Please fix your netcode FDev!

Hellfire85 · Mar 24, 2020

As title says...

The netcode needs a rework, or we need a server that relays the data from each CMDR to the CMDRs in the same instance so we can get rid of the annoying shadow rams or double rams due to packet loss between two ships fighting eachother.
P2P is the worst kind of connection when it comes to PvP gameplay and there is a reason that nobody uses it in games that include some type of PvP interaction.

As it stands, any time two ships pass eachother within a 500m range, the game supposes there is a ram happening, so it distributes the damage to both ships or one of the ships.
It can't be that fights are won or lost due to a random data-loss or desync.

Please look into it Frontier...

Drelthar · Mar 25, 2020

Hellfire85 · Mar 25, 2020

Drelthar said:
lol?

What's funny about it?

Drelthar · Mar 25, 2020

Hellfire85 said:
What's funny about it?

Been discussed about seven bazillion times.

FD created a custom P2P network system - partly to avoid needing a subscription model to run dedicated servers, but for other reasons too.

Also, the networking system isn't actually broken so doesn't need fixing.

In some cases, there are network related bugs - these are more software bugs though, and not actually a problem with the networking itself, just the systems using the networking.

In 90% of cases, the networking problem is the connection between the players - the code used to network them is doing everything perfectly, the player connections just aren't very good at connecting to each other. This isn't something network code can fix. It would be like saying use software to fix a copper wire.

Misty_Dark · Mar 25, 2020

Drelthar said:
Been discussed about seven bazillion times.

FD created a custom P2P network system - partly to avoid needing a subscription model to run dedicated servers, but for other reasons too.

Also, the networking system isn't actually broken so doesn't need fixing.

In some cases, there are network related bugs - these are more software bugs though, and not actually a problem with the networking itself, just the systems using the networking.

In 90% of cases, the networking problem is the connection between the players - the code used to network them is doing everything perfectly, the player connections just aren't very good at connecting to each other. This isn't something network code can fix. It would be like saying use software to fix a copper wire.

There is one part of the netcode they could improve on, that is to be better in establishing the initial connection between players. There are some tricks that can be used to overcome some of the more common issues when players do not have working port forwarding. As this can been seen in other software/games, that also relies on P2P networking, these can be seen working between two players but when they try to play Elite, the game fails to instance these players in the same instance (think private group) .

Drelthar · Mar 25, 2020

Misty_Dark said:
There is one part of the netcode they could improve on, that is to be better in establishing the initial connection between players. There are some tricks that can be used to overcome some of the more common issues when players do not have working port forwarding. As this can been seen in other software/games, that also relies on P2P networking, these can be seen working between two players but when they try to play Elite, the game fails to instance these players in the same instance (think private group) .

It's not going to be perfect sure, nothing is.

But it isn't "Broken" so doesn't need "Fixing"

Continual improvement is what they already do (it's had improvements since launch) so asking them to improve it seems pointless also.

Drelthar · Mar 25, 2020

Having said all that, if there are specific bugs that appear to be network related (De-syncing of Thargoid hearts between wings is one, which is supposedly fixed now?) then those should be reported, because they can be fixed, as it's not the network code (as such) at fault.

Misty_Dark · Mar 26, 2020

Drelthar said:
It's not going to be perfect sure, nothing is.

But it isn't "Broken" so doesn't need "Fixing"

Continual improvement is what they already do (it's had improvements since launch) so asking them to improve it seems pointless also.

Oh geez... now you are being pretty petty about this, what happened, someone took you candy? I do hope you end up with a "not broken" internet connection where the cause of this is outside your control, and then you have to simply accept that this "not broken"...

Drelthar · Mar 26, 2020

Misty_Dark said:
Oh geez... now you are being pretty petty about this, what happened, someone took you candy? I do hope you end up with a "not broken" internet connection where the cause of this is outside your control, and then you have to simply accept that this "not broken"...

Sorry to have offended you there. I think you took me a bit seriously.

I was actually agreeing with you in that post you quoted. Not sure why you got a bit passive aggressive about it, oh well.

I hope they implement the "tricks" you mentioned, and that it "fixes" whatever "issues" "people" have with their "internetz"

Hellfire85 · Mar 26, 2020

Actually, it's since that networking update that the issue is appearing more often, so what ever they did there didn't fix anything. I guess the bandwidth compression brought more data loss than it helped avoiding it.

Agony_Aunt · Mar 26, 2020

Now that you have made this thread i'm sure FD will get right on it!

Do i really need to add /s?

Vandaahl · Mar 26, 2020

Well, P2P works over UDP. UDP gives no guarantee in what order packets arrive, or arrive at all. The quality of the network determines that. So, hate to say it, but fix your network.

Ian Doncaster · Mar 26, 2020

Vandaahl said:
Well, P2P works over UDP. UDP gives no guarantee in what order packets arrive, or arrive at all. The quality of the network determines that. So, hate to say it, but fix your network.

It would also be UDP if it was client-server, though, since the way TCP gets those guarantees is by being much slower if the network is bad.

Hellfire85 said:
or we need a server that relays the data from each CMDR to the CMDRs in the same instance

Misty_Dark said:
There are some tricks that can be used to overcome some of the more common issues when players do not have working port forwarding

The game already has the capacity to route packets via a server if players can't talk to each other directly for whatever reason.
https://support.frontier.co.uk/kb/faq.php?id=370 (search for TURN - you can check how much it's actually being used for you)

It potentially makes things like shadow rams worse when it's in use by making the latency larger, and therefore the disagreement between two clients about what's happening bigger, of course.