So I have just read this on the Focus home FAQ:

Will lights, sound and mud be synced in multiplayer?
Due to technical constraints of the game engine, we don't have the ability to implement multiplayer light, sound and mud sync at this time.

PLEASE make this as the 1st priority in the next update after release as you are spending all of your time making a game that has a physics engine based around MUD which you are not supporting in multiplayer??

This was a big let down in the first Spintires and will again be a let down for everyone that plays multiplayer in the future.

I understand it must be very difficult to sync physics for 4 players at a time but I really don't think the game is finished without this feature. 10 years of creating an engine that simulates mud physics yet "due to technical constraints of the game engine" you cannot implement it into multiplayer?? Seems that console support has sidetracked you from the important features or the devs are just being lazy.

As for mud I have no idea how hard it is to send that map deformation to others but I would vote that at least sound of engine and other sound from other players should be shared. If honk can be shared then rest of the sound should be It is weird to not hear vehicle engine sound that is following me. I must rotate a camera to see if he is still there or does he stuck in mud so I want to stop too to help him. If iI focus on driving and dont see behind I may end up in getting to far from guy that stuck and did not use chat or honk etc.

Yeah i would be interested to know what data is currently being transmitted, is it just x/y/z of the vehicle and would it be possible to locally calculate engine rpm etc based on the position data from the client vehicles. ( i have no programming knowledge, just some scripting knowledge from Arma series; multiplayer code can be a bitch)

Just engine idle sounds would be sweet if nothing else. Farming Simulator used to have just full throttle sounds in the past if i remember correctly.

Agree with this, for multiplayer immersion we definitley need to:

1. Remove the glow / have name toggle key
2. sync lights & sound
3. sync parked mp trucks

mud I imagine would be at another level, but of course would be very cool!

i just like to play and most of this technical stuff i barely understand, but i'm curious to see just how much of this could be solved with dedicated servers. there are game engine limitations, but how much actually plays a part in the game host side of things vs having dedicated servers? also if their were dedicated servers, would it be easier or possible to have more then 4 player lobbies if wanted?

i may not understand all the technical stuff, but do find it interesting.

I don't really understand how this is designed. There shouldn't be any reason that the physics needs to be communicated over the network. Essentially you would only transmit vehicle data and then simulate everything locally. Simulating terrain deformation for that many vehicles might be taxing, I don't know, but not synching lights or sounds sounds very strange to me.