[Gameplay] - Entities Not Updating Position

[Pill]

Bug Submission:

Category: Gameplay
Issue Title: Entities Not Updating Sprite Positions
Issue Description: Hello. I'm sorry that my first real post on these forums is a bug report. Anyway, here is my issue (I've also sent a support ticket to my dedicated provider):

While I'm playing on my dedicated server, entities such as butterflies, birds, pigmen, mermen, hounds, spiders etc, do not update their location whenever they move. What I mean is that they always appear to be stationary, even when their attack/movement animations are playing.

It seems like everything else is registering the way it's supposed to, just not their sprites. Attacks land, I get health damage/sanity drain as usual when applicable, my character plays their hit animation and the red "you're taking damage" danger overlay activates.

It's extremely confusing to me because the other person I play with on my dedicated doesn't have this problem. However, when I switch to my DST client-hosted server - everything (mods) enabled as it is on my dedicated - the problem disappears. Everything moves and functions correctly. If it was something on my end, it should persist into a client-sided server. If it was the dedicated's fault, my friend would also be having difficulties - he doesn't.

I have tried generating a new world, disable all mods, use a different save slot, and use different characters - the problem persists, but only when I connect to and play on my dedicated.

Please say you can help! Attached are my dxdiag, DST log, and my dedicated server's log. I couldn't find the mdmp from Steam.
Steps to Reproduce: I honestly have no idea how to reproduce this issue - I don't even know what's causing it in the first place.

dedicated server log.txt

DxDiag.txt

log.txt

[SethR]

Hi Pill, sorry you're having trouble. Can you try verifying your game's cache (or, if it's easier, uninstalling and reinstalling)? It looks like there might be some corrupt data in your installation at the moment. Let us know if that doesn't get you sorted!

[Pill]

I got it resolved. I'm not sure what was causing it (probably corrupt data, like you said) but I did a re-install of the dedicated server's files, and verified my own game cache, and it fixed. Verifying my own files wasn't enough, it persisted afterwards - the strange thing, like I mentioned above, was that my friend didn't experience the same issue on his client.

 

Regardless, it's fixed. Thanks Seth.

 

*Edit: Evidently the culprit was my dedi's server tick rate - and my horrible laptop. Since the default is 15, and it resets to 15 after reinstalling the game files, it appears that a fresh install fixed it. However, after sending in a support ticket about my server tick rate being 15 when I was paying for a higher one, they set it to 45 (which is what I'm paying for). Upon doing that, everything began to act wonky. So we set it to 30 - then the problem I describe in the OP happens again exactly (45 was a little different - things kept flying off into the distance rather than not moving at all). Because I didn't want to bother em again, I reinstalled and let it default back to 15 - everything works, if slightly laggy.

[Arcita]

I'm just posting here to let you guys know that more than one person is experiencing this exact issue. It only occurs on particular servers. For example, at this current time, "(US East) Reddit Survival" (33 ping) I am experiencing the entity-position bug, and on "(US) Firebound Endless" (33 ping) everything is behaving properly. 

 

I'd also like to add that on the servers where I get this bug, there is absolutely no lag whatsoever. I can harvest materials almost seamlessly as if I'm playing single player, so it is very odd indeed. 

[Pill]

I'm just posting here to let you guys know that more than one person is experiencing this exact issue. It only occurs on particular servers. For example, at this current time, "(US East) Reddit Survival" (33 ping) I am experiencing the entity-position bug, and on "(US) Firebound Endless" (33 ping) everything is behaving properly. 

 

I'd also like to add that on the servers where I get this bug, there is absolutely no lag whatsoever. I can harvest materials almost seamlessly as if I'm playing single player, so it is very odd indeed. 

 

@Arcita I think it really has to do with how well your computer handles higher tick rates. It was explained to me that higher tick rates are more stressful to the host machine as it updates everything more often, resulting in smoother gameplay for clients. To me, this is assuming a client's computer can handle the rapid refreshes and the world data being funneled faster. Not every server uses the default 15, which is maybe why one seems to perform better than another.

 

From my experience, pings tend to lie a lot in DST. On my dedi, I have around 66ms that generally stays steady and only fluctuates by +/- 3. On the server list, it always says 88. And in game, it's actually much higher than either displayed value - if I had to guess I would say around 200~300ms and it takes about 2-3 seconds to do anything. That is with the tick set to 15.

 

When I had them set the server tick rate higher (45) it was if I had zero latency. The trade-off was that I couldn't pick up anything that dropped (on my screen they just flew away very fast) and everything else stood still. If I wanted to kill something then I had to move to where their sprite was and wait for them to chase me back to that position so that when I attacked I was actually hitting something. When we set the tick to 30 I could harvest normally and pick up drops normally (zero latency) but I wasn't able to receive position update data properly (same as 45) and couldn't fight with any kind of accuracy. 20 tick rate would probably be about perfect for me but I haven't tested it yet.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way to check a server's tick rate before you join it or even once you're connected. But if you have a decent computer with decent internet then it shouldn't matter too too much.

[dragisteam]

In Options/Settings disable Netbook mode, it should solve the problem.