How much does turrets effect client performance?

[Muffin_man17]

Hey guys,

So just wondering how well Starmade handles turret boats.

I am making turret ships for a NPC project I'm working on and my concern is the NPC's mass producing these ships with alot of turrets and the server/client bogging down.

So my two questions are a. What would you consider a large amount vs average number of turrets on a ship and b. How well does starmade handle turret ships from a server performance perspective?

 

[EricBlank]

They do have an impact on performance, so keeping the number of turrets down will be important. I try to keep the number below 10 ship-to-ship turrets and 10 AMS turrets as a general rule. Some ships are deliberately designed to host 12-20 ship-to-ship turrets as a "gunship" for anti-drone/fighter duty.

Most small ships (below 100m) i build like 2-4 STS turrets and 4 AMS turrets; one to cover each face of the ship.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Hey guys,

So just wondering how well Starmade handles turret boats.

I am making turret ships for a NPC project I'm working on and my concern is the NPC's mass producing these ships with alot of turrets and the server/client bogging down.

So my two questions are a. What would you consider a large amount vs average number of turrets on a ship and b. How well does starmade handle turret ships from a server performance perspective?

Your concern is well justified. StarMade HATES large numbers of overlapping collision check boxes and I have the blueprint catalogue to prove it. For example, the ship in my avatar used to be my primary AI fleet defense ship; mounting between 8 and 20 turrets depending on "model refinement". Their effects on servers and player clients were as follows.

- Moving a force of 5 of them to assist a player who was under heavy NPC pirate attack was enough drop his frame-rate into the single digits.
- Moving a force of 15-20 of them to assault an NPC station and fight their reinforcements was enough drop my frame-rate and lag the server.
- Having a few of of them near a planet or large station caused noticeable server lag, due to their collision check box overlap.
- A prototype armed with a 20 turrets and a 100-round, select fire, auto-loading warhead torpedo launcher caused massive server-wide lag simply by "existing".

My recommendation; for AI ships, use "ornamental" or "decorative" turrets that look like the real thing but don't move. That will drastically cut on potential lag and still give you that gunboat feel for your fleets. Add point defense as needed.

Something else to consider, AI ships always point their nose straight at their target so you're not likely to see your fleet "broadsiding". ...That's your job, commander.

 

[Sachys]

I used to place a small AMS on the front face of any drone above about 5k mass (these were often vertical builds). As Dr.Whammy mentions above, AI ships turn to face the target, so this was reasonably effective while keeping server lag down.
Now that Bobby AIs have that missile priority bit (not sure if it works yet), i think ill only bother with AMS on larger ships, and simply add some regular ship cannons to anything else for now.

Edit: as to ships id pilot, then there would generally be a good amount more turrets, but this is role dependant.

 

[NeonSturm]

I usually build ships with about 2/4 to 30/60 dockables on big ships.

If they are drones, they do not have any turrets. There would be drones against missiles and drones for the main task.
If they are fighters, they usually have 2 turrets for point-defense against missiles and drones - up/down or left/right.

Gunships usually have 4 turrets and 2 point defense for me.
Escort ships 4 point defense and 2 turrets with more defense focus.

Line ships usually have 4-6 turrets and 4-6 PDs, because you never know which attack vector the enemy comes from.

Patrol ships are line ships. Military scouts or police might have twice as many with half of them disable-effects.
Military line ships usually carry 6-10 turrets and PD each.

My Flagship has 12 PD turrets total on 4 sides, 4 smaller turrets rear-facing, but cover sides too and 4 front-facing only.
It has 4 docked main guns, each in the 114 format (width, height, length) 2 broadside hangars for 4 crafts total, one special hangar craft, a visitor hangar and I plan my next one with 2 rear-side minelayer slots. Plus 4 main turrets left and right for below and above.
> This totals in 20 PD and 16 dockables from which 6 are turrets, 6 craft and 4 docked main guns.

I have not designed much more, but warships could have 40 in total, up to 60 for your faction's "MASSIVE DREADNOUGHT <insert name>".


EDIT-Note: About size, I keep weapons about half or third a wing's size, mostly sunken base.
The sunken part is relatively huge, but total they are about 20% mass or less.

Point defenses are usually only 1/8 mass/size compared to real turrets.
20% includes the armor for that part of my ship (most space covered by the turret base).

 

[jstenholt]

One day the game will be so optimized that my 960m carrier with 60 AMS turrets, 40 PD turrets and 3 antiship turrets will no longer drop frames below 30.

 

[JinM]

What would you consider a large amount vs average number of turrets on a ship and b. How well does starmade handle turret ships from a server performance perspective?

Starmade handles turrets quite well! Up to 20 are no problem. I often have 4 or 6 bigger turrets, and 8 small pdts.

The lag and fps issues arise if your ships start to get bigger than 200m.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Starmade handles turrets quite well! Up to 20 are no problem. I often have 4 or 6 bigger turrets, and 8 small pdts.

The lag and fps issues arise if your ships start to get bigger than 200m.

Tell that to this guy...

20 turrets, 100 torpedoes. 143 entities total. 100 meters long.

This thing is 100% Absolutely guaranteed to lag everyone on your server into quadruple digit ping or higher.
Optimized or not, SM doesn't like a lot of overlapping bounding boxes.

 

[BDLS]

schema how often does the game's code check for docked entity collisions/movement limits? Is it constant? Or does it define rotational limits once like when someone enters the ship just once? Or exiting build mode?

 

[NeonSturm]

Our human mind, knows that some things will never collide until they leave that hangar.
If the game is good enough to see that too, maybe things will become better.

Perhaps sort entities left-to-right and only check with neighbour.
I have to admit: this is one of my biggest issues programming physic engines for a game, that's one reason why I never succeded.
((Other one is multitasking/networking btw))

 

[Brokengauge]

Your concern is well justified. StarMade HATES large numbers of overlapping collision check boxes and I have the blueprint catalogue to prove it. For example, the ship in my avatar used to be my primary AI fleet defense ship; mounting between 8 and 20 turrets depending on "model refinement". Their effects on servers and player clients were as follows.

- Moving a force of 5 of them to assist a player who was under heavy NPC pirate attack was enough drop his frame-rate into the single digits.
- Moving a force of 15-20 of them to assault an NPC station and fight their reinforcements was enough drop my frame-rate and lag the server.
- Having a few of of them near a planet or large station caused noticeable server lag, due to their collision check box overlap.
- A prototype armed with a 20 turrets and a 100-round, select fire, auto-loading warhead torpedo launcher caused massive server-wide lag simply by "existing".

My recommendation; for AI ships, use "ornamental" or "decorative" turrets that look like the real thing but don't move. That will drastically cut on potential lag and still give you that gunboat feel for your fleets. Add point defense as needed.

Something else to consider, AI ships always point their nose straight at their target so you're not likely to see your fleet "broadsiding". ...That's your job, commander.

All of my turrets point forwards...so I guess the prow IS the broadside.

I have a 500m "battleship" I halfway finished that had 10 "large" turrets for other >200m ships, about 30 "medium" turrets to cover the flanks and take care of drones, and the same number of ams turrets for maximum chance to shoot down a missile.

My framerate sits at about 25fps with this thing spawned and just sitting around. So I scrapped it, starting over. I am aiming for under 30 turrets for the new battleship.

My advice: instead of a turret boat, design the ship around a main gun, or main battery that's integrated to your ship. The turrets just need to keep the heat off of you until you can shift your focus.

But that's just me.

 

[klawxx]

All of my turrets point forwards...so I guess the prow IS the broadside.

I have a 500m "battleship" I halfway finished that had 10 "large" turrets for other >200m ships, about 30 "medium" turrets to cover the flanks and take care of drones, and the same number of ams turrets for maximum chance to shoot down a missile.

My framerate sits at about 25fps with this thing spawned and just sitting around. So I scrapped it, starting over. I am aiming for under 30 turrets for the new battleship.

My advice: instead of a turret boat, design the ship around a main gun, or main battery that's integrated to your ship. The turrets just need to keep the heat off of you until you can shift your focus.

But that's just me.

May be true, but this is very sad.

 

[Brokengauge]

May be true, but this is very sad.

How so?

 

[Dr. Whammy]

How so?

Some people love their capitals. Anything that implies that bigger is not better (with regard to game play/performance) tends to upset/disappoint capital fans.

 

[kurosawa]

Starmade handles turrets quite well! Up to 20 are no problem. I often have 4 or 6 bigger turrets, and 8 small pdts.

The lag and fps issues arise if your ships start to get bigger than 200m.

so what you are actually trying to say is that star made does not handle turrets well ?

 

[klawxx]

How so?

I mean that turrets are iconic to some battleship layouts. Placing some restrictions There can be frustrating.
[doublepost=1546370770,1546370617][/doublepost]

Some people love their capitals. Anything that implies that bigger is not better (with regard to game play/performance) tends to upset/disappoint capital fans.

People can love whaterever they want to. But restrictions on a sandbox is stupid...

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I mean that turrets are iconic to some battleship layouts. Placing some restrictions There can be frustrating.
[doublepost=1546370770,1546370617][/doublepost]
People can love whaterever they want to. But restrictions on a sandbox is stupid...

You apparently took it the wrong way.

Any "restrictions" you perceive with regard to turrets are not intentional. They are a limitation of the game's programing at its current state; nothing more.

Bottom line: This game - in its current state - is not able to properly handle large amounts of collision checks in a confined space. Maybe that will change some day but it's up to Schine to fix this issue.

 

[Brokengauge]

I mean that turrets are iconic to some battleship layouts. Placing some restrictions There can be frustrating.
[doublepost=1546370770,1546370617][/doublepost]
People can love whaterever they want to. But restrictions on a sandbox is stupid...

Oh, I feel you. I was simply describing what i felt was the best approach to turrets for the current game. I agree that sandboxes shouod not have limitations.

 

[Muffin_man17]

I like to thank everyone for their piece of information regarding turret performance. This is alot of useful info that will help me determine the design of future ships. It's unfortunate that performance drops at roughly +20 turrets from what I can tell from earlier posts.

Here's to hoping that the performance on turrets is improved upon to allow us those sexy broadside battleships without the concern of lagging everyone off of a server.