SpongesBetterMultiplayerExperience

Sponge's Better Multiplayer Experience

Bigger lobbies, and fewer players dropped for no good reason.

What it does

Bigger lobbies. The stock limit is eight. Set whatever you want up to 32; the

default is 12.

The game fixes that limit in two separate places — the Steam lobby has its own member

cap, and the networking layer has its own client cap — and this raises both together.

Raising only one gets you a lobby people can join but a server that turns them away.

Steadier connections. The default disconnect timeout is short enough that an

ordinary stall — a texture load, a stutter, an alt-tab on a slower machine — can be

mistaken for a player who has gone away, and they get dropped mid-session with

nothing actually wrong. This widens that window, so a brief interruption is ridden

out instead of ending the session.

The trade is that a genuinely dead connection takes longer to notice, which in a

co-op fishing game is the better side to err on.

When you want it

You play with more than seven other people, or somebody in your group keeps dropping

out on a loading screen and having to rejoin.

Keys

None of its own. Its settings live on the Multiplayer tab in Sponge's Mod Menu,

which opens on F5. They are the host's, so a guest is not shown them.

Settings

| Setting | Default | What it does |

|---|---|---|

| Max players | 12 | Lobby capacity when you host. |

| Patient timeouts | on | Ride out short stalls instead of dropping the player. |

| Timeout seconds | 60 | How long a player may go quiet before being dropped. |

The timeout is applied through the networking layer's own public setting rather than

by modifying it, so it keeps working across game updates and the value is

range-checked by the game itself.

Multiplayer

Only the host needs this. The cap is decided when the lobby is created, so guests

join a bigger lobby without installing anything.

Two honest caveats before you set it to 32:

• The game's interface was laid out for eight players. Nothing breaks, but lists and

indicators were not designed with twenty in mind.

• More players means more to keep in sync. If your connection struggles hosting

eight, it will struggle more with sixteen.

Compatibility

Touches only lobby creation and the connection timeout. It does not change how

anything is synchronised, so it does not affect gameplay behaviour and will not

desync you from players who do not have it.

License

See LICENSE in the package.