Router type in network settings

[Nick Sticks]

What I think he is meaning, is that if you have a restricted network setup (ie non working inbound connections), then you are relying on that the other players in your instance have working inbound, so that your client can connect to them. But if all the players in the instance, have restricted setups, there will be no instance, as you are now unable to establish a connection between the players. This is something we can notice with how long it takes to enter an instance, like jumping into a system, dropping out of super cruise near the space station etc, etc.


So the game detects hey there is already a player in super cruise in the system you are jumping too,a dn that player is in your "part" of the world, like Europe, so lets connect these players, so part of the loading screen, ie the jump animation, is to establish a connection with the player already there.

If that player have fully working NAT setup, then you have no problem connecting to the other player, and you are now both in the same instance. Now the player have reached the station, and drops out of super cruise, and you now becomes the instance holder.
Another player jumps into the system, with a fully working NAT setup, So that player cannot connect to you, but you can connect to the other player, and soon the other player is visible in super cruise, that player is just passing through and is soon jumping away.

Now comes a 3rd player, that have a similar restricted network setup as you, and now that player cannot join your instance, as they cannot establish the connection with you, and you cannot connect to the other player, this will for the other player end up being a longer time to load the instance, as the game will try to establish a connection, and then eventually give up, back in the days, this meant a connection error for that player, or just sitting there in limbo, like forever... now the game seems to realise that connection is not possible, and a new instance is created for the other player...



This is a very simplified version on how this works, and if there are more players, the game try to bounce and share the traffic between those players who can talk to each other. So it is quite possible, that if there already was another player in your instance that have a working NAT, now that player could relay data between you and the newly arrived player, and this of course can introduces lag.


And there are several ways that you can establish connections between two clients behind NAT, and which of these works is highly dependant on your router and what settings your router has. Some are very competent and forgiving, and others are severely restricted. and to make it worse, it is not possible for all to choose their router, as some are forced to use whatever router their ISP is giving them... Hence why this is so complicated.


If you want to dig deeper into what the different variants of "NAT" means, and what restrictions we can encounter here.
I can recommend this page.
https://dh2i.com/kbs/kbs-2961448-understanding-different-nat-types-and-hole-punching/

Thanks for that well written explanation, it makes sense to me.
I thought the port forwarding thing you can do in the ED network settings was supposed to do that though?
If not, what is it for?

 

[Misty_Dark]

Thanks for that well written explanation, it makes sense to me.
I thought the port forwarding thing you can do in the ED network settings was supposed to do that though?
If not, what is it for?

These settings was added to the UI at the same time they added more NAT options, before that, we had much more limited options and you had to edit a configuration file, that very often reverted the changes, having you to redo it over and over... quite annoying.


By changing these settings, we should in theory be able to limit what attempts the game do to establish a connection, and thus make the loading screen faster, and if you try to force a settings that your router is incompatible with, this will most likely increase loading times, as the game will try to stablish a connection that cannot work. And this does not only affect you, it affects all players trying to instance with you.

 

[Straker]

This whole networking issue would be a great topic for a dev to come on-stream and talk about. They could explain in detail what the game does to get everyone connected and what sorts of problems their code encounters and how they go about dealing with it. They could also discuss how their transaction servers fit in with this, so people understand what parts of the game are server-based and what bits are peer-to-peer.

This whole issue of networking and receiving unexpected packets through a firewall can be a complex topic due to the variety of hardware on the customer's end and the equipment in-between, including the service provider. For example, I use home mobile wireless broadband and am behind Carrier Grade Network Address Translation, which makes things complex for me as I don't directly get a public IP address but a private carrier IP. Having the developers talk about how they deal with these sorts of situations would be useful for all players.

Dealing with the loads of people complaining about instancing issues could be assisted by a developer going into detail about this whole issue - ie not dumbing the discussion down either.

 

[Lex Rottie]

Thanks for that well written explanation, it makes sense to me.
I thought the port forwarding thing you can do in the ED network settings was supposed to do that though?
If not, what is it for?

Basically yea port forwarding should work. You if the nat type says full_cone it has. If it says restricted ot hasn't.

 

[Nick Sticks]

These settings was added to the UI at the same time they added more NAT options, before that, we had much more limited options and you had to edit a configuration file, that very often reverted the changes, having you to redo it over and over... quite annoying.


By changing these settings, we should in theory be able to limit what attempts the game do to establish a connection, and thus make the loading screen faster, and if you try to force a settings that your router is incompatible with, this will most likely increase loading times, as the game will try to stablish a connection that cannot work. And this does not only affect you, it affects all players trying to instance with you.

The weird thing is I don't see the port I've set in the ED Network Settings being used at all.
I did instead see port 6661 being open connecting to ED's Amazon server.

 

[Lex Rottie]

The weird thing is I don't see the port I've set in the ED Network Settings being used at all.
I did instead see port 6661 being open connecting to ED's Amazon served

 

[Lex Rottie]

Is this on your routers dashboard? Does it have upnp next to it? Like I said in my earlier comment I had to open port 60000 along with 5100 to get full_cone nat. I have also opened the necessary ports for steam too. Unsure if that is needed.

 

[Lex Rottie]

It is really convoluted. I honestly think that its down to poor net code. Any other game I play that has p2p multiplayer is just open with me doing nothing as upnp just works for them. Elite nope gotta jump through hoops to make it work. Sometimes I think the community does more work than the devs to get stuff to run properly.

 

[robbyp]

My setup in the UK is a cable modem in pass thru mode into a ASUS RT-N66U router (long in the tooth now but what a great router its been). Asus has UPNP on. Elite has UPNP on.

It all works. Multiple PCs playing Elite can see each other instances, I can see other players. One over WIFI, one on wired Ethernet. I've never had to go for port forwarding etc.

IMHO some routers are not of the same quality as others, as Nick says.

 

[Saltyseadog]

My setup in the UK is a cable modem in pass thru mode into a ASUS RT-N66U router (long in the tooth now but what a great router its been). Asus has UPNP on. Elite has UPNP on.

It all works. Multiple PCs playing Elite can see each other instances, I can see other players. One over WIFI, one on wired Ethernet. I've never had to go for port forwarding etc.

IMHO some routers are not of the same quality as others, as Nick says.

I have a similar set up to you but the vast majority of advice in regard to UPnP is to switch it off as it is a security risk and can allow a back door to unwanted attention. So I have mine switched off in both my router and Elite Dangerous and mine works fine like that. Only thing I have noticed is that Odyssey takes a little longer to load than Horizons. In my port forwarding I have it set to 5100 on FD's recommendation and was unaware until today that I could use 5100,5101,5102 or 5103 as a forwarding port for ED, which brings me to my question which is, should Odyssey and Horizons have different forwarding ports?.

 

[GonzTheMalificent]

With different loading times, in all probability we should.

Which begs more questions than it answers!

 

[Nick Sticks]

Is this on your routers dashboard? Does it have upnp next to it? Like I said in my earlier comment I had to open port 60000 along with 5100 to get full_cone nat. I have also opened the necessary ports for steam too. Unsure if that is needed.

No, I'm using the Windows in built Resource Monitor/Network Activity utility from Task Manager/Performance tab.
Then with only the EliteDangerous64.exe selected you can see exactly which port is being opened and which Cmdr's PC's you are connecting to.

I've anonymized the Cmdr's full addresses below.
The sysadmins3.example.com is a weird one.
Nav08 is me.

My issue would be that if you had to open up the specific port 60000 (presumably you are forwarding to your PC) then this would not work if you are running ED on two separate PC's at the same time.

 

[Nick Sticks]

I have a similar set up to you but the vast majority of advice in regard to UPnP is to switch it off as it is a security risk and can allow a back door to unwanted attention. So I have mine switched off in both my router and Elite Dangerous and mine works fine like that. Only thing I have noticed is that Odyssey takes a little longer to load than Horizons. In my port forwarding I have it set to 5100 on FD's recommendation and was unaware until today that I could use 5100,5101,5102 or 5103 as a forwarding port for ED, which brings me to my question which is, should Odyssey and Horizons have different forwarding ports?.

They can both be set the same, you are only playing one or the other.

 

[Lex Rottie]

My setup in the UK is a cable modem in pass thru mode into a ASUS RT-N66U router (long in the tooth now but what a great router its been). Asus has UPNP on. Elite has UPNP on.

It all works. Multiple PCs playing Elite can see each other instances, I can see other players. One over WIFI, one on wired Ethernet. I've never had to go for port forwarding etc.

IMHO some routers are not of the same quality as others, as Nick says.

True but it still doesn't explain why it's only elite that have to jump through hoops. Anyways I've sorted it now. Anyone else on BT having issues post in here and I'll try to help you.

 

[Misty_Dark]

The weird thing is I don't see the port I've set in the ED Network Settings being used at all.
I did instead see port 6661 being open connecting to ED's Amazon server.

The port you set in the game, is for the incoming connection you want the game to use, so that is the port you configure in your router todo port forwarding on, and that is the port other players will use when they try to connect to you.

 

[Nick Sticks]

The port you set in the game, is for the incoming connection you want the game to use, so that is the port you configure in your router todo port forwarding on, and that is the port other players will use when they try to connect to you.

Ok, that's what I thought and as I have all the router port forwarding set up that can only mean no one tried (or needed) to connect with me in that particular session.

 

[Sakashiro]

yea you can easily connect to the servers to play with port restricted but p2p connections to other players requires a full_cone or open nat

No, it doesn't. Please stop the misinformation because it makes people do stupid things such as putting their PCs into the DMZ just to get full cone NAT for ED.

The reason why port restricted NAT isn't a problem is because ED uses UDP hole punching to establish connections between peers. Whenever your ED client attempts to move from one instance to another in open mode, it talks to Frontier's matchmaking server. That server will not only send you a list of peers in an existing instance close to you but also inform those peers that you are attempting to join them. Your client will then send UDP packets to those peers while they will send packets to you. This handshake process will add the necessary NAT table entries to all the routers involved, including the port restricted ones.