If you're wondering about the details of this "performance" increase in the latest dev build, I can mention the stuff I found in it.
Network transfer has been optimized, there is almost no unnecessary data sharing left. In release everything you did got shared with all online players. Imagine 40 players, building, salvaging and fighting...That's a lot of data.
Also a new in-game tool to observe network data, press F12 for the menu and/or enable it in the options to put it on your HUD.
Performance gain: FPS is almost doubled in most cases. (applies on all entities)
- 30 radius planet: 225 fps -> 499 fps
- 190 radius planet: 71 fps -> 125 fps
- 284 radius planet: 37 fps -> 64 fps
Also debug exceptions so we can easily track down bad network stuff. (this will probably disabled for release)
I'm sure there is more but I can only tell you so much with 100% certainty.