Soldato
FYI, Chris Roberts explained or at least hinted that each server mesh doesn't represent an area of the the game per say, but represents a top down level approach.For those interested the beginning of this video is where we are at today, it explains how despite its size the game doesn't have any level loading.
The game is divided up in to object containers, the default state of those object containers is to be dormant, or "streamed out" on both the server and the client, the player has a kind of bubble around them, as that player moves through the system with that bubble object containers with their contents are streamed in on the fly on both the client and the sever, as the player moves away from the object container it is streamed out again.
Sony talked about employing similar technology to this to also do away with level loading, they used Ratchet and Clank as a demo, tho this was sometime after CIG did it and its on a vastly smaller scale, nether the less this type of technology is the future of game development, especially as mass storage becomes faster and faster....
Server Object Container Streaming (SOCS)
Client Object Container Streaming. (COCS)
These are two of the past foundation technologies, they went live in 2019, i think it was.
While this is always going to benefit the client, there is a problem with it on the server side, if everyone on the server is in all places at once the server is running the whole thing.
Enter "Static Server Meshing" so for the server each "Object Container" becomes its own server, so where now the server is having to run 110 players and everything in the system, every object, every NPC, if everyone is everywhere, Static Server meshing will allow the Stanton System to be divided up in to server zones that the player moves through as seamlessly as they currently do with Object containers, lets say 4 zones, one for each planet, but that number can be infinite, the outpost on each planet can be its own server shard, so there is much less for each server to do, the server performance is higher, it can do a lot more, up the player count to 500....
For that to work each server needs to know the persistent state of its self at every moment, so it can communicate that to the client as he or she is moving from server, or "shard" to shard. THAT. Persistent Entity Streaming (PES) is where we are at now. once that is working they can start meshing servers, Shards.
CitizenCon 2951: Server Meshing & The State Of Persistence
Discover the transformative technologies of Server Meshing and Persistent Streaming. A deep dive into the technical architecture of these key core initiative...youtu.be
Basically this below :
One server that represents the whole structure of a star system aka Stanton,
One server that represents each moon and planet.
One server that represents each major landing zone and major bunker outposts.
And in future. One server that can represent a area or room inside a major landing zone.
Doing it like above actually works for dynamic server meshing.
If me and you are just hovering outside orbit of Hurston, Lorville and any large towns or outposts do not spin up a server for those yet until we go there.
It works in harmony with object container steaming in a way
