Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

Remember Mass Effect? A trilogy where your decisions matter? Only that about in part 2 it must have dawned anyone that exponential story outcomes are impossible to voice act after some point and that is simple compared to "this is my shard and it need be persistent".
The shards will be persistent but it does not mean that what goes into the state of a shard is only determined by the actions in this very shard. Again, like in ED, ¿Que Pasa? will take into account actions from all existing shards to set some general parameters back, in every shard (prices, balance of power, faction reputation).
 
Serious question. For those players having purchased SC land plots for real money, to build bases and whatnot, will they be seen across all shards? I mean, presumably yes, but this is CIG...
I can’t really tell. I’ve been watching the server meshing video lots of times to make sure I understand what they are trying to do but so far it appears the approach is either a bit conflicting or they didn’t give us the whole picture.

For example, why design the system in such way that player can be put in any shard and, potentially be able to switch shard on the fly, if the goal is to have them lock into a specific shard?

Same thing with Orgs, and I think this topic have been mentioned here before, will orgs be locked to specific shards as well?

Then CIG staff comes out saying that single shard is still planned and pretty much makes the whole video just a waste of time… you know, like the “internal system” that will analyze player behavior to determine their preference in terms of PvE/PvP? it feels all the same… I had a melt down in the past because I couldn’t understand why the opted to complicate things instead of just leting the player decide like any other mmo out there!

edit: well, there you have it… that makes it more in line with “each shard is unique”
Post in thread 'Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12'
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/star-citizen-discussion-thread-v12.548510/post-9555060
 
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It is the year 2030. Reliable persistence is in, the 'verse is being sharded like never before, entity graphs are burning hot from all the transactions they need to commit and citizens are enjoying huge space battles between two Idrises and five Arrows.

I have a friend with an LTI MSR. I steal his ship, he reclaims it. Persistence is in, so there are two MSRs now in place of one. For free.

Rinse and repeat.

Economy collapse soon?
Nah... you're being way too optimistic about the year. It'll take at least another decade after that before you have to worry about tanking SC's economy.
 
Just catching up by skim reading the last few (dozen) pages and can anyone help me out here:

My interpretation of recent events is that the mythological server meshing is being scrapped and replaced (via outsourcing).
The "old" method of trying to get all players, static and mobile non-player entities into one persistent 64bit game space (coord system), which is then replicated across mutliple servers that are spun up and down dependant on player numbers, is in the trash can after nearly ten years of trying.
The "new" method will be to spin up/shut down servers/shards, tied to locations in the larger 64 bit game space, dependant on player population within those locations e.g. the limit is set to 50 players per locations shard, 100 turn up at a space station = 2 shards/servers needed (or better a better term might be "compute units") at that location (and its surroundings).
Persistence will be limited to certain player owned stuffz, which will be via a transaction layer from clients to a centralised database and if absolutely necessary replicated out from there to the other shards replicating the relevant location.

If that's a correct rough summary of CIG's drivel (I confess I've not watched it yet, but if there's a vid link I may summon up enough curiosity), this raises many questions:
  • Will the 64bit game space per star system (assuming there's ever more than one) be retained?
  • If retained, how will the 64 bit game space be split up into zones that shards/compute units can serve, given that some might need to be larger than others e.g. you would probably want your smallest zone to be able to contain a whole planet?
  • Will it be using an octree system with octants (cube sub-zones of the largest global game space cube)? (I'm going to assume so for now unless something else is in mind?)
  • Will a "compute unit" be needed for each octant (lowest cube unit in the octree) and be running and ready to accept players (or replication traffic from the central database) if they go there?
  • How will players travelling the larger game space traverse the octants - will they be tracked crossing the octants when quantum jumping/driving, or will they use a loading screen between octants and not bother with the empty spaces in between?
  • If the shards/compute units are going to be dynamically spun up/shut down, how long will that take if they are "from scratch" or replicated from a "template" and populated from the centralised server? (maybe CIG need to invest heavily in elevator music to entertain whilst this happens ;) ).
  • How will the shard/compute unit demand be funded (especially if some are empty)?
  • Given the nearly decade long proliferation of ships and items a player can "own", how big does the centralised database need to be, what are its compute and network requirements and how will this be funded? (Idrisi sales perhaps?) (as cheap as the economies of scale of cloud are, the monthy bills can still mount up)
  • Was any indication given of how long it is going to take to re-write all the entity movement, ownership and transaction code? That sounds to me like they're about to throw (or have thrown) most of a whole franken cadaver away and are now trying rebuild it into a functioning being from a few retained toes.
  • So many more questions.....
 
Here's a summary that doesn't take 8 hours worth of videos to grasp.

It's all the same stuff everyone else uses, with instancing, zones and loading screens. CIG will still claim it's magical fairy dust made from pure distilled backer's tears and dollar bills ground into fine powder. Backers will claim it was always the plan.
 
Hah, so you have your homestead on one shard... but now your friend is also playing, but they have a homestead on a different shard.

What do you do? What do you do?!!!
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The "old" method of trying to get all players, static and mobile non-player entities into one persistent 64bit game space (coord system), which is then replicated across mutliple servers that are spun up and down dependant on player numbers, is in the trash can after nearly ten years of trying.
Wait. They actually never tried. It's still in design phase. Current game network code is still the original CE netcode from 2008 or so. Nothing has been done, ever, to improve upon that. Hence the severe limitations on player count, and the terrible slowdowns during events with too many entities (that add to the network load) in the same area, and the endless problems related to it.

  • Will the 64bit game space per star system (assuming there's ever more than one) be retained?
No reason to change that as it's unrelated.
  • If retained, how will the 64 bit game space be split up into zones that shards/compute units can serve, given that some might need to be larger than others e.g. you would probably want your smallest zone to be able to contain a whole planet?
Seems like this is, kind of, what they are planning to do. The area split seems variable though and may contain the planet and its moons for example.
  • Will it be using an octree system with octants (cube sub-zones of the largest global game space cube)? (I'm going to assume so for now unless something else is in mind?)
You're thinking of what Dual Universe is doing there. Didnt hear anyone at CiG mention how they would split space. Rough diagrams point at a kind of Sphere Of Influence around the actor.
  • Will a "compute unit" be needed for each octant (lowest cube unit in the octree) and be running and ready to accept players (or replication traffic from the central database) if they go there?
They'll be assign to a shard, with other people in the same area unit. Or that's what they let through, so far.
  • How will players travelling the larger game space traverse the octants - will they be tracked crossing the octants when quantum jumping/driving, or will they use a loading screen between octants and not bother with the empty spaces in between?
If they go with the "sphere of influence thing" they'll carry their instance around with them, i suppose. Things may enter or exit that instance depending on server load, distance... Note, this raises further questions on what actors may perform that's persistent (like setting up a planet side base to give an example, or kill an NPC..) and said persistent event drops off the SoI, or get into someone else's SoI, or is just in one shard but not in another one, thus gaining some kind of Shrödinger existence...
  • If the shards/compute units are going to be dynamically spun up/shut down, how long will that take if they are "from scratch" or replicated from a "template" and populated from the centralised server? (maybe CIG need to invest heavily in elevator music to entertain whilst this happens ;) ).
From my knowledge this can be done rather quickly nowadays with automatic provisioning, and keeping a buffer of pre-spun instances that are ready to be assigned. With that trick, it's totally transparent for the client. Note that CiG never mentioned any of this so I guess they didnt think that through yet (or will they ?).
  • How will the shard/compute unit demand be funded (especially if some are empty)?
That's the 10 year anniversary question. More P2W i suppose, selling virtual credits...
  • Given the nearly decade long proliferation of ships and items a player can "own", how big does the centralised database need to be, what are its compute and network requirements and how will this be funded? (Idrisi sales perhaps?) (as cheap as the economies of scale of cloud are, the monthy bills can still mount up)
See above
  • Was any indication given of how long it is going to take to re-write all the entity movement, ownership and transaction code? That sounds to me like they're about to throw (or have thrown) most of a whole franken cadaver away and are now trying rebuild it into a functioning being from a few retained toes.
Brace for another decade of development.
  • So many more questions.....
Oh, oh, i have one. Let's say I do like in the CitCon demo and I kill everyone in that settlement they showed. Does that mean they are now dead for everyone ? They better put a few millions of these settlements around the "Verse". Or will the NPC just spawn back ? After how much time ? Will other players have to queue in order to do that "mission" ?
 
Here's a summary that doesn't take 8 hours worth of videos to grasp.

It's all the same stuff everyone else uses, with instancing, zones and loading screens. CIG will still claim it's magical fairy dust made from pure distilled backer's tears and dollar bills ground into fine powder. Backers will claim it was always the plan.
This is the truth.

And all the 'but what happens once x is added', 'how will shards work with y', etc.

Answer: they know they won't need to make it work.
 
Respawing of an LTI ship is an obvious exploit of Star Citizen functioning as advertised. Let's dream.txt for a second. Imagine an organisation of fifty citizens. Only one of them has an LTI Idris. They multiply Idrises for everyone using the LTI magic and go on a killing spree. If something goes wrong, they will respawn their ships again, as many as they want. Everyone can do it. Ship economy collapses due to ship inflation. Players with LTI ships are in high demand, on the other hand.

Now imagine any other game in which you can spawn any vehicle in any numbers you wish. This is a cheat baked into the very game. You know what people will do with it? The potential for loving around in the silliest possible ways is staggering.

And that's the thing. The issue with the persistent 'verse as envisioned is that it will be choke full of unintended consequences. From the perspective of the game, the worst that can happen to it is that it gets fully implemented. Nobody seems to be taking the player into account when designing it.

Meh, this is something they would be able to handle.

Even right now for most players it isnt worth doing. You can't take that ship to any station, the station will blow it up.

Ship will show hostile and any player can attack it. (not 100% sure on the status of blowing up a red ship with a player in it who isnt a criminal. that used to get the attacker a crime stat, but i think it was fixed. since i almost always have a crime stat anyways it isnt an issue for me.)

Create a pvp bounty for the ship, a permanent marker for the ship (pretty much how it works now) and anyone who is in a stolen/duped ship goes to prison for 6 hours and it isnt gonna be that big of an issue.
 
Meh, this is something they would be able to handle.

Even right now for most players it isnt worth doing. You can't take that ship to any station, the station will blow it up.

Ship will show hostile and any player can attack it. (not 100% sure on the status of blowing up a red ship with a player in it who isnt a criminal. that used to get the attacker a crime stat, but i think it was fixed. since i almost always have a crime stat anyways it isnt an issue for me.)

Create a pvp bounty for the ship, a permanent marker for the ship (pretty much how it works now) and anyone who is in a stolen/duped ship goes to prison for 6 hours and it isnt gonna be that big of an issue.

What about outlaw places like Grim Hex?
 
You can land at grim hex.


EDIT: but if you land and the ship gets stored, its gone. Might be able to repair/rearm/refuel. And could probably do that at outposts on planets/moons.


EDIT 2: actually with grim hex redone with hangers instead of just open pads, not sure you can land. there has been a thing with it needs to be the owner of the ship that calls ATC to get them to open hangar doors. not sure where that stands now.
 
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