Multiplayer mission resource considerations

[TP_Fritz]

I've been thinking about how much, as far as objects, I should consider deactivating outside the players view in a multiplayer mission to save resources and am curious what the general consensus is for those of you who've developed a lot of multiplayer missions.

 

Aside from the obvious things - such as AA, mission targets, and anything else I want to not have automatically activated for mission aesthetics - generally how far should one go?  I tend to have map objects, like villages and such, visible at all times, but does this eat resources?  Would it be better to have all villages within the mission area have a proximity trigger set at, say, 10 kilometers, so that only those villages that show up within that radius are visible... or would that in itself eat up resources with all the proximity triggers?  And, if that is a good idea, should I do the same for the players home airfield(s)?  When I've developed single player missions I also tend to have a heavy focus on environmental objects to provide a sense of "being a small part of a greater conflict," such as front line weapons fire, smoke and flames, other AI planes in the general area doing their own missions, etc.  How much of that sort of thing should I consider reducing for multiplayer missions?

 

I want to try to reduce as many resources as possible while the mission is running, but I also don't want to go overboard and am not sure where the middle ground is, as I'm still somewhat new to multiplayer mission design considerations.

[TP_Silk]

Generally with our missions we load the default 1C/777 scenery such as bridges, towns, villages and airfields for the whole map and leave it like that. If you're really concerned about resources then you can open the imported groups and just delete everything that is outside the area of operations.

 

What takes up most resources is anything that requires AI and the more crew members those units have, the heavier the resource requirements. I once wrote a mission where I wanted the airfield we were attacking to be populated with the appropriate aircraft so dumped a load of FW190 A5s, Hs129s and the like around it. I soon realised my error when it cam to testing time and the server resources went through the roof. Those aircraft swiftly got replaced with the standard 'static' block models that don't require AI and all was well.

 

Apart from that I tend to deactivate any 'flavour' group once it has been bypassed or has flown out of visual range. that should generally be enough. Remember, the more AI crew members there are, the higher the call on resources as each of those gunners (or whatever) will draw on what you have.

[TP_Fritz]

Thanks Silk - for the general 1C/777 scenery I usually tend to remove everything that is roughly 20 kilometers outside the mission area already as a general practice.  I've always felt that any scenery that the players won't see doesn't need to be there, which comes from earlier IL2 mission design (and other sims) practices.  I was curious if going further (with proximity triggers) was just wasteful... sounds like it probably is.

 

Okay, so AI... JimTM's manual points that out as well.  I can imagine that the resources would skyrocket with the example you mention.  I tend to populate airfields / towns / target areas with static objects as much as possible unless I need them to actually be doing something (or be targets) - and then, as in that mission I sent to you guys, the actual objects that do something are invisible until triggered by a complex / proximity trigger.  Having said that though - even if an object with AI is deactivated, does it still take resources?  Or does it only take resources once it activates?

 

As far as "flavor" items - i.e., smoke, frontline weapons fire, etc. - how much of a draw are those things?  Within reason of course - not much, or are they similar to AI resource hogging?

[TP_Silk]

To be honest I'm not sure how much resources those things take up - I would assume that frontline weapons fire will require an AI Logic to some degree and I know that FPS can be reduced when rendering smoke, but I haven't looked at how much of a draw on the server they are. Maybe someone else here can answer that better than me.

[csThor]

Just curious ... Does that concern AI-operated moving ground vehicles (trucks and tanks) and artillery, too? Where is the limit for those?

[TP_Silk]

I have to admit that I don't know whether AI ground vehicles and ships have multiple AI assignments. I just know that the aircraft do.

[LLv34_Temuri]

Moving ground vehicles and artillery do create more load than you would think. Not as much as planes, though.