How many players will be able to see each other in one space ? Whats the maximum you are planning?
TL;DRThe maximum visible player count depends on client performance and scenario; the aim is for about 100 players to see each other at reasonable framerates, but the absolute limit can't yet be predicted.
This is a difficult question to answer, and the best answer we can give at the moment is that it depends.
Assuming that the question is about the limit of how many players will be able to see each other from a client view, it's mainly dictated by the game client. This is due to client-side simulation, such as physics and game code, as well as rendering cost.
Additionally, it also heavily depends on the scenario; 100 players in FPS combat are cheaper to simulate and render on the client than 100 players fighting in single-seater spaceships, firing missiles and lasers at each other.
The Graphics team is actively working on Vulkan, which will allow us to increase draw calls and should improve how many players/ships we can render at the same time, while the Engine team is heavily focused on game-code optimizations to increase the number of game objects that we can simulate at once.
We're aiming to increase our player count and our expectation is that we will support scenarios where 100 players can see each other at reasonable framerates. However, as we start scaling our shards to support higher player counts, the likelihood that every single player within a shard can go to the same physical location and see each other without performance issues will decrease.
This is where we will need to start implementing game mechanics that prevent these scenarios from happening too frequently.
The absolute limit is hard to predict until some of the new technology comes online and we can start to measure performance.