Recommended server slots? For build 217 :)

oldassgamers

So guys, now when build 217 has arrived I'll hope that we all can make an agreement :D :P

So how many slots should we add to our gaming server and still have a stable tickrate at 30 throughout the entire game?

I've decided to put my servers to 20 slots. But I've seen others servers that has 22 slots, isn't that to much?

falc

This depends on the hardware and the setup.

I'm using a machine with a i7 2600 @ 3.8 GHz turbo frequency. From the rounds i played yesterday, 16 Slots seem to be a reasonable compromise between good performance and max slots for this, even when the map (veil performed better than summit with constant 30 ticks, summit dropped a few times to 20-25) is causing some additional stress.

I suppose i could go up to 18 slots to have the performance of 216 with 14 slots, but imho the 2 additional slots are fine with a much better performance than before.

endar

I'm hoping to get some good numbers from running Veil at 24 slots tonight. I heard it was decent at 22 on other servers, so I'll push it a bit and find out.

endar

Well server performance is fine at 24 slots, I guess it could probably go even higher. I saw it hit about 26 briefly, but it was mostly at 30 for the night.

The real problem is balance, it just doesnt work at 24 players, and the games are kind of stupid. It's fun for a night I guess, but I think people will soon get sick of the spammy nature of it.

And mic spam, but that might be more of an australian thing.

Kouji_San

Yeah for more players we need bigger maps. Mic spam can be negate though endar, just mute all the micspammers :P

Laosh'Ra

gathers are balanced with 12 players in total. i know that pub can be very different (especially when there are several fresh newbies), but 24 is quite extreme imo. personally, i had most pub-fun with around 16 playerslots.

endar

You are talking about NS1, which was admittedly not balanced for high numbers. It was my understanding that NS2 was going to implement mechanisms that would balance it all the way up to 16v6.

I guess its a lot harder said than done, and the only way it will happen is if they get numbers in stats to work it out.

Dghelneshi

There is a lot to be balanced around player numbers. So much that it just isn't possible in my opinion.
Building health (imagine 10+ bile bomb gorges), lifeform / weapon synergy, resource income, spawn system (aliens don't scale at all, marines scale with tres with a very good tradeoff), building system (gorge heal vs marines building), map size, etc. Hell, even the Phase Gates would have to be twice as wide to allow two marines at the same time to go through since there will also be twice as many aliens chewing on it.

I think that a game like NS will never work decently for all player numbers, especially due to it's core mechanics being built around asymmetry and noone should waste his time trying to make it work for 16v16. 6v6 till 9v9 should be okay to shoot for, but not less or more in my opinion.

rantology

The alien wavespawn is horrible with 11 people on your team, not balanced in any way. When you have 11 marines out on the map they become much more powerful because you are almost always up against groups of marines (and we all know how the numbers game of skulk VS marine counts).

The 24/22 player servers are noticeably less fun and more deathmatch/zergy than 16 player servers. I agree with Laosh'Ra that 16 is a great number for pub server slots. Any more than that and it just becomes a spammy zerg fest, usually in favor of marines accounting for the two thing mentioned above.