Thoughts on sector size?

[aRottenKomquat]

I will probably be resetting my server when the NPC faction update hits, and I was thinking of altering the sector size. I've always left it on the default settings. I'm wondering what everyone else's opinion is of larger sector sizes? How does it tend to change the game, are there any major negatives, and what are some good sizes to try?

I guess it would encourage the use of jump drives and warp gates for what is currently short-range travel, and might also make station sectors safer from pirate attacks since the distance to pirate bases goes up? Any other interesting considerations?

 

[Panpiper]

I find it also reduces lag as there is less in close proximity to draw. It certainly does encourage the use of jump drives with miners, especially big miners. You might want to consider reducing weapon ranges to the same degree that you increase sector size however so people can still see the ships they are fighting.

 

[Tomssuli]

I use sector size of 4000 as there are some funky bugs in the corner transition zones of the sectors... The bigger the sectors, the rarer the chance to hit the corner. Also, the scale feels more proper with that. It didn't make sense to use the jump drive with smaller sectors.

I still feel that warp gate's max distance is a little short, but imo it should be rather changed (by schine?) by making gates reach more systems than making sector size bigger.

Only negative thing with huge sectors I can think of is that it takes very long to get to a shops or to your neighbours without jump drives. Steering long way through empty space with nothing to see can get tedious. Someone else probably knows if there are memory issues or something with very large sectors.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I wasn't aware warp gates had a maximum distance. Then again, I've never built a warp gate...

 

[Tomssuli]

Warp gates' maximum distance is 8 systems, that equals 128 sectors. It equals 16 jumps with jump drive (one jump is 8 sectors). It may sound like a lot, but it doesn't take too long when you speed towards the target with thrusters at the same time... I'd like to be able to make a loooong trip out there and then set up a warp gate when I find a nice place for an outpost or a colony.

 

[Centauri]

I have found that have a 10km sector size is the best for overall performance on my server. Also, speaking of warp gates, I have found that it is best to increase their max range along with increasing sector size.

 

[Batavium]

Big sectors hold more chunks and can get heavy to compute. Peoples individual render distance can also become an issue. Since a player exists in a 3 by 3 by 3 sector box. Seeing everything in that 27 sector box is a must if you want to do any sort of serious fighting.

On jump drives beware that you jump sector to sector. You do not move within the sector as you jump. So after the jump you are in the new sector at exactly the same place as the sector you came from. You can not use a jump drive to move within a sector.

Most stuff spawns in the center of sectors. Shops, asteroids, AI stations big sectors can be a pain to travel thru. As others said everything gets really small at long ranges. Try to avoid weapon ranges that go beyond the sectors load range. As that can lead to all sort of nasty long range camp situations where one side can not see the enemy.

On the NPC update i strongly suggest to not expand the sectors to much. You can make them larger even after the map has been made. But you can NOT make them smaller. So if you over do it. Then you most likely will be forced to wipe your server again! Test if everything works and take small steps if you want to expand your sectors.

 

[KiloZulu]

I've always preferred large sectors, like 20k. Space is big.

 

[EricBlank]

I've also moved to a 15km sector size, and scaled down the ranges of weapons. I do like space to be a bit more spaceous than the default game. Of course I increased jump drive distance as well, but havent found a real comfortable balance for that yet.

 

[Edymnion]

Pros: Makes space feel big. Makes jump drives and warp gates feel important as you can't just rev the throttle up to full for a minute or two to get where you're going. Makes building big much easier as you don't have to worry about your station crossing sector boundries.

Cons: Is potentially more work for the server. From the start its the same work load, because the number of objects in each sector is the same, they're just more spread out. As the server ages, you'll have a lot more ships and stuff in one sector than you otherwise would, which can create problems.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I'm not worried too much about server load. I've been building a new VMware game server to replace my current overloaded one (it isn't overloaded specifically by StarMade, it does a ton of things and they all add up), the only thing left to get is a CPU which I plan to buy next month. It will be a dual-socket system supporting up to 512 GB RAM, and will eventually be loaded with a pair of 10-core Xeon processors. Though it will be doing far more than just StarMade.

20k sector size sounds like as a good start as any. I'll have to try that out in single player before I play with the server config. I like the idea of space feeling big. As it stands (yes I'm one of those terrible homebase turtles) I never need warpgates or jump drives to navigate around my home system. It only takes me a few minutes to get my miner to the other end of the system and that just doesn't feel right.

 

[Edymnion]

20k is going to be HUGE, just warning you.

I played on a server with 10k sector size and just getting anywhere was a huge pain in the ass. A quick run to the shop in the same sector as you was a good 10 minute affair.

There is a real reason why no game makes space realistically big, its boring and tedious as all hell.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

Isn't the default sector size 5K?

 

[KiloZulu]

20k is going to be HUGE, just warning you.

I played on a server with 10k sector size and just getting anywhere was a huge pain in the ass. A quick run to the shop in the same sector as you was a good 10 minute affair.

There is a real reason why no game makes space realistically big, its boring and tedious as all hell.

I keep the default speed of 75, too. If you increase the speed along with the size, you're not really accomplishing anything. Jump drives are the primary means of long distance travel, and their performance is based on number of sectors rather than meters, so they scale with sector size just fine.

 

[Top 4ce]

My experience is that default is way to low, but you don't want to go to big. Most go with 15k and either 150 or 300 speed (was a server adm for a popular server) depending on preference. 5k has too many thing within render range and meeting stars is much easier. Larger makes space feel good and combat more fluid because you don't cross sector lines often. The slow down effect of many entities is true, but only really an issue for larger server populations.

 

[Edymnion]

Isn't the default sector size 5K?

2k, I believe.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

2k, I believe.

In that case the wiki is wrong.

 

[EricBlank]

The wiki is always wrong.

 

[Jojomo]

I suppose in practical terms that although larger sectors require more server memory and take longer to load, they don't have to load as often.

 

[Edymnion]

In that case the wiki is wrong.

I honestly don't trust the wiki as far as I can throw it (and it being a non-physical entity makes that very difficult indeed).

I just know that all the games I'm in have it set to 2k, including the fresh single player game I just made to work on a new faction aesthetic.