[Megathread] Star Citizen

[kenn9530]

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You have not contributed anything of substance so far and not even mentioned anything about the game so everyone knows what your purpose here is and its not to make anything constructive at all just like several posters in here, when a person constantly complains about something it just shows the lack of character they have.

[banmebaby]

You have not contributed anything of substance so far and not even mentioned anything about the game so everyone knows what your purpose here is and its not to make anything constructive at all just like several posters in here, when a person constantly complains about something it just shows the lack of character they have.

Oh yeah, because your posts are hell of constructive, they totally don't consist just in unbacked contradictory lies, accusations and personal attacks towards everyone who isn't praising SC to heavens.

If it wasn't for the lengthy history of such behavior people would just take that foolish sort of crap for high quality trolling.

[Proskill]

got again that issue with the launcher, where play/update button dissapeared. what was the combination of keys to fix it? ctrl - alt - R or something like that, but this one doesnt work

thanks in advance

[Antipathy1018]

Wow.

You're so far down in that hole you can't even see the daylight anymore.

Did you even manage to forget what the context of that discussion was?

This is why I don't tend to post unless someone other than Kenn or Mr.A has a question about what I said.

Here we have Kenn not understanding that I was talking about how Stadia lets you play games without downloading them, the first service to do it was OnLive which I tried years ago but the input lag was pretty bad. Kenn is confusing this with renting servers to connect the players of the game instead what Stadia does which is let you play any game they have without having to load the game on to your hard drive.

[Soikona]

3.17.2 Patch isn't out yet, but trailer has been found.

That’s a really cool trailer. If the game is actually going to release, it looks very much up my street!

[Wilian]

That’s a really cool trailer. If the game is actually going to release, it looks very much up my street!

At this rate of progress your grandchildren will inherit the JPGs of the ships you'd potentially buy.

[InfiniteCharger]

You were talking about how SC loads in an entire model but you are to dense to get that it does not need to do that. You just move the goal post claiming it is only more data when I already said that it is not apples to apples comparison, but you are also to dense to get that. I also did not say that I expected SC to have as many players (in one system) as Eve.

And if SC server does load entire models of everything, the devs are incompetent. Loading location data is enough, you don't need to know the exact size. Also, there is a thing called hitboxes for a reason, you do not use the model to look up if an object is hit, you use a hitbox.

And removing an object when no longer needed isn't hard to do and should have been done ages ago, like before they released the first alpha. That's '1985' level of "tech". So they really are incompetent, that's basically keeping a memory leak on purpose.

So, answer the question, why load data you do not need that only wastes resources? (Or why keep it if no longer needed....)



And there you go, wrong.

Make a cube of 1 meter by 1 meter by 1 meter. How many points does it have? 8. Now scale it up by 10. How many points does it have?

Make a sphere with a diameter of 1 meter, do you know many points a sphere has? I give you a hint 3. All you need. 3 points. The game client can then add vertices to make it more detailed if needed, the server does not need that level of detail. It just needs to know those 3 points and even that's debatable as you could argue the server only needs to know it's location. (and yes, attributes of where it becomes dangerous and when it destroys the ship, but that's not model data)

Can you say tessellation?

Do you know the difference with level of detail and scale? You can make a model of 1mm by 1mm by 1mm with more detail then a model of 1km by 1km by 1km.

The problem with Star Citizen is that the physics are calculated on the server side. This is why things like physicalized inventory are still on the roadmap, because physicalized means part of the physics calculation done on the server. This is also part of the reason you get problems with ships and elevators. That means some level of geometry must be loaded on the server for these physics to work, with the insane part being a future roadmap with salvageable wreckage. Which potentially means more physics calculations to determine how ships get destroyed and what cargo remains and can it be looted. All of which is a total hog in terms of network and server load......


So technically Ken is not wrong here. But you are right that this is a bad way to design a game intended to for massive numbers of players.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/s...s-server-side/

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen...how_you_proof/

https://starcitizen-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Physics

https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/...hink-elevators

[Amorac]

The problem with Star Citizen is that the physics are calculated on the server side. This is why things like physicalized inventory are still on the roadmap, because physicalized means part of the physics calculation done on the server. This is also part of the reason you get problems with ships and elevators. That means some level of geometry must be loaded on the server for these physics to work, with the insane part being a future roadmap with salvageable wreckage. Which potentially means more physics calculations to determine how ships get destroyed and what cargo remains and can it be looted. All of which is a total hog in terms of network and server load......

So technically Ken is not wrong here. But you are right that this is a bad way to design a game intended to for massive numbers of players.

Hm, yea but they still (should) use hitboxes for that, I still see no reason to load every point/vertex of a model (on the server), more geometry then that is not needed (and hitboxes can be complex as well). Even for a destroyed ship or part of, a hit box should suffice to tell the clients its state so it can render it.

Like you say that means some level of geometry, so not the entire model. I mean, an oil barrel with 6 points for 'top circle' would be just as fine as 6000 points, and the cargo bay doesn't need every point either, just enough to get the rough shape. If they do load in the entire model that's just weird and a waste of resources as the server has a lot more surfaces to consider while the result won't differ that much. I mean, isn't that what programmers do, get rid of data you have no need for and don't load what is just wasted. (Also doubt the server kicks the barrel to see how it rolls in a virtual environment, it's 'just math' )

At least not with CPU/GPU power for the foreseeable future. If they do and just found a way to add 3 to 4 times of players per server, performance is going to tank as soon as they implement physicalized inventory and all (well, it will tank regardless esp. if every bit of equipment is going to be part of that)

Then again, we are talking, apparently, about a developer that does not unload data that is no longer needed for some reason.

Will be interesting to see the amount of data being send to clients <> servers and also server instance 1 <> server instance 2 <> server instance 3 etc...

(I also remember the WoW elevator boss rather well.. )

Thanks for the links and reply, a lot better then some other posters.

[banmebaby]

got again that issue with the launcher, where play/update button dissapeared. what was the combination of keys to fix it? ctrl - alt - R or something like that, but this one doesnt work

thanks in advance

Sounds like a weird feature, I'm sure =P

Your RSI Launcher will be missing the "Launch" button if you accidentally melted your game package, have only pledged for a standalone ship, or are trying to use an old PTU RSI Launcher to access our Live environment.

If you reclaim or melt a package on your account, you may have melted your game package. Without the game package, you cannot install or run Star Citizen.



NOTE: We are tracking and investigating an issue where players may see no launch/install buttons regardless of the status of their game packages. If this occurs, there are a few possible work arounds:

Completely shut down the launcher, ensure that it is not still running in the Windows Taskbar, and then restart the launcher.
Logout and back in to the launcher multiple times.
Clear the Launcher cache by bringing the launcher into focus and hitting Ctrl + Shift + Alt + R to attempt to bring the buttons back. (This will log you out)

Please also report the situation, any steps taken, and what did and did not work to correct this via the Issue Council.

[Rennadrel]

Honestly trying to offload so much physics calculations to the server seems like bad design when PCs are more than capable of rendering some form of physics on their own. Trying to do that all en masse seems like a design mistake that's going to hurt them long term. I don't see why physical inventory shouldn't just be rendered on the client side.

[kenn9530]

This is why I don't tend to post unless someone other than Kenn or Mr.A has a question about what I said.

Here we have Kenn not understanding that I was talking about how Stadia lets you play games without downloading them, the first service to do it was OnLive which I tried years ago but the input lag was pretty bad. Kenn is confusing this with renting servers to connect the players of the game instead what Stadia does which is let you play any game they have without having to load the game on to your hard drive.

You are the one being confused.

A poster makes a comment about cloud not knowing the servers are at least partly cloud based, i mearly stated what the servers SC uses were using cloud in some format, there is nothing to confuse about that statement, stadia is a different company altogether and SC doesnt use it so to even mention it is just dumb when we already know they use EC2 AWS.

- - - Updated - - -

Honestly trying to offload so much physics calculations to the server seems like bad design when PCs are more than capable of rendering some form of physics on their own. Trying to do that all en masse seems like a design mistake that's going to hurt them long term. I don't see why physical inventory shouldn't just be rendered on the client side.

A ton of work the server currently does will be offloaded on the quanta simulation once thats ready to put into the game so as systems get completed the servers will eventually get less and less work to do, server meshing will also divide a ton of work the current servers do.

Physical inv is probably required so if one player puts something in a ship or box all other players can see it if they look, that doesnt happen atm apart from checking the lootable boxes.

Currently the servers are running pretty smooth with barely any issues, just the normal desync stuff with lots of AI that spawn on a regular basis.

[Edge-]

A ton of work the server currently does will be offloaded on the quanta simulation once thats ready to put into the game so as systems get completed the servers will eventually get less and less work to do, server meshing will also divide a ton of work the current servers do.

But...the server is doing that quanta simulation too, no?

[InfiniteCharger]

Hm, yea but they still (should) use hitboxes for that, I still see no reason to load every point/vertex of a model (on the server), more geometry then that is not needed (and hitboxes can be complex as well). Even for a destroyed ship or part of, a hit box should suffice to tell the clients its state so it can render it.

Like you say that means some level of geometry, so not the entire model. I mean, an oil barrel with 6 points for 'top circle' would be just as fine as 6000 points, and the cargo bay doesn't need every point either, just enough to get the rough shape. If they do load in the entire model that's just weird and a waste of resources as the server has a lot more surfaces to consider while the result won't differ that much. I mean, isn't that what programmers do, get rid of data you have no need for and don't load what is just wasted. (Also doubt the server kicks the barrel to see how it rolls in a virtual environment, it's 'just math' )

At least not with CPU/GPU power for the foreseeable future. If they do and just found a way to add 3 to 4 times of players per server, performance is going to tank as soon as they implement physicalized inventory and all (well, it will tank regardless esp. if every bit of equipment is going to be part of that)

Then again, we are talking, apparently, about a developer that does not unload data that is no longer needed for some reason.

Will be interesting to see the amount of data being send to clients <> servers and also server instance 1 <> server instance 2 <> server instance 3 etc...

(I also remember the WoW elevator boss rather well.. )

Thanks for the links and reply, a lot better then some other posters.

As the thread from reddit shows the game right now as promised is too open ended and thus produces all the bugs and problems to go along with it. Why should anyone want to (or be able to) roll a buggy off a cargo lift in a spaceship while in the air and why is there no "docking" procedure for cargo and vehicles on such ships? This is why all these things are taking so long because they are trying to make a simulation engine to cover all potential physics effects. Like why? A ship designed to drop ground vehicles should basically lock the vehicle in place and no longer make it part of any physics calculations. Same with cargo, where you shouldn't be putting small individual containers down in the back of a ship as opposed to dropping it into some receptacle. This is how you drop off items to turn in quests and pick up items in some cases. So why not have that on the ship as an automated cargo management system. Drop the small container into the receptacle. It disappears into the receptacle and now is only tracked as an entry in the ships log and not actual geometry. Then you got all sorts of small interactive items like food, cans, crates, chairs, etc that all need physics interactions, generating more load on the server.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWcBTDeDkYs

But that WOW elevator boss was on a fixed animation timer not any sort of on demand system and the physics were only falling damage for not being on the geometry.

[Amorac]

As the thread from reddit shows the game right now as promised is too open ended and thus produces all the bugs and problems to go along with it.

But that's still no reason to load full models server side? Like I said, its math and you need attributes and things like that and a general idea of the environment/ship. People seem to treat it as if the server is actually playing the scene out by using its eyes or something.

It's the same as the scale argument I guess, a 1:1 3D model can be less detailed then a 1:100000 model, after all, a meter is just an 'attribute' of the model (guess I'm looking for another word then attribute here). You don't need that detail server side. As a programmer you would want to limit the amount of data to handle, that's C64 level of programming know how.

Besides, lack of detail may be a benefit, who hasn't had a moment his character got stuck on a little branch that would never be able to that in real life. No reason that little branch has a hitbox, let alone a reason to calculate the physics for it, just to be not annoying.

Why should anyone want to (or be able to) roll a buggy off a cargo lift in a spaceship while in the air and why is there no "docking" procedure for cargo and vehicles on such ships?

Reenact a movie scene?

This is why all these things are taking so long because they are trying to make a simulation engine to cover all potential physics effects. Like why?

No idea, it's the same with NPCs going to do nr 2 on the toilet. What the Sims does is more then enough and I don't get why it is needed in SC, who is going to watch...

A ship designed to drop ground vehicles should basically lock the vehicle in place and no longer make it part of any physics calculations.

Right, no need for how wheels work, no need for detail of said wheels. So get rid of that data until needed.

Same with cargo, where you shouldn't be putting small individual containers down in the back of a ship as opposed to dropping it into some receptacle.

I recall a demo of a wall being destroyed, the wall started out as 1 object with a wall texture and 'engine' was 'told' what it was. When the wall got destroyed the engine created all the 'debris' (bricks (parts of), cement, etc). Offcourse this was a client program and not a server run application to show off physics. Been a while so not sure on how that was done (or if it was a wall and not a whole building)

This is how you drop off items to turn in quests and pick up items in some cases. So why not have that on the ship as an automated cargo management system. Drop the small container into the receptacle. It disappears into the receptacle and now is only tracked as an entry in the ships log and not actual geometry. Then you got all sorts of small interactive items like food, cans, crates, chairs, etc that all need physics interactions, generating more load on the server.

Right, so any programmer would build the software with that from the get go, I would think, consolidate the data so it's less of a hassle, get rid what you don't need. Altering the code later seems like asking for problems.

Now, if said cargo was bound together and got lose then you would / could start calculating the physics of every piece, but damn are you asking a lot then. I guess it wouldn't be to bad for 1 (small) cargo vessel but when several have the same thing happening..

But that WOW elevator boss was on a fixed animation timer not any sort of on demand system and the physics were only falling damage for not being on the geometry.

I know, it was just a fun memory. I can almost hear the cursing

[kenn9530]

But...the server is doing that quanta simulation too, no?

Quanta is the universe simulation what dynamically spawns missions and payouts on, keeps track of where npcs are and where and what they are doing, it also handles where resources are required and where npcs are going to be flying to and from maybe transporting goods or npcs finding new mining locations, its the universe simulation that will run on the background services, atm they are just using the standard systems like missions and such.

Example is an NPC could fly from one planet and land on a station, the player could encounter that NPC and at that time the NPC will be taken out of the background service and loaded live, once they are away from players it will be unloaded again but a player could later go to where the NPC was heading and encounter them again.

[Edge-]

Quanta is the universe simulation what dynamically spawns missions and payouts on, keeps track of where npcs are and where and what they are doing, it also handles where resources are required and where npcs are going to be flying to and from maybe transporting goods or npcs finding new mining locations, its the universe simulation that will run on the background services, atm they are just using the standard systems like missions and such.

Example is an NPC could fly from one planet and land on a station, the player could encounter that NPC and at that time the NPC will be taken out of the background service and loaded live, once they are away from players it will be unloaded again but a player could later go to where the NPC was heading and encounter them again.

Yes, I'm familiar with what they're creating Quanta to be. I'm asking where Quanta will be running that makes you seem to think that its implementation won't have any server-side performance costs.

[kenn9530]

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Do you not understand that the game is in development, not all the systems are inplace so the server is currently doing far more work than it should be doing, currently the servers are running very well. Also its good to push a server to it limits and see what they are actually capable of and then you can build the game with that information.

You complain about the servers not handling a ton of players yet ignore the reason why, we all know sometimes the servers dont operate that well but we know the reason for it, if they run the same at release then you can complain then but systems need to be fully developed first.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, I'm familiar with what they're creating Quanta to be. I'm asking where Quanta will be running that makes you seem to think that its implementation won't have any server-side performance costs.

Its a background service and it shouldnt have a direct impact on performance, by the time its implemented server meshing will be used also so server usage should be much lower much of the time, only things near players will get loaded into a servers load and that will be spread among hundreds/thousands of servers.

[Edge-]

Its a background service and it shouldnt have a direct impact on performance, by the time its implemented server meshing will be used also so server usage should be much lower much of the time, only things near players will get loaded into a servers load and that will be spread among hundreds/thousands of servers.

Background service running on what?

[Amorac]

Do you not understand that the game is in development, not all the systems are inplace so the server is currently doing far more work than it should be doing, currently the servers are running very well. Also its good to push a server to it limits and see what they are actually capable of and then you can build the game with that information.

You complain about the servers not handling a ton of players yet ignore the reason why, we all know sometimes the servers dont operate that well but we know the reason for it, if they run the same at release then you can complain then but systems need to be fully developed first.

Yes, I do understand and I also understand that servers doing things they shouldn't do is dumb, and people have been learning not to do that since decades. You know, understand the limits of the hardware that exists. And like you know, unload data not in use. That's not something the industry learned in 2022 but way way back since the first computer was coded.

You do realize they programmed the servers to do all that right? Now they have to code to take that out? Any idea what kind of crap that can (will) cause? Even if every developer that ever worked on SC is still with the team, and everything is perfectly documented/commented taking stuff out is a sure fire way to get more bugs in. Not forgetting the cry engine/lumberyard code not made by them.

And if the servers are not going to do all that stuff then what is? The clients? Good luck with all the difference in performance and network connections, you think you've seen sync issues then get ready for a million times worse.

Other servers with meshing tech? Well, I already covered that.

But considering you can not even grasp the idea that an 1:1 computer model can have less detail then a 1:10000 model shows your lack of understanding anything. Shifting goal posts almost every post, misinterpreting others, either deliberately or by sheer incompetence on your part makes you someone not worth discussing with.

Your blind fate in god devs and apparently being unable to question them also makes you not worth time to discuss with, you can only talk about what your dev gods feed you and you likely misinterpret what the mean while they also very likely simplify things. And seems they never told you about how scaling a 3D computer model works but you lack the capacity to figure it out yourself so "you don't believe".

For what it's worth, I do hope they succeed with the meshing tech and everything else, I just don't see how with current (HW) limitations and the way they handle stuff. Unless everyone on the team is a rookie but we all know Chris Roberts is not a rookie but is making these mistakes for some reason. But if they can figure it out and license it out it would be a boon to the industry.

Don't bother with replying, you're going to be on ignore.

[Gorsameth]

Background service running on what?

Server Meshing.
Those background processes could run on servers that do not contain player data so there would, in theory, be no impact on player experienced server performance.

But that answer contains the magic word.
Server Meshing.

Everything will fall into line if the Jesus tech can be developed. And without it the entire project fails.