EVE General Discussion

I rarely play, and today had a session.

So far I'm up to 3 socket closures.

Which seems excessive for a session of mining and some light spanking of NPCs.

Is this a new thing, or merely random glitchiness, or some sort of anti-AFK gone wrong?

It's a little difficult to even imagine being involved in anything strenuous at this rate.

yeah I have been getting a lot more socket closed messages lately also. Perhaps CCP is trying to cut costs because of the decline in subs, and they cant seem to release a successful game besides Eve.

I just got my first socket close message in a long time yesterday, however I haven't played in a while.

It happened while I was updating my wireless adapter drivers, even though I'm using Ethernet. It could be a network related issue on your computer?

socket closed is a network error, where UDP packets are being lost. Some of you guys on Cox are being routed to a poor server in the rout between TQ and yourselves over the Atlantic ocean (a recent ongoing problem), like mentioned in the other thread. Here is a CCP forum sticky on socket closure for those not having that specific issue, but still getting a socket closed message.

We still use UDP?

No actually TCP, miss-typed on my rush out to get a pizza. But really they should be using UDP here, would likely see less lag and disconnects, especially with the common many server hops from client to server. For an online FPS, sure it's essential, or a broadband only game, but for a point and click scripted combat system, UDP protocols can theoretically handle 64 thousand connections exponentially within a given area/zone (though sluggish in response if configuring the protocol to allow that many as default). As for still using UDP, TCP predates UDP. But you do need TCP for anything "twitch-based" with multi-player gaming.

I dunno. I've done some OSI layers and all that stuff but doesn't UDP have the tendency to well... die off mid-flight to its destination. It certainly isn't fun for me to lose a ship because my F1 packet didn't reach CCP's servers.

The predominant benefit imo with UDP is that packets can be late, or out of order, or entirely lost, and which in UDP's case are smaller packets than TCP so still retain a good amount of speed while disregarding some packets if need be (depending how the protocol is adjusted, it can be fairly accurate).

The downside is that it's less accurate for game play, but really in a situation such as where you may aim to shoot and such. UDP can still do that, and often does in games that use a lot of AOE type damage which is much like that, but too TCP has issues in those cases as well and as CCP has mentioned their reluctance to overdo AOE damage in EVE (e.g. not using mines etc). TCP has a higher accuracy, yet if things go wrong for a moment, like losing packets and TCP starts re-requesting them over and over and over, you risk loosing connectivity to the server and are dropped more likely than a UDP connection would. They both can lose packets, but in TCP's case you are more likely to be disconnected over it, while UDP can get past the packet loss and not drop the client.

If this were a twitch game like a first person shooter, sure, TCP. But really, EVE is the type of game architecture that would seem to be ideal for UDP, especially with dealing with international connections and dirty bratty servers between client and game server.

yeah this is exactly it, nothing to do with your own connection its merely because "the decline in numbers"

Holy Amarrian God Kings!

It's happened again!

3 minutes of mining I lasted.

Socket unopened.

This sux.

I'll work my way through the suggested fixes.