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StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

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Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#71

Post by password-234 »

tiledjinn wrote: post #64
jalino23 wrote: post #20

got addicted to SC this year, spent an embarrasing amount on it. this Server Meshing they're planning is impressive if implemented

"impressive if implemented" is a nice nutshell for star citizen, which on the whole isn't terribly impressive.

Its pretty impressive if you go in with an unbiased outlook

IF you have the hardware to run it and you're a scifi nerd its mindblowing the first time around, even after 3000 hours i still have moments when i'm mindblown. (Recently had a tank that shot my friends ship from the sky during an ingame event)

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#72

Post by lolinder »

JJMalina wrote: post #27

Over the past two years I've played maybe 10-20 hours of SC. I paid $45 for the starter ship and then made some money moving boxes and doing bounties to upgrade my ship and then have enough to buy a bigger one. The game is pretty fun if you're used to MMO style grinding. The only problem is that during the past two years there have been many server state wipes so you lose everything except for the starter ship you pu…

It looks to me like "server meshing" is a concept coined by SC for the architecture they have planned. The top page of Google for the term turns up only SC-related results.

EVE uses a different, simpler model where each system is a process, and players connect to proxy servers that keep track of which system they're on (and therefore which server they need to connect to) [0]. I'm sure there are layers of caching and other optimizations built on top of that basic structure, but that's just Gall's Law in action: a working complex system invariably evolved from a working simple system.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the architecture that I can describe in a single sentence is the one powering the legendary 20-year-old game, while no one seems to be quite able to explain what "server meshing" will look like except that it seems to have a lot of moving parts and still hasn't been finished.

[0] https://www.engadget.com/2008-09-28-eve-evolved-eve-onlines-...

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#73

Post by Guvante »

sickofparadox wrote: post #25
causi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure about that? There are several EVE battles that involved multiple thousands of players at once.

Those battles all take place under .25 or lower time dilation so that the servers can handle the load. Star Citizen plans on having a massive player count per shard under full normal time.

O(n^2) is a pain. Just updating everyone with what happened in a tick requires 4,000,000 data points a tick at 2,000 players.

At 10 Hz that is 40 million updates a second.

There are caches and prediction that can help but I ignore all gameplay in that number, it is just flying around.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#74

Post by password-234 »

madsmith wrote: post #61
mattanimation wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

indeed, haven't been able to finish a mission yet due to crash after bug after crash.

I’m running and finishing missions daily. There are bugs, yes, but it is imminently playable.

I also do missions daily without much disruptions. As long as the servers aren't overwhelmed its fine

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#75

Post by hwillis »

lolinder wrote: post #72
JJMalina wrote: post #27

Over the past two years I've played maybe 10-20 hours of SC. I paid $45 for the starter ship and then made some money moving boxes and doing bounties to upgrade my ship and then have enough to buy a bigger one. The game is pretty fun if you're used to MMO style grinding. The only problem is that during the past two years there have been many server state wipes so you lose everything except for the starter ship you pu…

It looks to me like "server meshing" is a concept coined by SC for the architecture they have planned. The top page of Google for the term turns up only SC-related results. EVE uses a different, simpler model where each system is a process, and players connect to proxy servers that keep track of which system they're on (and therefore which server they need to connect to) [0]. I'm sure there are layers of caching and…

Star Citizen is trying to handle physics for objects in stations/planets/ships, debris, asteroids etc. A couple orders of magnitude more objects, I think.

Note that I don't play or follow either game, but I think you're making an unreasonable comparison.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#76

Post by dotnet00 »

arielweisberg wrote: post #57
dotnet00 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that of the two, Elite Dangerous is the only one that scratches a similar itch, especially in terms of the spaceship mechanics. But it too has suffered from severe mismanagement (pursuing features that got advertising hype over those that made the game fun, abandoning features and leaving them in a broken state, taking forever to fix bugs but being quick on exploits, poor communication and of course the gener…

Elite is kind of tragic in that there are serious steps backwards in performance, VR, and visuals that they just don’t fix things. A lot of great gameplay mechanics have been added over the years, but it hasn’t all been forward progress. No Man’s Sky is the total opposite and I really want to come back to that at some point and get lost in it the way Elite was in VR. Truly transported you elsewhere and gave you prese…

I think Elite's devs bit off way more than they realized they were willing to chew, especially with Odyssey, thus dropping consoles and VR.

On the other hand, over the years they've left so many things broken/unfinished or just in general avoided certain things, makes me wonder if maybe the foundation itself was unstable. Eg powerplay being ignored even when it wasn't working right, many years between the addition of new ships and the lack of creativity in terms of the ship's capabilities, similarly with SRVs, weapons bugs, completely failing to capitalize on the excellent PvP mechanics they have, the relative standstill of the Thargoid plot until people largely lost interest, the stagnation/disconnect of Colonia from everything else etc.

Re: StarCitizen Server Meshing Architecture

#78

Post by 0x0203 »

mattmanser wrote: post #50
JJMalina wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a lot you can do in game and there are tons of ships with many different specializations (cargo, salvaging, mining, exploration, fighters, bombers, corvettes). Some need multiple players to crew effectively PVE - Cargo delivery missions (from small to large size) - Bounty hunting (in space and on planet) - Mining - Salvaging - Cave exploration/rescue - Escaping from prison PVP - Bounty/pirate hunting Ju…

Basically, procedural trash grinds? Squadron 42, the cinematic, single player, space campaign, was supposed to come out in 2014!

Isn't that all games though? Especially MMO's. Why do people think it's so much different for star citizen than any other game? At the end of the day, they're all just entertaining ways to waste time.
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