Instances with less than 32 players

[Phoenix13]

Supposedly there is a 32 player limit in each instance. How come when you go to a populate system, it then will give you a new instance of there is more than 4-6 players in it?

There could be so many more people in the galaxy to meet and it makes instance with friends really hard... but according to what was said back at release, the game should be able to handle much more.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

But I dont wanna meet you.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Supposedly there is a 32 player limit in each instance. How come when you go to a populate system, it then will give you a new instance of there is more than 4-6 players in it?

There could be so many more people in the galaxy to meet and it makes instance with friends really hard... but according to what was said back at release, the game should be able to handle much more.

Social distancing...

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

It's limited by much more than a hard number (which isn't hard anyway in the right circumstances). Respective timezones, internet connections, block lists and whatnot else decide who can comfortably be instanced together.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Because it's all peer to peer it's likely checking the connection quality you'll get to each available session, finding that none of them meet the required threshold, and making a new one for you.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Supposedly there is a 32 player limit in each instance.

There isn't. Frontier, when asked way back in the Kickstarter days (about a year pre-release!) how big an instance could get, threw out that number as an approximation and perhaps an aspiration. Since then the instancing code has been repeatedly rewritten (mostly for the better) but the number has stuck around as A Definite Fact regardless.

The record number of player ships in a single instance is just over 100 - I've personally been in one just over 80.

However, you need to do a few things to get them that big:
1) No NPCs around. Once you start having to send NPC data between players as well, it seriously gets in the way. I've not seen instances over about 10 players in inhabited systems very often, and they were very flaky, even when using wings to build them. (I think the best we managed was about 15 players, and the NPCs didn't like that)
2) Being in a wing massively prioritises "same instance". Even in uninhabited systems with everyone having excellent networking, just showing up at the same spot might get you up to 20 players together. Beyond that, you really need to systematically use (temporary) wings to bring extra people in. I don't know what the limit is on that: generally you can run out of players before hitting it in uninhabited space.

In a supercruise situation where there's several people around to start with, neither of those are very likely to be the case, so the instances tend to end up high single-figures, though I've seen low double-figures in uninhabited systems.

(Having been in super-large instances, the game engine starts to seriously suffer in terms of frame rates above about 50 players. You need to fly pretty cautiously to avoid accidentally ramming each other before you noticed they were there, and people rubberband about quite a bit)

 

[Bottom Hat]

To reinforce Ian's point, the most players I've seen in instances at very busy CGs (before carriers) was 10-12 I think, and even then, it required a lot of wing-instancing to get them to work reliably. NPCs like to stuff it though.

 

[Riverside]

Most I've ever seen in one instance was at a station with loads of docked Cmdrs (so no lag or latency concerns) was 12 plus me.

The instance sizes are based on the host's upload bandwidth, and are affected by the connection quality & latency of all players in that instance. So the more players in an instance the more likely it is that one or more will have a poor connection with the new player wanting to join that instance.

If you play regularly with others who are physically close to you (in the same country) and all have good quality internet connections (I'm on fibre in the UK) you can get decent instance sizes, but it doesn't take much to degrade the experience.

As Ian says, the 32 size is an estimated maximum, a guideline rather than a hard limit.

 

[Brrokk]

Supposedly there is a 32 player limit in each instance. How come when you go to a populate system, it then will give you a new instance of there is more than 4-6 players in it?

There could be so many more people in the galaxy to meet and it makes instance with friends really hard... but according to what was said back at release, the game should be able to handle much more.

You should find that instancing with friends is prioritised; you'll usually meet them when possible. The same for wing mates.

 

[znôrt]

Supposedly there is a 32 player limit in each instance. How come when you go to a populate system, it then will give you a new instance of there is more than 4-6 players in it?

is that so? i had no idea. however, this is just simple math: in a p2p scenario every client has to synchronize with every other client. that's the square of number of players in the instance worth of connections. p2p is dirty cheap because you hardly need any server. however, cheap can be expensive and it simply doesn't scale. every additional player in the instance increases the chances of weird things happening considerably. careful what you wish for.

on top of that the implementation is extremely flimsy. i don't really know the current hard limits but i know it can break even with 2 players if planets and routers align in a particular way. or witches! 30 players in an instance is not unheard of, however, but is far from the norm of what is practical, and these numbers are even lower if those players are actually doing something (like shooting each other) instead of just smiling for youtube.

There could be so many more people in the galaxy to meet and it makes instance with friends really hard... but according to what was said back at release, the game should be able to handle much more.

lies! bloody, lies!

 

[lysan]

Social distancing...

wear a mask, just to be safe! virtually ofc.

 

[Chaparral]

I am curious how they will handle mission givers in stations. I imagine there will be commanders that will want to "hang out" to socialize. Will they central serverize those instances, or stick us p2p? Rubberbanding walking around is going to be entertaining to say the least.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

I was in an instance once with 12 other squadron mates doing an srv race. The frame rate got so bad that the game became a slide show/flip book in .5 second intervals of still images. It became as close to literally unplayable as I've ever experienced from any game ever

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Because it's all peer to peer it's likely checking the connection quality you'll get to each available session, finding that none of them meet the required threshold, and making a new one for you.

And in case the OP has missed it. this is the answer.

 

[CptArcher]

is that so? i had no idea. however, this is just simple math: in a p2p scenario every client has to synchronize with every other client. that's the square of number of players in the instance

I don't believe this is correct. Every client just has to synchronize with the host that is chosen by the algorithm. There is only one host per instance.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

I don't believe this is correct. Every client just has to synchronize with the host that is chosen by the algorithm. There is only one host per instance.

And doesn't it default to the poorest connection as to not make their game worse than it already may be? I could be wrong though

 

[Morbad]

Most I've ever seen in one instance was at a station with loads of docked Cmdrs (so no lag or latency concerns) was 12 plus me.

That seems like a low figure to me. I can find cases of at least that many just by skimming through videos where my CMDR was at Shinrarta or a CG.

This was the first video I clicked on and I count thirteen (at ~25 seconds), not including my CMDR, resolvable (on lightweight D4 sensors) from the landing pad, and there are more outside:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCTH-kGT7yU


Instances of 10-20, occasionally more, never struck me as uncommon at hotspots. It certainly feels like average numbers have gone down, but I still find the occasion two-dozen CMDR instance, or did relatively recently.

 

[znôrt]

I don't believe this is correct. Every client just has to synchronize with the host that is chosen by the algorithm. There is only one host per instance.

that would not be p2p, then. i don't have that level of detail on the implementation, do you have any source or is that just a guess?

 

[Riverside]

That seems like a low figure to me. I can find cases of at least that many just by skimming through videos where my CMDR was at Shinrarta or a CG.

This was the first video I clicked on and I count thirteen (at ~25 seconds), not including my CMDR, resolvable (on lightweight D4 sensors) from the landing pad, and there are more outside:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCTH-kGT7yU


Instances of 10-20, occasionally more, never struck me as uncommon at hotspots. It certainly feels like average numbers have gone down, but I still find the occasion two-dozen CMDR instance, or did relatively recently.

IME 10+ is a lot. IIRC on the rare occasions we have instanced together lag & latency have not been a noticeable issue suggesting we both have 'good' quality connections; I regularly instance with players from all over the world (albeit with quite a poor quality connection and small instance sizes).

However I live out in the sticks, my ADSL speed is 80Mbps down / 20 up, I'd guess your connection bandwidth is rather higher?

 

[CptArcher]

that would not be p2p, then. i don't have that level of detail on the implementation, do you have any source or is that just a guess?

It was just a guess, and now I think it was wrong! A client acting as a host for multiple peers is not p2p