Invisibility is detroying space

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:42 pm

Invisibility is destroying our possible fun experience in space, can't somethign be done about this. I can none of my friends in space.

Baladin · Post by **Baladin** » Sat Feb 20, 2010 10:47 pm

Yeah, myself, jmoyet and mishka were all in space at the same time and could not see each other... however we all witnessed Lurker fighting Cafedead and we all intervened without knowing it. Surely there something not quite right with this? From what ive seen it seems like the older players are invisible to me or something.

But if its all sorted out BG looks good to return.

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 12:46 am

its odd that player locating works on the worlds but not in space.
wonder if mit could just change space so it uses the same system that's on worlds.

DeathsHand_Mantis · Post by **DeathsHand_Mantis** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 1:17 am

Lurker fighting Cafedead? Maybe THATS why it seemed he spontaneously burst into flames.

Baladin · Post by **Baladin** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 1:22 am

DeathsHand_Mantis wrote:Lurker fighting Cafedead? Maybe THATS why it seemed he spontaneously burst into flames.

You were there too huh, didnt see you XD.

Gorach · Post by **Gorach** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 2:05 am

I was shocked. I did not stand a chance. )) xD

Yeah. Too many players have told me that they saw no one else, although I am not alone in the system. Perhaps the problem in Internet connection. Now, many providers do not provide users with dynamic, but their own primary IP addresses, substituted provider's dynamic IP. I think, game is not correctly work out for these situations. For exapmle, I saw you all (I have primary IP, which can be used for access to my PC), but other player don't see some players, he have provider's IP, which can't used for access to his PC. This affect also provided by routers.

But maybe I'm wrong.

Post by **Fooli** » Sun Feb 21, 2010 1:54 pm

zaroba wrote:its odd that player locating works on the worlds but not in space.
wonder if mit could just change space so it uses the same system that's on worlds.

This has all been explained many times before. He could, but we'd need to host the galaxy on a rather chunky and expensive connection to handle movement and combat in space.

On a world you have a client-server system: all movement, positioning, combat, trading etc etc depends on messages sent by the world server to each client connected to it. Once you've established a connection between your client and the server, that's it: both client and server know what to send, when, to whom.

In space, movement, positioning and combat is handled on a peer-to-peer basis. Each client has to discover, connect to and communicate with all the other client in the region, and this is, because of the nature of peer-to-peer communication, a bit fraught: you can never guarantee everyone will be able to see everyone else all of the time. There's a technical paper linked somewhere on the forum that explains it all, though I must admit I didn't understand any of it: mit told me what it meant, and I just nodded. Apparently it's just the way things are, and that's the nature of this kind of networking.

So why do we use such an unreliable method? Space movement and combat has to be peer-to-peer because, while a world can work with low player limits (32, 16, maybe just 8 for a real-time combat world) the galaxy can't: it's designed to cope with hundreds of players without us needing to host it on a hugely fast connection. All that real-time movement and combat would eat up a normal DSL connection, and at the moment that means my normal DSL connection:]

It's slightly ironic, of course, that in theory a normal DSL connection could probably handle it with the currently low number of players, but in spite of that we need to maintain the peer-to-peer model. That's because we still plan to "do something" to re-ignite TU, so need to be able to handle lots of people, and because mit doesn't have the time, and we don't have the money to recode everything so it works client-server and is hosted on a fat pipe somewhere.

I imagine if we got to the point where we had sufficient people to ask for some cash to play, or if we suddenly came into a load of money from a lottery win or something, then things might change, but otherwise... we just have to suffer. Sorry.

f

zaroba · Post by **zaroba** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:14 am

ahh, darn.
yea, you had explained about it before.
i had forgotten, thanks for explaining it again though.

jmoyet · Post by **jmoyet** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 10:19 am

well yeah that makes sense...

so yeah... when ever you and mit decide its time to re-ignite TU, should try some advertising. i once heard you guys did in the past and overloaded the server from all the players that saw the ads.

But anyways I guess for now we will have to wait for things to pick up on its own in TU without ads until you guys "do something" to re-ignite TU.

wes773 · Post by **wes773** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:58 pm

What I'm planning on doing to bring in players is tied in with my world. My world will be a racing planet. I happen to also play(2 mins a day maybe) a browserbased racing game. I figure I'll probably get banned from the other game but if players come it's worth it.

Baladin · Post by **Baladin** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 10:56 pm

Can I get a rough idea of how much all that would cost to upgrade?

DeathsHand_Mantis · Post by **DeathsHand_Mantis** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 12:26 am

Hrm, any of the forum goers here flying around cirrus minor today?

What we are seeing here is a Frost Bite police fighter's floating wreck, freshly phasered. Reports are sketchy at best, with startled victims randomly screaming to others about a massive ship targeting them, followed shortly by spontaneous combustion. Scientist's opinions vary widely, with some speculating this phenomena to be caused by stray gamma rays, while others cite the increased consumption of Drellian ale to be the culprit. Yet still others have a more darker take on this, with citizens of Zion, Ariya, and Iridis citing the ancient prophecy, handed down from the great ape creators eons ago that an unholy army of invisible jet-sheep is to bring about the end of the universe.

Whatever the cause, the impact is clear. While some individuals are gaining vast amounts of wealth, due to being unable to come into contact with the hostiles, others are at these shadowy spectre's mercy, and their allies are forced to watch in horror as their comrade's ships are slowly deconstructed.

This is Sam Simian repor... what the he... shields dow... oh god...ejec...

[error]

[contact lost]

Speeddy · Post by **Speeddy** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:15 pm

ygarik never run away from me . . . , i always see him . . .
ps. GOOD job Fros bite

Mishka · Post by **Mishka** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:18 pm

Fooli excuse me, but that doesn't explain why this whole thing seems to have gotten much much worse. Can anyone confirm? The number of people I can't see in space has increased dramatically.

Baladin · Post by **Baladin** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:04 pm

Definetely, i remember a while back when i could see everyone, all of BG, all of NR and all of AIF, aswell as the odd noob or 2. Ever since then specific people have been popping off my radar one by one, now i see literally no one. Even when im talking to 4 or 5 people on Xfire or something and they all claim they are in Cirrus Minor i dont see any of them.

Perhaps if mit had downgraded the server to a cheaper method this might explain why but ive not heard anywhere that he has.

flametard · Post by **flametard** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:47 pm

Yeah its crazy, i thought by upgrading to the expensive cable i'd be able to finnaly face my arch nemisis Mishka in Combat, but to no avail. ... Perhaps.... The TU players will all chip in to upgrade the servers to solve this problem or whatever.

Post by **Fooli** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 7:31 pm

I don't believe anything has changed with the client to cause this, but who knows - maybe the recent galaxy change is to blame. It's a question for Mit really - all I do is report on what he tells me.

"Paying to upgrade the servers or whatever" would be nice but what'd need paying for is the time to recode a sizable chunk of the client (time that mit must spend actually doing his job, y'know) and then hosting it somewhere expensive so it didn't fall over all the time. Feel free to give us your money, any multi-gazillionnaires out there, but us mere mortals shouldn't hold our breath :]

f

dramaking444 · Post by **dramaking444** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 10:18 am

Bump, bump, bump, bump, BUMP!

I would like to reiterate the point that Mishka has made. Space is unplayable as it currently stands. Just yesterday I was in Cirrus Minor, there were 6 players in the system, and I could see one, who happened to be a fellow faction member.

Space constitutes 50% of TU, and indeed is where all new players start out. These client issues are seriously undermining the game as an MMO.

When I get paid next month I will be happy to donate if substantial progress is planned.

DK444

flametard · Post by **flametard** » Sun Jun 27, 2010 5:35 pm

from how i understand it TU needs a decent lil chunk of money to fix the invisibility problems cause it involves upgrading hardware or something, dont know for sure if money would actually solve the issue or not tho. edit, ah i see, also Mit's time to recode, which, since he has a real job, he might not be able to get to unless WE can start paying his bills haha.

fooli im working on that gazillionare thing, just lemme scratch a few more lottery tickets.

ElderGod · Post by **ElderGod** » Mon Jun 28, 2010 4:18 am

I find this rather odd,Am i the only person thats able to see 99% of the community in space ?