With the release of Alpha 3.17.2, we plan to double the capacity of servers to 100 players per server, allowing more pilots to participate in large-scale dynamic events, community events, PvP encounters, and more. We know this change will come as a welcome surprise to many, and we'd be remiss if we didn't call out the incredible efforts happening behind the scenes to make this possible by our engineering and publishing teams. This change is a meaningful and crucial step towards the full experience of our shared massive universe, and we're happy to report that the team is making excellent progress.
It is important to remember that an increase in players does introduce more potential for stability/performance issues, but rest assured that we'll be monitoring closely, making tweaks and injecting fixes on the backend based on our observations. This is made possible by our infrastructure now allowing us to deploy server side fixes, without the need for a patch release.
Separately, we'll also utilize dynamically fluctuating server caps that will prioritize performance/stability. This means that some servers will have a cap less than 100, while others will have more. We plan to continue this initiative moving forward, with the goal of increasing the player cap per server as much as we can, while being mindful of the play experience.
It is likely that we will run with a lower player cap (<100) during the Siege of Orison dynamic event, simply to account for initial gameplay balance/rewards being designed initially for a lower cap. However, Jumptown will likely have a 100 player cap per server enabled (so, get ready for mayhem).