So this is an issue that's been around seemingly since the game's inception. Performance issues in any game are never fun, and it seems like there isn't much talk about overhauls in terms of getting the game to ruin more fluid.

On to the point, LogicLoop I know you're not responsible for coding as that's a separate matter, but in regards to the newest outposts it seems like performance issues have only gotten worse. The size, scale, and complexity of the new outposts is fantastic, but it seems like this is in turn having a huge cost in performance. Simple outposts like Communications never seem to really have problems with performance, at least on my end. But throw me in something like the Orbital Artillery or the new Research Facility and my game really starts to stutter. I have a PS3 Slim with a 60 GB SSD drive running, so as far as hardware I'm pretty sure my end is fairly sound. I've run defrags and such to no avail.

Now, I play with KB/M and I think this may have some effect on the overall "feel" of the chopiness versus something like a controller, but again, these issues are not nearly as prevalent when I'm outside an installation. In fact, in most Planetary Conquest matches I'm almost forced to play outside the installations to be successful because of the performance issues, which is severely problematic.

As far as your end, is there anything being done or looked into as far as optimizing the performance within the outposts? It seems to me like the game is teetering on the memory budget and whenever it dips beyond it (via equipment spam, vehicles, lots of explosive effects, etc.) the game just starts to crawl. Considering this is a console game, there isn't much that I know of that I can do to increase performance. If it were a PC, I would gladly go out and upgrade my CPU, GPU, RAM, or what have you to try and solve the problems, but here I'm just forced to deal with it. Anyways, the main question is: will your team or any other DEV teams be looking into doing a considerable optimization of the game, or are just going to have to wait until the PS4 for 30 FPS?

Under the standards of level design yes. For example you will notice we used much less cover points that are just boxes splattered everywhere. More of the cover is primarily built into the structures them selves.

Environment team from my understanding has followed their given technical budgets as well. Less textures were used, less "separate" objects were used as well (as in we re-used a lot objects).

So this issue most likely comes down to more optimizations needing to be done on the code front. Though it will also probably need a tad more on our part.

The research facility turned out to be a lot bigger than we originally intended in its sheer size. I even hear on some youtube videos of it being referenced as a city. Our ideal space that a outpost would take up would be more like a size between Communications and Orbital Artillery. Leaning closer to Communications outpost scale.

In actual meter coverage from a top down view the Research Facility is extremely close if not bigger than the Orbital Artillery.

Which isn't surprising, the two outposts are very similar in terms of performance. Just out of curiosity, when testing these maps do you guys actually simulate matches in them? For example, do you test the performance when there's two full 16 man teams running around the outposts, laying uplinks and nanohives, calling in vehicles, throwing grenades and firing missiles, etc.?

...60 GB SSD drive...I've run defrags...

We certainly do. We even have very specific performance tests at least 3 times a week. I personally do not know what could be causing this. We also have a lot of smaller tests with Team Knee 101 and Team Daddies to test the new things we are working on. Everyday a test occurs for the most part.