In a new forum post, a lead developer behind Star Citizen’s highly-watched server meshing system outlines the results of recent server meshing testing.
Roberts Space Industries/Cloud Imperium Games announced back in May, via a Roadmap Roundup, that server meshing would be a key target goal with the 4.0 update. Since then, they haven’t exactly walked this back. These tests, then, are an important part of RSI’s push towards the Alpha 4.0 release, which has no proper date yet.
It sounds like the smaller earlier tests didn’t go so well, but the team found that its Network Message Queue, which transmitted all the game’s data, didn’t work so well.
They pivoted some efforts to making a new version called the Replication Message Queue that “is designed to significantly improve bandwidth efficiency and maintain security for game servers, clients, and replicants,” the post says. “Most importantly, it aims to prevent major networking bottlenecks that players would typically experience as prolonged interaction delays affecting multiple users simultaneously.”
On September 12, tests continued with Meshing Test “B:” “The results were disappointing and unexpected, but the previously identified bottleneck identified in Test "A" was confirmed fixed,” the post explains. Regardless, loading times and latency under the player loads were bad, so the tests were sut down.
A week later, on September 19, more tests were done, this time with the legacy NMQ system “stripped out” for Meshing Test “C.” The team outlines a lot of the issues remaining, including both loading time and latency issues with high player counts, but they “walked away from this playtest feeling optimistic.” The key focus for next test is noted to be fixing a “hybrid crash” that would throw a 30k error.
One peculiar highlight of this test was that players apparently really wanted to take a dump in the New Babbage bathrooms, as “[b]athrooms in New Babbage were clogged causing massive conga lines as players queued up to wait for their turn,” the notes read, followed by a little “:troll:” insert. I mean, if this helps the devs stress test the areas, sure…?
Supposedly, there’ll be more details about Alpha 4.0 at the upcoming CitizenCon, taking place October 19 and 20. For now, we know some major details, including a full overhaul of ship engineering systems. Plus, there’s a pirate-themed event happening in-game until the 30th.
