Flotsam or server performance?

Keep them. They add to the world. I'd be in favour of a loot reduction if that affects the server but with a boost to the value of loot to compensate.

It's not going to have a major impact, the data about the barrels is so small and only accessed if a player comes in range. Otherwise, they cease to actually exist on the server. It's a whole "tree in the woods" kind of scenario. In this case, the tree doesn't even exist, never mind make a sound.

Rare are always optimising the memory profile of the game (see the semi-recent documentary) so I expect they've already looked at these and decided they aren't contributing negatively to server performance.

@unstoppabledork said in Flotsam or server performance?:

@d3adst1ck

It spawns in a net like pattern all throughout the seas even all the way in the spaces around the edge of the map where most crews never go to.

The server has to deal with all those spawn points.

I think removing it completely could have a significant positive effect on server performance.

Fixed barrels be they on land or in a shipwreck for example are just so much less taxing on the server.

Floating barrels, treasure or crates.. anything that floats is moving with the waves and server performance goes way down.

This is very obvious when you complete the skeleton fleet and the server performance tanks when all that loot surfaces and begins to float.

So by removing the flotsam I think server performance would be better.

Anything that can be found in a pile of flotsam can be found on the shores of islands or in barrels on islands it’s all redundant anyway.

Just past session, I was swimming towards another sloop when I saw the barrels and some chests emerge from the seas - I think you're wrong that they are everywhere all of the time - they just spawn in when a ship gets close as @D3ADST1CK said above.

@unstoppabledork said in Flotsam or server performance?:

Anything floating greatly affects server performance.

Reducing the floaty bits = better performance.

It only affects performance if the server is constantly tracking every little detail about their position, which I don't think is the case with barrels. It's tracking basic location stuff but most of it is left to the engine physics to figure out on the fly. They're not like ships, for example, where they are more tightly tracked as they are higher priority.

I'm not going to jump to the defense of flotsam though, they are often a pain when they have kegs, but I think Rare would have already removed them if they thought the impact was anything more than negligible.

@unstoppabledork

Adding sea life could potentially have a bigger impact than barrels, depending on how detailed the AI needs to be.

Often the stutters around islands and other ships have less to do with server performance and more to do with the client performance. If it's server side, you should see ping spikes (which do happen) but, otherwise, most likely client side.

Unreal Engine is notorious for traversal stutter and this has gotten a lot worse in the last year or so as the game is constantly moving LODs in and out of memory. Barrels aren't going to affect that too much as they are effectively the same thing copy pasted. Ships and islands are the worst for it, especially now with trinkets and so much added unique features in the world.

I wouldn't mourn the loss of flotsam barrels, but I think it's the wrong focus when considering server performance.

I know it's a contentious opinion but, personally, I would rather see them revert to 5 ships per server. Hourglass is there for folks who want instant PvP and, with anti-cheat coming, it should be a better experience again. That and safer seas filtering out most newer/low level players should see more activity from crews on servers anyway, so I don't think 5 ships would feel as empty as it would now.