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Star Citizen features a unique player experience. With a sim like feel and new developed gameplay loops, both the developers and players are looking for the next steps in Star Citizen's bright future. The community will see the effects of Persistent Entity Streaming (PES) instantly, and really feel the universe changing a few weeks later due to an increase in items around the system.
But what is PES? How does it integrate with Server Meshing? Will the Star Citizen community see a difference? All these questions are answered below along with some predictions on how this may affect the future of the game's development.
What is Persistent Entity Streaming?
Persistent Entity Streaming is a new technology in games development that allows everything from player's items to destroyed ships to continue existing in the universe when players leave the area.
This curation of this tech is being spearheaded by Cloud Imperium Games as Star Citizen will be the first game to feature this fully completed version of persistence.
Although other games can mimic persistence, this version will act in a very different manor as it's paired with server meshing, another new technology that is implemented into the 3.18 patch. This will affect numerous gameplay loops, making the universe feel even more alive than before.
This is a feature that had to be implemented before the release of the salvaging gameplay loop. Without it, players would struggle to find enough wreckage from previous fights and crashes to make this a profitable career path.
Server Meshing
Server Meshing is another piece of tech that is a part of the 3.18 patch alongside Persistent Entity Streaming which will enhance the player experience in a few ways.
Essentially, Server Meshing will use multiple servers to allow the universe to hold more players across the many areas of Stanton. Currently, one server can only host 100 individual players which can make it tricky for players to interact with each other in an organic way.
However, with server meshing there will (for example) be dedicated servers for each planet and moon allowing for more players in each area. When the player travels to a new location, they will seamlessly transition to a new server without a loading screen. This will also help to carry the load of the items persisting throughout the verse.
As Star Citizen expands to multiple star systems, the developers will need this technology to allow every player and item to exist without causing lag or overloading the servers.
Shards and Servers - How Does This Effect Persistence?
With players getting their hands on the 3.18 patch through the PTU, the community is starting to understand how this tech works with servers and the current shortcomings of this initial implementation of both PES and Server Meshing.
Within each server, there are "shards" these are essentially smaller servers that exist within each region that act as their own universe.
If a player has placed something in the universe that they want to return to at a later date, they will need to join the same shard to experience the persistence. Unfortunately there is no way of choosing which shard to join.
This will be fixed in a later iteration of the tech and will change with updates to server meshing.
Affected Gameplay Loops
Persistent Entity Streaming will affect the entire player experience, not just the individual gameplay loops currently available. However, these additions will make for a more cohesive player experience when completing missions or doing tasks around the verse.
For example, with delivery missions players can pick up packages, log off, and return to their mission at a later date. This is something that the community has wanted for a long time as server crashes or glitches can stop the player from finishing their mission and waste a lot of time.
The newest gameplay loop of salvaging will benefit greatly from the addition of PES. So much so that the developers were not going to include it in the game until the tech was implemented.
Players will now be able to kit out and customize the interior of their ship with toys, unique weapons and other items. Although this was already possible, the items have a high chance of despawning after reloading the items.
Ship upgrades will also persist when a ship is left at a location, meaning players won't need to change their upgrades due to a bug or glitch after reclaiming.
Multi-crew gameplay is also another huge part of Star Citizen that will see an improvement with PES, especially when the capital class ships are added to the roster.
Large crews will be able to store multiple ships within a larger one when using something like the Anvil Carrack. This can then be left at a location in the verse and abandoned without needing to be recalled due to despawning.
The addition of mission continuation alone will give players a massive quality of life update that is essential for the growth of Star Citizen as a game.
A Whole New World
In general, PES will not have a direct impact on player's experience when entering Star Citizen. However, in the long term the community will see a massive benefit from this addition. At the start of the 3.18 release, the update will be less noticeable when compared to a few weeks later.
As more players jump into the verse and leave their mark on the new persistent system, the community will notice more persisting objects and likely run into far more players as a product of server meshing.
Star Citizen is available on PC.