Private Dedicated Server Has Game-Breaking Problem

[TheCorellian]

I know there is a word for what I am about to describe, but I cannot for the life of me put my finger on it. So, my friends and I have a dedicated server on a dedicated super computer with solid internet and all of us get a solid 60 or 120 fps and less than 30 ping. There's no lag in the traditional sense of the word whatsoever. However, there is a issue that if left unresolved, makes the game completely unplayable. We have a massive desync issue where our avatars will appear in one location to others, when in reality we are somewhere else. This also has been effecting enemy ships a bit when we are in combat. One will shoot at Person A, but on Person B's screen, the enemy is half a sector away. It is also not just desync between players either. If you chase an enemy ship through space, it will teleport and glitch around every once in awhile and just randomly be in a completely different location. I really don't know how to possibly resolve this problem because nothing appears to be wrong on the technical side. I have tried rebooting the server and all that and nothing seems to fix it. It also doesn't happen all the time, but just randomly out of nowhere every maybe 15mins or so. We don't have a massive number of players, about 4 at a time usually and we don't have a lot of huge structures or ships (one small planet base with a space elevator to landing platforms and maybe half a dozen small to medium size ships).

Any help on this would be great since if this isn't resolve my friends and I will probably be shelving the game until later in the development cycle.

 

[nightrune]

One particular de-sync issue is known:
T814 Transported astronaut position gets out of sync Client<->Server

Some of the other is if you are playing around a planet the rotational sectors will act a bit weird.

 

[Tomssuli]

If you chase an enemy ship through space, it will teleport and glitch around every once in awhile and just randomly be in a completely different location.

I think that's a separated issue to the avatar desync you described. This has happened to me too. The ships teleporting issue occurs in the corners of sectors and is not fixed at least to my knowing. It helps to set larger sector size, as it will be exponentially less probable to hit a corner of a sector. After I set sector size 4000 in my server, I've almost never had the issue anymore.

 

[TheCorellian]

One particular de-sync issue is known:
T814 Transported astronaut position gets out of sync Client<->Server

Some of the other is if you are playing around a planet the rotational sectors will act a bit weird.

So do you think maybe it is my space elevator that is causing some of the desync issues then?

I think that's a separated issue to the avatar desync you described. This has happened to me too. The ships teleporting issue occurs in the corners of sectors and is not fixed at least to my knowing. It helps to set larger sector size, as it will be exponentially less probable to hit a corner of a sector. After I set sector size 4000 in my server, I've almost never had the issue anymore.

I have now set my sector size to 4000 (even though there's a warning in the config not to, but I have backups :D ) and will give it a bit of play time and see if that fixes things.

 

[Batavium]

So do you think maybe it is my space elevator that is causing some of the desync issues then?

If it is located on a Planet to connect to outer space then it might clip. Because of the planets rotation and all the collision checks.

You can test it your self.

Make a sector save of the elevator.

export_sector

• DESCRIPTION: exports the whole sector. be sure to use /force_save before
• PARAMETERS: X(Integer), Y(Integer), Z(Integer), name(String)
• EXAMPLE: /export_sector 2 3 4 mySavedSector

/export_sector x y z elevator

Next import the sector somewhere where you know nothing exists but Void Space. Everything in the target sector will be erased! Make sure you are not in or near the target sector when you do the import.

import_sector

• DESCRIPTION: make sure that the target sector is unloaded
• PARAMETERS: toX(Integer), toY(Integer), toZ(Integer), name(String)
• EXAMPLE: /import_sector 2 3 4 mySavedSector

/import_sector x y z elevator

Now you have a double and you are free to blow up the planet double.

explode_planet_sector

• DESCRIPTION: Simulates the effect of core destruction for all planet segments in the current sector
• PARAMETERS:
• EXAMPLE: /explode_planet_sector

This time you must be in the sector where you spawned the planet to execute the command. Be sure to teleport away after the planet explosion. Wait for the sector to unload then teleport back. The planet plates should now be settled in there new position.

Next try out the elevator with your friends and see what happens.

In case the elevator was not on a planet then ignore the above.

I have now set my sector size to 4000 (even though there's a warning in the config not to, but I have backups :D )

You can safely make sectors bigger. You can not or rather should not make them smaller. This is because things can then find themselves in another sector. At which point all the funky stuff starts.

Currently there are also some Asteroids issues. Where two Asteroids spawn on top of each other and create lots of lag.

Player Skins might also cause issues so you can try turning them off. Mostly shader/java crashes/nullpoints but you never know.

Other than that maybe post your server.cfg if the problems persists. Edit out any ip or server info if it is private.