Is it possible for ED to ever become seamless?

[Shaamaan]

That said, the transitions could do with a bit of work, maybe proper surroundings and a more accelerating/decelerating feeling when you change between the various states, proper visual distortions from speed maybe?

Aye, that's true as well.

I think the best transition so far is the one from and to hyperspace. This works really really well. The normal space - cruise speed transitions could definitely use an overhaul.

As for people saying that these are the limitations of matchmaking. Well, I'm sure that's at least partially true. It would be nice if we could have seamless transitions at least in, say, solo mode (I mean, I'm not going to be matched with anyone else in the system anyway, so why the instancing there?). It would be a nice first step I think.

 

[hunvagy]

It shouldn't be too hard to do it. DBOBE answered a question about the seamlessness in the last QA stream of his, and looked like they wanted to better hide the seams but had other priorities. I think they'll get to it in time, especially as their playerbase acquire better computers along the way. Maybe they realised a more complex approach animation hogged down some low end computers unnecessarily so they had to cut it out.

A better way to do it would be to get rid of the dot altogether and drop people farther from the station which will lengthen the trip to the station but give enough time to load the high res assets. They decided against it probably because first, the popping in of high res geometry and textures would look jarring, second, they thought players would get frustrated with normal space flight of several minutes to the station every time.

Of course, a further solution would be to drop players closer to stations but at an angle so the station is not visible, as if you braked past it, as any sensible person would do not to risk crashing into it. This would ensure the geometry is fully loaded when you maneuver it into view. They probably decided against this because they really like the magnificent stations popping into view, creating a sense of velocity and scale. Otherwise it could feel a lot emptier.

Originally we did drop out at 20. But then people complained that they can get shot/rammed/destroyed on their way to the station. So it was narrowed down to 8km. And yes, what you describe would be a nice solution. I don't mind the station not rendered in Supercruise, because seeing the scale it makes sense. I mean if a planetary body that is 0.0001 earth masses is visible at 2ls or so, the station really is just a speck of dust in space. The approach animation though would be a very nice touch, and would give people less of a sense of the game just "dropping" them right next to the station.

 

[Cynaqq]

Aye, that's true as well.

I think the best transition so far is the one from and to hyperspace. This works really really well. The normal space - cruise speed transitions could definitely use an overhaul.

As for people saying that these are the limitations of matchmaking. Well, I'm sure that's at least partially true. It would be nice if we could have seamless transitions at least in, say, solo mode (I mean, I'm not going to be matched with anyone else in the system anyway, so why the instancing there?). It would be a nice first step I think.

As I said in my earlier post, it's not the instancing. It's the procedural generation plus instancing. Even with no matchmaking, you would need the loading period for your computer to generate the system assets, and then load the assets for stations and planetary structures. Matchmaking determines the length of your wait after the loading is complete because the client needs to check with the server if there'll be any more players in the same instance, and also needs to fetch the BGS related system information.

When playing solo, the only thing that changes is the system will not put you in instances with other players but on your own. This works on top of the open mode, not under it. You still need BGS information to be fetched and uploaded after you cause changes in it.

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

Map loading is the bane of MMO's, ED's is up there with the worst of them for sure and it's quite a jolt to game play. afaik we have yet to see a full video of a jump into a system and a descent to the planet surface, I expect it to add to the problem, I hope once you have gone through the drop from SC to orbital cruise it is then a much more seamless drop to the surface.

 

[Mephane]

While I would love to have a full animation from supercruise speed&position to the final dropout to normal space (basically by extending the final zoom&brake animation all the way up to where you pressed J to safely disengage the FSD), I don't find the current transition that jarring or immersion-breaking, just a bit lacking.

What is utterly horrible and immersion-wrecking in my view, however, is the teleportation caused by interdictions (both through submission and interdiction failure). Here I am approach a starport, 20Mm out and its planet big and mighty in front of me, suddenly interdiction, okay I submit, *poof* I am 20Ls out and the planet is now but a small dot.

If anything, the interdicter should be drawn to the interdictee, the latter should exit supercruise in their very location (maybe on an failed evasion attempt it could be different, but not after a smooth submission). I can imagine why this is not the case - it could be abused to speed up SC travel by doing some kind of interplanetary spiderman-maneuvre, but honestly, if the target does not submit it would hardly help you get around faster, and NPCs rarely submit (or do they ever at all?), and other cases the FSD cooldown after interdiction could be increased for the interdicter* to make this a rather unfeasible method of "fast travel".

Actually, I am generally thinking that maybe the interdictor (the device) should add extra time on the interdicter's (the ship) FSD cooldown anyway, to prevent endless chain-interdictions. Together with a change so that the interdictee always ends up in normal flight in the same location they were in when the submission went through, it would mean that if you manage to escape in normal flight, you can't repeatedly be teleport backwards multiple times, getting further away from your goal each time; instead, if you can survive/escape, it means no matter what, you will make progress forward, even if only slowly.

 

[Matt]

I dont think it is bounded by asset loading time or generation time issue.

Solo mode still needs to talk back to the servers (activate the bandwidth meter in-game and you'll see spikes of traffic as you jump - details on what is going on at http://www.lavewiki.com/technical under edServer section). When I exit the hyperspace CPU is more or less stable as is the HDD (no spikes of activity) - I can only assume the delays are due to server latency.

I just got a brand new computer with a ludicrously fast SSD (2000+MBs) and the drop out of hyperspace is sometimes slower than loading the game from cold from the main menu so its got to be server latency - i.e. when I load from the main menu I still have to generate the star system and load the geometry, textures, audio etc for a station and any nearby ships (and in fact more stuff, e.g. the cockpit + ship sounds etc), yet this is quicker than dropping out of hyperspace? The very fact that the hyperspace drop is so variable is a big indicator that its not your local machine causing the delays.

 

[Cynaqq]

I dont think it is bounded by asset loading time or generation time issue.

Solo mode still needs to talk back to the servers (activate the bandwidth meter in-game and you'll see spikes of traffic as you jump - details on what is going on at http://www.lavewiki.com/technical under edServer section). When I exit the hyperspace CPU is more or less stable as is the HDD (no spikes of activity) - I can only assume the delays are due to server latency.

I just got a brand new computer with a ludicrously fast SSD (2000+MBs) and the drop out of hyperspace is sometimes slower than loading the game from cold from the main menu so its got to be server latency - i.e. when I load from the main menu I still have to generate the star system and load the geometry, textures, audio etc for a station and any nearby ships (and in fact more stuff, e.g. the cockpit + ship sounds etc), yet this is quicker than dropping out of hyperspace? The very fact that the hyperspace drop is so variable is a big indicator that its not your local machine causing the delays.

Local machine does not cause the delays, you are correct. Waiting is entirely network activity. The mechanics of SC, normal flight and interstellar jumping being separate mechanisms is because of the generation and loading though. They are fast processes but they still need to happen. When the connection is perfect, the jump between systems take the exact same amount of time, so the minimum is set there by the developers. Any further delays is because of the matchmaking.

With your brand new machine and fast SSD you'll achieve the minimum possible loading of assets every time you play and experience delays only due to latency. People with slower machines may experience both.

 

[Matt]

Local machine does not cause the delays, you are correct. Waiting is entirely network activity. The mechanics of SC, normal flight and interstellar jumping being separate mechanisms is because of the generation and loading though. They are fast processes but they still need to happen. When the connection is perfect, the jump between systems take the exact same amount of time, so the minimum is set there by the developers. Any further delays is because of the matchmaking.

With your brand new machine and fast SSD you'll achieve the minimum possible loading of assets every time you play and experience delays only due to latency. People with slower machines may experience both.

Yep thats what I said. It's the server latency.

I just did some unscientific load time tests. Loading from cold into a station: 20 seconds. Loading from cold into deep space 10 seconds. Dropping out of supercruise to a station: 15 seconds. Dropping out of super cruise to deep space: 5 seconds. Looking at the logs, appears that the "set up" time for getting a connection is about 5 seconds, based on the timestamps. Might not be blocking during that time though.

 

[Shaamaan]

(...)Any further delays is because of the matchmaking.(...)

That's kind of my biggest gripe with cruise transitions at the moment. My computer isn't some all-powerful beast any more, and while I do have an SSD the game is sitting on a regular HDD, the biggest solo-mode "slowdowns" are clearly matchmaking/network related.

Approach a station, press J, then the animation is clearly a few seconds too long (if I had continued to move in cruise at the speed I pressed J I'd likely hit the nearby planet ) - not due to loading, but because matchmaking / BGS / server had a tantrum. And while I understand that solo is just "open, but without people", matchmaking should still be instant (because it's not really doing anything in case of solo). Perhaps it's the BGS data then? Hard to tell without knowing what kind of communication is causing the delays in the first place.

 

[Antoniius]

Generally I don't mind the "transition screens" in ED, but occasionally they can be immersion breaking (like, say, longer "slowdown" when approaching a busy station, or the fact that there are plenty of NPC contacts in cruise, but as soon as I interdict an NPC and go back to cruise the area is all clear). It'd be nice to have a smoother game, no?

That is a flaw in the game i noticed too, but actually, with istanced zones, i do not think it would b possible to change the thing. Even when logging in/out in a RES or CZ you should find the same ships you left, but it is actually a restart.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Since Beta (pre-Release), suggestions were made to at least give the illusion of being seemless.
And those would work reasonably well, be it approaching or disengaging at Stations/Outposts... or entering SuperCruise (or just visually observing its activities from normal space).

Unfortunately, none of those idas were ever picked up.
So all we got is the "everything pops up and spawns from scratch" hard instancing. Hopping from one place to another, even if they're only 30km apart. They're still entirely different places without any connection.

 

[Matt]

matchmaking should still be instant (because it's not really doing anything in case of solo).

I think it still has to do something - its not matching you with other players (the matchmaking part) but it still has to get you connected to an edServer, register what system you're in, what your ship and cargo is and all that jazz. I agree though it would be nice if this was faster.

Not sure if it is a matter of just "more servers" or not - they have coded the edServer up in PHP I believe. Immediate instinctive alarm bells start running about performance of PHP vs something like Java (or even Python), but I suspect the bottleneck is not the code handling the connections but the databases since FD are rightly super-keen to ensure that everything critical to the player (ships, money, experience etc) is atomic and safe and secure which requires longer-running things like proper database transactions etc

 

[Koren]

I asked a while back if we would ever get hypercruise between systems as an option instead of jumping. They said it was on the list, but very low priority.

 

[Hollow_Knight]

Seems like a pretty core part of how the simulation works to me, and I'd imagine removing it would be a giant pain in the backside.

I'm totally fine with transitions as-is.