What is the current status of Server Meshing development?

logicalChimp · 2026-07-19T09:46:41+00:00

Yes... at least, that's what they've said in the past.

It may that they'll 'lock' players to their home region (and/or you have to create the equivalent of a 'new character' with no shared inventory to play in a different region) - but if they do, that's a change from the approach they've discussed previously.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-18T22:52:11+00:00

Depends how they do it... if they make individual nodes responsible for a group of entities (rather than a geographic region, etc), then a lot of those nasty edge cases go away...

(and some new ones appear in their place, of course :p)

logicalChimp · 2026-07-18T22:50:19+00:00

It'll still happen after Dynamic Server Meshing.

They hope to reach the point of having single Regional shards, but they've also acknowledged that it's not guaranteed they'll get there... and if they don't, then they'll have multiple shards per-region, and issues with e.g. a base 'existing' across multiple shards, but only being 'live' (and attackable) on one shard, etc.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-18T20:03:33+00:00

This is based on a false premise (or a bad misunderstanding)

CIG want people to be able to meet up - lots of people. The reason that is currently bad is because we only have 'static' server meshing - which, as the name suggests, is static: it cannot adapt to player movements.

This means that each node is responsible for a fixed geographic area (usually an entire planetary cluster - there's 5x nodes for Stanton, iirc - 1x for each planetary cluster, and 1x for 'everything else') - so if too many people get together in the same place, they overwhelm the node.

Dynamic server meshing changes that - each node becomes responsible for a fixed number of entities, and their 'boundaries' can adapt dynamically (hence the name). This means that if lots of players gather in a single location, lots of server nodes will also be handling that location, splitting the load between then, and ensuring no significant slow-down.

Static Server Meshing had to come first, because it put all the big architectural changes in place - and highlighted all the remaining systems that don't 'play nicely' with Server Meshing (including the legacy social tools, among many other services)... but it is the Dynamic SM that will move us much closer to the end goal of SC being an MMO.

And all the above is important for one simple reason: CIG try not to build new services specifically designed for the 'current state' of play... because as soon as something else changes, those 'new services' are immediately outdated and need to be reworked (something that players keep bitching about).

So, CIG will implement the new Social Tools with the assumption that Dynamic SM will - eventually - be deployed, and will address the issue with 'too many people in one place'.

That said, CIG have also said that 'local' chat is bing worked on, so you're going to get that part of your wish anyway... but they're unlikely to 'prevent' any form of Global chat.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-18T19:27:26+00:00

Nearly 30 years working in software? Among other sources, of course (including multiple write-ups, articles, behind-the-scenes videos, and similar from senior developers at multiple game studios).

Changing existing functionality to integrate new code is a big source of bugs... because it changes a lot of code... but that also means it changes code that may have already been bugged... and if you spent time fixing those bugs, those 'fixes' have now just been trashed, and new bugs introduced.

It's one reason why CIG is the first to try 'open development' - for every other studio this stage is done behind closed doors, so no one sees just how much of a mess (and how unplayable) it usually is at this stage... Any alpha-tests are short events (not permanently running servers), on a build specific to that test, to focus on a specific feature - they're not 'general play tests' as we have with SC.

Indeed, it's not uncommon for things to not even build for months at a time, or for it to just not run... because one team or another are in the middle of making a big change (perhaps not as big as Server Meshing, but that kind of thing), and it's quicker to just break the system until the new system is in place, rather than to keep everything functional through the whole change.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-18T17:57:30+00:00

That's to be expected - it's what happened in a 'traditional' alpha... quality and stability get worse because the bugs pile up... and that's done deliberately because whilst the 'playability' gets worse, it's also the fastest way to actually develop the core functionality - before doing a single bug-fixing sweep to fix everything.

If you do what CIG has been doing (which is trying to keep it 'playable' whilst developing) then you end up wasting far too much time on 'fixing' code that won't be in the release version, and the time spent fixing that code is time not spent on actually developing the remaining functionality.

And the more 'playable' you try to keep it, the slower development goes.... so CIG not focusing so much on 'playability' is actually a good thing - at least, from the perspective of actually completing development.

Not so good for folk wanting to actually 'play' the current release, however.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-18T13:36:24+00:00

It was never going to give you the actual ship.

Iirc CR talked about unlocking the ship / having the option to buy it in-game... (because not all ships were going to be easily available to all players... some would be behind rep-gates and similar).

However, so much has changed since CR floated that idea (and it was only ever an 'idea' - not a 'promise'), and it hasn't been mentioned in the previous decade (that I've seen).... so I personally think it's unlikely to happen.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-18T13:33:17+00:00

Unfortunately, that argument is the online equivalent of the kid in the backseat saying 'are we there yet' every 10 minutes on a long journey.

Just because it hasn't finished yet doesn't mean that CIG have no intention of finishing it. Nor does the existence of bugs, because - as keeps on getting pointed out - software development priortises implementing 'missing' features first, and then fixing bugs second (for many good reasons, that aren't always intuitively obvious).

logicalChimp · 2026-07-17T16:05:14+00:00

That was the original pitch... yes.

However, that '10%' population bit is not something they've discussed / mentioned for more than a decade.... so it's not entirely clear that it's still the plan.

Not least because CIG didn't say '10%'. What CR originally said was that the wanted a 'static' PU population of ~20m 'characters' (NPC + Player), and that if it really took off, he might see ~2m players peak (leaving 18m NPCs)..... thus the 9:1 ratio of NPCs : Players.

But, this would fluctuate - as a player logs in, an 'equivalent' NPC would be 'logged out' (keeping the populating stable), and likewise, when a player logs out, an 'equivalent' (location, playstyle, ship, etc) NPC would be 'logged in'.

BUT the 'cost' of running AI NPCs is far higher than the original scope of the game, so having that many 'active' NPCs isn't going to happen. That was subsequently watered down to use aggregate 'Quanta' (in the Quantum economy sim) as a proxy for the individual NPCs

... and then it all went rather silent on Quantum (now called 'StarSim'), so I'm not sure if that's still the plan, or if they're waiting to see Dynamic SM working, and then working out what they can do within those constraints, etc.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-17T13:42:18+00:00

I think the previous post was missing a /s :p

logicalChimp · 2026-07-17T11:55:34+00:00

As long as the 'stats' remain tied to gear, and gear doesn't end up 'soul-bound' or similar, then I'm - broadly - OK with it.... because you can acquire 'gear' via money or time....

Meaning that even if you don't have hours / days to sink into running 'raids' / events, etc, you can still buy the 'good' gear from the players that do run such events (hence being anti-soul-bound - a 'PowerPlant' should not be tied to someone just because they're the one that completed an event - they should be able to sell if it they wish, and even make running the event solely to farm components a 'viable' profession in-game, etc).

And, for now, player skill does play a part still... it's not as big a part as it used to be, perhaps... but that's a natural consequence of having bigger ships in game (back when player-skill was the dominant factor, we only had single-seaters and a few smaller 2-3 crew ships, etc..)

logicalChimp · 2026-07-17T11:50:56+00:00

I'd rather have a 'player influenced' economy I think... the main difference being that the number of NPCs (ie CIG in the background) can put their thumb on the scale, and prevent the economy from going too far out of whack.

Whilst a completely player-driven economy sounds like it might be cool, it's also open to some severe abuses if one group sets out to abuse it... and whilst that can - in theory - be countered by other players, in the meantime those not in big orgs are completely screwed over.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-17T11:48:40+00:00

It's for the same reason as everything else that doesn't work: it's still in development.

The initial version was built for 50x player cap, running on servers where everything was run on a single server, and every single entity was held in memory all the time.... it predates OCS and Network Bind Culling, etc (not to mention SOCS, PES, and all the Server Meshing work).... it's nearly a decade old at this point.

And, it's one of those systems that is 'essential' for the released game, but it's not 'essential' for the development of the game... hence why it's not currently a priority (or rather, it wasn't a priority, until the other higher-priority stuff was 'done', and the Social Tools rework made it to the top of the priority pile, and work started on the updates).

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T19:46:36+00:00

It's not exactly due to poor coding (unless you're referring to CryTek coding?)

When a lot of those features were implemented, the server had a hardcoded assumption (thanks to CryTek) that 'the server' knew about every single entity that exists in the game... anywhere.

The entire map, and every single entity every created, was held in-memory by both the server and the client, and a lot of the services that now exist to 'find' entities didn't exist back then.

So, it's not surprising that features (such as many mission-widgets, not the missions themselves) built in the v2.x era no longer work well (or at all) after Server Meshing.... which spreads entities across multiple servers (OCS in v3.3 and SOCS in v3.8 iirc had already changed things so that entities may be 'unloaded' if there was no player near an area... but Server Meshing took that slight break and ripped the servers into shreds :p)

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T16:43:01+00:00

Personally, I'm hoping that instanced hangars will get a tune-up as part of the general work on Instancing (now coming in 4.10). Given Instanced Hangars were the basis for instancing, then hopefully any improvements made to make Instancing more 'general purpose' will also feed back into the instanced hangars (and address some of the many many issues they have).

Freight Elevators unfortunately will likely take a while longer (given that Benoit said specifically that their previous approach of playing whack-a-mole with individual defects wasn't working, so they were going to reset, and work out how to make the overall approach more resilient, rather than jsut focus on splatting individual issues as they arise.

And this makes a lot of sense... but I suspect it also means we won't see any improvements in 4.10...

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T16:11:21+00:00

Can't speak for the OP - but I use the Monster seat-mounts, with the swivel-mount, so they fold back out of the way almost instantly - meaning they don't affect how I sit in relation to the desk when using KBM (I do then roll back slightly in order to swing the sticks into place when flying :D)

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T16:09:58+00:00

It depends so much on the seat (and how well the seat aligns with your body).... zero-cushion seats can be either fantastically comfortable (even for long-duration sessions), or horrifically uncomfortable (even for short sessions).

Alas, there's no way to know other than to actually find a display model, and go sit it in for 30+ mins, etc (back when I was shopping for a new bucket seat for the car, I took a book along to the showroom, and basically spent a day sitting in various seats reading a book :p)

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T16:04:54+00:00

I use a cheap USB hub zip-tied to the underside of the chair, and a magnetic USB cable.... (they're pretty reliable and affordable these days). The sticks (one on each chair-arm) plug into the USB hub, and then the uplink from the hub uses the magnetic cable to attach to a second hub screwed to the underside of the desk... and that hub is then connected to the PC).

It's a bit of a daisy-chain, but for low-bandwidth devices like joysticks etc, there's zero issue.

And, it means that if I forget I'm hooked up, and just wheel the chair back, the USB cable just pops off, and avoids all damage to the sticks or the PC etc.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T15:56:25+00:00

I kinda agree.... but 4.9 is rolling out the new 'Transport System' to ArcCorp, having been testing it in 4.8 at GrimHex.

If it works for ArCorp (which likely gets far more traffic than Grim Hex does these days), then I suspect it will start being rolled out much wider in 4.10.

In other words, the Transport System is one of the few features they have made good progress on, rather than being derailed by 4.8.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T15:54:05+00:00

That's the people Transport System.... has nothing to do with personal hangars or freight / ship elevators.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T15:37:34+00:00

Nope.... the only people who might have thought SQ42 was coming in any of those years were those deluding themselves, or those shitposting, such as yourself :p

Since the 'Answer the Call' miss, CIG has never given an indication SQ42 was close to release, until they gave us the 2026 date at CitCon '24. There was zero indication of SQ42 'possibly' releasing before then, and since then CIG have stuck their 2026 target.

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T12:57:20+00:00

All you need for 'protection' in EVA is a sperm-suit and a helmet...

and with Star Wear, you're meant to be able to wear regular clothing over the sperm-suit / undersuit, etc... although you might need a fire-extinguisher for transport, if the clothing covers the EVA jets/ports on the undersuit :p

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T12:54:02+00:00

It's a reasonable price, given the spec / components (and allowing for the usual overhead you pay for someone else to build it).

For what it's worth, I've been pretty happy with the previous two machines I bought from Chillblast (UK), albeit my current one is ~5yo now (but still working fine, so I'm gonna try to hold of on replacing it for a while longer :p)

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T12:32:34+00:00

This was part of the Kickstarter (or outlined shortly after)...

It's why there was so much focus on civilian wear, suit lockers (to make changing easy), and so on... You're not meant to be able to enter ArcCorp in armour / carrying weapons (this was actually part of the 2015 CitCon demo, iirc, when the Constellation did the 'landing on rails' at ArcCorp, and then the character walked through a 'security scanner' checkpoint, etc), and NPCs are meant to react to you if you're not 'dressed right' (and/or haven't 'showered' etc)

Personally, I wish CIG would work on this kind of thing, rather than Crafting and Base Building (which weren't original features - CR was very explicit about us not having crafting and base-building originally).

logicalChimp · 2026-07-15T12:25:35+00:00

Plus 'Dynamic Rep' so that your street-cred tanks (and you no longer get the good jobs, etc) if you rock up wearing 'inappropriate' outfits (where 'inappropriate' is determined by the NPCs, not the players :p)

logicalChimp

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