Hi there,



After discussin with the programmers : we are using strings for the "orders" and their parameters, but the basic network messages are binary. The rational behind using string was that it was simple to develop / debug, and does not use that much memory. Strings are also used in the saved games, causing the same issue. This is what caused the server to send a partially invalid game state when the multiplayer game was started or a new player joined (because the server sent the game state at this stage, in the form of a saved game).



Cheers,

Mathieu

I appreciate that you aren't rushing this fix and really trying to do it right now that you are focused on tackling the problem. I'm really looking forward to playing the game again multiplayer with all the people I've convinced to buy it over the last 6 months.

And, as promised, a new dev blog post on our work on the multiplayer.

Guess we have been lucky then, me and my friends are playing in multiplayer for quite some time now, and we never had a desync. We had the problem that we often got dropped out and had a "server not available" or "server not reachable" kind of error, and getting dropped back to the main menu. Sometimes happening several times during just 1-2 hours of playtime.

Multiplayer Status - Where we stand (by Obyguane): Dev Blog posted today.

Personally I think they are slightly better, but they still exist.

Let her host. Then your fleets will get blown up, and she will have less stress.

kaydiechii wrote:
I havent played since F2p weekend a couple of weeks back, also im back all if anyone remembers me <3

one of the reasons i didnt pick it up that week was because i never had a SINGLE game make it past 100 turns with out sync issue or 0/0 fleet issues.

From my experience, you will need to quit and reload every 20-40 turns. Your girlfriend will get mad that her fleets got blown up because of desync, and there will be relationship stress. Thanks amplitude!

So this could potentially help the reload of a savegame and also when a new player joins the game? How about during a regular gameplay before any synch problems has happened? Anyhow good to see progress is getting done I am really looking forward to covering endless space and making it good for multiplayer by making tournaments and more.

I havent played since F2p weekend a couple of weeks back, also im back all if anyone remembers me <3

one of the reasons i didnt pick it up that week was because i never had a SINGLE game make it past 100 turns with out sync issue or 0/0 fleet issues.



given the steam sale i picked up the game because its a damn good price - but i won't be playing untill these issues are majorily fixed. i'm not complaining i just don't have any fun in a game that desyncs so much, that hour of setting up my empire is just thrown away all the time.



so how are they now? also i love ES <3

Hi AmpliMath,



Why are you sending data as Strings instead of serializing objects and deserializing upon receiving?

hopefully you know i was only replying in jest. but of course i'm glad to hear about what's going on. i run a small (<100) company, too, and i know the trials of doing so. it's good to know that you guys are putting forth a concerted effort, and of course it's also good to know that your troops are treated well. kudos for putting out an awesome game and i'm sure the whole community is rooting for you in terms of making it even better.

owangolama wrote:
Mattieu:



Some advice. Before you actually try to find the sync bugs, you should first increase the number of programmers you have. Do this by offering them food or something. Somehow, this always seems to work. Then crank up the work potential of your programming group by buying things that multiply their output. Nice monitors, comfy chairs, better healthcare, etc. And finally, send one programmer to another building and have him/her start growing their own programming group. NOW you're ready to tackle the sync bugs. At this point, you should be able to solve the problem in just a couple turns.

Thanks for the advice



Just to reassure you, the programmers (and the rest of the team) are well treated, fed, and have all the equipment they need (twin 24" monitors each). Heck, they are even paid every month



We have doubled the number of programmers, and as I said, it is starting to pay off. The bug I was mentioning earlier, concerns the innacuracy of floating point numbers in the network messages. We had noticed in the past, that some variables tended to drift between computers of the session. For instance, the growth value for a star system was progressively diverging from one computer to the other. We thought this was inevitable and due to slight imprecision or differences of calculus between different systems and processors. It turns out that the function we used to transform floating point number into character strings, before sending them over the network, was not behaving symetrically. So for instance the 3,1416 floating point number was written as "3,1416" in the network message, but reinterpreted as the floating number 3,1417 on the receiving computer. This could gradually make the whole simulation diverge. It has now been fixed with an error prone conversion function.



The other problem we have detected, is that the computation of simulation values is not always deterministic. For instance, when a simulation value is computed by applying sums, percentages, and multiplication, the order of these operations is not always the same on each system in the game session. We must look into the exact cause for this and fix it, next monday, once the "Salt Mine" reopens ; the company is closed on the week ends, to allow programmers to get some rest.



I suppose this was a bit too technical, but I wanted to give you a precise heads up, and show that we care and dedicate. I also want to tell you that prior to these findings, we have also changed the way the network orders are sent, we thought latency was the cause for out of sync. This was already in Add-On 3, but obviously this was not enough and our doubled efforts have allowed us to find more bugs.



Of course once these fixes are checked in, we will also increase the testing effort to check for regressions.

Mattieu:



Some advice. Before you actually try to find the sync bugs, you should first increase the number of programmers you have. Do this by offering them food or something. Somehow, this always seems to work. Then crank up the work potential of your programming group by buying things that multiply their output. Nice monitors, comfy chairs, better healthcare, etc. And finally, send one programmer to another building and have him/her start growing their own programming group. NOW you're ready to tackle the sync bugs. At this point, you should be able to solve the problem in just a couple turns.

Hi all,



We are still working on it and have doubled our efforts. We already found a nasty sync bug and fixed it this morning, and found another one this afternoon.



More info coming beginning of next week.



Thanks for your patience.

Yea its still horrible but single player vs AI is entertaining enough for the price of the game and then if they get sync fixed well we are in for some fun times

I hope they get this problem fix soon, ES is a great game and it would be a shame if this problem would make ppl want to quit it.

Just the same, if not worse....



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