Friend connecting to my server takes about 10 mins

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

I have an, admittedly, rather large map. I'm hosting it so my friend can connect.
Unfortunately, every night we're playing it takes longer and longer to load the map and to 'catch up'.
The catching up part alone is now well over 5 minutes.

Could someone try my save game and see whether others can connect quickly or whether it also takes ages?
I included the mods I use so that anyone can load the save game.

Many thanks in advance!

[Zavian]

Downloading the map is probably limited by either your internet connection, or your friends internet connection. So that taking longer as the save/map/factory gets bigger is to be expected.

How long it takes to catch up depends on a couple of things. One of them is how long it takes to download and load the map. (This determines how many game updates your friend is behind when they have loaded the map, and start catching up). The second is how quickly your friends computer can process game updates. As factories get larger, they also take more time to process each game update, so catching up starting to taking longer is also to be expected. The easiest way to reduce the catch up time is to pause the game whilst your friend is downloading/catching up.

[impetus maximus]

if you are waiting for the catch up part they already have the map file. pausing the game will help them catch up.

[Zavian]

if you are waiting for the catch up part they already have the map file. pausing the game will help them catch up.

Well the longer they take to download and load the map, the further behind they are when they start the catch up phase, and hence the longer they will take to catch up. (Assuming you didn't pause during download).

[impetus maximus]

correct. when they start downloading is when you should pause. should have said that.

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

Aha, ok that is a good tip. Downloading is fairly fast (maybe 20 secs at most). With the catching up part it initially went rather quick, but after the progress bar was just past the 50% mark, it pretty much froze. After 5 minutes or so the progress bar was at maybe 75%. I stopped the server at that point and decided to play another game.

Of note is that I did have the problem a while back that when I paused the game on my side, and then unpaused the game the other side still could not continue (it stayed paused for her). No matter how often I clicked pause or resume, it stayed paused for her. Was that a known bug that has been fixed?

I'll try next time to immediately pause the game and wait for her to be fully connected.
Thanks for the tips!