Hey guys.
I'm trying to get a sense of whether the server has been unstable for anyone else recently.
I've played for most of the day yesterday without issues. However, starting from this morning (~7 am CDT), I started having issues connecting to the server.
First, I tried just repeatedly connecting, and Freelancer would get stuck on loading, give the message offering the ESC option, and sometimes connect to show me my characters. I would then connect to a character, but I would get stuck on loading and eventually the connection with the server would be lost, and I'd go back to the server select menu. After a number of tries of this, I got the ban message and posted in the thread.
Second, I logged back in after a few hours since the first time, and this time I managed to get in with only moderately long loading times. However, while playing I experienced loss (doing an action and the game continuing on as if nothing happened, with the action happening multiple seconds later). After about 20 minutes of this here and there, I lost connection after going to the commodities trader. When I tried to log back in - another ban.
Third, just now I tried to connect again, made to to character select, and lost connection before it finished loading. When I tried again, I am banned again. I'm assuming at this point the server flagged me as some kind of suspicious actor.
I made sure my connection is solid (watching streams videos just fine). I also pinged the server for a minute and didn't drop any packets. However, pinging the server earlier this morning did result in lost packets. It's just strange that things changed so much from yesterday when I did not have any issues, and nothing changed on my end afaik.
Is anyone else having similar issues? What are some things I can try to make sure things are good on my end?
I have noticed that the closer we get to server restart , ping and lag goes up on me a bit. I'm starting to suspect missions. Ironically, when there are only a dozen people online, if half are doing missions, it seems to drag a bit. Otherwise when its dead it can sometimes clear up when population drops.
As to the login issue, I have learned to give it at least 20 seconds or more between attempts... consecutive tries when its bad will ding you, it is a bit touchy. Sometimes it even makes it to the ship on base yet still kicks. It seems it may be from more than one person logging within the same short timeframe, something that would normally be doable but is likely set as it is for DDOS protection, and there's no way around that. For me, I get about one drop per 10 logins still, with much better net than I had last year.