Suggestion: IPoAC - Fixing network lag, once and for all.

[Vantha]

The title says it all. I hereby officially propose switching all of Pyrogenesis' network traffic to IPoAC.

Finally an authentic, period-accurate communication method!

Who's onboard?

[Grautvornix]

That's a phantastic idea! I like it. Just we need to look at options to better manage potential packet loss.

[Vantha]

Hmm, another difficulty will be to convince the government to lend us some of their carrier units (the "birds") in the first place...

[Seleucids]

The speed of a pigeon is approximately 26.94ms^-1   or 97km/h [1]

The known 0ad player who is geographically the closest to me is approximately 6.4km away (direct distance). This implies a single trip of a packet needing 237.6 seconds to travel between us; the ping would be 475.2 seconds. If I want to play with anybody else in Europe and around the world, the ping would exceed hours if not days. Bad experience eae  

Quote

[1] Homing pigeons' average flying speed over moderate 965 km (600 miles) distances is around 97 km/h 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homing_pigeon

 

[Grautvornix]

We would need increasing MTU   (i.e. transfer multiple packets of information at once in one longer data packet - I know it cannot work in an RTS)

[Vantha]

Controversial opinion: High latency is not necessarily a bad thing; it adds to the realism. Do you think Julius Caesar would have known about an intruding army any faster than this?

[Grautvornix]

OK, so a single campaign would last around 7 months? And then be repeated/intensified the following year?

 

That's what I call long-lasting gaming fun!