pixtim

Cloaking would be awesome. I love these ideas! I'd personally use it for a disengage mechanism. :)

Hi Avorion team and community Avorion is my favourite sandbox space-sim RPG. It seamlessly combines creation, exploration, combat, strategy and multiplayer. It is the game I’ve been dreaming about since childhood and I’m looking forward to playing it as it matures. The game delivers a comprehensive polished experience beyond what one would expect from an early access title. I would like to thank Boxelware for building such an amazing product. I’d like to suggest the following features to improve Avorion’s loading experience: Minimize upfront loading and rather stream content as needed My understanding is that the Avorion client downloads compressed sector files up-front. It includes meta-data around object location, type, geometry, etc. The file has to be downloaded, decompressed, parsed and instantiated on the client side before the player can be presented with a playable game. Server-side however, the player is already loaded into the sector and simulation continues as normal. It appears that real-time content is still streamed to the client while the sector is being downloaded. Sectors containing many fighters load significantly slower compared to empty ones. Fighter meta-data and geometry is non-critical and should not keep the player out of the game. I would like to suggest reducing what needs to be downloaded upfront and separating out content that could be streamed on-demand. We could download a sector “schema” that details object meta-data without non-critical data such as geometry, velocity, item fitting, etc. Only include basic data such as type, bounding box, etc. Objects that are not streamed could be rendered as bounding boxes, faded out, or not rendered at all. The client could prioritize streaming nearby objects as bandwidth allows. This feature could be configurable: “download upfront”, “stream as bandwidth allows”, “lazy streaming on-demand”. This feature would benefit all players. It would especially benefit low bandwidth players and servers. Having ultra-short loading times would go a long way in improving player immersion. Provide feedback on loading progression One starts worrying about “infinite loading screens” when the 10nth hint is displayed. I would like to suggest adding a representative progress bar, estimated time of completion and percentage to the loading screen. Showing the player that there is a definitive end to the loading screen would boost player confidence on the stability of the game and make the loading screens more tolerable when they are needed. Treat loading players as between-sectors (still in hyperspace) Dying in a loading screen is rather disheartening. There are posts on the forum where player loading protection has been mentioned as a feature. I’m not sure if it’s already implemented but it appears that the latest stable branch does not protect the player while in a loading screen. It would be helpful to unload ships from the server as soon as the player leaves the sector. Player ships should be only be reloaded when entering a sector. The protection should be active server-side irrespective of the loading screen state on the client side. The feature should function for privately owned ships and alliance ships. Conclusion I realize that streaming content may be a massive feature. If it's not possible to implement it soon or on the long run then it would be cool to have a representative indicator of progress on the loading screen with player protection in effect. The latter features may be cheaper to implement and would add significant value. Thank you for taking the time to read my suggestions. Kind regards Pixtim