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*** Vendetta 1.8.106
- Server-side sector load time optimizations.
- High Density Sectors. Most sectors in the central ring of Deneb
(not those with stations) have been replaced. These sectors were
already statically fogged some time ago, in anticipation of the
increased object count. The new sectors have much higher crystal
density, and represent the first production test case for the
"Universe Redux" process. Future sectors will be even larger and
denser, but more development work remains before this can happen.
- VO "Happy Holidays to Long Lost Vets" promotion: All un-subbed
accounts that were last subbed in September or earlier may play
through Jan 1st!
- Server-side sector load time optimizations.
- High Density Sectors. Most sectors in the central ring of Deneb
(not those with stations) have been replaced. These sectors were
already statically fogged some time ago, in anticipation of the
increased object count. The new sectors have much higher crystal
density, and represent the first production test case for the
"Universe Redux" process. Future sectors will be even larger and
denser, but more development work remains before this can happen.
- VO "Happy Holidays to Long Lost Vets" promotion: All un-subbed
accounts that were last subbed in September or earlier may play
through Jan 1st!
Interesting update.
I had a look at the dense sectors in deneb.
H12 took about 3 minutes to load , a normal sector would be a couple of seconds. Once in I realised why, I noted 8 000 ice roids in there, but it was just a preliminary survey. FPS were about 30 -40, though how that would drop with any action happening remains to be seen.
G12 proved interesting, an ion storm in a fogged sector really does obscure things. Again, a big field, 8000 roids and quite a distance across given that the storm exit point was 16 K out.
The main problem is that these sectors do become visually disorienting quite quickly, and to an extent rather oppressive compared to the open and attractive vistas afforded by many of the existing roid fields. For instance it would be a pity to fog Dantia L6 so that a player loses the sense of scale afforded by the huge roids there. The same argument applies to many of the bone or mixed fields with interesting planets as backgrounds, some of with can be visually stunning.
So, a welcome development if used sparingly.
I had a look at the dense sectors in deneb.
H12 took about 3 minutes to load , a normal sector would be a couple of seconds. Once in I realised why, I noted 8 000 ice roids in there, but it was just a preliminary survey. FPS were about 30 -40, though how that would drop with any action happening remains to be seen.
G12 proved interesting, an ion storm in a fogged sector really does obscure things. Again, a big field, 8000 roids and quite a distance across given that the storm exit point was 16 K out.
The main problem is that these sectors do become visually disorienting quite quickly, and to an extent rather oppressive compared to the open and attractive vistas afforded by many of the existing roid fields. For instance it would be a pity to fog Dantia L6 so that a player loses the sense of scale afforded by the huge roids there. The same argument applies to many of the bone or mixed fields with interesting planets as backgrounds, some of with can be visually stunning.
So, a welcome development if used sparingly.
"The main problem is that these sectors do become visually disorienting quite quickly, and to an extent rather oppressive compared to the open and attractive vistas afforded by many of the existing roid fields."
The time for in-sector navigation.
"For instance it would be a pity to fog Dantia L6 so that a player loses the sense of scale afforded by the huge roids there. The same argument applies to many of the bone or mixed fields with interesting planets as backgrounds, some of with can be visually stunning."
One thing was suggested right on that day when fog was introduced. Fog should slowly fly around in chunks! The whole sector should be fogged less, preserving some global visibility and orientation, with denser spots. Could you imagine the great look? This is just another ION storm. Flat screen of green.
The time for in-sector navigation.
"For instance it would be a pity to fog Dantia L6 so that a player loses the sense of scale afforded by the huge roids there. The same argument applies to many of the bone or mixed fields with interesting planets as backgrounds, some of with can be visually stunning."
One thing was suggested right on that day when fog was introduced. Fog should slowly fly around in chunks! The whole sector should be fogged less, preserving some global visibility and orientation, with denser spots. Could you imagine the great look? This is just another ION storm. Flat screen of green.
Very cool sectors. However, they do indeed take a hellavuh long time to load. fps in the sectors is good however. 50fps.
I pre-load textures as well... cut down the load time to about 20-30 seconds vs the minutes people were talking about. Even so, not really a sector you'll want to jump into during a Deneb run... but as its fogged anyways that goes without saying :).
I pre-load textures as well... cut down the load time to about 20-30 seconds vs the minutes people were talking about. Even so, not really a sector you'll want to jump into during a Deneb run... but as its fogged anyways that goes without saying :).
"H12 took about 3 minutes to load , a normal sector would be a couple of seconds"
I had the same experience, the load textures on startup option made a huge difference,might be worth a go if you have ram to spare..
I had the same experience, the load textures on startup option made a huge difference,might be worth a go if you have ram to spare..
Same here; even with texture pre-loaded, it took about 30-45 seconds to load.
Meh, VO "Happy Holidays to Long Lost Vets" promotion did not work for me.
Happy Holidays everyone. :)
Happy Holidays everyone. :)
Bojan: We're looking at how we implemented the Holiday Vets thing, you may have access soon, so check back.
Everyone else: We have a number of optimizations we're working on to help the loading time thing.
Making fog "float around in chunks" sounds neat, and is far less simple to implement. We considered it, and looked at some options. There are some possibilities, but since fog is a "fundamental gameplay limitation" and not just eye candy, it would have to work the same way for everyone. If we were to do chunked fog in any of the more modern methods, it would effectively raise the system requirements to play the game. Perhaps by a lot. And it would be a lot slower. Unless we come up with some new clever hack, it's not really an option for the moment.
Keep in mind, this is just a first test to see how it goes, and expose issues like the ones we're seeing. It definitely changes a lot of things. It can be disorienting, make it harder to find a clear spot to jump, etc. But, these are all things we can address, and it can add a lot of interesting new gameplay too. We'll have to see how it goes.
Everyone else: We have a number of optimizations we're working on to help the loading time thing.
Making fog "float around in chunks" sounds neat, and is far less simple to implement. We considered it, and looked at some options. There are some possibilities, but since fog is a "fundamental gameplay limitation" and not just eye candy, it would have to work the same way for everyone. If we were to do chunked fog in any of the more modern methods, it would effectively raise the system requirements to play the game. Perhaps by a lot. And it would be a lot slower. Unless we come up with some new clever hack, it's not really an option for the moment.
Keep in mind, this is just a first test to see how it goes, and expose issues like the ones we're seeing. It definitely changes a lot of things. It can be disorienting, make it harder to find a clear spot to jump, etc. But, these are all things we can address, and it can add a lot of interesting new gameplay too. We'll have to see how it goes.
Ok, we updated how we calculated the promo, and it is now basically people who who expired before Oct 1, which includes most people billed in or before September (including Bojan).
The new sectors are nice and I look forward to seeing more high density sectors but I have to turn my video settings all the way down to get a decent framerate.
My framerate's fine with my high graphics settings, it's just that the load time is pretty damn long.
So we tried out some PVP in the dense awesomely creepy roids. A few thoughts:
It was hard to find the other people. I realize that's the point, but it was extremely difficult if one player got disoriented and lost sight of the turret.
That being said, perhaps the turret should 'ping' every few seconds to players can find it again.
Maybe make it a 'nav marker' instead? i.e. won't shoot
other that that, it was a blast. I would to see the shared radar extender in use here.
It was hard to find the other people. I realize that's the point, but it was extremely difficult if one player got disoriented and lost sight of the turret.
That being said, perhaps the turret should 'ping' every few seconds to players can find it again.
Maybe make it a 'nav marker' instead? i.e. won't shoot
other that that, it was a blast. I would to see the shared radar extender in use here.
I can confirm the long loading times, as well as the awesomeness of how the gray dusty look. It would make a great setting for some high profile mining operations.
One thing, though - I was in the same sector as one other player, and I repeatedly kept seeing him on targetless, with reported distance about 10k away. Also, the radar announcer from pirate toolkit (or whatever it is called) kept reporting him ("JohnDoe has entered radar range"). It felt like the radar range is extended immensely, but roids were blocking him intermittently as we both moved around the sector.
This was in Deneb H12, in case it matters.
One thing, though - I was in the same sector as one other player, and I repeatedly kept seeing him on targetless, with reported distance about 10k away. Also, the radar announcer from pirate toolkit (or whatever it is called) kept reporting him ("JohnDoe has entered radar range"). It felt like the radar range is extended immensely, but roids were blocking him intermittently as we both moved around the sector.
This was in Deneb H12, in case it matters.
I just went and checked out a few sectors in Deneb. I hit a storm in E-10 and was like 22000m from the jump. FPS dropped down to like 10.. but when I jumped into D-11 my FPS went back up to 200.
Load time on that sector was around 20 seconds btw.
I know you guys are still tweaking/experimenting, but that's quite a performance hit. (and nothing was in the storm, minus a ton of roids and 1 turret)
Load time on that sector was around 20 seconds btw.
I know you guys are still tweaking/experimenting, but that's quite a performance hit. (and nothing was in the storm, minus a ton of roids and 1 turret)
A couple of questions...
1) Are there any decent ores in those sector? I found only ishik and water and some other common ore that escapes my memory atm after randomly scanning in several sectors.
2) Assuming there are rare ores, how do you plan to make them conducive to mining? If your going to keep all of the sectors fogged, then a significantly larger percentage of the roids would need to have rare content, since the current method of marking good roids with targetless may become futile due to low visibility and radar as well as the high content of up to 8000 roids I believe was mentioned.
That said, I did not experience any significant lag jumping into any of the sectors I explored. I did experience an ion storm I believe in I 11 which seemed silly. I agree that the sectors look awesome, but really no different from the sectors that already have fog since you really don't get a sense of scale apart from a 22,000m jump point for the one in an ion storm. I'd like to see the fog lifted periodically or implemented perhaps with more frequency in these sectors than current ion storms.
1) Are there any decent ores in those sector? I found only ishik and water and some other common ore that escapes my memory atm after randomly scanning in several sectors.
2) Assuming there are rare ores, how do you plan to make them conducive to mining? If your going to keep all of the sectors fogged, then a significantly larger percentage of the roids would need to have rare content, since the current method of marking good roids with targetless may become futile due to low visibility and radar as well as the high content of up to 8000 roids I believe was mentioned.
That said, I did not experience any significant lag jumping into any of the sectors I explored. I did experience an ion storm I believe in I 11 which seemed silly. I agree that the sectors look awesome, but really no different from the sectors that already have fog since you really don't get a sense of scale apart from a 22,000m jump point for the one in an ion storm. I'd like to see the fog lifted periodically or implemented perhaps with more frequency in these sectors than current ion storms.
Good.
If we lift the fog in any of these new sectors, it will crush your framerate. Trust me, I tested them like that, to make sure of their extents. The whole point of the fog is to pull in the clipping plane far enough to keep things playable. Plus, the current sectors aren't even approaching "maximum" densities or scales.. on the development server we've been playing with upwards of 30,000 asteroids in a sector. This is not to say we're aiming to do this kind of increased object count everywhere, there should be a variety of locational types, just that this will give us the option of truly vast and dense asteroid fields with some intriguing gameplay ramifications. I look forward to actually being able to use our massive sector space.
As I've said, we are working on the loading time thing, that's a blocking issue for now; but we have some preliminary solutions that have been working well, and a lot of good ideas on how to improve things.
How we distribute rare ores and all that is still in flux (none of the current Deneb ones will have anything unsual, that I'm aware of), but you can guarantee that I've been thinking a lot about nav beacons and other in-built functionality. I don't know how current plugins work, and we don't depend on external plugins.. there will be a need for beacons, intra-sector navigation, and general marking capabilities regardless.
I have no idea why the framerate would drop to 10fps, if it's 200fps in similar fogged locations. Perhaps a storm on top of existing fog, or some other unforeseen issue, probably not related to the sector itself. If you see this occur frequently, or determine any commonalities (only happens in certain places, or with certain equipment like extenders) please post to Bugs about it.
Different fogs have different properties when it comes to fog radar extenders. Some can allow greater extensions, some smaller. So a huge radar range is not impossible.. I'm not sure what the extender factor is set to in the new Deneb sectors (since we fogged those quite some time ago). These factors will all require additional testing and tuning.
Being able to keep track of other people, and one's own location, is certainly something that will be important, and most of this has been foreseen. For the moment, we're just trying to make it all work reasonably well (framerate, sector load times, etc). We'll implement more usability features before it becomes widespread.
I'm also not saying that "all" asteroid sectors will become fogged, that would be silly. Simply that this is something that will occur more often, and will effectively replace most storms (see the related thread for more information). There will also be a variety of fogs, with different densities and extents, as well as properties (like some might be corrosive or harmful to most ships, as was recently mentioned on Suggestions). In some sectors we will likely tie mining activity to fog existence/density. However, in truly dense areas we will not be able to "lift" fog entirely, as again.. there are just too many objects and it would be crushing on people's framerates.
We could do absolutely crazy asteroid sectors if we required super modern hardware of everyone and used the "instancing" features of modern video chips. But then no one else would be able to play, heh. So, like everything in our game, this is a tradeoff of desired gameplay and reasonable system expectations.
As I've said, we are working on the loading time thing, that's a blocking issue for now; but we have some preliminary solutions that have been working well, and a lot of good ideas on how to improve things.
How we distribute rare ores and all that is still in flux (none of the current Deneb ones will have anything unsual, that I'm aware of), but you can guarantee that I've been thinking a lot about nav beacons and other in-built functionality. I don't know how current plugins work, and we don't depend on external plugins.. there will be a need for beacons, intra-sector navigation, and general marking capabilities regardless.
I have no idea why the framerate would drop to 10fps, if it's 200fps in similar fogged locations. Perhaps a storm on top of existing fog, or some other unforeseen issue, probably not related to the sector itself. If you see this occur frequently, or determine any commonalities (only happens in certain places, or with certain equipment like extenders) please post to Bugs about it.
Different fogs have different properties when it comes to fog radar extenders. Some can allow greater extensions, some smaller. So a huge radar range is not impossible.. I'm not sure what the extender factor is set to in the new Deneb sectors (since we fogged those quite some time ago). These factors will all require additional testing and tuning.
Being able to keep track of other people, and one's own location, is certainly something that will be important, and most of this has been foreseen. For the moment, we're just trying to make it all work reasonably well (framerate, sector load times, etc). We'll implement more usability features before it becomes widespread.
I'm also not saying that "all" asteroid sectors will become fogged, that would be silly. Simply that this is something that will occur more often, and will effectively replace most storms (see the related thread for more information). There will also be a variety of fogs, with different densities and extents, as well as properties (like some might be corrosive or harmful to most ships, as was recently mentioned on Suggestions). In some sectors we will likely tie mining activity to fog existence/density. However, in truly dense areas we will not be able to "lift" fog entirely, as again.. there are just too many objects and it would be crushing on people's framerates.
We could do absolutely crazy asteroid sectors if we required super modern hardware of everyone and used the "instancing" features of modern video chips. But then no one else would be able to play, heh. So, like everything in our game, this is a tradeoff of desired gameplay and reasonable system expectations.
Hi all thanks for the free time. I was going to subcribe anyway, winter break from school
I'll still subscibe again for at least 3 months and i hope to see u all soon :)
Jest Bess
I'll still subscibe again for at least 3 months and i hope to see u all soon :)
Jest Bess
"The new sectors are nice and I look forward to seeing more high density sectors but I have to turn my video settings all the way down to get a decent framerate."
"on the development server we've been playing with upwards of 30,000 asteroids in a sector. This is not to say we're aiming to do this kind of increased object count everywhere"
"I have no idea why the framerate would drop to 10fps, if it's 200fps in similar fogged locations."
"There will also be a variety of fogs, with different densities and extents"
Well, there will always be locations and situations dropping your framerate significantly. I was thinking about this many times.
Incarnate, would it be possible to let us change at least some graphics and video settings via LUA?
Usually, people tend to play VO at the max their hardware can stand. Like I do. I love the eye candy BUT from time to time, I would really prefer to have my settings lowered. Easily and for a short while.
Problematic locations are clear. Some sectors, ION storms, etc.
Situations could be events with many players, missions with many bots, many swarms in a sector or you simply want to get the max from your PC during a combat situation when you really do not care about far stars and the finest sky details. Speed is what matters here. Even you PC could be slowed down temporarily. Doing some job like video compression or crunching crontab tasks at 4 A.M. :)
If we could change settings easily and quickly via LUA, we would be able to make presets, bind them to keys and switch them on demand. Presets like 1) Rich - the nicest VO ever, 2) Combat - I do not care about details now, ...
"on the development server we've been playing with upwards of 30,000 asteroids in a sector. This is not to say we're aiming to do this kind of increased object count everywhere"
"I have no idea why the framerate would drop to 10fps, if it's 200fps in similar fogged locations."
"There will also be a variety of fogs, with different densities and extents"
Well, there will always be locations and situations dropping your framerate significantly. I was thinking about this many times.
Incarnate, would it be possible to let us change at least some graphics and video settings via LUA?
Usually, people tend to play VO at the max their hardware can stand. Like I do. I love the eye candy BUT from time to time, I would really prefer to have my settings lowered. Easily and for a short while.
Problematic locations are clear. Some sectors, ION storms, etc.
Situations could be events with many players, missions with many bots, many swarms in a sector or you simply want to get the max from your PC during a combat situation when you really do not care about far stars and the finest sky details. Speed is what matters here. Even you PC could be slowed down temporarily. Doing some job like video compression or crunching crontab tasks at 4 A.M. :)
If we could change settings easily and quickly via LUA, we would be able to make presets, bind them to keys and switch them on demand. Presets like 1) Rich - the nicest VO ever, 2) Combat - I do not care about details now, ...
question inc. After the bugs get worked out of the super dense roid fields with fog can we be expecting some of those super massive structures you hinted at earlier?