Diarkis Field: Scalable Proximity Awareness for Real-Time Systems

In real-time systems with large numbers of users—whether in games, simulations, or industrial environments—one of the biggest performance challenges is efficiently determining who should communicate with whom. Diarkis Field solves this challenge by providing an automatic, scalable system for spatial awareness and communication culling.

At its core, Diarkis Field is a high-performance module that automatically determines the visibility and relevance of users to one another based on their position in space. It dramatically reduces network and server load by ensuring that only the necessary data is sent—without requiring the application developer to implement complex proximity or area-of-interest logic.

How Diarkis Field Works

Diarkis Field partitions a virtual space into a grid-based structure. Each client (e.g., a player or IoT device) has a set of coordinates in that space. Clients also have a fieldOfVisionSize, which determines how far around them they should be able to "see" or receive updates from other users.

The server tracks each client's position and, using the Field module, identifies which other clients are within its visibility range. Only those nearby users are included in the communication graph for real-time updates.

If a user moves from one grid cell to another, Diarkis Field handles reallocation and visibility recalculations automatically. There is no need for the application to manually reassign users to different regions or check for updated proximity lists.

Automatic Packet Culling at Scale

One of the most powerful features of Diarkis Field is its automatic packet culling. Instead of broadcasting all events to all users or forcing developers to implement filtering logic, Field ensures that:

• Only users within the same field of vision receive relevant updates.
• Unnecessary network traffic is avoided.
• System performance remains stable even as the number of connected clients scales into the millions.

This makes Diarkis Field an ideal solution for applications that require fine-grained, real-time communication based on location or visibility.

Horizontal Scalability Without Application Complexity

Diarkis Field is designed to scale horizontally across a distributed cluster. As more users connect or as the space being simulated expands, additional servers can be added to distribute the load. Importantly:

• The application does not need to manage how clients are divided across servers.
• Load balancing and spatial partitioning are handled by the Diarkis cluster itself.
• Developers remain focused on core logic while Diarkis manages the complexity of spatial networking.

This makes it easy to maintain high throughput and low latency, even in highly dynamic environments with massive concurrency.

Use Cases: Gaming and Beyond

🎮 Gaming

In multiplayer games, Field can be used to:

• Synchronize nearby players only in large open-world or MMO games.
• Manage proximity chat, emotes, and reactions that should only be visible to players nearby.
• Limit bullet and ability effects to players who are within visual or gameplay range.
• Support battle royale zones, where visibility constantly shifts as players move across shrinking maps.

These use cases reduce both bandwidth consumption and processing overhead, creating smoother experiences for players and more efficient use of infrastructure.

🏙️ Non-Gaming (Industrial & Smart Environments)

Diarkis Field also shines in non-gaming contexts:

• Smart Cities: Track the movement of people, vehicles, or drones in urban spaces. Only devices within relevant range exchange data, preserving network bandwidth while enabling localized services (e.g., traffic routing, crowd analysis).
• Industrial IoT: In large-scale facilities like factories, only sensors or robots operating within the same vicinity need to share operational data. Field can ensure real-time control loops remain efficient and responsive.
• Military Simulation & Training: In distributed training environments, Diarkis Field can synchronize units, personnel, or assets that are close enough to interact, preserving realism while maintaining system performance.
• Location-Based Services: For apps that deliver content or functionality based on physical proximity (e.g., AR/VR collaboration, location-based marketing), Field keeps user experience responsive and relevant.

Conclusion

Diarkis Field is an elegant and robust solution to a fundamental problem in real-time, large-scale systems: determining who needs to know what. By combining grid-based spatial awareness with automatic packet culling and seamless horizontal scalability, Field frees developers from low-level optimization and lets them build experiences that scale effortlessly.

Whether you're building the next big multiplayer game or architecting a real-time smart city system, Diarkis Field provides the spatial intelligence backbone needed for high-performance, scalable communication.

📘 To learn more or dive into implementation, visit the Diarkis Field Documentation.

‍