Server tickrate

Sadly there is not going to be a compromise value which results in good gameplay given the current meta of ONS (everyone in a vehicle).

To see why click here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...cb4htm79mBa8U/

Even at at tick rate of 30 (probably the minimum for reasonable hit detection), 100% of a player's available bandwidth will be be consumed by 5 vehicles in their area. 100% by 5. On a 32 player server. And that is movement only. Firing weapons will push you over 100%. The truth is the engine was simply not designed to handle maps with high vehicle counts. Each AVRiL in flight takes 10% at a tick of 30. Spider mines are the worst by far and they are especially evil because they take priority over just about everything. Want to lag someone to hell, use alt fire on the mine layer to chase them around with 8 spiders.

Of course there are things that can be done to help:

1) Remove all spider mines from maps
2) Remove all AVRiLs from maps (but make sure there is plenty of Rockets and LG/shock)
3) Reduce the single seat (and overall) vehicle count. I am not 100% certain but I don't think additional people in the same vehicle requires significantly more bandwidth. So fewer mantas, raptors, scorpions, and more tanks, benders, cicadas. Could possibly adapt all raptor class fliers to have two seats and reduce their count by half.
4) Raise the bandwidth cap on the server to 20,000. This will raise the upstream bandwidth requirement on the server from 2.56Mb/sec to 5.12Mb/sec.
5) Don't put broken movement speed in the game.

All of the above, could be done. But probably won't be. It hasn't been for 13 years, and I don't expect that to change now.

Another issue that may be causing more unregs than usual outside of all this is Carpe's infamous buffer bloat. Audio/Video takes up more and more bandwidth every single day, and that streaming data generally gets priority over everything else, unless you pay to be bumped to the top of the food chain. And anytime packets get delayed for a significant amount of time or lost completely, you are going to have unregs.

But don't blame the server.... I checked in a couple of times and it was maintaining a rock steady tick. It is not a CPU or hardware issue, but network issues either of the engine itself or the internet backbone.

Clearly people had problems with the 26 tick, so you can bump it up to 30 or 35 and get somewhat better hit registration, but there is no magic bullet or easy answer to be found other than accepting the limitations of reality and working within those confines to create the best experience possible.

Wow. Okay, well can it just be set to like 32 and go from there. It's very messed up right now.

Btw, anyone remember how just like 3-4 years ago everything worked much better? Or is that just me? The only common unregistered shots I remember having were the Mino on the Hammerhead, which has been around for a while. Any other unregs were very rare.

Yep, it needs to be lowered from where it is now. Try in the middle at 32 and we can adjust from there. We know it'll never be perfect, so let's find a the best compromise.

Goose gave a lot of valid suggestions, but it was a lot. Let's tackle one at a time, same way you eat an elephant... one bite at a time.

Binger, on a different thread I asked similar questions and got few replies if any.

Please put it back to the way it was before!

I lowered it to 35 - see how that is

Originally Posted by Binger

Btw, anyone remember how just like 3-4 years ago everything worked much better? Or is that just me? The only common unregistered shots I remember having were the Mino on the Hammerhead, which has been around for a while. Any other unregs were very rare.

Have you SEEN the map loadouts we have now?! A zillion OP vehicles. Desert Junkyard was originally just a map to hold all the latest vehicle versions in one map! we HAD to give rides ... and that's the way we liked it! [shakes fist at sky].

Originally Posted by fuzzyslippers

have you seen the map loadouts we have now?! A zillion op vehicles. Desert junkyard was originally just a map to hold all the latest vehicle versions in one map! We had to give rides ... And that's the way we liked it! [shakes fist at sky].

and get off of his lawn!

So far it seems to be playing pretty good at 35.

I know very little about this topic. I will say since Sunday the 10th I have noticed improved performance. However on the junkyard maps (arctic and desert) if there is a full house, tops of vehicles wont appear. I tried counting seconds until the top would appear and every time it happened it was a different amount of time.

Could be a resource issue? Example: Top of my Goliath wouldnt appear until another vehicle got blown up.

The tick was 35 if I recall. As for unreg shots, I didnt notice any. No lag either. Huge plus! So its definitely better, but some larger maps with newer vehicles just present issues.

On Nevermore I was attacked by an invisible flyer. I saw its weapon being fired, but that was all I saw. I watched as the node got destroyed by something that wasnt there. After that I believe it squashed me cause I was dead in an instant. Just heard the sound of a vehicle hitting the ground. I didnt respawn, but looked around panning the camera and a guy just appeared like David Copperfield and started building the node. This happened again in another round. I saw fire from the sky but no flyer.

Junkyard maps = missing tops (common)
Nevermore = missing tops (less than common) and invisible vehicle (two times same match)

So those are the only 3 maps I have predictable problems with. Sorry for the long post.

Yeah, after playing some more, I've had issues like that, too. The invisible flyers are the worst... one second clear sky, the next second there was a hammerhead smashing me. I think Analog said he'd turn it down at bit more to something like 30-32 to see if that's better.

Originally Posted by TotalBurn

...On Nevermore I was attacked by an invisible flyer. I saw its weapon being fired, but that was all I saw. ... Just heard the sound of a vehicle hitting the ground. ... I saw fire from the sky but no flyer.

Originally Posted by JohnSmallBerries

The invisible flyers are the worst.

Invisible vehicles? Haha! Could make for an interesting match. Would definitely cut down on death matching, maybe people would focus on building and attacking nodes more.

"It's quiet, too quiet"

"They're out there, man!"

Not sure it helps, but Ceonns runs at 27 and I never see any of the odd stuff I have been seeing on Omni of late.

Thanks for messing with it, it is appreciated.

Andrew

Originally Posted by Lagzilla

Not sure it helps, but Ceonns runs at 27 and I never see any of the odd stuff I have been seeing on Omni of late.

Thanks for messing with it, it is appreciated.

Andrew

We were at 26 before the change.

As Goose stated, just too much chit going on on full servers. ONS was designed to be vehicles with foot-soldier support, and it
worked relatively good in those days (even with slower internet speeds). The uncontrolled growth of vehicles, combined with
20+ players blasting stuff all over the place = recipe for unreg's, disappearing vehicles/players and warpage.

I know that we spent a lot of time futzing with the tick-rate and arrived at 26 as the most live-able.

Currently at 35. I will drop it to 30 shortly (will post in here when I do).

Tickrate now set at 30. Have at it and report back.

May the bile of the vanquished fill your hands...

Originally Posted by Carpe Diem

We were at 26 before the change.

As Goose stated, just too much chit going on on full servers. ONS was designed to be vehicles with foot-soldier support, and it
worked relatively good in those days (even with slower internet speeds). The uncontrolled growth of vehicles, combined with
20+ players blasting stuff all over the place = recipe for unreg's, disappearing vehicles/players and warpage.

I know that we spent a lot of time futzing with the tick-rate and arrived at 26 as the most live-able.

Currently at 35. I will drop it to 30 shortly (will post in here when I do).

Has it changed that much over the last year? 3 years? I don't recall all of this shit happening before. Last few years big thing was the disconnects, just over the last months has all this unregistered shot, invisible this and that stuff really gotten bad, iirc. What has changed?

Originally Posted by Mr.Crow

Has it changed that much over the last year? 3 years? I don't recall all of this shit happening before. Last few years big thing was the disconnects, just over the last months has all this unregistered shot, invisible this and that stuff really gotten bad, iirc. What has changed?

Net neutrality ?

But you're right Crow. Nothing. In fact, the server has probably overall gotten less busy ?? That alone should
have improved things like unreg's.

It also depends on things like the machine's latency in general. Games are soft-deadline realtime applications and require the lowest latency possible. Kernel timers, dogshit drivers, unnecessary services, background processes, etc. all contribute to processing latency.