Star Citizen: Analyzing the Building and Crafting Plans

[@BrushKestrel]

The primary reason for a permanent split by region is consistent, lower ping times. That's important in a game which features combat with aiming. There are also side benefits, like common active timezones per region, plus cultural and language benefits from players being grouped regionally. Not to mention regulatory differences per region -- and regulation can get onerous when you include China in your target markets. EVE, famous for having one global universe, actually has two -- there's an entire separate one just for China.

[@tossitupman]

Agreed, I believe this is a situation where the dream crashes into the wall the reality

[@stormwolf3255]

Regional shards are the practical solution where the physical Internet latency has to be factored into the combat. There's no point in having global servers if you're hamstrung by the signal propagation time. Within regions, it's possible that at least some of the Highlander rule issues may be solved by dynamic server meshing, assuming that problem is ever solved at a practical level (i.e. static meshes have more issues with shard 'transference' than dynamic servers do (if it's done right).

[@sbdyson]

I agree with the Highlander rule, but only because you convinced me. I think you're right that an algorithm for deciding on shards and whatnot would just be a huge problem in the end.

[@capt_nopants9625]

There is an lot here in this video that I agree with. I seriously hope some folks over at CIG see this. I really like the idea on purity via refining for the elements, very good idea here. I'm particularly concerned about regional locking as I've got friends in all 3 current regions and this will create issues for our group play without a doubt. I also very much agree with an option for a master plan. Your idea of the highlander rule sounds about right and I think CIG is going for this from what they have described so far. We'll have to wait and see which direction all of this heads in, but I hope this video gets seen by folks and CIG as well as many others so the discussions can be had.

[@NomadicHavoc]

There can be only one! Errr…maybe. The Highlander rule is on the precipice of slipping to the wayside.

[@Observer_Custos]

I agree with your Highlander Rule since they need to take steps to prevent duplication glitched while providing availability to people.

[@Lokdin-nh6gw]

Your plan for active and mothballed bases are more thought out than what was presented in that video. The Highlander rule makes sense.

[@morgandyoung]

Great point about minerals vs elements. How the Highlander rule works out remains to be seen

[@Merciful_Angel]

I do still agree with you about the Highlander rule; multiple shards will just create too many issues unless they consider their answers now.

[@Adam-vo6yl]

I'm not sure about the Highlander rule, but I firmly agree that minerals shouldn't have quality and that player skill needs to be the primary determinant of success

[@arenomusic]

Could you not tell that skill was no longer important once master modes arrived?

[@derekwebb7577]

As they say in the video refining should be able to make even the lowest quality of resource able to be refined into a top tier quality, just requiring more of the original ore if there is more impurity in it.

[@51ghardy]

The more I think about this the more I unravel more layers. The Highlander rule sounds right.

[@JustforgamesHiro]

I like a lot of what you bring up with the Highlander rule, but regional will have to be part of things due to multiple aspects: ping, geographic politics, system limitations, etc. Drinking multiple milkshakes though is an apt way of putting this. I do hope they watch this vid as their video definitely felt like they were reaching without having figured out a lot of crucial pieces.

[@koruzarius8071]

The Highlander Rule is good in theory. Hope it can come to be.

[@Bob-jy6hm]

Ray excellent video on the negative consequences of the "current plans". Is anyone here excited for the future of crafting focused PvP? Did any of us sign up for 'EVE PvP Engineering experience' where you lose fights because the other guy (and his Org) crafted the better "PvP loadout"? I did not sign up for this!

[@RaysGuide]

That's what I am saying. They want player versus player PvP and not equipment versus equipment, which ironically would be EvE would it not?

[@deathheart7076]

The highlander rule makes sense but there needs to be regional servers otherwise ping for several countries would ruin their game play

[@mwittstrom]

With a two tier base strategy I think many will use the Pioneer as a mobile resource base.

[@thefirmament9915]

It sounds like attacking bases isnt a priority. I like that since they need to iron out all of the problems you have brought up in this video.

[@aaronpaul5990]

I think the reason why they want to have regional bases so that you are not forced to join a different region to raid a base. Still this definitely needs work which honestly is not surprising. And the highlander rule well is nothing new. And the resources don't need to be global they need to be regional. And the double mining of a vain is not a problem if the regions have different veins. After all you will need to build a new base on the different region. Yes it will bother international orgs that there are basically 3 planets instead of one but a org that big that it is a problem will be able to suffer through the inconvienes of being able to build 3 resource bases. I do assume that there are ways to transfare material from region to region be it in ships or station hangars.

[@RaysGuide]

I think you are right, but they are creating problems bigger than the ones that they are solving.

[@Aero_Yuki]

We wouldn't be able to have a true Highlander rule unless bases weren't region-locked, but locking is necessary to keep the server-client ping low - can't fight against the limits of physics, after all. If not region-locked, then some bases appearing in the wild could never be used/raided since the owner would rarely, if ever, join a server in that other region. The only exception would be if you as a raider would intentionally sacrifice your ping to go searching for bases constructed in one region (and visible in all regions), or if the base owner was willing to sacrifice ping for the sake of playing with others in a different region.

[@SolaAesir]

It seems to be another issue with CIG designing in a vacuum rather than designing systems to interact with what's already been sold. I think regional shards have to exist, just due to latency, but global latency might be less of a problem by the SC releases due to more direct fiber being laid across oceans and LEO satellite networks. What might be 150-200 ping now might get down to 60-80 in the future. That said, something like the Highlander rule is going to be just about the only way to have regional servers at the same time as international guilds.

[@kn1ne]

Regional servers was always the sensible solution. Latency alone it makes sense but also it serves to keep the regions with the most cheaters isolated from other regions. The solution to orgs seems simple. Orgs will become specific to a certain region, or have sister orgs for other regions. Like every other MMO. And there’s no reason for it be global for resources vs regional if bases don’t persist across regions, neither will anything else. It makes sense for resources to persist across shards but regions will essentially be different instances of the PU.

[@justsomewhitewolf]

Highlander rule sounds good.

[@ricardop5892]

the highlander rule is a good method. i think that if an entire region can pull all info from all shards at the same time (since the star of the servers)..... the chance of placing 2 bases on the same spot is low

[@jch1386]

The resource issue is my biggest concern with all of this honestly. If its some highlander node under your base, and then never show up under your plot of land again, its going to require people to be constant nomads to hunt for resources. I know a few people who want to live that Galen Erso life of just staying on one plot of land and occasionally leaving for resources, not the other way around.

[@LucidStrike]

It's plausible that it's tuned to be long-term sustainable for homesteading and mostly only goes dry if tapped at INDUSTRIAL rates.

[@PeterM.22]

The finite nature of resource deposits is what will fuel the game. This is what will give orgs reasons to make missions/goals for their members for a variety of professions. • Exploration for locating new deposits. • Logistics and building for making the mining site, moving resources to refine/take to main base. • Industrial gameplay from mining/refining the resources. • Combat in the form of defending the mining sites, the main base, escorting logistics, and acquiring materials from other orgs/players. • Trading due to the fluctuation of supply of materials any org will have. Galen Erso lived on a farm. He wasn't mining resources. I do believe farming will be one of the more sustainable professions to do in any location, without much material input required.

[@madgiecool]

Highlander was a great movie - A pity about the follow ups.

[@c0rvus996]

When I saw the thumbnail I thought you had been bamboozling us for months and you were actually a skinny ginger in his late 20s and were finally doing a real face reveal.

[@rellykmmo8981]

Danny, a lot of the time I agree with you but on this I definitely hope that your suggestion does not come to fruition. Region servers and even multiple regional servers makes more sense to me...e m

[@kobeathris4552]

I'm curious if the Highlander Rule will be necessary long term. For static meshing, sure, and I guess for very high pop areas, maybe. I don't know, I feel like there are 2 different problems here: server load, and regional latency. Server load they are trying to solve with dynamic meshing eventually. I get the problem with regional latency, but I don't see how shards fix that if the group with the land claim is global anyway. Sure, they might pick a shard in a data center that is local to the majority of their members, but if they have US, European, and Australian members, then get attacked by a Russian org during Russian prime time, on a US node, performance is still going to be janky for both the attackers and defenders, assuming most of the US players aren't on at the time. One thing that might give better overall performance for people who are on is to have active server authority "follow the sun" so, US East, for example, is the primary authority for 4 hours around US eastern prime time, then it hands off to US West for another 4 hours, then Japan or Aus, etc. Everyone always connects to their closest data center, but you get preferential latency when engaging with other players in your own prime time, because player interactions don't have to be streamed to a different authority. Interactions with NPCs and the environment could always be handled on the local data center.

[@pxkqd]

Are minable resources region based as well? Because if you create a base in europe on top of a resource, will be drained in US as well?

[@RaysGuide]

If they stick with the bases being only regionally persisted the resources will need to be as well or you will see your milkshake drained by others.

[@declinox]

Shards need to be 1::1 with 'universes', and sharing stuff across shards shouldn't be a thing. Just have 3 or 10 or 100 shards in each region, and each shard is 100% separate from the others. Shards are as big as they be without causing undue latency and performance issues. Having stuff shared across shards, either at a regional or global level, creates incredible complexity. Players need to be able to choose what shard they log into, and CIG might have issues load-balancing players across shards, but there are ways to address that, performance being one of them. If the shard grows to the point where it gets slow, players (starting with solo players) will tend to want to move to other shards.

[@HadronFlux]

What if they force you to pick a region to play on? Most MMOS are that way.

[@nickstinger4709]

I was hoping for a single global shard with real-time dynamic meshing. Regional shards could be necessary for certain legal compliance. Unfortunately.

[@nickstinger4709]

Omg CIG better not be planning on having collabs with region locked IPs.

[@PeterM.22]

I'm hoping they don't region lock either, but the reality of a single shard is what most comments here have been saying. The speed of light is just not fast enough to have a fair and seamless experience in a game where you have high amounts of action combat. If we develop some quantum technology that can eliminate latency on a network spanning the whole globe, then the single shard should certainly be a goal. By that point the problem will be transitioning/combining the regions together(most simple solution would be a wipe at that point).

[@arenomusic]

All of this confusion around base building just makes me more excited for my Endeavor space station in three decades, you Pioneer owners can struggle getting the resources and components to build one lol

[@EricMartindale]

SINGLE SHARD OR BUST! DO NOT LET CIG GET AWAY WITH DIVIDING THE UNIVERSE INTO REGIONS! SINGLE SHARD, SINGLE WORLD, SINGLE COMMUNITY!

[@georgek2574]

Laws of physics enters chat…

[@EricMartindale]

@@georgek2574 global latency is 100ms, with 2-phase commit that's a total maximum of 300ms experienced lag - well within playable range without other modern optimizations such as predictive movement...

[@georgek2574]

@@EricMartindale I have my doubts they can get that to work but we will see by 1.

[@3769Chris]

I hope that exclusion zones don't make org bases harder to manage.

[@psychomaniak666]

I had no idea this game even had fans/ player let alone people that look for part 2. Heard so much negativity about the game that i never even watched at i xD

[@arenomusic]

It's rough over here

[@David-82]

0:42 sorry? The most common question was about what? 😂😂💩

[@Kyle-sr6jm]

You assume the game is being made by competent people working a plan made from experience in other games that have open world pvp and bases. CIG is living in a competitive 'Highlander Rule' environment, but acting like they are in a grade school.

[@TheEVEInspiration]

They were very unclear about it all. Telling players they need to change shard to engage a base. The use of the term shard is also nonsensical. Single shard means no parallel "universes". So a region is in essence a shard. They use the term as if there are two levels! The shards being unidentifiable instances within a region where they have some shared state (so a shard within a shard). But that is not a shard, and we cannot choose them as these things will never be static, it depends on local activity load (server meshing). It gave me the impression, they have no idea what they are aiming for.

[@CraigPaschang]

The original plan was 1 shard = 1 server. As people moved into an area, additional shards would spin up to accommodate them. Around 3 years ago, things changed. Now, a shard is a single server. With 4.0, a shard will be a group of servers. They are saying whenever bases get added, we will have multiple shards per region. (We may never get 1-shard regions. We will definitely never get a single global shard.)

[@andyandreson3989]

This is going to be a mess. People will be begging for their own server I’m sure. A “Highlander rule” for their own server.

[@mwittstrom]

Global persistence could still happen at 1.0 with a complete reset.

[@RaysGuide]

maybe but why build an entire data tier only to then have to eliminate it. There is a lot of code behind that extra persistence tier.

[@mwittstrom]

@@RaysGuide They need something for the 10 years it'll take to get to 1.0 😀 And global persistence is difficult to achieve with decent speed. In short, it buys them time.