Netcode

[IndigoWyrd]

100/40 fibre connection through decent hardware that is correctly optimised. Zero issues with any other online game, cannot wing with friends in ED, cannot connect with any degree of reliability to Multi-crew instances when it does connect it drops out minutes later. .

What about those friends of yours? Are they on lightspeed net like you, or can-and-string net? Could the problem be them, and not you?

Ever wireshark your connection?

See, this is a great example. I'd wager the problem is not with this poster's service or network. Sounds like a pretty decent setup, much like my own.

So if we're not the problem... that just leaves.. Everybody Else, The Rest of the Internet, The Servers, and then the game netcode.

People love to go "This game/netcode/servers" suck, and many times, even most times, the problem is none of those, and is, in fact, a router hub somewhere between the player and the server farm, where a family of squirrels has made a nest, or an ISP with blackholed router they haven't tracked down, or that tree branch down the street that taps the cable when it's windy.

 

[Soopyyy]

What about those friends of yours? Are they on lightspeed net like you, or can-and-string net? Could the problem be them, and not you?

Ever wireshark your connection?

See, this is a great example. I'd wager the problem is not with this poster's service or network. Sounds like a pretty decent setup, much like my own.

So if we're not the problem... that just leaves.. Everybody Else, The Rest of the Internet, The Servers, and then the game netcode.

People love to go "This game/netcode/servers" suck, and many times, even most times, the problem is none of those, and is, in fact, a router hub somewhere between the player and the server farm, where a family of squirrels has made a nest, or an ISP with blackholed router they haven't tracked down, or that tree branch down the street that taps the cable when it's windy.

Elite Dangerous is the only game I have any connectivity issues with. Kinda indicates Elite Dangerous has a problem.

 

[This Forum Sucks]

lots of words

I get that you've got a hair up your crack about armchair developers and that's entirely understandable but the idea that the reason this game has so many issues keeping three or four people networked together is because those people aren't using industrial grade networking equipment is absolutely laughable. You're entirely right to say that people who frame their complaint as "Frontier must be staffed by idiots, fixing this would be simple" are talking rubbish but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem or that the cause of the problem is entirely out of Frontier's hands. Plenty of other games manage to network much larger numbers of players for much longer periods of time without falling over on the regular, so I think it's fair to say there are at least some issues to deal with.

But we see it all the time here - some Industry Giant incognito in the forums sees everything that's wrong - and offers up not item one of a solution, forming a human ouroboros in the process.
I like that.. "Ouroboros Syndrome".. that's what it will be called from now on.

Why not "a bad case of the IndigoWyrds"?

 

[Asp Explorer]

Elite Dangerous is the only game I have any connectivity issues with. Kinda indicates Elite Dangerous has a problem.

Look at your logs and it'll probably tell you why.

 

[Soopyyy]

Been logged and reported 10,000,000 times now. Never get a response from Fdev.

 

[rote1]

Elite Dangerous is the only game I have any connectivity issues with. Kinda indicates Elite Dangerous has a problem.

Elite is also on of very few games using a p2p architecture and thus relying on a properly set-up connection. Most other games use a client server model and you rarely need to open ports via port forwarding for those. Check out the links in the thread I posted earlier, maybe they prove helpful.

 

[Soopyyy]

Lots of games use P2P these days, and their connectivity is sucky as well. For Honor was a good example, but ED's is just particularly bad unfortunately.

 

[Ian Skippy]

nvm...

 

[Crank Larson]

Been logged and reported 10,000,000 times now. Never get a response from Fdev.

Really? Forum search can't find any posts by you in the bug forum at all. It's missing all 10,000,000 of them? Or are you referring to other people's network issues (which have no bearing on your own, unless you are playing with them)?

And the logs being referred to were the ones that E: D generates - you may find, if you look, the reason for disconnection.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I get that you've got a hair up your crack about armchair developers and that's entirely understandable but the idea that the reason this game has so many issues keeping three or four people networked together is because those people aren't using industrial grade networking equipment is absolutely laughable. You're entirely right to say that people who frame their complaint as "Frontier must be staffed by idiots, fixing this would be simple" are talking rubbish but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem or that the cause of the problem is entirely out of Frontier's hands. Plenty of other games manage to network much larger numbers of players for much longer periods of time without falling over on the regular, so I think it's fair to say there are at least some issues to deal with.


Why not "a bad case of the IndigoWyrds"?

To the first - A lot of other games do manage, and some of them do use a P2P model, but they are diminutive in scale to Elite, in both terms of playable area and/or player bases.
But at least we've finally reached a consensus that "armchair network engineers" are talking out their cracks.
And yes, there could very well be issues outside of Frontier's scope.
But yes, there could also be other issues that are within their realm as well - I've run in wings of 2, 3 and 4 people many a time, without the slightest issue.
I've also run wings of 2 that have been non-stop issue-fests, from inert black screens with no way out except to kill the Client.exe or connections that come and go faster than bad ideas.
I've seen plenty of connectivity problems with Multi-pew, and I've had sessions that were problem-free.
What I don't have is a definitive "this is where the problem lies". All I know is that I've done everything I can do to not be part of the problem.

As to the second - One cannot have a bad case of me. One can only have a good case of me. Because having a case of me means applying logic to one's thought process, a fully functional sense of humor, and an ample supply of common sense. The only people this is bad for are those running for public office.

 

[stevesideas]

All those people complaining about the OP being a back seat developer feel free to carry on giving more money to FD then. You obviously have a great experience with the multiplayer features of this game. Whilst others (I have no figures to spout) have a crap experience with rubber banding, dc's and generally a pretty crap time. I haven't yet had a "good" multicrew experience and see commanders rubber banding quite a lot. It literally is only ED that gives me this issue. Every other online game I play with many more people in an instance or game doesn't suffer from this issue to this degree. Only one or two alpha games released by Indy developers suffer with similar problems.

 

[Farmboy]

Networked games have been around a long time. The first I played was Netrek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek) which was where I first came across UDP and TCP. (this was actually helpful when I got my first a job - supporting networking stacks for PCs)

The use of both UDP and TCP was clever, but it was still a client-server model. You got used to the artefacts caused by dropped UDP packets (torps which didn't disappear after their natural end of life, delayed updates of various game counters).

And you can see similar features in the way Elite is coded - the rubber banding which happens when a ship's position hasn't been updated correctly in your client for some time, and new data arrives.

Anyway - when playing Netrek, the only numbers which matter were your RTT to the server, and the rate of packet loss you were likely to suffer from. Playing at 250-300ms RTT on a US-based server did handicap players from the UK a bit, but it was useable. When you consider Elite's networking model, where there are n^2/2 peer to peer connections to consider in an instance with n players, there is a lot more which can go wrong. If my connection to any one of those players is slow they they, or I, are going to have fun rubber banding artefacts relating to the assets their or my client controls. I doubt this is an easy problem to solve. Having server farms which could host instances might improve things, but at a significant ongoing running cost - and that certainly doesn't fit the non-subscription economic model.

It wouldn't hurt to have easy access to network statistics for other players in your instance - I can see some possible edge in knowing other players are in your instance in real time, so maybe just in logs. If this information is there already, better visibility of how to find it would be useful (there seems to be much which is only detectable via deep trawling of the forum, which I find unfortunate). That sort of data would counter immersion, but would aid practical multiplayer gameplay quite noticeably. If you can see someone who is trying to join your wing or crew your ship has horrid network RTT to you, at least you can make informed decisions about how to handle that.

Rear Admiral Yoda, EuroTwinks (INL)

 

[This Forum Sucks]

A lot of other games do manage, and some of them do use a P2P model, but they are diminutive in scale to Elite, in both terms of playable area and/or player bases.

Obviously I'm not claiming to be an expert but I'm not convinced that the size of the player base has much bearing (if any) on the stability of a peer to peer connection between a small number of players. Same goes for playable area, to be honest - if you're talking about the fact that the entire Milky Way is simulated, how does that have any bearing on things? A game instance is an absolutely tiny fraction of that playable area.

having a case of me means applying logic to one's thought process

How many fedoras are you wearing right now do you own?

 

[Asp Explorer]

I picked up a few $25 landfill Android tablets for monitoring such things.

 

[Wylie28]

Elite is also on of very few games using a p2p architecture and thus relying on a properly set-up connection. Most other games use a client server model and you rarely need to open ports via port forwarding for those. Check out the links in the thread I posted earlier, maybe they prove helpful.

One of the few? Almost every major multiplayer game uses P2P for matchmaking. Everything from LOL, to COD, to Rocket Leage, to GTA. BF being the only series that has always used dedicated servers. ED does not have worse netcode than any other game. However bad connections are far more obvious in ED than any other game. In other games when there is a connetion failure it just continues matchmaking unitl you and all your friends can connect to someone. There is zero indication of connection failures. In ED you notice because you try to connect to people specifically. So when that fails, you notice. Because that person you are trying to play with, isnt there. ED doesnt have more problems, ED just has more noticable ones.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Woah, i thought this was going to be your typical "P2P sucks, FD should use C/S" rant thread. Pleasantly surprised to see some constructive suggestions that might (or who knows, might not) be feasable.

Kudos CK, a quality post.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Obviously I'm not claiming to be an expert but I'm not convinced that the size of the player base has much bearing (if any) on the stability of a peer to peer connection between a small number of players. Same goes for playable area, to be honest - if you're talking about the fact that the entire Milky Way is simulated, how does that have any bearing on things? A game instance is an absolutely tiny fraction of that playable area.


How many fedoras are you wearing right now do you own?

It does in that player data has to be reported back to the servers, instanced or not. That means traffic to and from the servers.
All that traffic has an effect.

As for my hats...

One fedora, black, with a white silk band, and black ostrich plume tucked into it.
I also own a topper, a stovepipe, a balmoral bonnet, a tam, a beret, and an ushanka I wear deer hunting.

But I don't wear any of them with any particular frequency.

 

[This Forum Sucks]

It does in that player data has to be reported back to the servers, instanced or not. That means traffic to and from the servers.
All that traffic has an effect.

This is purely speculation on your part though. Also, isn't the entire point of peer to peer that very little data is in fact reported back to the servers? I know people used to be able to hack themselves indestructible ships and whatnot purely because there was no server authentication of the values their client was reporting (though I don't know how much of that is still possible nowadays). This doesn't explain why you brought up playable area either.

It's worth pointing out that the issues with the "netcode" go beyond "I had lag and/or couldn't connect". There was an issue with wings for a while where certain events could cause the game to hardlock for everyone but the wing leader. It's still possible to get that old bug where having two wing members at a station causes one of them to see the low detail version of the station interior and prevents rotational correction from working. I've had a bug occur a few times in multicrew where the helm sees the NPCs in a signal source disappear in the middle of combat (accompanied by the high wake sound effect) but the gunner and fighter can still see them and kill them (though they'll see each other shooting at different locations while striking the same ship). It's not uncommon for multicrew sessions to desynch entirely and have the crew remain in supercruise while the helm drops to normal space or vice-versa but without a disconnection occuring. It's hard to see how any of these issues would be fixed by spending far too much money on a router, to be honest.

 

[DragonIV]

It obvious all these people who've never seen network problems in a game do not play Rocket Lag. Did I say Lag? Meant League. Rocket League.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

I regularly wear my Fez and a silk morning robe and ostrich slippers...
Out side I do prefer my Pith helmet, and khaki dress + long stockings.
Its easier to seem being mysterious then
Fedoras are yesteryear really


Cheers Cmdr's