The more NPCs and players out there, the more processing power and bandwidth we need.
Were NPC patrols increased in Discovery compared to vanilla?
We can always put less NPC out there, but i don't think that would help as we still have many players on server.
Once I reach home, i will see the results of the test. But for what i saw tonight, the only way to get rid of the lag is to get a more powerful server and a powerful Internet connection that can cope with the increased traffic.
Or for the time being, we reduce NPC patrols to no more of 2-3 ships. But that is not a solution, is only a way to postpone the problem.
(If you find any mistake in my English, please let me know via a PM)
(Really, I speak terrible English, so please, tell me if I make mistakes. I'd like to improve it a bit )