I have filed a bug report here, but I could use some help from others with tracking the times of it.

I'm sure many of you will have experienced this, unless it's a time specific thing, in which case those that don't play at that time won't

If you have a shot and the projectile freezes mid air, then suddenly appears further along its flight path and the game continues as normal afterwards, plus report the time of the event here (including your time zone and if you're feeling very helpful, the UTC aswell to make it easier on us), so we can see if it is happening at a specific time of the day and therefore being caused by a server process.

Thanks.

For initial reference, the one today occurred @ 05:00:06 GMT/UTC

I believe I have had this happen locally too though nut.

Armor

This is not a bug per-se, but the result of a feature.

So that all server/client links could be propperly timed and sync'd, they had to be
made to keep all action in the propper place. When a client is lagging, or the
server-link is delayed, it can't keep up as smoothly, and Skips a few frames in
one flicker.. making the projectiles display at thier new propperly timed location.

Folks with slower pc's see this all the time. The fact that you see it now is just
because you've always had a pc smooth enough, except for a few rare moments.



Short-version - Frame Skipping to sync action during lag. Not bug.

Then why when it happens to me does it happen to other and, it seems, when it happens to other does it happen to me?

Thrax has it correct.

All of the clients are kept roughly in sync. So when you fire a shot (or make a move) all of the other connected players fire a shot at roughly the same time. The game does this to allow the more fluid game modes (like the free modes) to work. In those modes the game plays more like an RTS (real time strategy) than a TBS (turn based strategy).

Now, before your client makes a move it needs to know if anyone else has made a move at that point in time. The server lets the clients know whats happening constantly. If the client doesn't hear from the server (due to lag or server issues) it waits until it hears. This is the pause you can see. Once it hears from the server the client tries to catch up with where it should be. This is the jump you see.

So the pausing and jumping isn't a bug its your connection lagging. And generally only affects the person with the lag. This is different from the previous versions of S3D where one persons lag affected everyone.

In a few games I had with Peanut we had freezes happenning pretty much at the same time, and were the only two players in main, so is it a return of that lag bug?

could nice values/priority for the server process make a difference at all?

I have been trying to watch the server loads while playing, but not had the flight freeze since keeping it up.
I did have the camera 'stall' when i pressed cam 4 yesterday (which i've had a fair few time), looked across and CPU wait was @ 9x% for that second or so.

When I gather more data will post properly. I'm sure it is the server, mysqld/httpd/scorched3ds(and a couple of other processes happening here n there) all doing stuff at the same time causing it the server to take a second.

I'll report back when I have more conclusive data.

EDIT:
Had the freeze again today while playing Hayt.
It is server load. At the time of the freeze, MySQL was using a lot of CPU (6x% I think) and had high wait time (9x% I think).
I can't give exact figures as I have only 5 seconds to notice the freeze, look across to the other screen, focus on the numebers I need, read them and remember them.

I shall try to replicate this, I've tried previously, but mysql just shrugged off my attempts to trip it up, maybe cos I'm a mysql newb.