Land Claiming: One Universe or Multiverse

[Clandestine]

Another interesting topic to consider looking at closely, but I just do not see how this is going to be implemented without overlap, if there is only 1 giant persistent universe.

Realistically, there's going to be many servers in the verse. There will be some sort of conflict where Guy A claims the same plot of land as Guy B. At this point, how is that going to be reconciled? If playing on the same server, obviously whoever gets there first wins, but what if they're at the same spot and just on different servers?

Will servers act as different dimensions? This calls into question the ability to log into the same server with friends and claim together, if servers are chosen at random, etc. Has anyone heard anything about this or could elaborate intelligently about it?

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

My Assumption is that this mechanic will communicate between servers but then I am going to remain space-bound and don't care about land claims.

I thought they were going to have some kind of advanced server meshing but i've not been paying attention to the dev videos recently.

Perhaps someone else has more details?

 

[maynard]

Persistent information is stored in a central database which keeps all the shards updated.. So if someone on another instance claimed a piece of land just before you did, your claim would fail.

There are a lot of hard problems around sharding in SC, which is one reason we are still in alpha after five years' development.

When a large armada of TESTes inevitably deploys to attack ADI's homeworld, what will that battle look like? How will the opposing forces get matched up across multiple instances?

Backing SC is an act of faith and an exercise in patience. We are fortunate to have found this great community to hang and theorycraft with while the devs do their thing.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

We are fortunate to have found this great community to hang and theorycraft with while the devs do their thing.

Never a truer word said.

 

[Clandestine]

Other games have been successful with the meshing of battle zones, etc, but then split off into completely separate servers in other parts of the world, basically parallel dimensions. You could access those dimensions on the fly by porting into it through the menu, akin to the mobiglass feature. But important points of interest would have to be a single universe with no additional servers. The strain that would place on anything other than a quantum computer would be too much. I love the idea of a single persistent universe, but I'm not sure we are there yet in our technology. Hell, quantum physicists have very strong theories that our reality is one of many among the multiverse anyways, so it wouldn't be a stretch to bring that into the game. I digress.

 

[Vavrik]

I could describe the mechanic, but it would be a fairly long book. The thing is, the way meshing zones works is via a shared dataset. Anything that happens on one server, also happens simultaneously on every server that represents the same zone. If Player A buys the plot of land, that plot of land is registered to him, anything he does on that plot of land should be instantly visible to Player B. In fact if they're doing it at the same time, they should be able to see each other.

Just going to add a little more. See. The game, what you are playing, does not exist on the servers other than as a data set that is keeping track of your location, orientation, state, etc, and transmitting that back to you along with every other player and object that your client can render. This works in a mesh environment even where two players are being managed by two different shards.

This is the whole purpose behind it, no quantum computer required. Just enough processing power to render what your client needs to render between each frame.

 

[Carlos Spicyweiner]

Computer science all the things!

 

[Tealwraith]

My understanding is that the PU is going to be something like EVE, but not exactly. One verse. Multiple servers each handling a different part of that one verse. Time will tell what CIG can get to function. If you're scared, only risk $45. If you are supremely confident, earn a gold plated F8 Lightning.

 

[Op4ArcticFox]

So for the servers, there will be multiple, but it will be nodes running shards. If two people are on the ground, and are the only two people around, they should be on the same shard. Busy cites and huge armadas are going to be... tricky if ever possible.

Another thing is that the land buy has been addressed by CIG. You don't own the land you make a claim on until you turn that claim into the Bureau of Land Acquisition (or whatever they are naming it). This will pretty much eliminate that gold rush scenario you posed.

Friends should be grouped into the same shard or node as yourself. In 95% of circumstances you will see and be able to interact with each other. However just like with any game that uses shard, there are chances for a desync due to network quality and system performance.

 

[Crymsan]

Loads of people have said there is going to be so much land that there is enough for everyone. You see this just doesn't feed there need for tanks and bombers. Even so the majority of land will be outside the UEC (assuming we get the 100 systems) or largely worthless (i.e. already mined for example). It would be funny to keep switching instances to get the best claims and makes no sense at all.

 

[Bambooza]

I could describe the mechanic, but it would be a fairly long book. The thing is, the way meshing zones works is via a shared dataset. Anything that happens on one server, also happens simultaneously on every server that represents the same zone. If Player A buys the plot of land, that plot of land is registered to him, anything he does on that plot of land should be instantly visible to Player B. In fact if they're doing it at the same time, they should be able to see each other.

Just going to add a little more. See. The game, what you are playing, does not exist on the servers other than as a data set that is keeping track of your location, orientation, state, etc, and transmitting that back to you along with every other player and object that your client can render. This works in a mesh environment even where two players are being managed by two different shards.

This is the whole purpose behind it, no quantum computer required. Just enough processing power to render what your client needs to render between each frame.

As @Vavrik said from what the developers have said its going to be a single database so the universe will all be in synch. Second for the most part each region/area will only exist on a single server unless the player population at that moment in time grows to large to handle, then it has the potential to create multiple instances of the same area, until the player population in a region shrinks back down.

From what the network and server dev teams have been posting about on Spectrum is they are not yet sure how big or dynamic they want to make area/regions and they are trying to make it so its scalable. Meaning as a specific station or planet base becomes populated the server will automatically offload other areas to other servers or spin up new vm's to handle the offloaded areas.

 

[CosmicTrader]

Persistent information is stored in a central database which keeps all the shards updated.. So if someone on another instance claimed a piece of land just before you did, your claim would fail.

What he said.......