Pill SM's lag or fad?

[Drag]

I saw minor debate in admin channels if pill SM's should be banned or not, since they typically cause a massive amount of lag.

Discuss

[conrad]

Exploit for the purpose of lagging the server. Requires knowledge of how it works. Is done on purpose.

Permaban IMO. There's little to think.

[Striders13]

Exploit for the purpose of lagging the server. Requires knowledge of how it works. Is done on purpose.

Permaban IMO. There's little to think.

not necessarily. People like building cool shit, sm powered by infinite pills is cool.

You can build it without causing obscene lag if you moderate the amount of pills, so we don't really need a full stop ban on this. Deal with it on a case by case basis, ain't rocket science.

[conrad]

The "it's done on purpose" refers to "it's done with the purpose of causing lag" for shits and giggles. If they're building it for fun and not causing trouble, it's fine.

[sinfulbliss]

The "it's done on purpose" refers to "it's done with the purpose of causing lag" for shits and giggles. If they're building it for fun and not causing trouble, it's fine.

Uhhh what?

How do you differentiate between a pill SM built “for fun” and a pill SM built “for the purpose of causing lag”? How is one kosher and the other is a “permabannable offense”?

It’s very obviously just a silly gimmick, should never be disallowed. The lag is only an issue if you’re in the SM room which isn’t important because you’d be there for the pill SM anyway.

[NamelessFairy]

I was involved in this debate in admin channels. I firmly believe that if a pill SM is not causing lag then it should not be considered rule breaking in any capacity. If its causing server lag then sure, the player should be told to cut it out as if it was any other lag machine, if its not then its fair game. This feels like taking a sledgehammer to fix an issue that can only be seen under a microscope.

[iamgoofball]

Pill SM is technically the most optimized way to run the SM

[Nabski]

Player take. I've seen them and never knew that they would be a lag problem. I always thought it was a clever way to combine two systems.

If you're building a machine to intentionally lag, that's bad.
If you're trying to be creative that's good.

If it's a consistent lag problem maybe that's a code issue.

[iain0]

Downvote, it's not something thats obviously a problem, nor is it actually always a problem, a couple of machines doing a couple of pills doesn't really cause an issue and engineers experimenting with this is pretty normal, its not intuitively a problem or rule breaking.

The issue is when people go insane with the number of them and or it breaks or similar, in which case talking to the player, noting them to say they're aware not to build excessive contraptions that spawn items e.g. pill SM and move on will almost certainly cover things. There's a couple of admin tricks I think for purging the items.

This issue isn't exclusive to pill SM either, I've seen a mob farming factory on Campbell that had been left on for god knows how many hours (it's campbell...), the lag was some of the most intense i've seen and it lagged the server for like 30 seconds cleaning it up. Same reaction, note the person not to leave endless spawning factories unattended and move on.

Obviously if you can sufficiently suspect (e.g. notes) or prove intent then happy fun banning time.

[Vekter]

I feel like someone should do some testing to see if it actually causes lag or not. If so, get rid of it. If not, keep it.

[blackdav123]

I feel like someone should do some testing to see if it actually causes lag or not. If so, get rid of it. If not, keep it.

having large amounts of items on a conveyor belt does in fact cause lag

[Vekter]

I feel like someone should do some testing to see if it actually causes lag or not. If so, get rid of it. If not, keep it.

having large amounts of items on a conveyor belt does in fact cause lag

Yeah, I hate stifling creativity, but I think this shouldn't be allowed if it's going to cause lag. Maybe just have a rule saying we can tell people to stop or delete it manually if it's causing lag?

[blackdav123]

I feel like someone should do some testing to see if it actually causes lag or not. If so, get rid of it. If not, keep it.

having large amounts of items on a conveyor belt does in fact cause lag

Yeah, I hate stifling creativity, but I think this shouldn't be allowed if it's going to cause lag. Maybe just have a rule saying we can tell people to stop or delete it manually if it's causing lag?

I think this is well within the powers admins already have. If someone is lagging the server intentionally or unintentionally you can make them stop and note them if needed.

Being a good DM is also something admins should keep in mind and not stomp on somebody's sand castles if they arent causing problems. If someone is making something like this in good faith ask them to dismantle it and give them a reward for their ingenuity or provide roleplay opportunities by sending in an inspector or something.

[Vekter]

I feel like someone should do some testing to see if it actually causes lag or not. If so, get rid of it. If not, keep it.

having large amounts of items on a conveyor belt does in fact cause lag

Yeah, I hate stifling creativity, but I think this shouldn't be allowed if it's going to cause lag. Maybe just have a rule saying we can tell people to stop or delete it manually if it's causing lag?

I think this is well within the powers admins already have. If someone is lagging the server intentionally or unintentionally you can make them stop and note them if needed.

Being a good DM is also something admins should keep in mind and not stomp on somebody's sand castles if they arent causing problems. If someone is making something like this in good faith ask them to dismantle it and give them a reward for their ingenuity or provide roleplay opportunities by sending in an inspector or something.

The only issue with this is that admins often don't have the tools or knowledge to know what is and isn't causing lag. What if we break someone's shit and it doesn't fix the lag?

[NamelessFairy]

The only issue with this is that admins often don't have the tools or knowledge to know what is and isn't causing lag. What if we break someone's shit and it doesn't fix the lag?

We can do the best we can with the information available, if the lag isn't fixed then we can compensate the player in most cases by just replacing what we deleted.

[Itseasytosee2me]

If we want to outlaw this we should really make it so there is no in game/in character insentive for doing it. This might be a coding matter, but patching code problems with policy never ends well.

[TheFinalPotato]

I feel like someone should do some testing to see if it actually causes lag or not. If so, get rid of it. If not, keep it.

If done at scale they wreck havoc with the sm pulling code, alongside the traditional issues that come with item spam (lagging out clients)
I don't think it's useful to ban something like this. It's a fun bit of the sandbox. Use nuance.

As a promise from me, if I see terry spike to 90td and log on and there's a pill sm that lags my client when I get near it, I'm nuking it and you can suck dirt.
If it doesn't get that bad then none will care, and you shouldn't do anything about it.

[Critawakets]

If done at scale they wreck havoc with the sm pulling code, alongside the traditional issues that come with item spam (lagging out clients)

honestly if its too laggy SM pulling could probably just be taken out, it's very confusing to people who don't know about it, and the original purpose of adding it was to deal with an exploit that no longer even exists.

[TheFinalPotato]

SM pulling has been in the game since 2017, it was just poorly implemented so it didn't actually work. The exploit bit was just a happy side effect.

[Misdoubtful]

We see this as something lacking a need for a specific yes or no.

Many SM powering gimmicks like this exist, including disposals chutes for trash, harvesting legions, and pills for example. We would like to promote that creativity overall.

If a specific situation is causing and creating enough strain to create a laggy environment we encourage admins to ask that the occurrence be turned down to a lower volume.

Otherwise we feel that this is a code related circumstance of things like this being viable, and point towards the following reply in this thread:

If done at scale they wreck havoc with the sm pulling code, alongside the traditional issues that come with item spam (lagging out clients)
I don't think it's useful to ban something like this. It's a fun bit of the sandbox. Use nuance.

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