Hardware & Technical Networking settings and these wonderful statistics ...

[Crimson Kaim]

... show clearly that there are urgently some improvements needed. Just got back into the game after replacing my HOTAS. First I was impressed by the network statistics in the networking section. Didn't realize there was something like that before.
So I checked what was in there before I launched into the game "Average ping time: 59 ms". Hm doesn't seem bad at all, that is a good connection actually. Okay, let's go to a CG and do some casual pew pew with other players.
My opponent was having a full hitscan gunship and I had some cannons and railguns. Later on, I switched to my FAS whic hwas faster than my Gunship so I could try outmanouvering him. And WHAT THE ACTUAL *beep* like seriously is that?! When I pass my opponent, HE MAY NOT APPLY DAMAGE TO MY SHIP ANYMORE. He was now using frags and naive as I am I was expecting to be outside his line of fire when I am behind him. So I change my pips to 0-4-2 to boost turn and come back again for another salvo of missiles and plasmas. And weheeeeey, suddenly my shields are offline. ...?...??...!???.!!!???!?
I mean, logically this isn't possible. I am behind him, already turned my nose towards him and then I see my shields go offline, recieving damage. His full salvo of frag shots were fire like tw oseconds previously but the netcode is so incredibly slow and dleivered that information seconds later, which is far far away from what is actually displayed.

So I am fighting ghosts again.

I later checked my network settings for the ping statistic. 500ms FIVE-HUNDRED?!
I mean on AVERAGE?! This means that there are most likely spikes lasting up to seconds and this is unacceptable.

My connection is clear and I am not running any up or downloads. I can downlaod 5 MB/s and upload 1 MB/s which should be more than enough to establish a stable and fast connection to anyone in the game. Sure, I may get high pings to other players from the other side of the globe but in all other games this is a maximum of ~300ms. Considering my opponent was located basically right around the corner a maximum of 100ms would be appropiate with an average of say 50ms. But no, I experience 500ms on AVERAGE.

TL;DR: Network settings confirmed my complaints of the last two years. Netcoding is terrible and far below today's minimum requirenments and standarts. FDev try to achieve this: maximum of 300ms for any connection around the globe, maximum of 100ms for players living close to eachother.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Speed of light isn't going to change soon I'm afraid.

ETA - your ISP is probably utterly terrible too.

 

[Nick Sticks]

5 MB/s down and 1 MB/s up.
So you're the one slowing down my instance....
.
I wouldn't say that was fast enough for good play.
That said since the latest update I (and others) have noticed rubber banding and some stuttering that could be network related.
.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

5 MB/s down and 1 MB/s up.
So you're the one slowing down my instance....
.
I wouldn't say that was fast enough for good play.
That said since the latest update I (and others) have noticed rubber banding and some stuttering that could be network related.
.

5 Megabytes per second downstream
And I see. It's extremely gamebreaking and doesn't allow for multiplayer at all. Even NPCs start to teleport around and we get alot of desynchs. That said, I consider this kind of multiplayer as not working. An AFMU is required to repair the network module as it is continously malfunctioning at 15% integrity. :|

Speed of light isn't going to change soon I'm afraid.

ETA - your ISP is probably utterly terrible too.

Light can surround the earth 7.5 times per second.

That said, I know my ISP has improved throughout the years but it still causes some issues from time to time, however, I doubt they do it explicitly for Elite Dangerous whereas other games are unaffected and work fine.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Errr, no offense mate, but:

1) Ping is to server and other players. As stated by support, 500ms is fine. Server connection is not related to 'ghost ships', and tends to be rather high, skewing the average. My ping floats a lot, but last time at the CG I had a ping of 300ms, and no ghosting/rubberbanding. The latter, btw, also has to do with the timing/order of packages received, not the delay itself.
2) The later is due to the ping between you and the other player. Thats why its called p2p.

Simply put: if you want to find out what happens you need more detailed stats. Run third-party network monitoring software and check ping with the actual player.

 

[Demascus]

The instance is hosted locally. If their internet is crap or live on the other side of the planet, then your in for a bad time.

 

[4gui4]

technical terms aside, is delay game

 

[mp4x]

I'm in Australia, myself and everyone around me plays with a 300~500 ping. Elite still plays fine for us, and that's sometimes connecting through a VPN [on top of that ping] to access the USA.

What's your packet loss like?

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Errr, no offense mate, but:

1) Ping is to server and other players. As stated by support, 500ms is fine. Server connection is not related to 'ghost ships', and tends to be rather high, skewing the average. My ping floats a lot, but last time at the CG I had a ping of 300ms, and no ghosting/rubberbanding. The latter, btw, also has to do with the timing/order of packages received, not the delay itself.
2) The later is due to the ping between you and the other player. Thats why its called p2p.

Simply put: if you want to find out what happens you need more detailed stats. Run third-party network monitoring software and check ping with the actual player.

Do you know any software that allows me to record detailled data? I am highly interested in this kind of stuff. Also I am aware that this is P2P but I thought this statistic would consider all connections (to server AND other peers).
Also, is there any way to block/deny connections that exceed a set connection requiernment? For example that I won't get instanced with players that have incredible bad connections or live on the other half of the globe?

 

[ErichZann]

Ive had so many similar problems with people I know have a good connection (and I do have too), its really EDs netcode mainly, and not the connection of the players mainly (of course obviously sometimes it can be also).

Fighting someone and wondering why I get hit by his plasmas all the time although it feels I should have evaded. Then after a few minutes I make a big mistake, boost straight into the incoming plasmas and think "oh, here we go", and THEN I suddenly take no damage at all... Quite stupid.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Do you know any software that allows me to record detailled data? I am highly interested in this kind of stuff. Also I am aware that this is P2P but I thought this statistic would consider all connections (to server AND other peers).
Also, is there any way to block/deny connections that exceed a set connection requiernment? For example that I won't get instanced with players that have incredible bad connections or live on the other half of the globe?

I've send a PM to another community member, I can recommend some basic stuff but if he's willing pretty sure he can outdo me.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

I'm in Australia, myself and everyone around me plays with a 300~500 ping. Elite still plays fine for us, and that's sometimes connecting through a VPN [on top of that ping] to access the USA.

What's your packet loss like?

It's between 0%-1% Pretty low. Packet loss is fine. I am located in germany which means I am close to the UK servers and my opponent was also from germany. The connection should be incredible good but if under these circumstances we bot hexperience insanely high pings as described above then I don't know what connections with US people will be like. As it stands now, multiplayer is unplayable. The latency is simply too high and desynchs and rubberbanding occurs way too often for a game like Elite that is now released for over two years. It urgently needs major improvements.

Ive had so many similar problems with people I know have a good connection (and I do have too), its really EDs netcode mainly, and not the connection of the players mainly (of course obviously sometimes it can be also).

Fighting someone and wondering why I get hit by his plasmas all the time although it feels I should have evaded. Then after a few minutes I make a big mistake, boost straight into the incoming plasmas and think "oh, here we go", and THEN I suddenly take no damage at all... Quite stupid.

This happens to me quite frequently. It's insane. I always have to guess where my opponent will be and where my ghost is displayed to his future self. The difference is too high.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Plenty of them.

Try Wireshark - but be prepared to do a lot of reading and fully understand what it's doing before you use it, or you will find yourself hopelessly lost and swamping yourself.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Ive had so many similar problems with people I know have a good connection (and I do have too), its really EDs netcode mainly, and not the connection of the players mainly (of course obviously sometimes it can be also).

Thats not really how networks work. Many people think 'their connection' is like 'their car': its either good or not. But thats not how it works. For a good connection you need a good car, but also good roads to your destination. It is perfectly possible to have a good car, and great roads with little traffic to your workplace, while also having terrible traffic jams when going to another location. There are basically three components: FDs netcode, your 'car' and the road. Unfortunately the road is different for all of us, and depending on who we connect with. And if the road is terrible, there is little either you or FD can do. With some games it doesnt matter much (turn-based like Civ, or semi-turn/tick based like Eve), but for 6DOF with many variables needing to be sends, ED and such games are very succeptible to bad roads.

 

[Noctover]

In fairness FDs servers/networking are awful. If i play ED for a day i will drop to menu at least 8 times. To put that into perspective i also play The Division and Killing Floor, i cannot remember the last time i ever disconnected from a server to the menu (meaning it isn't a poor connection on my end).

Really needs bringing in to this century.

Cannot count the amount of times I've nearly run out of fuel because of disconnected several times in a row jumping to the next system, ship swelling the fuel only to end up back in the system i was already in.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Plenty of them.

Try Wireshark - but be prepared to do a lot of reading and fully understand what it's doing before you use it, or you will find yourself hopelessly lost and swamping yourself.

I am happy to invest effort and time if it educates me in that matter. The more data the better. Just so I have a reason to blame FDev for delivering a low quality netcode. Well also because I find it interesting.
See if it turns out that I have a bottleneck somewhere I am fine and can fix it but only Elite has such incredible bad MP connections which are now in a state of unplayable. It's so bad that's no longer inconvinient but gamebreaking. Too much issues and problems that are created soley due to bad netcode and high latency.

 

[Asp Explorer]

It's not (always) FD's fault. Yes - at times it was but they have been pretty good at fixing stuff.

Their networking implementation is actually pretty robust - if you look at the guts of it you can see it's both simple and really quite clever.

I'd start asking your home router and your ISP questions way before I look for fundamental flaws in FD's networking design.

When you really think about it - the task at hand is really quite daunting. You are trying to connect three things that don't particularly want to talk to each other, with an unknown number of unknowns in between them, that are constantly changing, and further unknowns locally trying to do the exact opposite to keep you secure.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Thats not really how networks work. Many people think 'their connection' is like 'their car': its either good or not. But thats not how it works. For a good connection you need a good car, but also good roads to your destination. It is perfectly possible to have a good car, and great roads with little traffic to your workplace, while also having terrible traffic jams when going to another location. There are basically three components: FDs netcode, your 'car' and the road. Unfortunately the road is different for all of us, and depending on who we connect with. And if the road is terrible, there is little either you or FD can do. With some games it doesnt matter much (turn-based like Civ, or semi-turn/tick based like Eve), but for 6DOF with many variables needing to be sends, ED and such games are very succeptible to bad roads.

Then the task is to track down these roads and not take them. With a world wide net it is an insane job to do but after all it just doesn't change the fact that Elite is the only game that has such a bad netcode to be considered pre 2000th century technology.
Old MMOs had better connections. For example we were playing with like 50-100 players on one map and it was a 3D game with flying players who are PvPing all over the place. That said, this game was published in like 2006 iirc.
So yeah, there is no excuse for FD to deliver such a bad netcode. And it's only slow connection or roads. Also stuff like parallel instances are gamebreaking as you have to restart your game in order to instance with your friends/wingmates. It's a disaster.

 

[Ian Phillips]

Too much issues and problems that are created soley due to bad netcode and high latency.

Funny how I never have any problems like you are describing, if the netcode is as bad as you are stating.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

It's not FD's fault.

Their networking implementation is actually pretty robust - if you look at the guts of it you can see it's both simple and really quite clever.

I'd start asking your home router and your ISP questions way before I look for fundamental flaws in FD's networking design.

Yes it IS FDev's fault. Any game I play in multiplayer has a maximum ping of say ~ 100ms. Having 100ms in Elite is a godlike connection. All the issues apply exclusively to Elite. I do not own a copy of any game with similar issues. Even Indie games or alpha games provide a better connection. Simply due to the fact that it's only for Elite we can comprehend that it is indeed FDev's fault.

I got a fast connection, make sure to stop all up and downloads in the background and ensure that Elite can run perfectly on my system. I do everything so Elite can do its job but it's still below today's standards.