Keeping to a Character Avatar Centric Game

[Agamemnon]

The mech is a mesh much like any other, whether it be an npc, a human similar to that in the WIP now or a mech. True the mechs do have a few thousand triangles more then what "most" humanoid characters do, but as far as being a substantial drain on server resources that is changing. However, rulesets may prevent players from running around a 400 ton mech through downtown, I mean, no one wants to have to repave the streets every time there's a battle, i'd assume. So there may be some limitation as to the rules for where one can pilot a mech, i.e. you don't pull it up to the local bar and tie the reins on the post. Perhaps there may also be limitations depending on hardware however full LOD will be implemented in the code in the very near future. The social WIP as it currently sits, really isn't a good judge of this type of performance, as not much has LOD in effect, however as you see below, there's been some improvement.

The new implementation of the 1.5.1 server code dramatically increased both server stability and performance (FPS) in so much as some worlds currently listed in the WIP for MV by upwards of 200%. That's substantial, given what we've been working with in the past. I noticed a dramatic increase in stability myself in the closed offline test world, where I run both the server code and my client code on a vista hp laptop with 2gb of ram. I ran the code steadily for appx 12 hrs after I upgraded with no instability whatsoever in my test client, not one exception (which is a big change for my working environment over the 1.5 codebase). For performance (fps wise) I am not tops on performance, but I never have been when working in my closed test environment with my current hardware limitations (i.e. a laptop) and system requirements. However, I did see noticiable improvements in the WIP code over my previous code with an FPS increase from 20-25 to 30-35.

For me, I could really tell the difference in a test world in which MV Fantasy realm runs w/ test mob spawns. I used to see regular stutter in their target and combat rich environment, now however I no longer see that to a great extent....even though their test mobs still slide on death ala swg style. 

[Stigmatax]

But thats just you... lets take your experiment a bit further... get 10 developers together on the same world, have them all running around and then take 1 guy and put him in a test mech... see how much he starts to lag or the guys running around lag. It gets tougher the more people you add. Remember you guys are planning to create a world where thousands of players can exist on the same world server... think of it if half of them are infantry on a battlefield and the other half are in mechs... or worse... in a city scene.

[Agamemnon]

Of couse we have already thought of this. The MV test has already shown us 1000 npc/pc characters in a single frame world with minimal impact. When you take LOD into account this is drastically improved as well, meshes and submeshes really draw down the server performance. We tend to use less submeshes per model and try to design for the fewest possible. Hopefully we can reproduce the MV test effects in our world with minimal problems as well, this is what we're working towards....but that is what stress testing and alpha/beta testing is for. We're not there yet.

Also note, MV uses what is known as a quad tree system, when server load becomes dangerously high this load is shifted off into smaller quads even though it remains one world. Each quad may be a seperate physical server system for load balancing depending on the settings. I of course am limited to testing in the offline server box which runs on a single piece of hardware.

You can read more about quad tree here:

http://update.multiverse.net/wiki/index.php/Server_FAQ

[Stigmatax]

and so... Agam does it again...

You da man Ag...

[Hamilton]

There are also some things to add with the LOD.

Mech and Vehicular combat will not normally occur at close ranges.  Mechs and vehicles should be spread out at a minimum of about 100m during combat operations.  At that range, the medium LOD's take affect, but most range combat will be using the lower resolution models.  (A visual example will be provided to help explain this)

Battle Tech / Mech Warrior combat ranges tend to be under 1km, mostly though between 50m to 250m.  I will agree that to try to use such ranges with many Mechs, vehicles and infantry is going to be difficult, especially if customization and using different objects are possible.  Otherwise standardization is required such as with Planetside.  That is going to be one of the difficult aspects of developing a Mech Warrior MMO.  If customization is allowed, using existing Battle Tech rules...  I think PvP battles will be instanced.

But if the combat rules are altered to increase the combat ranges, then the Mech Warrior community may become upset as that is a departure.  (What do you mean my Mech with over 40 MG's can't be used?)


The size of the model does not impact performance, rather it is the amount of triangles and texture sizes used.  So a 1:1 scale is very feasible.