Area Attack MCU in multiplayer missions

[NETSCAPE]

I still have yet to find a definitive answer on this... I always notice how any artillery, AT guns and MG's in multiplayer are just sitting there and never shooting. I'd like to be reminded that there is a war going on below. So my question is does the Area Attack MCU (ie attack ground setting, so having these units fire with unlimited ammo) have that much of a negative impact on a server/multiplayer load?

 

Note: I did not say tanks or vehicles with weapons. I know that they are substantially more demanding from all the singleplayer experimenting I've done. 

[Sketch]

Yeah they eat up resources for single player or multiplayer. Just check any of the missions in the scripted campaigns made by Blacksix.

[NETSCAPE]

I have about 1000 hours in the ME with singleplayer content give or take. I am new to MP content however and I don't want to plan let alone create some extravagant mission if in reality it can't even be played. The MCU in question itself can't be too big of an issue since people use it all the time with AAA, of which many can be active and the AI is seeking targets and firing animations ect at any given one time. So why would it be that much more of a strain for artillery to actually fire at the ground? Or are MP mission designers just lazy? Not trying to be insulting, but so far this doesn't make much sense to me. 

[Sketch]

31 minutes ago, NETSCAPE said:

I have about 1000 hours in the ME with singleplayer content give or take. I am new to MP content however and I don't want to plan let alone create some extravagant mission if in reality it can't even be played. The MCU in question itself can't be too big of an issue since people use it all the time with AAA, of which many can be active and the AI is seeking targets and firing animations ect at any given one time. So why would it be that much more of a strain for artillery to actually fire at the ground? Or are MP mission designers just lazy? Not trying to be insulting, but so far this doesn't make much sense to me. 

I know you have a lot of time in the ME. ?

 

For multiplayer, and correct me if I'm wrong, you want your dServer:

• SPS (simulations per second) to be 50 at all times
• Tick Delay to be as low as possible
  • For 60-80 players, the tick delay should be 5 or less

 

With that in mind, [for 60-80 players] multiplayer missions designers do:

• checkzone MCU style on off switching for entities such as AAA to offload resources when not used (this is how you should do your artillery pieces, and also probably give them a slight firing delay too)
• limited (around 5-8) moving vehicle entities or just have vehicle entities that never move or static objects as vehicles
• limited or no flying entities and of those limited, even less bomber type entities
• limited (and using checkzone MCUs for on off switching) effects or no effects
• Events not all firing at the same time (such as when a player destroys all targets of an objective -> wait 1 sec -> fire counter -> wait 1 sec -> fire subtitle -> wait 1 sec -> fire icon removal -> wait 1 sec -> fire new icon -> wait 1 sec -> etc etc etc)
  • A good example of this is JimTM's damage display switch group
• limited or no complex triggers
• limited total entities (to about 20,000 to 30,000 entities total in the mission)
  • This means, no cool looking airfields that seem "active"
  • Making only a portion of the map playable and,
  • Removing cities, bridges, etc from the area that isn't "playable"

 

Edited August 21, 2018 by [TWB]Sketch
Edited for clarity on player count

[NETSCAPE]

I PM'd Coconut a few days ago about server performance and limits and what not, here is part of what he said:

 

"AA appears to be pretty cheap to me. Check zones can be costly, but typically not in the numbers a human creator can afford to place manually (mine are auto-generated, which can lead to 100s of zones).

 

To summarize, I would think the following ballpark limits apply:

- bombers: 8

- fighters: 16

- AA: "unlimited" (200?), but those are easy to spawn on demand

- vehicles: 50 (active at the same time, but you can have more if some are disabled/not spawned)

- entities (for static targets): unlimited

 

These figures should be OK for up to 20 players on the server. I don't have experience with servers for 84 players. Join FNBF and look at the mission, it should give you a good idea of what's needed for 40-player missions."