How can I have a MMO FPS Navy/war simulator with bigger than max map size.

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

So I know that the UE4 caps at 20km x 20km but how can I make a MMO (Such as 250-1k players) that has detailed ships, full interior, destructible environments, with lots of islands varying in size, and bases, on a map getting up to 200km x 200km, with a water shader like this https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/physical-water-surface

Now i don’t want to hear that I can’t do this, I’m more focusing on the environment, and not ships/vehicles.

But I know there is LOD, for multiplayer and other stuff, but how could I possible do it with the specs I said, I was going to use Amazon Lumberyard since they can go a max of 65km x 65km.
But any ideas would be apprecitated (That are actually helpful for me, and not saying i can’t do it) (As I’ve seen others get criticized for not being realistic)

2

Hey skyboyfly,

This is totally possible - I am guessing that you are a one man dev team like myself. Here is some advice that I am holding myself to to get my MMO Game out :slight_smile:

So a bit of feedback -
Visuals

  1. I would go for a low poly art style. See r/LowPoly for details on what I mean by this. I Say this as It wont be as much work to make art assets and have them look good.

Player Count -

  1. I would lower the player count as It will be expensive to run just 500 and you will need to have a custom server solution for unreal. I personally would recommend designing around 100 to 250. If you hit the 250 mark scale up with more servers.

Server software -

  1. Look into Spatial OS. The Unreal version for Spatial OS is still in development. However you might be locked into to Google servers.
  2. Also take a look at Nakama by Heroic Labs they are looking to be an all in one solution for networked games and its open source too. They are doing a Back end as a service as well.

Server hosting -

  1. Digital Ocean - Digital Ocean recently announced that they have added load balance support for their servers. You will need a custom server stack for this like Nakama.
  2. AWS - While Expensive you get what you pay for with 99% up time and alot of data centers around the world. However this adds up fast.

I may have missed a few things but this should help you to get started :slight_smile:

3

If you want to do all that by yourself… It will take you approximately 400 years to finish your mmo.