Star Citizen’s Server Populations Increase Even Further!
Welcome to the Star Citizen News, Star Citizen Alpha 3.17.2 went to Open PtU last week and we are keenly awaiting the live build which is currently expected by the middle of next week. CI have been testing much higher server population caps, we have new PTU patches and Siege Of Orison Tests.
Increased Server Population Round 2
“Over the weekend starting with Friday’s 3.17.2s patch, we will again be experimenting with different server configurations. During Siege Of Orison testing on Sunday starting 5pm UTC, the server cap will be up to 85 When Siege is running, server caps will be up to 120 when it’s not. We are again looking for any and all information on observations of degraded performance. These should include issues of sync (ie rubberbanding, hit registration issues), update issues (mining charge freezing), and anything else you come across.
Let us know what you observe and what the server population was at the time. Thanks for your input on our continued experimentation!”
These tests seem to have gone pretty well so far with players reporting great success with 100+ on a server and a lot of people seem keen for CI to increase the cap for the live build BUT CI did say… this is for testing only and they don’t intend to raise the cap for the live build. Who knows what the future might hold?
I don’t want to misrepresent those tests… there are still players having terrible troubles.
Unresponsive AI, not the most stable… but I’ve had a good experience and lots of players have.
BUT If there was any time to test star citizen and give feedback on the PTU it’s now and during that siege of orison playtest as that data could be invaluable to getting the server caps up sooner and having a more stable better experience in game.
That Star Citizen Alpha 3.17.2s PTU Patch changed and fixed a few things.
It continues with the ongoing Performance polish passes for FPS AI behavior.
They have also Updated combat assist beacons to only display on screen notifications to players who are currently in a vehicle.
They Updated ReShade to version 5.3
- Fixed an issue causing crash recovery being inconsistent
- Fixed an issues causing Multiple ships to lose their engines after repairing and storing the ship
- Transport beacon destination List should now create Transport beacons from Port Tressler and all options beneath it in the list
- Zeta-Prolanide Salvage Claim mission should now correctly spawn all needed cargo boxes
- Pinned targets should no longer unpin when toggling third person camera
- Fixed 1 Client & 3 Server Crashes
We will be running Siege of Orison on Sunday (24th July) for 6 hours starting at 17:00 UTC!
This build should see servers running at about 110-120 player cap. During Siege of Orison on Sunday we are testing 75-85 players per server.
This Week’s Sneak Peek is of a makeshift alcohol still. Maybe we will see missions to move and delivery moonshine as well as shut down the operations of gangs.
Friday saw the Battle of the Bricks… where the Eve and Star Citizen Community Teams came together to build spaceships from bricks, spin a wheel, giveaway ships and raise money for charity on livestream. The memorable bits of the stream for me where at the start someone had to eat extremely hot hot sauce… and I felt for him…, the wheel that appeared to be in charge of the stream wanted to keep landing on SC Giveaways and at the end of the stream they were making shakes with the most disgusting ingredients… blergh… I have a very delicate palette.
Not much in the way of tangible development updates. But it was nice to see 2 gaming communities get together. They raised over $20k during the stream however… I think if SC wants to do some fundraising they should do a mini ship sale and some exclusive skins or armour for a day and then donate that to charities.
Other than that there were a few other PTU updates and minor additions to the roadmap that being downstream teams being added to the progress tracker on already existing tasks and the confirmation that the Centurion AA Vehicle is in the 3.17.2 patch as a feature.
I am very much in the opinion that expanding game servers to even 100 players would be a real game changer. Now obviously various tech, PES, Sharding, Server Meshing that is all on the horizon will help necessitate that AND it might be more sensible for CI to expand the servers then rather than now and leave a less performant, less stable verse as a result.
I live in hope that CI go… you know what… let’s just do it and move the servers up to 75 or 100… maybe the tests will support that?