On our server we have determined two main causes of sudden crippling lag.
1. If a ship from the catalog is spawned and it is partially inside another ship or interlocking with a different ship. The two ships bounce about randomly and maniacally causing a massive increase in server load.
2. If two large ships with multiple turrets (16ish) collide. The turrets bounce about randomly and is a bigger strain on the server than Cause 1.
We have tested this on multiple servers.
I hope this information is helpful to improve the game and server stability.
1. If a ship from the catalog is spawned and it is partially inside another ship or interlocking with a different ship. The two ships bounce about randomly and maniacally causing a massive increase in server load.
2. If two large ships with multiple turrets (16ish) collide. The turrets bounce about randomly and is a bigger strain on the server than Cause 1.
We have tested this on multiple servers.
I hope this information is helpful to improve the game and server stability.