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*** Vendetta 1.8.336
- New temporary placeholder "capship" stations in: Itan J11, Dau L10, Sol H13 and Odia M14. These will allow Trident owners to dock with these major capitols. The station configurations will be changing to something more customized to each sector (and nearby hazards, like asteroids), but for the moment they each have the same capship-hangar module, attached to the existing station.
- Idle-sector timeout experimentally reduced from 5 minutes to 30 seconds, to potentially reduce server ram usage in high-concurrency situations (very large numbers of players). As we have recently made mines, capships and other content persistent, this change should not have a significant gameplay impact. Note, this is simply the sector-shutdown that occurs after all players have already left a given location.
- Experimental "emergency instancing" added to all sectors: if a very large number of players should congregate in a single sector, additional players "jumping in" will be transparently sent to a
secondary instance of the same sector, to better distribute load across the server cloud. This will only be an emergency-level tool to help deal with unexpected peak loads of huge numbers of new players (mobile-platform promotions, etc), and we'll be doing updated stress-testing to set it as high as possible. It can be dynamically defined on the server-side, to support very large future player-events, as needed.
- Fixes to server-side issues related to players getting stuck at "entering universe" during the login process.
- New temporary placeholder "capship" stations in: Itan J11, Dau L10, Sol H13 and Odia M14. These will allow Trident owners to dock with these major capitols. The station configurations will be changing to something more customized to each sector (and nearby hazards, like asteroids), but for the moment they each have the same capship-hangar module, attached to the existing station.
- Idle-sector timeout experimentally reduced from 5 minutes to 30 seconds, to potentially reduce server ram usage in high-concurrency situations (very large numbers of players). As we have recently made mines, capships and other content persistent, this change should not have a significant gameplay impact. Note, this is simply the sector-shutdown that occurs after all players have already left a given location.
- Experimental "emergency instancing" added to all sectors: if a very large number of players should congregate in a single sector, additional players "jumping in" will be transparently sent to a
secondary instance of the same sector, to better distribute load across the server cloud. This will only be an emergency-level tool to help deal with unexpected peak loads of huge numbers of new players (mobile-platform promotions, etc), and we'll be doing updated stress-testing to set it as high as possible. It can be dynamically defined on the server-side, to support very large future player-events, as needed.
- Fixes to server-side issues related to players getting stuck at "entering universe" during the login process.
So, Divina, Eo, Arta, and Pyronis aren't capitols anymore? That's... great.
Yeah! Content!
A most awesome update guys! The docks look reasonably well and it finally ends the problem of flying 30,000m everytime I just want to park or replace ships. Thanks a lot! Very good work!
ARF - Are you never satisfied man? We have Trident docks finally. After all this time. That's plenty enough for now. The less major capitols can be addressed later.
A most awesome update guys! The docks look reasonably well and it finally ends the problem of flying 30,000m everytime I just want to park or replace ships. Thanks a lot! Very good work!
ARF - Are you never satisfied man? We have Trident docks finally. After all this time. That's plenty enough for now. The less major capitols can be addressed later.
Removing Pyronis and Divinia from equation effectively puts Serco and Itani at a disadvantage.
Red & Blue will not bother going to Sol or Itan just to change ships or weapons on their dents so those 2 trident docking facilities are completely useless.
Also nobody in their right mind will do that in Odia M-14 - it will become a Trident death trap very soon.
Red & Blue will not bother going to Sol or Itan just to change ships or weapons on their dents so those 2 trident docking facilities are completely useless.
Also nobody in their right mind will do that in Odia M-14 - it will become a Trident death trap very soon.
If people can survive bringing their tridents to conq stations, they can survive bringing them to Odia M-14. Simply kill anybody who'd hassle you. You may not be able to get the Trident out of Odia M-14 without incurring damage, but if you can't get away without dying then you are too incompetent to merit consideration. Remember that this is a multi-player game; bring friends.
@ARF: Um, the patch log says nothing about those systems no longer being capitals. Perhaps excluding them from getting cap-docks is a means to better differentiate the primary capitals from the secondaries.
@Inc: What order of magnitude are we currently looking at with the emergency instancing? Dozens? Hundreds? Also, how does that work in the case of conquerable stations? Is the initial instance considered the canonical one, with the secondary simply running independently until it can be discarded? And what about loot that might have been dropped in an instance that is no longer accessible? Could it be merged into the primary when the instance is removed?
Do dropped shields on a queen persist across sector timeouts?
@ARF: Um, the patch log says nothing about those systems no longer being capitals. Perhaps excluding them from getting cap-docks is a means to better differentiate the primary capitals from the secondaries.
@Inc: What order of magnitude are we currently looking at with the emergency instancing? Dozens? Hundreds? Also, how does that work in the case of conquerable stations? Is the initial instance considered the canonical one, with the secondary simply running independently until it can be discarded? And what about loot that might have been dropped in an instance that is no longer accessible? Could it be merged into the primary when the instance is removed?
Do dropped shields on a queen persist across sector timeouts?
Hey, I'll take a temporary capship dock. Nice update!
What order of magnitude are we currently looking at with the emergency instancing? Dozens? Hundreds?
Incarnate said 300, while logged into the game, after the update.
Incarnate said 300, while logged into the game, after the update.
Interesting update, thanks Devs.
So, it took Ray and I until 2AM to even get this release working. We almost had no capship-stations at all, or maybe like.. one. So having four was a win.
I am aware that there are other capitols, four stations was clearly not the original plan. But, know that people busted their asses to make this happen, over the last few weeks. If I hadn't personally finished the new content last night, it probably would have had to be put off for a few weeks, due to some other unexpected stuff that's happened (potentially a large and unexpected exposure for the game.. not really sure if/when/how-large, which is "exciting" for capacity planning).
I don't deny that having more capitols would be better, but once these stations are proven, it will be easier to add to other stations.
I am aware that there are other capitols, four stations was clearly not the original plan. But, know that people busted their asses to make this happen, over the last few weeks. If I hadn't personally finished the new content last night, it probably would have had to be put off for a few weeks, due to some other unexpected stuff that's happened (potentially a large and unexpected exposure for the game.. not really sure if/when/how-large, which is "exciting" for capacity planning).
I don't deny that having more capitols would be better, but once these stations are proven, it will be easier to add to other stations.
awesome!
Sweet! Nice to have a truck stop after delivering Corvus Holo-porn to Itan and Sol II. Maybe I'll keep one unit to watch in the motel. Better pick up some bearing grease while I'm at it.
@INC so, if I try to take station and cant get back in 5 seconds all turrets reset at 100%? Seems to be what I see tonight. Another win for dent owners?
Biretak: I'm not sure where you get the 5-second number, but if you leave the sector for 30 seconds, it would reset.
For the moment, we've passively rolled back to the 5-minute timeout, until Ray can take a look at some of these shield and conquest use cases. On the upside, we did see about a 15-20% drop in running sectors, without anything fundamentally breaking, which is what the experiment was about.
Sectors will go back to the 5 minute timeout when they restart, if they're currently running.
For the moment, we've passively rolled back to the 5-minute timeout, until Ray can take a look at some of these shield and conquest use cases. On the upside, we did see about a 15-20% drop in running sectors, without anything fundamentally breaking, which is what the experiment was about.
Sectors will go back to the 5 minute timeout when they restart, if they're currently running.
it probably would have had to be put off for a few weeks, due to some other unexpected stuff that's happened (potentially a large and unexpected exposure for the game...
You just really need to get a stamp or a recording of this, maybe just a macro to post it anytime there's a question about development priorities. I'm not saying it's not true, but it's been true with shocking consistency for years and years.
You just really need to get a stamp or a recording of this, maybe just a macro to post it anytime there's a question about development priorities. I'm not saying it's not true, but it's been true with shocking consistency for years and years.
Our "fixed-hardware" server situation (that we've had since 2004) makes these kinds of massive-exposure events pretty terrifying, so.. yeah, they occupy a non-trivial amount of my mind when they come up. I am genuinely concerned that a full-blown Google or Apple (iPhone) feature may overrun our server capacity.
We're actually in the middle of evaluating a move of the entire game-server cluster. Probably to either Chicago or the east coast (NYC, maybe Virginia). But, I can't just throw money at high-end hosting.. so.. it's a bit more involved for us to either build a strategic relationship that works, or cobble-together some solution that keeps our overhead low enough.
It'd be great to have something solid, with the option of a lot of elastic capacity if we needed it. I would sleep a lot better at night. And pursue certain marketing possibilities with a lot fewer reservations.
..and make less posts about anxiety-induced changes in development.
We're actually in the middle of evaluating a move of the entire game-server cluster. Probably to either Chicago or the east coast (NYC, maybe Virginia). But, I can't just throw money at high-end hosting.. so.. it's a bit more involved for us to either build a strategic relationship that works, or cobble-together some solution that keeps our overhead low enough.
It'd be great to have something solid, with the option of a lot of elastic capacity if we needed it. I would sleep a lot better at night. And pursue certain marketing possibilities with a lot fewer reservations.
..and make less posts about anxiety-induced changes in development.
All I've got to say is congratulations to the devs. Keep up the hard work and screw all the losers who wana hate on your development process. Vo is obviously going to be around for a while and that is because of all the hard work you guys put in. I thank you.
+1 Darth Nihilus
This is definitely headed in the right direction. Good work guys.
Could non-combat computation be offloaded to servers that choose to participate?
Example:
Create an application that allows users to run on their servers, and while it is running, it connects to the VO servers. Non-critical computation could be performed by the connected clients and the results be sent back to the VO servers.
Additionally, this functionality could be built into the game client as an opt-in toggle for those running high-end hardware.
There would be security concerns around the data, but that's what encryption is for. This would allow players to help with server capacity.
Example:
Create an application that allows users to run on their servers, and while it is running, it connects to the VO servers. Non-critical computation could be performed by the connected clients and the results be sent back to the VO servers.
Additionally, this functionality could be built into the game client as an opt-in toggle for those running high-end hardware.
There would be security concerns around the data, but that's what encryption is for. This would allow players to help with server capacity.
Savet, that sounds like it would cost a few thousand dollars more in development time than a decent server upgrade would...