News

Arena Is Back: What to Expect and Where We’re Headed

By Bek 16 January 2025

Greetings, Commanders! As we prepare for Arena’s return on January 20, here’s what you need to know right away:

What to Expect on January 20 

  • Stability Improvements: We’ve updated key infrastructure elements to reduce crashes, lag, and other performance hiccups. You may still encounter occasional bugs, but initial tests indicate greater overall stability than in previous Arena events.
  • Ongoing Optimization: We’ve tackled various back-end optimizations—think of these as building blocks for a more reliable Arena. While the changes won’t be immediately visible, you should notice smoother gameplay overall.

Read on for a deeper dive into what’s changed, the challenges we’ve tackled, and a Q&A with our Principal Engineer, Luke, who will shed light on some of the improvements behind the scenes, and how our ongoing efforts will make Arena better over time. Our team is continuing to work on improving Arena, and we are committed to making ongoing changes to improve the overall experience.


Q&A with Luke, STFC Principal Engineer

Luke’s Response:
So, with Arenas, the problems we’ve been running into come down to the new systems we had to develop—like instancing and matchmaking tech so that matches can take place across regions, not just the same server—for spinning up new Arena “worlds” and the matchmaking service that ties into our broader game architecture.

Our internal load testing only goes so far—it’s only ever an approximate simulation and can’t capture all real-world scenarios—so once a lot of players joined Arenas at the same time, it exposed certain issues—not just in the new features, but also in some of our older code infrastructure. Because Arenas concentrate so many players in a single system for intense PVP, some of our older code, which had been fine under normal conditions, started to lag.

We also found that if one part of our system lags—like the “tick” system that updates everything in real time—it can delay spin-ups of new Arenas and matchmaking. We get reports of “lag,” but that word can mean so many things: ships rubber-banding, UI taking forever to load, or slow reaction times in the client. It all lumps together as “lag,” but each issue might come from a different place. That’s why it’s been tricky—there’s a lot of different parts in play, and it’s not one issue but several, which won’t be totally solved with a single big fix.

Luke’s Response:
We’ve done extensive load testing on these new systems, but as I said, our internal tests don’t fully replicate what happens when large numbers of live players jump in. After the first couple of Arenas, we started seeing the system stress out when more and more matches opened simultaneously.

Since then, we’ve been debugging the root causes by examining logs, metrics, and older code. We discovered that parts of our ‘tick’ system—think of it like a heartbeat that processes all game actions—were creating long processing times. Because of that, we’re moving away from relying on this heartbeat for everything, ensuring that if one step takes too long, it won’t hold everything else up. These mechanics can seem intricate, but we’ve found that when we clarify how it all works, players readily understand the bigger picture.

We’ve also been working on back-end optimizations. We’ve pinpointed some legacy code from when Star Trek Fleet Command wasn’t fully real-time. While that code was fine for older, timer-based play, it struggles under modern, real-time conditions—especially when tons of players converge in one spot.

Luke’s Response:
We’ll be rolling out improvements iteratively because, as soon as we fix one big issue, we can see more clearly what else needs attention. So if Monday’s changes alleviate some of the load, we can spot new problems that were previously overshadowed by this main bottleneck.

We’re also exploring ways to make the server more truly real-time. Star Trek Fleet Command started out as more of a timer-based web game, but over the years, it’s become more of a real-time experience. Some older systems haven’t fully caught up yet, so those are on our list to upgrade.

Luke’s Response:
The biggest help is specific feedback. When players say, “I’ve got lag,” that’s just the start. Let us know if you see ships rubber-banding, or if the battle doesn’t start promptly, or if the client takes too long to load. Each of those points us to a different potential issue—server code, client code, or the network in between.

Submitting tickets or posting on official channels with a brief description of what you saw and when it happened really speeds up our troubleshooting. The more detail, the easier it is for us to figure out which part of the code needs fixing.

Also, just keep playing. The data we gather from active Arena participation helps us see how the new systems perform at scale. If something goes wrong, report it. That’s how we keep improving.


Additional Long-Term Plans and Ongoing Work

  • Further Optimizations for Real-Time Play:
    We continue to remove tasks from our tick system—shifting them to asynchronous calls so that things run more smoothly and there’s less likelihood of the tick server having too many things to process in a single ‘beat.’ This helps us handle more real-time systems, bigger fights, and higher player density without lag.
  • Refined Matchmaking: Based on your feedback, we’ve refined certain matchmaking parameters to help create more balanced matchups. These optimizations won’t be live on January 20th’s run, but they are coming in future iterations. Additional refinements are planned, so keep that feedback coming.
  • Legacy Code Updates:
    There’s still old code from the game’s early days. Gradually modernizing it will help with all high-traffic events, not just Arena. Territory captures, wave defense, or anything else that concentrates lots of players in a single system should run smoother once these changes are fully implemented.

Luke and the rest of our engineering team are committed to continuous iteration. As we collect more data and hear your feedback, we’ll keep refining Arena to ensure a smoother, more engaging experience. We’ll also share updates on our progress in upcoming blogs and official announcements.


How You Can Help

With Arena returning on January 20, we’re eager to see how the new changes perform in a live environment. While progress has been made, it’s possible that some issues will still surface. Your participation in Arena is invaluable to us—it helps validate our improvements and pinpoint any remaining concerns. Logging in, playing matches, and sharing your observations is crucial to making Arena the best it can be.

  • Share Bug Reports: If you encounter a glitch, performance issue, or anything else that impacts your enjoyment, let us know through our official channels.
  • Offer Constructive Feedback: Suggest improvements or ideas that could enhance future Arena runs. We want to know how we can make the event more fun, fair, and stable.

Thank You, Commanders!

We hope this Q&A helps clarify what’s happening behind the scenes with Arena. As Luke mentioned, your participation and your detailed feedback are key to making it the best it can be. We appreciate your support and patience as we continue to iterate and improve. We are committed to making Arena better and more fun for everyone. 

Mark your calendars for January 20, join the action, and help us make Arena all it can be. We look forward to seeing you in battle!

Live Long and Prosper,
The Star Trek Fleet Command Team