Can we expect performance improvements in the game because of OCS in its first iteration, or will it only work in making a larger verse viable while maybe allowing more players per instance?

They talk about allowing more players per instance. Is that linked to OCS in any way?

No, that's not. The performance benefits, the memory savings that you're going to get, if any, hedge bets, your mileage may vary, are going to be purely client side. Server side, all those entities still have to exist on the server. They need to be updated when anyone's near to them. So the server load is going to be heavier than it has been in the past, because we're increasing the scale of the solar system massively. Massive amounts of new content. I don't think it's likely we're going to increase the player counts.