Are there any plans to improve the instancing system?

[Daud]

I understand that some grand master server for the entirety of the galaxy is, well, less than feasible- but that's not what I'm suggesting. What I am suggesting, however- and has probably been suggested before- is one, big instance per solar system. Said instance wouldn't necessarily contain every single player in that system (as awesome as that might be), it'd just combine each of the smaller instances (i.e stations and the like) into one- though with some possible exceptions, such as the rings of a planet (as that might cause complications).

Easier said than done. For starters, the aforementioned solution would require a rework of the supercruise and interdiction system. Which, while problematic, could be overcome. It'd certainly make everything a lot more fluid and alive. No more artificial and cleverly disguised delays.

A larger issue- which was presumably why they didn't go for such a system in the first place- is a financial one. Dedicated servers. If I remember correctly, Frontier relies on Amazon for servers around the world. I'm no expert, but replacing said servers would probably be expensive. Especially if they have to place servers in strategic locations around the world.

I don't know about you lot, but the current system just makes me feel like I'm missing out. I very rarely have to worry about pirates- because even if they're in the system, chances are that they're in a different instance. Dedicated and larger servers would be problematic and- not to mention- expensive, but with the influx of players (and thus, income) from Steam and other platforms in the future (ex: Xbox One), I would suggest that they 'look into it' or 'put it on the list' (if it isn't already).

Thoughts? Ideas?

 

[Armour]

100K servers (1 per inhabited system) might be pushing it a bit. I'm not comfortable with the idea of paying a sub that is higher than my internet bill.

 

[Daud]

100k servers? What are you talking about?

 

[Armour]

100k servers? What are you talking about?

Never mind, just playing about. I can't see the instancing improving a whole lot. Perhaps they could spool off a few servers here and there to take the traffic strain off the clients on the highest-volume systems and potentially allow more ships per instance, but I don't know how practical it is with the cost implications. One instance per system? Can't see that happening. The starter systems must have hundreds, if not thousands of players in them. There would need to be instances even if dedicated servers were brought into the mix, just for bandwidth reasons. Also, there has to be a practical limit on how many things can be rendered before you start needing Star Citizen recommended specs to stop it turning into a slideshow.

 

[Tinman]

Making the instance system wide would decrease the likelihood of meeting other players, not increase it since people could then potentially be spread out all over the system and you would be much less likely to meet one another in any given location. 2 would maybe be in one station, another one in another one. Others would be spread out in supercruise, different RES/NAV/USS sites and so on. All of these people would be so far of that no meaningful interaction could be had and therefore that connection would be pointless. The current system instead checks who else happens to be in your current location where you can actually meet, see each other and interact and then tries to match up as many as possible together.

Putting it on dedicated servers would maybe make it possible to increase the number of players per instance a little, but no miracles would be achieved and instances would still need to be made. For reference Star Citizen will use dedicated servers and the player limit talked about there currently is around 50-100 players and if we are going to be realistic it will most likely end up at the lower end of that scale. As with ED that is also the theoretical max and not something you are ever really going to see while actually playing the game. The biggest win would be things like combat logging and combating different hacks since the server would be the "law". It wouldn't be a magic bullet for player count though and very expensive to maintain. This is why microtransactions is (and will continue to be) a big thing for Star Citizen.

 

[kurush]

Putting it on dedicated servers would maybe make it possible to increase the number of players per instance a little, but no miracles would be achieved and instances would still need to be made.

My experience with regular MMOs tells me that while in open world you can fit probably up to a hundred players into one instance when they are not playing together, as soon as an interaction starts happening (i.e. a raid), things become slow even with 16 people if you compare it to 8. I think the game now starts cutting off players after 16 people in an instance, so it is about the same. And yes, system-wide instance will achieve the opposite effect to what OP wants. An ability to
a) see active instances for the place you are in
b) join one of them
would be beneficial though. By the nature of this game though you still will be able to get your own instance even if you are playing Open.

 

[atak2]

I've wondered if it would be possible to have scaleable instances. I.e. have a few medium and large servers that take over managing an instance from a small server if there is a high player population warranting it.

 

[Negative Entropy]

I've wondered if it would be possible to have scaleable instances. I.e. have a few medium and large servers that take over managing an instance from a small server if there is a high player population warranting it.

The problem is not the size or power of the servers.
The problem is a typical player's bandwidth.

Every player in one instance are sending a stream of info to every other player in same instance.

I recently made a visit to good old LHS 3447 and the lag was horrible.

 

[kurush]

The problem is not the size or power of the servers.
The problem is a typical player's bandwidth.

I think the generic instancing problem is not the bandwidth but rather the amount of interactions either server or player PC has to handle and that amount grows exponentially with the size of an instance. I don't see ED taking a huge amount of bandwidth. The bandwidth in P2P would go up exponentially as well though.