the idea of using MTA as a scripting engine for single player is also very attractive.

When I ran a server many years ago, it had NPCs, but they didn't do much, and the server wasn't popular enough to become heavy on hardware, so my laptop was able to handle it without problems. Having NPCs walking and driving around all over the game world with lots of players in the server, would be much more demanding.

My suggestion is to make your own NPC system, with custom sync and all, although it's going to be a challenge.

For example, you can start with client-only NPCs, with scripted movement that overrides the game's physics (like setElementPosition/setElementVelocity in onClientPreRender or a timer with short intervals). Every client generates and moves the NPCs based on values of random seed and time. This way, you can get all players to see the same thing, just by having the server sync those values (you'll need a custom random number generator because Lua's math.random isn't guaranteed to produce the same values between players).

Then you'll likely want to allow player interaction with NPCs. If a player crashes a vehicle into NPC's vehicle, you'll need to stop overriding the position, destroy the client-side NPC and create a server-side one, allowing the game's built-in physics and MTA's built-in sync to take over so everyone would see the NPC's vehicle being pushed and otherwise affected by collision.

It's a lot of work, but it can make multiplayer with NPCs around the map feasible.