Star Citizen Update Doubles Server Capacity, Adds Solo Illegal Delivery Missions, and a New Dynamic

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Star Citizen Update Doubles Server Capacity, Adds Solo Illegal Delivery Missions, and a New Dynamic Event | MMORPG.com

Star Citizen gets its latest alpha update, 3.172, which adds a new anti-aircraft vehicle, doubles capacity per server, and begins the new Siege of Orison event.

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Hatefull

Good step! Lets hope this gets server meshing sorted out this year so we can get on to bigger and better things!

Scot

"There’s a new anti-air vehicle as well, the Anvil Centurion. Described as a short-range anti-air vehicle, it has space for a pilot and a gunner, and has four energy weapons with unlimited ammo."

Considering how few players there are on each server, it is not a wise idea to have vehicles which need at least two players. Hopefully there are none that need more!

Spiider

Let me know when they do 2000-5000 per server. Until then ZzzZzzzzZz

hoenens1

And still runs like trash. Even on a high end pc lol

TheDalaiBomba

hoenens1 said:

And still runs like trash. Even on a high end pc lol

I'm fairly convinced the plan there is to wait out the clock on hardware tech to meet the demands of this game in action at scale.

Sovrath

Spiider said:

Let me know when they do 2000-5000 per server. Until then ZzzZzzzzZz

not a mmorpg. Never was one.

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FrodoFragins

Sovrath said:

Spiider said:

Let me know when they do 2000-5000 per server. Until then ZzzZzzzzZz

not a mmorpg. Never was one.

Google the following.  You'll see that they themselves have described it as an MMO on their own site and pinterest advertisement.  Server meshing will be required to meet their goals of full persistence for all players though.  And they will likely end up backing off on some goals.

Discover space, build a life. Start your journey here and play today. Star Citizen is the groundbreaking and record-setting Space Sim MMO by Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games.

Sovrath

FrodoFragins said:

Sovrath said:

Spiider said:

Let me know when they do 2000-5000 per server. Until then ZzzZzzzzZz

not a mmorpg. Never was one.

Google the following.  You'll see that they themselves have described it as an MMO on their own site and pinterest advertisement.  Server meshing will be required to meet their goals of full persistence for all players though.  And they will likely end up backing off on some goals.

Discover space, build a life. Start your journey here and play today. Star Citizen is the groundbreaking and record-setting Space Sim MMO by Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games.

But listening to them pitch it it seemed that it was following a more "freelancer" type of game. Not MMO. 

So I bet dollars to donuts that's marketing screwing up.

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TheDalaiBomba

Wargfoot said:

Sovrath said:

FrodoFragins said:

Sovrath said:

Spiider said:

Let me know when they do 2000-5000 per server. Until then ZzzZzzzzZz

not a mmorpg. Never was one.

Google the following.  You'll see that they themselves have described it as an MMO on their own site and pinterest advertisement.  Server meshing will be required to meet their goals of full persistence for all players though.  And they will likely end up backing off on some goals.

Discover space, build a life. Start your journey here and play today. Star Citizen is the groundbreaking and record-setting Space Sim MMO by Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games.

But listening to them pitch it it seemed that it was following a more "freelancer" type of game. Not MMO. 

So I bet dollars to donuts that's marketing screwing up.

Well, for me that adds to the confusion.
Why all the fancy server technology for 125 people per server?

I'm getting the sense I'm missing something here...

From what I've gathered reading Bacon and others, it's the persistence surrounding that per server max.

At the level of physics simulation they're going for, placing all those players onto one server isn't feasible.  Placing 500 doesn't appear to be.

So player hubs or busy areas will have to separate these folks, and the technological barrier there seems to be how persistence is handled without compromising anything in terms of their simulation gameplay systems.

Slapshot1188

Scot said:

"There’s a new anti-air vehicle as well, the Anvil Centurion. Described as a short-range anti-air vehicle, it has space for a pilot and a gunner, and has four energy weapons with unlimited ammo."



Considering how few players there are on each server, it is not a wise idea to have vehicles which need at least two players. Hopefully there are none that need more!

Some of their big sellers are the large multi-crew ships. Bigger ships = bigger costs (OK, not ALWAYS).

I'd love to someday in 2035 fly a capital ship which has a few miners/traders/fighters docked and have a crew manning important stations.

Not gonna pay 10k for that... but I'd still like to try it.

Here is the Javelin with a max crew of 80.

MaxBacon

TheDalaiBomba said:

From what I've gathered reading Bacon and others, it's the persistence surrounding that per server max.

At the level of physics simulation they're going for, placing all those players onto one server isn't feasible.  Placing 500 doesn't appear to be.

So player hubs or busy areas will have to separate these folks, and the technological barrier there seems to be how persistence is handled without compromising anything in terms of their simulation gameplay systems.

A simulation game is obviously going to be expensive server-wise, and SC loves to do details that don't come without a cost, that's about what it is, a cap of any MMO or online game is often the balance of performance and stability vs scalability.

The server setup that is the MMO infrastructure of SC is to be the server mesh. That is a single game-world but like GW2 or ESO each area is its own server simulating, only that without loading screens.

As MMOs like GW2 and ESO cap around 150 players per map and are clearly MMOs, it's a rather pointless debate to keep saying that what SC isn't going for isn't to be an MMO. It's the structure that's missing to be released.

Champie

My favorite part of the article:

"Recently, the team stated that, after previously not considering any changes to capacity, testing increases during the public testing for this update went so well that they were going to do it."

Why had they NOT CONSIDERED ANY CHANGES prior to making the changes? Did they think 50 people per server was adequate for 9 years, but only now, without a definable reason for reconsidering it other than seemingly accidentally discovering that it could be done, it's a good idea? Was it ever a REAL GOAL?

Uwakionna

Slapshot1188 said:

Scot said:

"There’s a new anti-air vehicle as well, the Anvil Centurion. Described as a short-range anti-air vehicle, it has space for a pilot and a gunner, and has four energy weapons with unlimited ammo."



Considering how few players there are on each server, it is not a wise idea to have vehicles which need at least two players. Hopefully there are none that need more!

Some of their big sellers are the large multi-crew ships. Bigger ships = bigger costs (OK, not ALWAYS).

I'd love to someday in 2035 fly a capital ship which has a few miners/traders/fighters docked and have a crew manning important stations.

Not gonna pay 10k for that... but I'd still like to try it.

Here is the Javelin with a max crew of 80.

Two Javelins and you've filled the server. At least now you can theoretically fully crew one Javelin.

TheDalaiBomba

Uwakionna said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Scot said:

"There’s a new anti-air vehicle as well, the Anvil Centurion. Described as a short-range anti-air vehicle, it has space for a pilot and a gunner, and has four energy weapons with unlimited ammo."



Considering how few players there are on each server, it is not a wise idea to have vehicles which need at least two players. Hopefully there are none that need more!

Some of their big sellers are the large multi-crew ships. Bigger ships = bigger costs (OK, not ALWAYS).

I'd love to someday in 2035 fly a capital ship which has a few miners/traders/fighters docked and have a crew manning important stations.

Not gonna pay 10k for that... but I'd still like to try it.

Here is the Javelin with a max crew of 80.

Two Javelins and you've filled the server. At least now you can theoretically fully crew one Javelin.

The problem with building the proverbial stairway to heaven is that no matter how many steps you do add, it pales in comparison to the stated goal.

Slapshot1188

Uwakionna said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Scot said:

"There’s a new anti-air vehicle as well, the Anvil Centurion. Described as a short-range anti-air vehicle, it has space for a pilot and a gunner, and has four energy weapons with unlimited ammo."



Considering how few players there are on each server, it is not a wise idea to have vehicles which need at least two players. Hopefully there are none that need more!

Some of their big sellers are the large multi-crew ships. Bigger ships = bigger costs (OK, not ALWAYS).

I'd love to someday in 2035 fly a capital ship which has a few miners/traders/fighters docked and have a crew manning important stations.

Not gonna pay 10k for that... but I'd still like to try it.

Here is the Javelin with a max crew of 80.

Two Javelins and you've filled the server. At least now you can theoretically fully crew one Javelin.

That is an excellent point.  How can we have large crews with low pop caps?  

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MaxBacon

Slapshot1188 said:

That is an excellent point.  How can we have large crews with low pop caps?  

On the design of the server mesh for this:

As we refine the technology and move away from Static Server Meshing towards Dynamic Server Meshing, designers can use this tech to have larger, more interesting areas (such as larger settlements or large ship interiors) with denser numbers of AI and player characters. 

For server simulation, big ships are far more expensive than players characters at that, as they hold not only the players but other ships/vehicles within, so I doubt the number of players will ever be more imposing to capacity than the number of ships for crews to become any problem.

MaxBacon

Uwakionna said:

Two Javelins and you've filled the server. At least now you can theoretically fully crew one Javelin.

You don't need Javelins, here's 114 inside an 890J






It's a sandbox nothing stops you from filling a ship of people, at least for now, idk if they will want to change this but for now... fill it with 100 and the server is yours.

Uwakionna

And that completely dodges the reality of what it means for gameplay.

You want to jam 100 people in a room for taking photos, might as well play Second Life.

Tiller

Uwakionna said:

And that completely dodges the reality of what it means for gameplay.

You want to jam 100 people in a room for taking photos, might as well play Second Life.

SL has more to do anyways.

Kyleran

Uwakionna said:

And that completely dodges the reality of what it means for gameplay.

You want to jam 100 people in a room for taking photos, might as well play Second Life.

I think the goal would be to transport 100 players to an assault target, ship or planetary right?

In EVE corporations used to load up a system with 1000 ships so when the enemy tried to come in through the gates or jump drive in they would be lagging so badly during the transition they would be sitting ducks for the stationary ships waiting for them.

I think CCP resolved that in some manner, but maybe not.

Uwakionna

They could do that with a military ship and be at a better advantage.

Wedging 100 people onto a yacht really doesn't mean much.

For context, the 890J is a luxury ship with a max crew of 8. The extra 90+ people on that ship ain't doing anything until they get to set foot somewhere.

Javelin is an (ex)military ship with a max crew of 80. If they're going to load 100+ people onto a ship to invade anything, there's a very clear winner in terms of choice.

If the goal is only control through dominating server capacity and strangling the connection for incoming players though, then yeah sure whatever. Who needs pesky gameplay when you can just dominate a server through "standing room only".

I guess it's good SC figured out how to choke out their servers 10x more efficiently than EVE.

Kyleran

I think now someone has referenced the 890J at least three times which is like summoning the Candyman, could result in the reappearance of one who will not be named.

If so we can probably kiss this thread goodbye.