In multiplayer, whenever a non-host player activates jetpack, their color instantly changes to match the host player color (tested with two players only). I believe this started happening after updating to/beyond version 1.4.0, based on the changelog.

This is obviously an undesired effect in multiplayer games, where players of the same color find it hard to differentiate on-screen avatars.

This can happen due to the fact that the Jetpack mod destroys and re-creates your character rather than move your character from the ground to the "jetpack" layer. It's like a Star Trek transporter - you're not actually moving but getting destroyed and re-created.

The destroy/recreate means I can't rely on item ID#s being unique so I do a much fuzzier match based on what information we do have - the armor's item name and grid contents. The downside to this means that if you and I are in the same game and we both have more or less identical armor (for example, an armor that's all jetpacks), there's a chance that the when jetpack re-creates the armor, SAS will think that you and I are wearing the same suit of armor and "helpfully" overwrite the intended color.

As a temporary workaround, if you and your multiplayer buddies make your equipment grids unique (say, one of you removes a jetpack and adds in night vision goggles in one corner, and the other does the same in a different corner) it should be enough to guarantee that your armors are treated as unique.

The Jetpack folks are going to fix the destroy/recreate thing in their next version so I haven't prioritized a fix for this. But, since it's clearly turning out to be an actual issue for folks, I'll go ahead and try to get that fixed today. If you can tell me exactly which version of the mod you've seen this in, it'd be a big help.

This should be fixed in 1.4.3. Please give it a try and let me know if it's working for you.

I appreciate the quick response. The issue originally appeared when I updated to 1.4.2, but I hadn't updated in a few weeks before that so I missed the last few versions.

After updating to 1.4.3, the issue for the non-host player has been resolved; they now keep their chosen color upon activating jetpack. Unfortunately now the reverse happens and the host player's color switches when using jetpack. I tried your suggestion to change equipment grid items/order but the issue still occurs. Although if we are wearing different armor types, everything works as expected.

If the issue is low priority and the Jetpack devs are planning on fixing their side of the issue soon, we can deal with it in the meantime. Again appreciate that you took the time to look into and address it. Thanks!

Update: In case you're still curious, it's been switching me to the other player's color even when I'm the only player online.

Damn, I was sure that would fix the remaining coloring issues. Now that I think about it, Jetpack hasn't updated in 5 months and I don't want to have to wait for them to fix it on their end if it ends up being a few more months. Would it be possible for you to send me a screencap of what yours and the hosts armor grids look like? Or maybe a screen recording? I'd love to get to the bottom of this.

I think I might have a fix for this - on mod load for each player, dye all the armors in their inventory their player color if they aren't yet dyed. I'll see if I can't get that working in the next day or so.