Ok, there are just wayy too many transports per minute passing though Sedina and each time it kills the frame rates of everyone in sector, is there any way of having less per minute, perhaps have a max limit to the number of npcs per sector so that we don't have it so laggy, never has it been this bad before, ever.

John,
Framerates are client side.
Your graphics card is the problem not the transports.
So if you say everyone is lagging then it means its because of the server or connection.

Also you are on the test server eh?
The dual pentium III.

So just calm down.

No Boxcar... they're on the production server now....

Yeah...the way things are going now, the sector list is gonna have to be longer.

Also, I'd like to see ship types for the convoys in the sector list. That would make it much easier to see what we're dealing with...

Ooh this could be interesting then. I'm hoping I won't have any troubles with my poor +250 ping.

Ship types in sector list? What would be next? Health percentages?

Yeah, lag by tons of models is caused by crappy system specs, not connection or anything.

And I think it's high time we got rid of the 'u' list, or modify it so it will list only those ships YOUR RADAR CAN DETECT, that is, within 2000m. That would also give the pirates a slighter better chance to slip in undetected.

Umm, yeah this kills my framerate too.

We wouldn't have to drop the number by much, but 100-200 in a sector is kinda pushing it.

If you guys would stop killing the transports going through B8, the game wouldn't have to assign a bajillion escorts.

Totally your own fault ;)

Oo, oo, PWNED!!!

Ug. Well if it's true, that my 64 MB graphics card can't handle Vendetta when there are more than 100 ships in-sector, well then I'm not going to be able to play... which would suck.

Seriously, if these are the specs (written less than a year ago since 10.3.5 came out last year in August/Sept as I recall)

Mac Minimum System Requirements:

MacOS X 10.2.8 or better (10.3.5 or better recommended) I'm running 10.3.9
1ghz G3/G4 I have a 1.8 GHz G5
384MB of RAM I have 1 GB RAM
3D Hardware Accelerator - Fully OpenGL compatible 32MB videocard with Hardware Transformation & Lighting (T&L). I'm running a 64 MB nVidia GeForce FX 5200 built-into the iMac
Keyboard/Mouse and CDROM yah
200MB of harddrive space yah I got 250 GB +
56k internet connectivity Cablemodem, my ping is great and have never had problems with connection or latency.

I wouldn't call my specs CRAPPY system specs, but then again I wouldn't call it GREAT system specs, either.

I'd love to be able to run a 512 MB card (Like ATI X800 or GeForce GTX 7800) and play V-O with all graphics settings turned up to MAX, but, see, I can't.

So I guess I'll have to turn down my textures, my graphics, and my resolution even MORE... Sigh.

Ok, was NOT engaging ANY of the transports that were going though, and they came into the sector every 30 seconds with about 25+ bots if not more, thats a low estimate. I was not the only one in sector complaining, EVERYONE was!!!

My specs are:
Mac
866Ghz G4
1.5Gb RAM
OS 10.4.2
GForceMX 32Mb
Comcast Cable Internet

Have NEVER had this much lag EVER, and I'm willling to put up with a little anyways.

[edit]
Forgot to add then as soon as the transports jumped I had an AWESOME ping!!
[edit]

I assume you mean to say that the long load times now are also due to crappy system specs? that just doesn't make sense...

no, I dont' think it's crappy system specs, there are just tooo many in sector at one time, when there is only 1 transport going though or even 2 it was not bad but 200 bots will kill anyones system. And the delay between them seems to be seconds, which does not make sense for Grey space, perhaps at a capital station but not a wormhole in the middle of no where. Perhaps it's the wormhole animation that's creating the lag I don't know but if I have to buy new hardware then I might as well cancel my subscription.

Lag = Network
Framerate = Video card

Yes, many bots can cause both LAG and Framerate drops, however my connection is still pretty good even with 200+ bots in sector. My framerate only drops when there's a HUGE convoy warping out all at the same time (probably due to the extensive amount of alpha layering being done).

My load times are only slightly longer entering a busy sector.

If there's delays between one frame and another being drawn on the screen (easily determined by openning a menu and trying to move the mouse), that's definitely your framerate, and your video card is probably crap, or needs drivers.

If the motion of things in-game is smooth, but the positions of things jump around, or there are delays between typing chat and it showing up, or really long sector load times, that's lag, and is entirely tied to your network connection, not your computer.

200 bots does not kill my system. The framerate drops to maybe 15fps when ALL OF THEM are jumping out at the same time.... quick fix is to face away from the wormhole animation and you're good to go. Personally, I think it looks awesome.

Looking at your specs John, your video card is junk. That's what 's causing your performance problem. GeForce MX cards aren't worth their solder and components.

That being said, it's still being tweaked. I highly doubt they want the convoys to eclipse the players 24x7. The devs mentioned that they would be tweaking the convoy spawn rates so that such a swarm of bots doesn't happen.

it may be that my card is crap but like I said, it's only been a problem since the transport update. Never had an issue when dealing with teh levi and it's minions so…

Perhaps I'll just cancel my account then and look for somethig better to do then wait around for the next update.

Well, last night there were an insane number of escorts due to a silly oversight. I've significantly turned that stuff down now (in fact it was turned down as of around 11 last night, and the convoys got a reset this morning)

We are still tweaking the number of bots, both in individual convoys and how convoys respond to piracy and so on. So, it's still a work in progress, and there probably have been way too many recently (especially, I hear, after some piracy in B8.. heheh). Aside from that, there are a few things that we can do to significantly improve performance on lower end machines, but it will probably require some of you to reduce your graphics settings.

Both the GeForce FX 5200 and the GeForce MX are pretty slow cards (the 5200 is much, much newer, but for some reason is just embarassingly slow, I was very unhappy when Apple chose that chip for iMacs).. BUT both should be able to continue to play the game for some time to come.

Next week I'll make an effort to go over the composition of convoys and make sure all the ships used have low-detail "LOD" (level of detail) versions, and try testing on our slower machines (we have a G4 733, which is below the minimum spec, but still, I'll try and get it to work as well as I can). We can also see about putting in a lower-detail version of the wormhole animation, like the old one, which is optional at lower graphic-detail levels. When the convoys jump with 2394923 different wormholes.. it's pretty insane, and a lot more intensive than I meant it to be.

In the meantime, I'd suggest people who are having problems go into Options -> Video Settings and set Visual Quality down to the "16MB" settings. This will look uglier, but it may be much more playable. You can also go into Options -> Graphics Settings and turn down "Effects Detail", the lowest setting will disable wormhole animations entirely (and also explosions, I think). It's a stopgap thing, but it'll work. Also, if you're on a machine with a GeForce FX 5200 and have things like pixel shaders turned on (disabled by default on the Mac), or "Full Scene Glow Effect" turned on in Graphics Options, consider disabling them.

A machine that was fast enough to run the game with less ships (ie, no convoys) on "pretty" settings, may not be fast enough to run the game with more ships on "pretty" settings. But again, I'll do testing of my own and post my suggested settings here.

It is an unfortunate fact of an ongoing-development game like this that system requirements will change over time. We even made sure to print that on the back of the box, actually. But, regardless, we have always made an effort to keep the game as widely compatible as possible, and will continue to do so. No one is going to be told to "buy a new system" right now, or for quite some time. Eventually, some people may also have to start playing the game on "uglier" graphical detail settings, simply because we're adding more content. The alternative is.. don't add more content, and I'm pretty sure no one wants that.

Yea ppl like that adding stuff thing.

Like RACE TRACKS!@
Tons of players are waiting for the Racing Expansion.

[OT] boxcar must be fairly weighty if he counts as "tons" of player, since as far as i know hes the only one that really cares about racing. [/OT]

I didnt have much trouble on the test server the other night with an 800mhz P3.. I had both LOD set to 10 and the various effects approx 50% on. the machine does have a fairly decent 128meg video card however, (cant remember what brand/model at the moment, i hardly ever use that machine anymore and i'm not at home to check)

that said, as I mentioned on the test server, cutting back the number/frequency of convoys probably wouldnt hurt, having a 8 moth convoy leave every 3 minutes just seems like too much traffic to me.
While it would be nice to have 150-200 bots show up in a wormhole sector on occasion in UIT space with its large number of factions, (maybe when 6 or 7 major convoys happen to cross paths) 200 bots in grey space wormholes should be a very rare occurence.
I can see a smallish convoy passing through every 5 or 10 minutes... I understand that at present the convoys are random however as you plan to tie them into the revamped economy at some point in the future, so if we just have to live with it for now thats probably not too huge of a deal.
just cut all the convoys back.. maybe about 75 at a time if what was on the test server was 150/time.