Author Topic: Star Citizen Media Musings  (Read 592184 times)

Slapmeandcallmegurl

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1035 on: November 21, 2019, 12:50:49 PM »
I'm happy to bask in my technical ignorance but it's a simple concept. The universe is simulated with numbers, eg planet X has used y units of commodity z, trader r is sent to get some z. If a player bumps into trader r, only then is the cloud server utilised. So thousands of things being simulated, only 1 thing on the cloud.

That's my 'understanding' of the system. Could be wrong.

N0mad

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1036 on: November 21, 2019, 01:32:31 PM »
I just though I'd lend a hand here.

But thanks for clearing up that it's the rendering that costs multiplayer servers that much  :grin:

Technically the servers aren't having to render anything - but they do have to keep track of every entity in the map & any related physics, as well as having to relay all of this to the players multiple times per second.

I'm happy to bask in my technical ignorance but it's a simple concept. The universe is simulated with numbers, eg planet X has used y units of commodity z, trader r is sent to get some z. If a player bumps into trader r, only then is the cloud server utilised.

If you want a system where every NPC has a daily routine then the simplest solution would be to spawn them in at the correct location when a player enters the area. This still means that if you have players all over the server then the server is still trying to update the location / AI / pathfinding for every spawned NPC. Multiply this up to hundreds of thousands and even with some clever multi-threaded programming and sacrificing update frequency - then it's still a recipe for a slow server.

It's not that it isn't possible - it is. It's just that CIG have proven time and again that they don't have the expertise to pull it off. They seem to prioritise shiny new ships and graphics updates over building the core technology. At this stage, and with this engine, I suspect that they can't push the networking and server technology much further.

Slapmeandcallmegurl

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1037 on: November 21, 2019, 02:43:08 PM »
So I guess us hopeful future players need to place our desire eggs in the server meshing and object container streaming tech being developed successfully.

Desire eggs are the best eggs. Rich and creamy.

wiser3754

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1038 on: November 21, 2019, 03:39:07 PM »
Let's all not forget the other big feature that CRoberts is touting in this article. The all glorious and completely necessary RAY TRACING!!! Yes of course this game needs it for . . . . reasons. A technology which can easily bring down your performance on today's most beastly hardware by at least 30%.
It adds no gameplay mechanics but hey, let's bog down the already overworked engineers and programmers and add this shit on top of trying to implement the VULKAN API. How long ago was that announced and how much progress has been made?

mtn355

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1039 on: November 25, 2019, 03:38:38 AM »
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/11/24/star-citizen-showed-off-wormholes-espionage-and-space-coffee-at-citizencon-2949/

They don't even try to mock this thing anymore^^
Comment section is unabiguous, too.

mtn355

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1040 on: November 25, 2019, 10:50:56 AM »
And more fallout from Citcon:
https://www.golem.de/news/star-citizen-mit-der-carrack-ins-neue-sonnensystem-1911-145187.html

Basically an advertorial for the game -
I wonder how much they must have paid for this...

People don't even bother to comment on this now.

dsmart

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1041 on: November 26, 2019, 10:31:33 AM »
I dumbed it down, I think it's called, "the universe server", or something way, way too technical for you or me to understand.

Those crazy boffins!

Your dumbed down version is not only false - and nonsense - but it also makes the whole thing even more hilarious.
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

dsmart

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1042 on: November 26, 2019, 10:32:15 AM »
I'm happy to bask in my technical ignorance but it's a simple concept. The universe is simulated with numbers, eg planet X has used y units of commodity z, trader r is sent to get some z. If a player bumps into trader r, only then is the cloud server utilised. So thousands of things being simulated, only 1 thing on the cloud.

That's my 'understanding' of the system. Could be wrong.

Nope. Nonsense. All of it.
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

Slapmeandcallmegurl

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1043 on: November 27, 2019, 06:30:06 AM »
Your dumbed down version is not only false - and nonsense - but it also makes the whole thing even more hilarious.

Nope. Nonsense. All of it.

Hearty congratulations on, once again, displaying mind boggling ignorance about your chosen obsession.

Please go and watch Tony Zurovec's citizencon presentation, 'Building a universe', where he outlines the system they're using for generating missions and the economy. In it, he describes almost exactly what I've outlined with 'the universe server' called 'Quantum' and utilising probability volumes, before using any computational budget to simulate anything a player will be aware of.

Obviously I didn't know the details of the system but the concept has been outlined in their videos for years.

Enormously hilarious that I posted my description before citizencon and you posted your observations on my description after citizencon and yet, somehow, with all your expertise in the field, my blinding ignorance and a recent video explaining it all, I was right and you are wrong.

Anyone would think you didn't have a clue.

Is this where I insert a laughing dog emoji or something equally juvenile to increase my internet points? I'm never sure.

N0mad

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1044 on: November 27, 2019, 06:41:07 AM »
In it, he describes almost exactly what I've outlined with 'the universe server' called 'Quantum' and utilising probability volumes, before using any computational budget to simulate anything a player will be aware of.

It was so boring I was doing something else but got the drift of it.

It looked like the most unnecessarily computationally complex simulation to decide prices in different locations that I've ever seen.

Slapmeandcallmegurl

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1045 on: November 27, 2019, 06:45:34 AM »
It was so boring I was doing something else but got the drift of it.

It looked like the most unnecessarily computationally complex simulation to decide prices in different locations that I've ever seen.

Got to get all those fidelities in somewhere...

dsmart

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1046 on: November 27, 2019, 12:29:01 PM »
Enormously hilarious that I posted my description before citizencon and you posted your observations on my description after citizencon and yet, somehow, with all your expertise in the field, my blinding ignorance and a recent video explaining it all, I was right and you are wrong.

Anyone would think you didn't have a clue.

First, I said it (what you stated) was nonsense. Read what I wrote again.

Second, I know precisely what he's talking about and what they've been talking about for years.

Third, I've done all of this before...all the way back to before anyone though AI would be prominent in games. In fact, any version of my Battlecruiser or Universal Combat games does everything they're trying to do - and more. Try playing it or asking someone who has. A dynamic economy driven by AI isn't rocket science...if you know what you're doing.
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

Slapmeandcallmegurl

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1047 on: November 27, 2019, 01:38:41 PM »
First, I said it (what you stated) was nonsense. Read what I wrote again.

Second, I know precisely what he's talking about and what they've been talking about for years.

Third, I've done all of this before...all the way back to before anyone though AI would be prominent in games. In fact, any version of my Battlecruiser or Universal Combat games does everything they're trying to do - and more. Try playing it or asking someone who has. A dynamic economy driven by AI isn't rocket science...if you know what you're doing.

First, perhaps you missed the start of the conversation. I was originally replying to this post:

"We can have up 4,000 or 40,000 players max on one world at one time". 40,000 players, with a ratio of NPCs of 9 to 1. That equals 360,000 NPCs in one instance/session/server or whatever and 40,000 players too. Not mention these NPC's behaviour describes by Chris will be close to the behavior of real players, have daily routines, fly ships and have physics attributed to them. All with the help of Amazon and server meshing.

*thumps head against the desk* No. No. No. No. No. How much is Amazon gonna charge CiG to use their servers that will be needed to render and communicate all this data with the help of cloud compute?

And just describing the fact that Amazon won't be charging for cloud services for hundreds of thousands of NPCs. I described it as best as my 'under layman' understanding of a couple of videos from years ago could. After watching most of Tony's presentation, I can now see that I was completely correct in the, very rough, interpretation. I can now use terms like, 'players entering a probability volume in space, have a chance of encountering an NPC, and only if you get a positive dice roll, will an entity need to be rendered on the cloud', instead.

So it wasn't nonsense. Not even slightly. Poorly described, perhaps, but not nonsense.

Second, if that is true, surely you can understand my basic attempt at correcting the glaring, error of understanding, of my fellow forumite?

Third, if you've done it before, (what, twenty plus years ago?), maybe others can do it now, maybe even slightly better.

Third, part two, this is completely irrelevant to the original conversation.

Third, part three, I haven't played either of the games you mention, but I have read quite a lot about them, from many and varied sources, and it's generally said, that they are among the most buggy and broken games ever made. This is, of course, still completely irrelevant to my attempted explanation that you were, incorrectly, calling nonsense.


DemonInvestor

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1048 on: November 27, 2019, 03:13:41 PM »
I'd really like to hear what you (Derek) think they'll do to simulate such encounters and how they handle the whole thing?
As i myself only would see them being able to reduce processing power spend on updating AI actors, other than just randomly (propability room??) spawn any encounter, while simply directly simulating the trade besides actual NPC movement?
Which would at least be fitting for the interview i read a while back about commodity stock markets, while never really talking about the actual trade of NPCs happening.

dsmart

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Re: Star Citizen Media Musings
« Reply #1049 on: November 30, 2019, 09:07:15 AM »
I'd really like to hear what you (Derek) think they'll do to simulate such encounters and how they handle the whole thing?
As i myself only would see them being able to reduce processing power spend on updating AI actors, other than just randomly (propability room??) spawn any encounter, while simply directly simulating the trade besides actual NPC movement?
Which would at least be fitting for the interview i read a while back about commodity stock markets, while never really talking about the actual trade of NPCs happening.

I have no idea how they're going to do it. But one thing that I do know is that us devs tend to prototype and test things a lot. And in most cases what we design and prototype isn't usually what we end up with. And in the case of Star Citizen, this has been the common theme. Which is why I believe that whatever nonsense they were talking up stands zero chance of being implemented as described.

Simulating trade isn't a big deal since it's all done in a relational db. They don't need AI actors to do it. All they need is a market db that handles inventory prices etc. This is why most of us devs who have done this all before are just laughing that Shitizens are looking at this as if it's ground-breaking as sliced bread.
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

 

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