What is my best bet with multiplayer?

[Frostie]

It also doesn't help that 85% of all servers are private...or their ping is 150+.

You can join servers with a ping as high as 400ms, it will work fine there is no issue, lag etc. I regularly fly in close multiple aircraft formations with guys from all over the world.

[sorcer3r]

We may see 32 players yet, and if 127 is any indication I dare say we might get the stability back that we need to fill every spot!

 

Someone already tested a server with 20-32 clients + combined arms (dynamic ground movement/battle) on 1.2.7?

 

The Biggest proplem in PvP Multiplayer missions is the....OH NICE There is only a Helicopter Pilot in the enemy Team so i take my F-15 and Kill him proplem.

 

You could implement a feature where A2G-clients can request CAP flights for their area (F10 radio menue).

Or maybe someone could write a script for creating AI CAP flights in such cases.

[ENO]

It's been made easier now that the lower than LAN connections are available and working. CA, however, still creates issues and generally requires higher connection speeds for larger numbers of working units on the ground.

 

Again though, the progress has been promising and the bandwidth required is about 1/10th what it used to be on the upload side.

[Frostie]

In 1.2.7, ADSL 10240 is the old LAN setting from 1.2.6, d10240 u4096.

The new LAN setting in 1.2.7 is d100240 u10240, plus instead of limiting to ADSL 1024 like in 1.2.6, we now have 2048 and 4096 available.

[Dudester22]

The reason hardly anyone is in Multiplayer anymore is because the servers are still crashing. I played 3 coops tonight and no more then 30 mins from a ramp start the servers went down. Have they found the bugs or other things that cause this yet?

[Frostie]

The reason hardly anyone is in Multiplayer anymore is because the servers are still crashing. I played 3 coops tonight and no more then 30 mins from a ramp start the servers went down. Have they found the bugs or other things that cause this yet?

Hardly anyone?

Midweek and I see 6 public servers bursting with activity, player count in these 6 at the moment is 18/48 13/30 8/80 23/27 12/15 11/32, all been up for over an hour some 2 hours. Also there are a lot of servers with 3 and 4. Add to that the 51st server crashed an hour ago with 20 players in after 7 hours uptime.

[Dudester22]

Hardly anyone?

Midweek and I see 6 public servers bursting with activity, player count in these 6 at the moment is 18/48 13/30 8/80 23/27 12/15 11/32, all been up for over an hour some 2 hours. Also there are a lot of servers with 3 and 4. Add to that the 51st server crashed an hour ago with 20 players in after 7 hours uptime.

 

I wouldn't call that bursting with activity when you consider other Multiplayer games that have hundreds of players. Only one of the servers you have mentioned is anywhere near capacity, but I am sure there would be many more players on the servers if they weren't crashing so much.

[Pman]

I wouldn't call that bursting with activity when you consider other Multiplayer games that have hundreds of players. Only one of the servers you have mentioned is anywhere near capacity, but I am sure there would be many more players on the servers if they weren't crashing so much.

 

Your also comparing simulators with mainstream games like Battlefield and Call of Duty, Sales figures dont even come close to comparison

 

I know that the VA server and the 51st have been really quite busy of late and on a number of occasions I have been messaged saying people cant get in the server as it was full!

 

Pman

[blkspade]

Your also comparing simulators with mainstream games like Battlefield and Call of Duty, Sales figures dont even come close to comparison

 

I know that the VA server and the 51st have been really quite busy of late and on a number of occasions I have been messaged saying people cant get in the server as it was full!

 

Pman

 

He still kinda makes a valid point. The capacity limit itself is artificially imposed due the potential stability and performance issues. If you add up the player counts from Frostie's post thats 85 players. Imagine trying to have all them on the same server. Sure it might be madness for other reasons, but I doubt it would stay up long. On the days I come home from work and decide I want to fly, looking for populated servers, I'll occasionally catch the 51st before it crashes. I might get 45mins of flight time if I'm lucky before it does crash. The combat is more fun at around 20+ players, but its also going to crash at around that point. I'm sure the 51st does have times where is up for 7+ hours, but how frequently is the bulk of that time with it at or near capacity. I'm also usually one of the first to hop over to the 51st TS to alert someone of the crash if they weren't on the server at the time. Unfortunately that has met much fail for me recently. The dedicated server should be a godsend if its command-line based. At least then if its still unstable the error will spit out to the console and immediately exit and thus allow for the server to auto restart without admin interaction.

[Dudester22]

Your also comparing simulators with mainstream games like Battlefield and Call of Duty, Sales figures dont even come close to comparison

 

I know that the VA server and the 51st have been really quite busy of late and on a number of occasions I have been messaged saying people cant get in the server as it was full!

 

Pman

 

No I'm not comparing sims with Battlefield or Call of Duty. I could list many Sims that have lots of people on their servers. I wasn't even talking about how busy they are until someone mentioned it. What I was saying is the servers don't get a chance to get busy because they are always crashing. I know they are trying to fix this and fix it they will need to. Lots of people like myself find single player games boring, so you lose a good player base there straight away.

[Pman]

Something else to bear in mind ...

 

The sheer volume of data you have to move to keep one up with alot of players. My server is on a 100/100 dedicated line with a 0 contention ratio.

 

Over 3 days I moved 140gb in upload ALONE.

 

On top of that, DCS was never designed for more then 10-16 people to be online at once, its a combat simulation not an MMO

 

Pman

[Pman]

No I'm not comparing sims with Battlefield or Call of Duty. I could list many Sims that have lots of people on their servers. I wasn't even talking about how busy they are until someone mentioned it. What I was saying is the servers don't get a chance to get busy because they are always crashing. I know they are trying to fix this and fix it they will need to. Lots of people like myself find single player games boring, so you lose a good player base there straight away.

 

There just isnt a massive (ie millions) player base for a sim like DCS.

 

I would highly doubt that there are more then a million unique accounts that have ever logged into DCS world (Happy to be proven wrong Matt!)

 

Compare that to the games where you login to see hundreds playing as you suggest

 

Pman

[Dudester22]

There just isnt a massive (ie millions) player base for a sim like DCS.

 

I would highly doubt that there are more then a million unique accounts that have ever logged into DCS world (Happy to be proven wrong Matt!)

 

Compare that to the games where you login to see hundreds playing as you suggest

 

Pman

 

Well take a game like Cliffs of Dover, it was a flop until someone fixed the netcode for it. Now it gets 100 players on one server. Players are not going to stick around for long on a multiplayer game if the servers are going to keep crashing so often. The truth is you have no idea how many players there are in DCS, and you won't know how popular this game is online until the multiplayer bugs are fixed.

 

Basically, I told the OP that he doesn't see a vast amount of players online due to server crashes and restarts.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Dudester22

[Dudester22]

On top of that, DCS was never designed for more then 10-16 people to be online at once, its a combat simulation not an MMO

 

Pman

 

Then why don't the servers have a 16 player limit on? I agree they seem to stay up longer with less players on, so all the more reason to limit the player count. Why do admins make the player count something crazy and well over the 16 players mark?

[ENO]

On top of that, DCS was never designed for more then 10-16 people to be online at once, its a combat simulation not an MMO

Pman

 

Uh... what?

 

 

"Fly online with built-in server browser that supports up to 32 players in both head-to-head and cooperative gameplay. Fly online with other DCS aircraft like the Black Shark and the A-10C Warthog."

 

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/

[galevsky06]

Tonigh mission report, dozen guys on private dedicated server: very few bandwith required, no issue after the fix : all clients have to set their bandwith connection to 2048k or above. All 1024k clients faced disconnections repeatedly. No communication menu bug (we used to in 1.2.7 with 15+ clients on all DCS modules mixed.)

[Pman]

Well take a game like Cliffs of Dover, it was a flop until someone fixed the netcode for it. Now it gets 100 players on one server. Players are not going to stick around for long on a multiplayer game if the servers are going to keep crashing so often. The truth is you have no idea how many players there are in DCS, and you won't know how popular this game is online until the multiplayer bugs are fixed.

 

Basically, I told the OP that he doesn't see a vast amount of players online due to server crashes and restarts.

 

 

True, But I CAN tell you how many have been on my server this month, well in January we had 652 unique ID's connect to it. Considering that the VA is one of the busiest servers I think this gives me a fair idea...

 

 

Then why don't the servers have a 16 player limit on? I agree they seem to stay up longer with less players on, so all the more reason to limit the player count. Why do admins make the player count something crazy and well over the 16 players mark?

 

Although this is all that is supported (see below quote from Wags) the servers will handle more if the server machine is up to it. I tested keeping the player limit low on the VA server and it was better but not good enough to warrant lowering the limit that much. It might crash abit later but with 1/3rd of the player numbers it wasnt worth it.

 

 

Uh... what?

 

 

"Fly online with built-in server browser that supports up to 32 players in both head-to-head and cooperative gameplay. Fly online with other DCS aircraft like the Black Shark and the A-10C Warthog."

 

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/

 

 

Note: Although many improvements and optimizations have been made, we still highly recommend 16 player limit when hosting complex missions. Depending on the exact composition of the mission, the bandwidth and number of players that a host may accommodate will vary. As always though, clients must be aware of their ping times (often influenced by connection distance to host) as this can cause warping and other connection issues.

 

From Matt Here : http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1685030

 

And although the net code has been worked on since this statement this is also in line with the latest information I have been give from ED. The 32 player figure is just from the minimum specs and doesnt reflect actual net code capability

 

Pman

[Dudester22]

All clients have to set their bandwith connection to 2048k or above.

 

I thought you had to set it to Lan? I have cable 60Gig connection so what should I set it to?

Edited February 7, 2014 by Dudester22

[ENO]

LAN was pre 127. Now you can start at 1024... and if you have issues go to 2048. We have it on good authority that missions with larger numbers of units will need 2048... and Servers can still benefit from using the LAN. Others actually on a LAN to the server should still use LAN.

[blkspade]

On top of that, DCS was never designed for more then 10-16 people to be online at once, its a combat simulation not an MMO

 

Pman

 

You have to realize the amount of fail in this statement. It contradicts itself. Beside the fact an MMO type game would probably be pushing 1000 players, if you attempting to simulate combat, there would be more than 16 people involved. Take the RL combat simulation of Red flag for example, having like 125 jets in the air at once. That 10-16 limit is more of a flaw than intended implementation.

[104th_Maverick]

Yeah DCS was certainly designed for more than 16 people mate, the low numbers we see these days are a result of the instability over the last few months and some other reasons.

 

Back in FC2 we happily had servers with 50-60 clients connected during big events like OPFOR and GI.

 

Although not likely anytime in the immediate future, DCSW will eventually be able to support numbers similar to this, coupled with all the new features and aircraft planned in the future this should make our 'World' much closer to a RL Combat scenario and not a niche 'packaged sortie' of less than 10 aircraft.

[Pman]

We have had over 50 people in the VA server on a couple of occasions but the sim just cant support it nowadays.

 

DCS is infinitely more complicated the the old FC2 days and it shows with the way the netcode is done.

 

When I setup VA I did some very in depth digging into how the dcs net traffic works to attempt to overcome some of its shortfalls and it was evident then that the protocols used were being pushed to the very limit.

 

Warping when there is a lack of data is an example of inefficient handling of packet data.

 

You have to realize the amount of fail in this statement. It contradicts itself. Beside the fact an MMO type game would probably be pushing 1000 players, if you attempting to simulate combat, there would be more than 16 people involved. Take the RL combat simulation of Red flag for example, having like 125 jets in the air at once. That 10-16 limit is more of a flaw than intended implementation.

 

DCS in its current state and form was never designed with the idea of having 125 aircraft in the air, on the ground or active at the same time. Its simply beyond what it can handle at the moment.

 

Its niche as Maverick puts it is that you can have a good 8-10 man mission with high fidelity and create a great combat environment.

 

Even with all the new aircraft bursting onto the scene in the next 3 years it will be some time before the net coding is updated to the point that it can compress, transmit, receive and decompress without loss or corruption enough data to make it a detailed and immerse experience for more then say 20-25 people without performance being adversely effected.

[Mustang]

Pman, try todays 1.2.7 update you will be amazed at the difference ;)

[Frostie]

Still waiting :(

[Pman]

Pman, try todays 1.2.7 update you will be amazed at the difference ;)

 

Look forward to it :D

 

Does it work on our previous testing?

 

Pete