Lag reduction in multiplayer

[Plawerth]

We have a large multiplayer map going, and a bunch of people are starting to find it too laggy as the map grows larger.

F4 - Show active chunks:


Are there any steps we can take to reduce the lag so the game stays enjoyable for everyone?

When we are done collecting resources from a large open area, is there some way to abandon it so that the biters don't come back and retake it, and the land just stays inactive?

If we push the biters far enough back to be completely out of the pollution zone, do they become inactive?

I am of the opinion that radar scanning causes lots of lag. Is there some way to reduce the scanning range to only the inner visible area, without the large area map scanning?

Is it feasible to play without any radar at all, to reduce lag and chunk loading?

[Plawerth]

I think I found the problem. This pack of biters on the other side of the lake is so dense, they just stand there like zombies. Landfilled over to them, blasting them, and still they just stand there. Got some massive lag spikes sweeping these with flamethrower and turrets.

[Plawerth]

Another mosh party further down the beach. I thought we would be safe from these on the other side of the lake but noooo, they lag us to death instead.

Killing off these packs helped solve the lag.

[orzelek]

It seems that pathing failed and was not cancelled for some reason.
I seen in earlier versions that biters that couldn't path would simply vanish after some time. Those that you have seemed to stay there and try to path constantly and thats very lag inducing.

[SyncViews]

Ive found this with lakes or such as well before but never investigated in detail personally since that game wasnt too slow (I was just clearing for tracks or collecting artifacts).
With a medium to large base plenty of pollution will cross water, but the spawned biters cant find even the simplest ways around.

I did also find that if you clear them you just get another massive group stuck because obviously there is still pollution, and so more biters, and I guess even with a timeout (if there is one).

[BlakeMW]

When we are done collecting resources from a large open area, is there some way to abandon it so that the biters don't come back and retake it, and the land just stays inactive?

You have to wall it off. Good thing is that walls get cheaper per area protected the larger the rectangle gets. It only takes twice as much wall, to protect 4x as much area. Great Walls are surprisingly cheap.

If we push the biters far enough back to be completely out of the pollution zone, do they become inactive?

Almost. They'll stop making attack parties, but will still (try to) send expansion parties which are more a nuisance than anything else, due to being only 5-20 biters or so.

I think theoretically you could push the biters back as far as you've ever explored/polluted, destroy all the nests you can see using long range weapons like nukes, then retreat. Theoretically - very theoretically - it might be possible in this way to eliminate all nests from the map, because nests don't even exist in terrain which hasn't been explored/scanned/polluted. I believe I succeeded in implementing this strategy once when using the Misanthrope mod, not on all borders of my factory, but at least some borders - placing laser turrets to erase the nests without exploring too much, I succeeded in at least eliminating the vast majority of nests from the part of the map that existed, then walled off the blackness.

Even if you can't get all the nests, building a wall as close to the blackness as you can will give the biters living on the edge of the blackness a very hard time, as they won't be able to expand into your territory, and they also can't expand into the void which hasn't been called into existence. This is very much metagaming of course, but I find it fun.

I am of the opinion that radar scanning causes lots of lag. Is there some way to reduce the scanning range to only the inner visible area, without the large area map scanning?

Is it feasible to play without any radar at all, to reduce lag and chunk loading?

I always minimize the use of radars, mainly to keep autosave time down, but I also don't mind not bringing more nests into existence when I don't have to. Ideally you should place your radars internally so they can only scan about as far as you've ever explored (or your pollution has ever gone). I do wish there was a (stock) security camera or tactical radar that didn't scan. But in any case you don't need radars on your borders and I never use them there unless I specifically want to look for resources in that direction. You still get the alerts for when something is being damaged/destroyed even if it's not within radar coverage so the radar doesn't accomplish that much beyond exploring. You can even see when biters have moved into polluted territory without radar, because you can see the pollution being absorbed even when you can't see the nest.

[Rseding91]

Do you have a copy of the save file in the broken state that I can have?

[Plawerth]

It looks like I have a save from before the lag started getting ridiculous.

Overview:


Zoom in on yellow box:


I had this bright idea of putting steam in the middle of the lake (yellow star), where the northern biters could not reach it due to the really long shoreline that the AI cannot navigate. But this inner lake steam seemed to have the opposite effect, irritating the hell out of the biters on the north shore. They kept sweeping around the NW corner of the lake, so eventually I gave up and tore it down.

And previously there was ore mining at the blue stars so pollution was, and still is, nuts in that area.




0.15.x map share link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzUBv ... zJJYzVsdms

This is a 0.15.x Marathon game with a rather painfully high multiplier for material costs, pollution, evolution, etc. Much suffering ensues.



(In normal game these are x1000 and x5000)