[1.0.0] Connecting to multiplayer causes large amount of ICMP packets

[LewisTehMinerz]

This appears to only happen after playing multiplayer servers for quite a while and after you reconnect to a server. I was playing on my private server with a couple of friends and I needed to restart it. After restarting, I reconnected and downloaded the map, however instead of being put into the game after downloading, I was met with a black screen and I was told the server was dropping my connection, along with the rest of my apps going kaput. After review of router logs, Factorio was sending a large amount of ICMP packets which triggered my router's firewall rules and blocked me as a security measure. What I'd expect to happen is that Factorio doesn't send as many ICMP packets as it is doing.

As a sidenote, I'm surprised this is happening when connecting rather than the server list. Is the game trying to ping the server loads of times whilst connecting? I can't tell from router logs alone.

[Rseding91]

Thanks for the report however since you're the only person I've ever seen have this issue i'm going to just blame it on your faulty router and tell you to disable the security feature on it since it's false-flagging the game traffic.

[LewisTehMinerz]

Makes sense.

[EoRaptor]

Security options in a firewall are there for a reason and prevent malicious connection attempts from happening and damaging your network.

Disabling that should NEVER be the way forward!

As with the similar thread about a firewall being flooded with packets that has been marked as NaB, this is just discarded as well.

As maps are growing and the amount of packets to be transferred grows, more firewalls might go block the game and if nothing is done to reduce the packets, more and more people won't be able to connect to multiplayer games.
Reducing the upload speed of a server might seem like a workaround, but load-times will increase drastically - if you are able to change that - making even more ppl stop playing.

[LewisTehMinerz]

Security options in a firewall are there for a reason and prevent malicious connection attempts from happening and damaging your network.

Disabling that should NEVER be the way forward!

As with the similar thread about a firewall being flooded with packets that has been marked as NaB, this is just discarded as well.

As maps are growing and the amount of packets to be transferred grows, more firewalls might go block the game and if nothing is done to reduce the packets, more and more people won't be able to connect to multiplayer games.
Reducing the upload speed of a server might seem like a workaround, but load-times will increase drastically - if you are able to change that - making even more ppl stop playing.

I've added an exclusion for now but I completely agree with you. However, I have a feeling quite a bit would need to be done to prevent the bombardment of packets from happening with the current model that Factorio uses. I've never implemented the model myself in games or apps that I have written before, so I have no clue how it works, but from the description I've read from it does seem like a lot of effort.

[Rseding91]

There is nothing to reduce packet wise: if you want the map downloaded it has to be sent to you the player. That means it gets broken up into packets and sent over.