Population Cap Discussion

peoplearestrange · Wed Mar 25, 2015 11:13 am

So the population cap for assistants etc has been in effect for a little while now.

Does anyone have any feedback on this system? Does it work? Has it helped the game?

My personal feelings are that its stopped the assistant mob that often happens when job roles fill up. Though obviously it does stop certain people able to enter the game. Though honestly I think think this rarely happens and it actually gives the admins a larger pool to choose from when they want to run an event. Not everyone wants to play every round anyhow.

LNGLY · Post by **LNGLY** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:16 pm #77907

I think that when population cap is in effect, certain measures should be taken to ensure everyone can be in the round in some way.

An example: if a population-cap round starts, enough personal AIs should be spawned in crewmen's backpacks to make up for those excluded. Or maybe have a Z-level with a smaller station, and allow the excess to play there. Maybe have the game spawn drone shells somewhere, proportional to the excess players.

peoplearestrange · Wed Mar 25, 2015 4:27 pm

Thats actually not a bad idea, though I think the pAI system really needs working on.

hanshansenhansson · Wed Mar 25, 2015 7:38 pm

LNGLY wrote:Or maybe have a Z-level with a smaller station, and allow the excess to play there.

One could even go further, and set up a second server

Malkevin · Post by **Malkevin** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 7:39 pm #77983

LNGLY wrote:I think that when population cap is in effect, certain measures should be taken to ensure everyone can be in the round in some way.

An example: if a population-cap round starts, enough personal AIs should be spawned in crewmen's backpacks to make up for those excluded. Or maybe have a Z-level with a smaller station, and allow the excess to play there. Maybe have the game spawn drone shells somewhere, proportional to the excess players.

This would defeat the purpose of a population cap which was to encourage people to go to the other server.

Cheimon · Post by **Cheimon** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 10:00 pm #78041

I think the main aim of the population cap, which was not to encourage people to go to the other server but to stop the station having an unmanageably large crew, has been successful.

It hasn't massively encouraged use of the other server as far as I can tell, though it would be interesting to see statistics on that. I know plenty of people seem happy to observe Sibyl for a bit in the hopes of joining the round in some way rather than heading to a lower population game.

It has nicely reduced the ridiculous proportions of previous crews but still kept the population large enough to be busy, so I think on the whole it's worked well.

callanrockslol · Wed Mar 25, 2015 11:26 pm

Either set up a load balancer and knock people onto the other server or remove the cap. We have one server near cap most of the day and then another that is always below 30, although it seems more even as of late.

It only works to get people out, not get any real increase in players on the server.

IF ONLY WE HAD SOME SORT OF ANALYTICS GOING ON.

SORT OF LIKE WHAT ERRO WAS DOING.

HINT HINT.

Cik · Post by **Cik** » Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:41 pm #78350

really i'd much rather play as a drone sometimes but no one ever makes shells even though they are super fucking simple

ROBO MAKE SHELLS FUCK

peoplearestrange · Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:01 pm

Cik wrote:really i'd much rather play as a drone sometimes but no one ever makes shells even though they are super fucking simple

ROBO MAKE SHELLS FUCK

I'd quite like it if there were something like 2 round start drones on the AI sat or something similar.

If someone prays for drones I normally ship some with the cargo.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:50 pm #78648

Wasn't there a suggestion for roundstart drones on the derelict? Hint, hint.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:52 pm #78649

Can Drones be possessed before the round starts? Say someone spectates and finds a Drone shell.

Malkevin · Post by **Malkevin** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:58 pm #78652

Probably, I doubt they were coded to check if the round had started yet

LNGLY · Post by **LNGLY** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:01 pm #78654

Drones are kind of sad to play, just as an aside, because they have no metal/glass synthesizers. Drones always end up fighting over metal and taking it when the crew needs it.

ColonicAcid · Post by **ColonicAcid** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:08 pm #78657

wow what did i say it won't fix anything.
but yet once again you try to hide the symptoms instead of fixing the problem.

never change /tg/

TheNightingale · Fri Mar 27, 2015 9:47 pm

LNGLY wrote:Drones are kind of sad to play, just as an aside, because they have no metal/glass synthesizers. Drones always end up fighting over metal and taking it when the crew needs it.

If the crew needs it and you're taking it, you're interfering.
As a drone on a high-population server (where metal and glass aren't easily available)... go mining. It's not that hard to dig for glass and mine for metal, and your fellow drones (and Engineers, and Roboticists... but they're living creatures so we don't care about them) will love you for it. It's only interfering with other creatures if you mine on the west side of the asteroid, where the hostile mobs are - and you only need metal and glass (and plasteel, perhaps), really.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 1:43 pm #79050

What's the point in having server cap if you are trying to find ways to let people in the round. This is absolutely counter-intuitive.

All you're doing is forcing people into positions they wouldn't otherwise take.

High population is bad, you say? Apparently it's not bad enough for people to actually leave and not participate in the game - which is what you're forcing here. So why the hell do you force an option that people don't choose?

Jeb · Post by **Jeb** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 1:52 pm #79052

I'm fairly certain that I've hit observe more often than Play lately if I latejoin a round, because I almost 100% of the time play assistant and just fuck off to do my own thing. I don't want to be the chef, I don't want to work in science. I want to have zero responsibility for anything that happens on the station.

peoplearestrange · Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:27 pm

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:What's the point in having server cap if you are trying to find ways to let people in the round. This is absolutely counter-intuitive.

All you're doing is forcing people into positions they wouldn't otherwise take.

High population is bad, you say? Apparently it's not bad enough for people to actually leave and not participate in the game - which is what you're forcing here. So why the hell do you force an option that people don't choose?

IIRC the pop cap was put in place as more of an assitant cap. Because we were getting rounds with fairly empty departments with at LEAST 30+ assistants. It was a god damn joke and every round fell apart so quickly as the only way to get anything done was to break into somewhere. This has a knock on effect of "well if THEY'RE breaking in, then it MUST be fine for me to do the same" even if its FNR.

I don't believe the idea is to exclude people, but on a station as "small" as box 100 odd players can make it feel like a heaving mass of bodies with a little steel frame around it, rather than a empty paranoid laden space station. It just feels too populated.

Superneji · Post by **Superneji** » Tue May 12, 2015 8:36 pm #87706

We're hit the cap a couple of times, but I personally feel that the station can hold more than 70 people, I think a community such as ours shouldn't turn people away. We used to have rounds of 100+ people, which I suppose did seem crowded, but I think 80/85 would be a better cap, to allow some latejoin assistants

Scones · Post by **Scones** » Tue May 12, 2015 8:41 pm #87707

Superneji wrote:We're hit the cap a couple of times, but I personally feel that the station can hold more than 70 people, I think a community such as ours shouldn't turn people away. We used to have rounds of 100+ people, which I suppose did seem crowded, but I think 80/85 would be a better cap, to allow some latejoin assistants

Regardless of what you personally feel we actually run out of job slots at around 60 (I think there are 55 roundstart jobs)

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue May 12, 2015 8:41 pm #87708

"Some" is a bit of an understatement, since we have only ~55 positions at round start. At 85 that would mean about 30 assistants.

Fucking 30!

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Tue May 12, 2015 8:54 pm #87711

Ikarrus wrote:"Some" is a bit of an understatement, since we have only ~55 positions at round start. At 85 that would mean about 30 assistants.

Fucking 30!

Provided the HoP doesn't do his job and open new slots as needed (which he often doesn't).

Then we'd have 5 assistants and 25 clowns

...

Except it's not quite that bad because you need to remember some things about how population numbers are counted:

1. The number includes dead people, observers, and people waiting on the start screen who aren't actually impacting game flow.
2. It also includes people who are in the round but not in game (vacants who may or may not come back, ever).

You can note these mechanics by watching the title page, the "online" number only ever goes up, because once you've "committed to the round" you're in that metric even if you close the window and go do something else (and people do that quite often). You'll almost never see that number fall, but when the server restarts you might see a big drop because anyone who abandoned midround (or idled out on the title screen, which causes a kick) won't reconnect for the next one.

Long story short: Don't believe the game banner numbers unless it's green (which means the round hasn't started yet)

Erisian · Post by **Erisian** » Tue May 12, 2015 9:23 pm #87719

I don't see why we need a population cap in the first place. I don't see why people have such a hardon about removing assistants. We've tried everything from making people join up as something else, removing maint access, etc., and people still played as assistants. Not everyone who joins mid round necessarily wants to play as a cook, a security guard, chemist, etc. Forcing them into these roles just guarantees that if they wanna stir shit up they have even better tools to do so. Or they'll just fuck off and do whatever they want anyway. The only way to stop them from fucking off would be if we force people to do the job they're assigned. And by what metric are we going to measure that? How many chemicals the chemist made? How many arrests sec made? Are we going to stop them from going braindead too? At some point you need to just chill out and let people play. Unless you plan on going full Baystation, there's no way you're going to be able to remove assistants or force people to actually do their jobs when they're forced to pick something else. And I'd rather people go assistant if they want than joining up as a more important role and just wasting a slot that could be better used for someone who genuinely wants to perform that job.

Let people play on the server they want and on the job they want, even if it's assistant. Do we really need people trying to force others to play different roles even if they do not want to? Just let people play the fucking game. It's not like assistants even greytide anymore. I see a lot of yellow, white, and other color outfits in "greytides", so the idea that it's only assistants and if they get too high they'll just revolt is ridiculous. Half the time they get wrapped up in fighting with each other for basic tools to make spears, stunprods, etc. They're not some united grey menace just lurking in the dark to ruin rounds. People just seem to form lynch mobs during certain situations. Cutting down on assistants isn't gonna do a thing. You could remove the job entirely and you'd still see lynch mobs forming up. Or people getting bored and committing crimes anyway.

And if it's an incentive to get people to play on the other server, it's not really working very well because I rarely see it pass 30. People have formed very different playstyles on the servers, so not everyone wants to go there. Personally, I think making a second server was unnecessary and would rather keep the entire community in one place rather than split up, but that's an issue for another time.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

Incoming wrote:
Ikarrus wrote:"Some" is a bit of an understatement, since we have only ~55 positions at round start. At 85 that would mean about 30 assistants.

Fucking 30!
Provided the HoP doesn't do his job and open new slots as needed (which he often doesn't).

Then we'd have 5 assistants and 25 clowns

...

Except it's not quite that bad because you need to remember some things about how population numbers are counted:

1. The number includes dead people, observers, and people waiting on the start screen who aren't actually impacting game flow.
2. It also includes people who are in the round but not in game (vacants who may or may not come back, ever).

You can note these mechanics by watching the title page, the "online" number only ever goes up, because once you've "committed to the round" you're in that metric even if you close the window and go do something else (and people do that quite often). You'll almost never see that number fall, but when the server restarts you might see a big drop because anyone who abandoned midround (or idled out on the title screen, which causes a kick) won't reconnect for the next one.

Long story short: Don't believe the game banner numbers unless it's green (which means the round hasn't started yet)

Uh, banner numbers measures number of clients connected. All those braindeads you claim are actually on the pop list are making the problem worse, since they're a job slot which has no player attatched, removing that job slot for people to use.

95 players online = ~90 people playing (admins+lobby-afkers), and ~80 will be living logged-in humans at any one time, from what I've seen

QuartzCrystal · Thu May 14, 2015 11:50 pm

50 player hard cap.

peoplearestrange · Fri May 15, 2015 1:24 pm

Not-Dorsidarf wrote: Uh, banner numbers measures number of clients connected. All those braindeads you claim are actually on the pop list are making the problem worse, since they're a job slot which has no player attatched, removing that job slot for people to use.

What we could do (don't hate me for this) is do what Bay does, and have a "Long term" sleeper. Where people leaving or going afk for a long time can enter, removing their player from the game and opening up the job slot again. If they return they can always rejoin as a new character, within the same round (but only if they were alive and in non crit when they were plased in the sleeper storage).

Loonikus · Post by **Loonikus** » Fri May 15, 2015 8:27 pm #88386

65 player hardcap, any clients attempting to connect to a full server are redirected to the other server.

Problem solved.

Durkel · Post by **Durkel** » Sat May 16, 2015 7:45 pm #88531

A hardcap is just going to push players to a different server, and most likely one other than basil.

ABearInTheWoods · Tue May 19, 2015 12:39 am

the "hard" Pop cap (the one being discussed) only counts alive players in the game.

When people die, their slot opens up. When people go braindead, their slot opens up.

Their job slot stays closed, but pop cap wise, it only counts players attached to a mob that is alive.

For reference, there are 3 pop cap types.

Soft pop cap (this just shows the user a message asking them to play on another server). Currently set to 50.

Hard pop cap (this prevents people from playing in the round, forcing them to ghost or wait) Currently set to 65.

Extreme pop cap. (this prevents people from connecting if more than so and so people are connected) Currently disabled. (I might set this to some insane number just as a failsafe, like 200)

Erisian · Post by **Erisian** » Tue May 19, 2015 5:00 am #89271

MrStonedOne wrote:the "hard" Pop cap (the one being discussed) only counts alive players in the game.

When people die, their slot opens up. When people go braindead, their slot opens up.

Their job slot stays closed, but pop cap wise, it only counts players attached to a mob that is alive.

For reference, there are 3 pop cap types.

Soft pop cap (this just shows the user a message asking them to play on another server). Currently set to 50.

Hard pop cap (this prevents people from playing in the round, forcing them to ghost or wait) Currently set to 65.

Extreme pop cap. (this prevents people from connecting if more than so and so people are connected) Currently disabled. (I might set this to some insane number just as a failsafe, like 200)

What good does the second hard cap do besides drive people away? Don't we WANT people playing?

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Tue May 19, 2015 5:43 am #89277

What we do not want is massive clusterfucks.

Incoming · Post by **Incoming** » Tue May 19, 2015 7:34 am #89294

That's kind of the reason it's call the extreme cap, it's not a practical solution except as a stop gap if the servers suddenly got insanely popular.

Also you can give a message for it just like the other caps, so it'd tell people to go to Basil.

Not-Dorsidarf · Tue May 19, 2015 9:13 am

Extreme popcap should be able to autolink to another server, like vg links you to bay or something silly.

It's not used by default, but an annoyed downstream host who cant support highpop might want it, I guess.

Tunder · Post by **Tunder** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 10:07 am #92896

>Change map to Asteroid

>Station and all departments are now larger, increase base job slots

>??????

>Profit!

Face it, Box is limited in size and scope, and isn't comfortable or enjoyable for >50 players. Capping the max pop is a poor choice of action, as it limits the expansion of our community, and we've been getting more new players than ever lately. So pick a larger map.

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:44 am #92904

Yeah, but as awesome as ass is, practically that suggestion is gonna be BTFO.

Blonkz · Post by **Blonkz** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 4:35 pm #92941

Enforce strict population-cap to force people to play on the almost empty 2nd server.
Better performance for everyone!
Or as Thunderchief suggested: New bigger map!

DemonFiren · Post by **DemonFiren** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 6:00 pm #92975

>sybil shitters on my basil
>better performance for everyone

Excuse me, but we've had this before.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:28 pm #93098

We do need a bigger map, but asteroid isn't big enough.

onleavedontatme · Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:35 pm

Basil and Sybil have different maps, different admins, different playerbases, and different playstyles I don't know why everyone keeps advocating that we send people from Sybil to Basil. Nobody would be happy with that.

EDIT: If my migrant things get finished/merged there will be plenty of extra space for excess players to run around.