Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

WotGTheAgent

WotGTheAgent
They could fix the server problems in less than 24 hours if they started paying AWS more. But that would very, very quickly cost them more to run the servers than whatever money they have coming in. Breakdown from years ago (I think Bootcha and I discussed it) was something like $7m to $10m a month in server costs to keep a steady tick rate of 30. AWS CPU cycles are very, very expensive. Very. This would also solve a ton of physics and collision issues, since CryEngine ties a ton of that directly to server tick rate (stupidly, I might add).

Or they could install their own server hardware which would be a huge undertaking and cost them tens of millions in upfront costs.

Btw even lowballing at $5m a month in server costs, down from the $7m to $10m figure -- that's just for the playerbase they have now. "Server Meshing" or whatever would be...I don't even know. Prohibitively expensive, for sure.
 

Stinja

S
For anyone with the "unclaimable ship" bug, this worked for me:
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/p1qyyz
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/p1qyyz/claim_bug_fix_that_was_posted_in_sc_discord_that/

Although steps i used:
  • open mobiglass
  • ships
  • select Aurora (not bugged)
  • change weapon to a different weapon (do not save)
  • swap between it and Red (bugged)
  • check if save button clickable
  • swap back and forth between ships a lot until lit is
  • note that the Red lock icon will be gone
  • click save loadout on Red
  • go to vehicle retrieval console, claim bugged Red
  • bugged ship goes to timer and can now expedite
(didnt work first attempt so repeated all that again, with also some swapping to system map and missions until ships appear in ship drop down)

I didnt actually retrieve it, as loadout is showing nothing equipped, and in chat people were saying ships are missing pilots seat or cargo bay, but ship is unbugged at least. Apparently jumping servers may now restore ship parts, but havent tested that yet.

YMMV obviously :unsure: o7
 
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Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
WotGTheAgent said:
They could fix the server problems in less than 24 hours if they started paying AWS more. But that would very, very quickly cost them more to run the servers than whatever money they have coming in. Breakdown from years ago (I think Bootcha and I discussed it) was something like $7m to $10m a month in server costs to keep a steady tick rate of 30. AWS CPU cycles are very, very expensive. Very. This would also solve a ton of physics and collision issues, since CryEngine ties a ton of that directly to server tick rate (stupidly, I might add).

Or they could install their own server hardware which would be a huge undertaking and cost them tens of millions in upfront costs.

Btw even lowballing at $5m a month in server costs, down from the $7m to $10m figure -- that's just for the playerbase they have now. "Server Meshing" or whatever would be...I don't even know. Prohibitively expensive, for sure.
Click to expand...
Can you share the details of that 7 to 10 mill estimation? Links to server cost price tables or similar etc?
 

Intrepid3D

Intrepid3D
WotGTheAgent said:
They could fix the server problems in less than 24 hours if they started paying AWS more. But that would very, very quickly cost them more to run the servers than whatever money they have coming in. Breakdown from years ago (I think Bootcha and I discussed it) was something like $7m to $10m a month in server costs to keep a steady tick rate of 30. AWS CPU cycles are very, very expensive. Very. This would also solve a ton of physics and collision issues, since CryEngine ties a ton of that directly to server tick rate (stupidly, I might add).

Or they could install their own server hardware which would be a huge undertaking and cost them tens of millions in upfront costs.

Btw even lowballing at $5m a month in server costs, down from the $7m to $10m figure -- that's just for the playerbase they have now. "Server Meshing" or whatever would be...I don't even know. Prohibitively expensive, for sure.
Click to expand...
$5m / $7m / $10m a month?

CIG average $4.5m a month revenue.

It can't be that expensive, how do games even operate with server costs like that? $20K to $50K a month i get but several million?
 
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Mole HD

Mole HD
Intrepid3D said:
Nope
Click to expand...
To be straight...I haven't had any of the issues plaguing a lot of folks. I've never had an unclaimable ship yet and I haven't had to do a character reset in a desperate attempt to fix it. I keep telling the folk that are doing 3 or 4 of them day after day for the same problem that the authentication servers that are causing the problem in the first place...along with the vanishing mobiglas, broken inventory system and ship managers are the same ones responsible for resetting your character. If that's broken, no amount of character resets is going to fix it, it has to be a server side fix or a server reset, not a client patch...and that's clearly not happening.

The patch ran OK-ish on Friday...not as good as it did during PTU since the inventory and mobiglas errors were there at launch. Since Friday, those servers have been breaking down steadily, getting worse every day and effecting more and more people. The 30k's are what's driven me to stop even trying to play...I was at rage quit territory already even without the massive issues plaguing at least 40% of the folk playing.
 

Intrepid3D

Intrepid3D
Mole HD said:
To be straight...I haven't had any of the issues plaguing a lot of folks. I've never had an unclaimable ship yet and I haven't had to do a character reset in a desperate attempt to fix it. I keep telling the folk that are doing 3 or 4 of them day after day for the same problem that the authentication servers that are causing the problem in the first place...along with the vanishing mobiglas, broken inventory system and ship managers are the same ones responsible for resetting your character. If that's broken, no amount of character resets is going to fix it, it has to be a server side fix or a server reset, not a client patch...and that's clearly not happening.

The patch ran OK-ish on Friday...not as good as it did during PTU since the inventory and mobiglas errors were there at launch. Since Friday, those servers have been breaking down steadily, getting worse every day and effecting more and more people. The 30k's are what's driven me to stop even trying to play...I was at rage quit territory already even without the massive issues plaguing at least 40% of the folk playing.
Click to expand...

All this might not be a bad thing, you're right, and they know it. There is nothing like lighting a fire under someones behind to get them moving.
 

WotGTheAgent

WotGTheAgent
Intrepid3D said:
$5m / $7m / $10m a month?

CIG average $4.5m a month revenue.

It can't be that expensive, how do games even operate with server costs like that? $20 to $50K a month i get but several million?
Click to expand...
I don't know of a single real time, large scale twitch action game with a high server tick rate (25+, although for most real time twitch action games you need 32 or 64 nowadays) that uses AWS. Mostly because it's so cost prohibitive. They are either building and using their own hardware or using established server farms that can slot in specific racks (both might have higher upfront costs, but over time you end up paying a fraction of a fraction for CPU cycles than you would using AWS).
 
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Mole HD

Mole HD
WotGTheAgent said:
Jeez, whatever they've done to their database backend software wise, it's obvious their db hardware needs to be scaled up tremendously.

It could also be poorly written recursive or wasteful queries. I run into those issues constantly, especially in places with higher than average turnaround.
Click to expand...
What Ci¬G need to do in the meantime is wipe the persistence DB. They didn't do it prior to implementing baby persistence with 3.8, which they should have done as a matter of course. We haven't had a persistence DB wipe since then...almost 2 years ago.

Due to currently unaddressed exploits, thousands of players are now buying entire fleets of ships in game and currently have aUEC balances in the billions...which is all being handled by the authentication servers and the backend DB services. Ci¬G have made no attempt to curb the exploits at root or wipe the persistence DB to address those issues alone, never mind the other backend DB problems we're all now suffering. It's time to bite the bullet, upset all the trolls using exploits and those buying billions of aUEC on Ebay from those exploiters and just get it done.
 
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VR Golgot

VR Golgot
WotGTheAgent said:
Btw even lowballing at $5m a month in server costs, down from the $7m to $10m figure -- that's just for the playerbase they have now. "Server Meshing" or whatever would be...I don't even know. Prohibitively expensive, for sure.
Click to expand...

CIG claim costs a lot lower than that in their finance blog:

sJHgfFD.jpg


chFDA8Z.jpg


But hey, maybe that explains the dire performance ;)
 

Intrepid3D

Intrepid3D
WotGTheAgent said:
I don't know of a single real time, large scale twitch action game with a high server tick rate (25+, although for most real time twitch action games you need 32 or 64 nowadays) that uses AWS. Mostly because it's so cost prohibitive. They are either building and using their own hardware or using established server farms that can slot in specific racks.
Click to expand...

A single 64 Core 128 Thread Ryzen EPYC CPU costs $8,000 retail, $20,000 for a 1U rack.

Those are as powerful as server CPU's as it get and AWS use them.

How many SC instances can you run on that? Genuine interest. Any experts around?
 

Mole HD

Mole HD
VR Golgot said:
CIG claim costs a lot lower than that in their finance blog:

sJHgfFD.jpg


chFDA8Z.jpg


But hey, maybe that explains the dire performance ;)
Click to expand...
I think you're closer to the truth than you realise. It doesn't take a Krypton factor of 9.9 to work out that Ci¬G are cutting corners on the server costs. That became blatantly obvious with the first Invictus event back in February...co-incidentally also launched on a Friday and left festering over a weekend ;)
 
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sovapid

sovapid
lets see.....

some random numbers

vCPU = 8
memory = 32GB
system = windows
plan = Standard Reserved Instances


20,000 instances = $4,323,200



hmmm, if CIG is running 20,000 instances, that means there are 1 million concurrent users. If they run one game server per EC2 instance.

Interesting.....
 

Intrepid3D

Intrepid3D
sovapid said:
lets see.....

some random numbers

vCPU = 8
memory = 32GB
system = windows
plan = Standard Reserved Instances


20,000 instances = $4,323,200



hmmm, if CIG is running 20,000 instances, that means there are 1 million concurrent users. If they run one game server per EC2 instance.

Interesting.....
Click to expand...

"1 million concurrent users"
 

Mole HD

Mole HD
thistle said:
She suffers from some difficult health problems, which he's explained at times on stream, I like them both and wish them well.
Click to expand...
I'm the same, I like the pair of them...but I can't imagine Mrs Mole tolerating me going all precious and embarrasing myself publically online on a weekly basis like she seems to do with Mike. Mrs Mole would simply smack some sensible back into me or unplug my PC and chuck it in the skip :)
 
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