Netcode

[Crimson Kaim]

I know I know, it's one of the words you do not like. Netcode or servers are really disgusting words to use as tehy are connected with effort and experience requirenments. As we all know and you have stated, Frontier, your netcode is a really basic and simple one and not one of high quality. This is okay considering the lack of multiplayer games you have successfully published.

Your strengths clearly lie somewhere else such as sound or visual design. And yet, this is still no excuse for the not working netcode we have since 2.3. And on top of that, incredibly high pings.
Just had 3 fights in a row with a disgusting and unacceptable ping with 4 digits. Aka 1000ms+.
This is a whole second of delay for a real time simulation game. The results are ghost rams, crashed instances, multiple instances, ghost rockets, rubberbanding, desynchs, DCs and all the bad events you could imagine.
Wings have a terrible lifespan now of 1 minute? And then they break even though noone left the wing. Sometimes when I hit ships (NPCs or CMDRs with other players in one instance) I visually see the impact and after a couple of seconds it recognizes the hit. It is extremely annoying especially in RES or CZs where you have a burst weapon like plasmas or railguns or frags with what you want to secure the kill with. Or just avoid ramming someone or something. You literally PASS that ship and after that you wonder why your shields are down and your hull took 10% damage. Even though you just passed that ship 2 seconds ago and it clearly shows up on your scanners BEHIND your ship, it still hits you because someone in the instance has bamboo connection wires and slows down the whole instance.

Read a damn book. Such as "Netcode for beginners in multiplayer games". I am sure there is plenty of lecture that describes in detail on how to properly implement a netcode. One way would obviously be a server network that takes some of the workload so bamboo players can catch up (sorry Rinzler, move to the other side of the damn globe ).
Quite often friendly PvP matches get abandoned due to too high latency.

So how to solve it?

1. Display ping to other peers in the instance via a shortcut like ctrl+p
2. Add a setting in the options menu that sets a maximum ping and packet loss limit so the MM servers doesn't instance us with such players that cause a whole instance to stutter
3. Keep instances laoded for a minute even though no player is in it. Especially in highly populated systems like CGs or HQs this could be useful to allow for smooth transitions and get rid of the perma-supercruise tunne lof doom.
4. Allow for permanent loaded instances where players are located for a really long time (24 hours a day) for example at stations.
5. Under consideration of 2. do not allow for multiple instances if the player settings allow that or if the workload is low as of only 3 players in an instance.

Bonus: Provide a host that takes over control of 'ghost CMDR ships' in case someone 'unintentionally' DCs for atleast 3 minutes.


I can play with the other side of the world in China with a 300ms ping, which is terrible for a shooter but somewhat acceptable for Elite. It really is a stupid thing to do to restart the whole damn game so I can play with my friends. Even winging and friending up doesn't work, the result is a stupid wing signal 500 meters away.
Netocode 0/10. Wouldn't recommend.
/somewhat of a rant

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Just had 3 fights in a row with a disgusting and unacceptable ping with 4 digits. Aka 1000ms+.t

How are you getting that number?

 

[Crimson Kaim]

How are you getting that number?

Measuring the pass-by and hitreg difference with frames. I record with 60fps and can tell per frame how long it takes for the game to recognize the ram or impact. With weapons it is quite easy. With rams I take the closest location of both ships and count how many frames it takes till the damage is applied (even though we never rammed on my end in the first place). Rearrange 1000ms to 60Hz and you get the difference. In this case it took 65 frames so slightly over 1000ms. With Rinzler who is located on the other end of the globe it takes up to 3000ms.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Have you submitted your resume yet? Clearly you've got this all figured out. Hit me up on payday and I'll put you in touch with the dealership I bought my Aston Martin from and you can start living the high life.

 

[zarrazee]

I love these "FD, you're not doing your job properly" threads.

Over the last 2 years I've learnt about:

• software development cycle
• coding
• business management
• design
• storyboarding
• art
• marketing
• textures
• modelling
• audio

and a host of other things.

Experts, please continue to post this stuff, it's really fascinating and interesting. I'm sure Frontier are very grateful for all your input.

 

[DoctorDanny]

Lets all bury our heads in the sand and pretend the netcode for this game is great shall we?

OP a resident apologist will be with you soon to explain how this is all your fault as you haven't reprogrammed your router, like we all did in the 90s.

 

[shadragon]

Lets all bury our heads in the sand and pretend the netcode for this game is great shall we?

OP a resident apologist will be with you soon to explain how this is all your fault as you haven't reprogrammed your router, like we all did in the 90s.

Sometimes the netcode is at fault, most times something else is to blame. Just because you are playing Elite when you have net issues, does not automatically mean it's Elites fault.

No one can fix fat fingered users.

Here's an basic overview of TCP/IP - https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/gg243376.pdf

 

[Crimson Kaim]

I love these "FD, you're not doing your job properly" threads.

Over the last 2 years I've learnt about:

• software development cycle
• coding
• business management
• design
• storyboarding
• art
• marketing
• textures
• modelling
• audio

and a host of other things.

Experts, please continue to post this stuff, it's really fascinating and interesting. I'm sure Frontier are very grateful for all your input.

I am no expert at that topic but I don't have to be to compare Elite with any other given multiplayer game and recognize that Elite has by far the worst results. Take Battlefield, GuildWars 2, Rome 2 or whatever game that has the possibility to play with other players. I RARELY see a ping of over 1000ms and even more rare is a DC. Sure, upon release of the whole game it might be buggy at first but say after a few weeks or a month all the major bugs are gone .. and gone FOREVER. Elite, however, presents us with a daily ruined netcode that goes worse from patch to patch, eventually gets fixed a little bit and then breaks again. It's unrelyable at best and completely broken at worst.

It is what it is: The worst netcode I personally have ever experienced in full priced games.

- - - Updated - - -

Lets all bury our heads in the sand and pretend the netcode for this game is great shall we?

OP a resident apologist will be with you soon to explain how this is all your fault as you haven't reprogrammed your router, like we all did in the 90s.

Port forwarding, eh?

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Lets all bury our heads in the sand and pretend the netcode for this game is great shall we?

OP a resident apologist will be with you soon to explain how this is all your fault as you haven't reprogrammed your router, like we all did in the 90s.

Better the sand than where far too many heads are buried around here...

Some people probably have 90's routers, or routers they picked up at the local electronics store.

Not everybody wants to shell out the money for a real router:

And instead use:

 

[shadragon]

Not everybody wants to shell out the money for a real router:

Regardless of what you paid for your router, not many folks know how to configure and optimize it properly.

As for the 'flawed netcode' comment from earlier, it's so bad only 101 CMDR's can fit in an instance. However will we live with such limits?

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...d-Instance-at-Sagittarius-A*-(Distant-Worlds)

 

[UnhappyDev]

As we all know and you have stated, Frontier, your netcode is a really basic and simple one and not one of high quality.

Where did they state this?

 

[Flavourless]

Anybody using the term "netcode" shows they are talking from a pure gamer perspective and is clueless about the professional aspects of actual software development.
/close thread

 

[This Forum Sucks]

Better the sand than where far too many heads are buried around here...

Some people probably have 90's routers, or routers they picked up at the local electronics store.

Not everybody wants to shell out the money for a real router:

"People have their heads up their backsides" says the man who goes on to suggest that the problem is people playing this video game using consumer electronics like a bunch of idiotic scrubs or something, I don't even know.

 

[Crank Larson]

Ah, another back seat developer. We need a new forum for all of them, there are too many!

Code is not going to fix a ping of 1000ms+... You've got network issues.

 

[CMDR MERANGO]

Aside from a small issue I had jumping from a system in CG, since the drop of 2.3, I have never had such a GOOD connection playing the game!!!!!! Just sayin CMIV

 

[smiths121]

Well with the multi-player aspect being peer 2 peer, all FD can do is adjust the matchmaking to take into account ping. Be able to set what you are willing to put up with, as suggested by OP is not a bad idea.

Simon

 

[rote1]

Setting up your connection properly is much more important for Elite than it is for most other games, because of the p2p model used. Please consider posting in my threat here in order for us to get a sticky regarding this in the forums:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...rwarding-now-that-we-have-multicrew-and-wings

Bonus: it also contains the link to the official guide on how to set up your connection and a link to a PSA about ipv6 users.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

"People have their heads up their backsides" says the man who goes on to suggest that the problem is people playing this video game using consumer electronics like a bunch of idiotic scrubs or something, I don't even know.

The internet has grown substantially. In days gone by, when 56k was the king of connections, we didn't have full or half-page streaming audio-visual ads for everything everywhere.
High-end games featured still images, and PC speaker generated tones. A very far cry from what we have today.
And while consumer-grade appliances may be suited for routine use in normal, everyday use, they are not always up to the task of the much higher demands placed on them by today's AAA titles, or the myriad of devices present in home networks - my own home features 5 PC's, 3 laptops, 3 cellular phones, 4 smart TV's, 2 Fire sticks, 2 Roku, 2 PS3's, a PS4, an ESX server host running Exchange, an FTP site, 2 dedicated gaming servers, and a myriad different virtual machines at different times. And that's just on VLANs 1 and 2. I also have a system of security cameras (14) on their own VLAN as well as well as a wireless bridge to the back of the property (a little over 2 acres).

And while my own configuration is a bit more intensive than the average home user, my point is that home networks often include a lot more devices that we realize and standard home-use devices are often overwhelmed by home usage these days. Sure, the latest-greatest-biggest-most-expensivist thing the local electronics store with "Optimized for Gaming" tag on the box sounds really good, but when it comes right down to it, it's still the equivalent of entering your right-off-the-dealer-lot Corvette in the Indi 500. They really can't handle the task.

And that's just for those who make an effort to keep up with technology. Far too many people do not. A large percentage of PC users will keep the same hardware, or have only minor upgrades done ever few years, and nearly no one looks at things like their Routers or even the cabling unless something actually fails, at least in this percentage of users. For the larger part, this is not a problem, and they never notice the difference. Multiplayer Solitaire isn't demanding enough to stress their equipment.

And there you have it.

"Head Inversion Syndrome" however, has less to do with what equipment people are running, and a whole lot more to do with the mouths (or virtual mouths) they run. It's easy to point fingers and say "See, that's the problem" and never offer item one as a solution. We have syndicated television and radio shows hosted by famous names making millions who do exactly this, and they're completely worthless (and now we have one less, since the network fired one of them). Saying the people who designed and developed Elite don't know what they're doing, or should read some book or the like is just another such example.

Clearly they must know what they're doing or they wouldn't have made it through the hiring process.

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.

 

[Soopyyy]

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.

 

[rote1]

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.

Have you enabled port forwarding in the router and the windows firewall?
Also, in case you have an IPv6 connection, check out the links in the thread I posted above.