Hey, after the the tips from this port forwarding have solved many issues, it seems after a certain update FDev broke something. Currently I am not able to have a stable connection with teamed members on my ship. It's simply flipping a coin if two computers from same network are able to change an instance (normal space, hyper jump, super cruise, boarding) and stay connected without having an orange sidewinder.
Port forwarding holds a port open for incoming connections - peer to peer connections achieve the same result on-demand, because any outgoing packet will leave a port open for the reply. Port forwarding is quite literally only necessary if you're hosting a dedicated server, which needs to be able to receive incoming connections without any prior notice. In any other scenario, while it might seem to "fix" things, all it really does is sidestep the issue while leaving it there to affect other aspects of your network connection - and while that may temporarily keep the problem out of sight from your end, things can change that cause the problem to become noticable to you again, and it might not hide the problem for other clients in the session. So at best, it hides the problem temporarily, but at worst it can convince you that you don't need to fix anything when the problem may actually be on your end, and therefore entirely out of reach for everyone else.
There are a lot of factors that can cause an unstable connection, but one thing that's easy to check and adjust is your MTU size - this is the largest packet size (in bytes) that can make it through a network without being fragmented into smaller pieces. Fragmentation can slow the connection, because each packet becomes multiple, with additional bandwidth used for the packet headers instead of the data that is useful to the game, and it can lead to excessive packet loss, because if any one fragment fails to reach the recipient, the entire packet has to be resent, which will be refragmented along the way, and if one fragment already failed, odds are another will.
Try this - open a command prompt, and run
Code:
ping -f -l 1472 google.com
(note that the second flag is a lowercase L)
The -f flag tells the ping command not to fragment, so if fragmentation is needed, you'll get a clear error stating that fragmentation is needed.
The -l flag sets the packet size - in this case, we start with 1472 because the default MTU size is 1500 bytes, and a packet sent from ping will end up with a header attached that accounts for the additional 28 bytes (1472 + 28 = 1500)
If your network's MTU is smaller than the default for any reason, you'll get the fragmentation message I mentioned, and you'll need to start decreasing the packet size until you find a packet size that goes through un-fragmented. The best approach is to reduce the size by 10 or 20 bytes at a time until it succeeds, then increase it by a smaller amount until it fails, decrease by an even smaller amount, etc until you find the maximum size that actually goes through. Then you can either adjust the MTU on your computer, from a command prompt with administrator rights, or you may be able to adjust it on your router to improve the connection for all devices. The latter option requires that you can access your router's admin page, and not all router interfaces present the MTU option - it varies enough that you'll need to look up your specific router to find out if it can be done, and how.
Here's a guide to setting the MTU size in Windows:
https://myrandomtechblog.com/cryptomining/change-mtu-size-in-windows-10/
Remember to add 28 to whatever value you find to be the maximum size that goes through, when setting the MTU value in either your router or Windows
