Latency

[Driftir]

Really enjoying the game so far but the latency is insane at times with friends. Is there a fix to this?

[Planet Mountain Dew]

not yet

[nornware]

The actual network latency is often a function of distance, and there isn't anything to do about that in and of itself.

All the Steam Friends and Steam Public networking goes via Steams Peer to Peer API in order to allow play between machines that may be behind NATs / firewalls. The documentation states that while they try to establish a direct connection between machines, but if this fails they can also resort to routing messages via their own backends. I suspect that if this happens round trip latency might increase.

With all of that said, we still have work to do on improving the networked experience. See this post for a technical overview of what currently affects network performance in the game.

[FrappeWarrior]

Originally posted by nornware:

The actual network latency is often a function of distance, and there isn't anything to do about that in and of itself.

All the Steam Friends and Steam Public networking goes via Steams Peer to Peer API in order to allow play between machines that may be behind NATs / firewalls. The documentation states that while they try to establish a direct connection between machines, but if this fails they can also resort to routing messages via their own backends. I suspect that if this happens round trip latency might increase.

With all of that said, we still have work to do on improving the networked experience. See this post for a technical overview of what currently affects network performance in the game.

some time ago i tried my first cross-atlantic session with a friend of mine in canada ( im in europe) and unfortunatelly it was unplayable. IIRC you also mentioned that you tried cross-atlantic and had the same results. While latency is indeed distance related based on experience from other games ive played on P2P multiplayer the ingame lag can be in a playable state even with high pings (one example of this would be orcs must die2). Im always glad to hear you are still working on it.

[nornware]

Yes, definitely our goal to make it work if possible, even for example cross Atlantic.

[FrappeWarrior]

Originally posted by nornware:

Yes, definitely our goal to make it work if possible, even for example cross Atlantic.

we have faith in you :)

[Sylvine]

So I'm guessing you're waiting to fix this issue before thinking about the 4 pack ?

[nornware]

Sylvine: Yes, that seems like the best thing in our opinion.

We are currently looking into graphics performance stuff and have some good fixes just implemented. This will probably roll out as a specific update so we can see if it helps people with slowdown situations. With the current network setup this has direct implications on networked performance as well.

After that, looking at our backlog and plan, improving the networked experience is pretty high priority.

[Dr. Hemmel]

Any update here, or new experience with cross atlantic play sessions? I want to know how viable it would be before purchasing a pack for use with friends and family across the pond.

[nornware]

Absolutely viable these days (actually since Update 13), and Update 28 (just released) has further improvements still.

We regularly do pre-update testing between Sweden and California (thanks Billy!) to ensure that things stay solid.

I heard someone played a game between Tennessee and New Zealand that also worked...

[Dr. Hemmel]

Seriously appreciate the speedy response. Heading to the steamshop immediately :)

[Dr. Hemmel]

Also as an update, after multiple heart attacks and loud screaming for the last hour, the actual latency seems to have been fine. The aliens had no troubles whatsoever on reaching me nor responding with lightning reflexes to my every attempt at escape.
10/10, would buy again !

[nornware]

Awesome, thanks for the love! :)