Oh wow. 1 year or so after being pushed off SA.
EDIT: Guy who broke the news says no details on his death. Was just informed by Rich's family.
Another person who died before SC released.
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Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
- Thread starter Yaffle
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Oh wow. 1 year or so after being pushed off SA.
EDIT: Guy who broke the news says no details on his death. Was just informed by Rich's family.
Another person who died before SC released.
So the aUEC wipe workedWell...3.15 has gone live at last. 340k starting aUEC for me.... Back to the grind
Nerf income!
Its about time they stared marketing SC as a horror game.
Works OK for me so far...perhaps those peasants didn't buy an Idris
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
Hold on, unless I missed something that is exactly how it works now already, correct? We already have multiple "shards" of Stanton, one per server, each already capped at 50.
I thought the idea was at least try and subdivide Stanton in smaller sections each with its player cap. But they are now saying the whole shard will be capped at 50 to avoid having to create instances of the same location? I mean, lol.
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Not quite. First version (as i understand it, i could be wrong) would be 1 server per system, and each group of servers is a shard. There would be multiple shards, each disconencted from the other.
Damn stupid way of doing it if you ask me. Meshing really should be done so that there is one common 'verse but you bounce between servers as you move between systems. But it appears that CIG can't do that for some reason.
There was the idea that each server would handle discrete parts of space... maybe they will do that at some point.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
If understood correctly what CIG is saying is 50 players per shard, not per system though. What we have today is just a particular case of that, where there is just one system in the shard. What CIG is suggesting now is to keep the current 50 cap for each shard, irrespective of how many star systems there are in the shard.
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Does the game still require switching UAC off? Because
This works best when players are spread out because then partitioning of a shard is easy - each player can have their own server while the common state of the entire shard is still tracked without issues. However, once all the players in a shard decide to go to a single location and interact directly, problems arise that can be only solved with magic and trickery, like Planetside 2 does it. This is why the player limit in a shard is set to a single server limit - because when all players gather together, they are tracked by the same server.
And again, no dynamic server mashing and other buzzwords will solve it. Only tricks will do. Like disallowing capital ship battles, for example.
All the issues we have discussed here that CIG need to face? They are slowly confirming, one by one, that they indeed have to.
A shard is a group of server processes representing a parallel version of the game world, sharing the same understanding of its state, with players being able to interact with one another. In that sense, Star Citizen currently has single-server shards limited to fifty people. Dividing a shard into multiple servers intends to spread the computational load of tracking and reporting the state of the shard (including communication with game clients) so that servers can perform better. Leaving, for example, more CPU for AI.
This works best when players are spread out because then partitioning of a shard is easy - each player can have their own server while the common state of the entire shard is still tracked without issues. However, once all the players in a shard decide to go to a single location and interact directly, problems arise that can be only solved with magic and trickery, like Planetside 2 does it. This is why the player limit in a shard is set to a single server limit - because when all players gather together, they are tracked by the same server.
And again, no dynamic server mashing and other buzzwords will solve it. Only tricks will do. Like disallowing capital ship battles, for example.
All the issues we have discussed here that CIG need to face? They are slowly confirming, one by one, that they indeed have to.
Yes, 50 per shard, spread across all systems. Both of them.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
Whoa: "... What Star Citizen is calling progress looks, feels and smells like [cattle biowaste] busy work and either that is due to management lacking any and all understanding how to manage a project like this or just a general incompetence being thinly veiled as [mocking voice]breaking new ground in technology[/mocking voice]"
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Is now a good time to tell you both to buy and Idris and install the game on SSD, as you clearly don't understand game development?
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Yeah, i remember they are talking about limits in the region of 50-100 per shard, but i thought they were still having different servers per system.
If they are just having one server per shard then they aren't even doing server meshing.
Server Meshing and Persistent Streaming Q&A - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.
robertsspaceindustries.com
TLDR:
When will we see Persistent Streaming and Server Meshing in the PU?
Tier 0 'Static Meshing' in Q3/Q4 2022.What is the current state of the server meshing tech and what are the biggest issues holding it back?
Remember when we said full Dynamic Server Meshing for 2018? And 2019?. Well that hasn't happened yet.Isn't that great?!
We did realise in 2020 that we'd need to use a completely different technical approach though. Please add 'Replication Layer' to your list of important buzzwords.
How do you plan on managing a large ship, say a Javelin? Would that be it's own dedicated resource with ships around it?
We don't know.How many players will be able to see each other in one space ? Whats the maximum you are planning?
We hope to get to 100.[Please forget all prior claims of thousands of players being in the same area]
If I make a base on a moon, will my base be reflected on the other shards that I am not on?
The plan is yes, but it will be 'read only' if you're not there.[Please ignore claims to the contrary made while selling the $850 Pioneer.]
Is the true end goal one single shard for all players?
We have designed for it. We don't actually know how to do it. Or deal with regional ping. But it is 'an operational challenge'. And 'our ambition'.It's not a problem for now, as we're limiting all shards to 50 players. [You don't know that yet, because we hid that question at the end].
But if we do try and increase the shard population we may have to lock off whole areas of the game once they get 'full'. Or "create new layers for certain locations". [Please don't say "instance". "Instance" is a dirty word. And very very wrong.]
Will the economy of the universe be independent in every shard or joined?
The economy will be global.[But we're not answering your awkward questions about how Tony Z's subsumption NPCs will work.]
What will prevent large groups of "blues" and large groups of "reds" ending up in echo-chamber shards? Social dynamics would imply large concentrations of people that will have friends and be in orgs that are of the same interests. Will there be a solution that will ensure proper mixing of good, bad, and in-between?
It doesn't matter because we can only support 50 players per shard to start with. [Please read all the answers to learn this, you content locust you.]If we were to get large shards working, we would use matchmaking.
Will your character and ship always be in-game when you have left; i.e, if I logged out from my ship bed on a planet, will my ship still be there, meaning people could try and break into or destroy my ship?
No. Same goes for your coffee cup.[Please ignore Chris's blather to the contrary on persistent coffee cups coming in 2020, and 2021 etc. In fact, it's best to just ignore Chris generally.]
How much is new content dependent on Server Meshing now?
Very. Expect fundamental content delays. We have framed this as a good thing. [Because in the future designers will be able to start designing stuff! Isn't that great?!][PS please ignore all prior claims of Jump Points coming in 2017, for example.]
How much of a performance improvement can we expect?
Server performance should improve.[Other network performance areas may get worse though. But we don't tell you that here. You just want to know about improvements right?]
I know that there may not be an answer to this yet but, upon initial release of Server Meshing, how many shards do you anticipate needing to have? 10, 100, 1000, more? We know that the shift away from DGS means more players per game area, just not sure how many you anticipate.
We don't know. We need to check whether our new technical solutions even work under a light load first. [Ask again in 2023. And 2024.]Can an asset as small as a bullet travel across server shards?
No.Did you mean between servers? If so, then: No. Because bullets are spawned client side.
Did you mean missiles between servers? Is so, then: Yes! [Please don't ask about latency or authority transfers. That would be awkward.]
When we you are handling different regions of the world, are you planning on hosting four main server farms, such as US, EU, China, Oceanic? Or are you planning on making "One-Global-Universe"? If global, how would that handle the balance of players with extreme ping variations?
Please see our previous answer about ambitions, challenges, and not knowing.I live in Eastern Europe. After launching Server Meshing, will I be able to play with friends from the USA?
Yes.[Your high ping will negatively effect everyone as some of our game code is still client authorative. But don't worry about this, we buried it in a different answer.]
Replication Layer Dying: What will players experience if a Replication Layer is shut down/'dies'? We know that the entity graph will collect the seeded information and feed it back into a new replication layer, but will we return to the main menu if the Replication layer dies compared to if a server node dies, or will we have some sort of loading screen that automatically match-makes us into a new layer?
If the 'Hybrid service' crashes, it will be like the current 30Ks.[Please avoid firing missiles between servers where possible.]
We saw a lot of talk in the panel about which nodes have write authority within a shard, but what about write authority between separate shards? Are separate persistence databases maintained for separate shards or will the states of world items eventually be synchronized between shards even if they were left in different states (i.e., a door is left open on one shard and left closed on another - will one shard eventually write its state to the database, updating the state of the door on the other shard?)
Larger scale changes (like base placement, and the mining of large nodes) should propagate slowly between all shards.[Plz don't ask if we have this working yet.]
When you have a party moving (quantum travelling or other) from one object to another, and another DGS node, object, or instance is full , will T0 / Static Meshing create another DGS node pre-emptively? Or how will this be handled?
We have solved this problem! By limiting shards to the player cap of a single server node.Yes, that's right. Shards will be capped at 50 players to begin with.
Welcome to the multiverse.
[Can you see why we hid this question right at the very end?
]With the sheer volume of data travelling between the clients and server nodes, and the need for extreme low latency, can you describe or dig in to how you are managing that or what technologies you are using to help speed things up, or rather keep them from slowing down?
- "The biggest latency factors currently are server tick rate, client ping, entity spawning, and the latency of persistent services."
- Server tick rate and entity spawning should get better once servers are dealing with smaller regions.
- The new Replication Layer will add latency back in again. We hope to eliminate this latency. Eliminate it I tell you.
- Client ping is a problem due to client authoritive game code. We will deal with these pernicious Cryengine legacies. Erm. In the coming decade.
- ['Dynamic Server Meshing' would bring many more latency issues. But let's not talk about that...]
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He shot himself after losing a court case involving his ex-wife. I don't think you'll find many of us are sympathetic.
The 'static meshing' T0 plan is:
- Multiple servers, each hosting a region in a solar system. (Such as a planet)
- All of those servers together form the shard, linked together via the 'Hybrid service' (The 'Replication Layer' etc - IE the new 2020 Server Meshing plan).
The reason they are capping the whole shard at the player count of a single one of those servers is because: They don't know what to do if more than 50 players head to any given location. (Thus overloading that server etc).
It's... genius
Fake: there's "no" answers.Server Meshing and Persistent Streaming Q&A - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.robertsspaceindustries.com
TLDR:
When will we see Persistent Streaming and Server Meshing in the PU?
Tier 0 'Static Meshing' in Q3/Q4 2022.
What is the current state of the server meshing tech and what are the biggest issues holding it back?
Remember when we said full Dynamic Server Meshing for 2018? And 2019?. Well that hasn't happened yet.
Isn't that great?!
We did realise in 2020 that we'd need to use a completely different technical approach though. Please add 'Replication Layer' to your list of important buzzwords.
How do you plan on managing a large ship, say a Javelin? Would that be it's own dedicated resource with ships around it?
We don't know.
How many players will be able to see each other in one space ? Whats the maximum you are planning?
We hope to get to 100.
[Please forget all prior claims of thousands of players being in the same area]
If I make a base on a moon, will my base be reflected on the other shards that I am not on?
The plan is yes, but it will be 'read only' if you're not there.
[Please buy an $850 Pioneer to build one. We'll definitely get it working soon.]
Is the true end goal one single shard for all players?
We have designed for it. We don't actually know how to do it. Or deal with regional ping. But it is 'an operational challenge'. And 'our ambition'.
It's not a problem for now, as we're limiting all shards to 50 players. [You don't know that yet, because we hid that question at the end].
But if we do try and increase the shard population we may have to lock off whole areas of the game once they get 'full'. Or "create new layers for certain locations". [Please don't say "instance". "Instance" is a dirty word. And very very wrong.]
Will the economy of the universe be independent in every shard or joined?
The economy will be global.
[But we're not answering your awkward questions about how Tony Z's subsumption NPCs will work.]
What will prevent large groups of "blues" and large groups of "reds" ending up in echo-chamber shards? Social dynamics would imply large concentrations of people that will have friends and be in orgs that are of the same interests. Will there be a solution that will ensure proper mixing of good, bad, and in-between?
It doesn't matter because we can only support 50 players per shard to start with. [We'll tell you about this later].
If we were to get large shards working, we would use matchmaking.
Will your character and ship always be in-game when you have left; i.e, if I logged out from my ship bed on a planet, will my ship still be there, meaning people could try and break into or destroy my ship?
No. Same goes for your coffee cup.
[Please ignore Chris's blather to the contrary on persistent coffee cups coming in 2020, and 2021 etc. In fact, it's best to just ignore Chris generally].
How much is new content dependent on Server Meshing now?
Very. Expect fundamental content delays. We have framed this as a good thing. [Because in the future designers will be able to start designing stuff! Isn't that great?!]
[PS please ignore all prior claims of Jump Points coming in 2017, for example.]
How much of a performance improvement can we expect?
Server performance should improve.
Other network performance areas may get worse though. But we don't tell you that here. You just want to know about improvements right?
I know that there may not be an answer to this yet but, upon initial release of Server Meshing, how many shards do you anticipate needing to have? 10, 100, 1000, more? We know that the shift away from DGS means more players per game area, just not sure how many you anticipate.
We don't know. We need to check whether our new technical solutions even work under a light load first. [Ask again in 2023. And 2024.]
Can an asset as small as a bullet travel across server shards?
No.
Did you mean between servers? If so, then: No. Because bullets are spawned client side.
Did you mean missiles between servers? Is so, then: Yes! [Please don't ask about latency or authority transfers. That would be awkward.]
When we you are handling different regions of the world, are you planning on hosting four main server farms, such as US, EU, China, Oceanic? Or are you planning on making "One-Global-Universe"? If global, how would that handle the balance of players with extreme ping variations?
Please see our previous answer about ambitions, challenges, and not knowing.
I live in Eastern Europe. After launching Server Meshing, will I be able to play with friends from the USA?
Yes.
Your high ping will negatively effect everyone as some of our game code is still client authorative. But don't worry about this, we buried it in a different answer.
Replication Layer Dying: What will players experience if a Replication Layer is shut down/'dies'? We know that the entity graph will collect the seeded information and feed it back into a new replication layer, but will we return to the main menu if the Replication layer dies compared to if a server node dies, or will we have some sort of loading screen that automatically match-makes us into a new layer?
If the 'Hybrid service' crashes, it will be like the current 30Ks.
[Please avoid firing missiles between servers where possible.]
We saw a lot of talk in the panel about which nodes have write authority within a shard, but what about write authority between separate shards? Are separate persistence databases maintained for separate shards or will the states of world items eventually be synchronized between shards even if they were left in different states (i.e., a door is left open on one shard and left closed on another - will one shard eventually write its state to the database, updating the state of the door on the other shard?)
Larger scale changes (like base placement, and the mining of large nodes) should propagate slowly between all shards.
[Plz don't ask if we have this working yet.]
When you have a party moving (quantum travelling or other) from one object to another, and another DGS node, object, or instance is full , will T0 / Static Meshing create another DGS node pre-emptively? Or how will this be handled?
We have solved this problem! By limiting shards to the player cap of a single server node.
Yes, that's right. Shards will be capped at 50 players to begin with.
Welcome to the multiverse.
[Can you see why we hid this question right at the very end?
With the sheer volume of data travelling between the clients and server nodes, and the need for extreme low latency, can you describe or dig in to how you are managing that or what technologies you are using to help speed things up, or rather keep them from slowing down?
- "The biggest latency factors currently are server tick rate, client ping, entity spawning, and the latency of persistent services."
- Server tick rate and entity spawning should get better once servers are dealing with smaller regions.
- The new Replication Layer will add latency back in again. We hope to eliminate this latency. Eliminate it I tell you.
- Client ping is a problem due to client authoritive game code. We will deal with these pernicious Cryengine legacies. Erm. In the coming decade.