Telmasa, on 20 April 2015 - 11:28 PM, said:
Hey - I don't work for MWO, but I am a network engineer.
When a packet is sent out, it doesn't decide where it's going next. Rather, the servers that recieve the packet decide if they can send it somewhere closer to it's destination. If they can, they forward it. If they can't, the just drop the packet, letting some other server send it on.
You can think of it as your packet stops at a streetcorner and yells at a passing pedestrian "Hey, how do I get to 1151 Broadway, New York, New York?" Most pedestrians ignore you. However, you get that one dude that says "I think New York is thataway." Keep doing this enough, and your packet eventually gets to it's address.
What's happening here is that rather than one dude answering, your packet has 3 dudes answering. Each packet has 3 legitmate "routes" to get closer to the destination. You are seeing all of these hops as legitimate "next steps" that get closer to the final destination. They aren't actually getting ring-routed, it's more of an artifact from the inherently lossy model of TCP/IP.
This metaphor is, of course, a simplification, but it gives you an idea what's going on.