reduce mob culling / increase in mobs allowed per area (revisited)

[tiggy26668]

So, a while back mob culling was introduced as a way to remove/reduce server lag.

It was done because at the time people such as myself were stacking hundreds of villagers on a single block to make ridiculously fast spawning iron golem farms and having 100-1000 entities stacked on a block caused some extreme memory leakage.

However since then the spawning mechanics for golems have changed, so doing this has absolutely no effect on the spawn rates and really isn't a viable thing to do, so it seems the extreme culling has out lived it's usefulness.

On the other hand though there's things like cows and sheep which are viable to breed in a fairly wide area, to acquire large amounts of leather and wool, where they wouldn't be getting stacked on a single block causing lag, but still end up getting culled by the plugin when they walk to close together like their AI all to often likes to make them do.

Now there's certainly still some potential issues from things like egg farms where people may stack far too many chickens or idiots breeding 500 cows in a 4x4 space so removing the culling entirely probably isn't a good idea.

But I think at this point it's worth considering an increase in the amount of mobs allowed in a fairly small space to promote people gathering their own resources without having to worry about their animal setups disintegrating because the AI decided to huddle up.

here's a link to the post by cschurz describing the functionality:
http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,12512.msg115877.html#msg115877

at the time 6 mobs made sense because as nick so eloquently put it:

This plugin was made by opti with 2 things in mind, stop those ridiculous chicken farms, and to stop those ridiculous villager farms. Throttling mob spawners was just a bonus.

However given the outdated villager technique and the fact that egg farms are so compact they'd still get throttled anyway I think it's worth considering an increase from 6 mobs per 4x4 area. Personally I'd like to see it increased to 15-20 mobs which really isn't to much, and just to prevent them getting culled when I hold out wheat and they crunch together before separating, but even an increase to 10-15 mobs would make farming wool/leather a much more enjoyable experience.

Given the new circumstances it would be rather helpful to see this considered, even if only for a trial run. If memory usage spikes as a result by all means turn it back down. But at the moment I'm reluctant to start certain projects with the current difficulty of acquiring materials, so I'd appreciate your consideration on this matter, thanks.

[gavin1928374655]

Play single player

[tiggy26668]

Play single player

Well if I were to do that i'd just use creative and wouldn't need to farm materials, unfortunately then I couldn't share my creations with this wonderful community. So until I can talk nick/tobs into giving me a creative world to play around in I'm stuck doing things the old fashioned way.

[☣2crzy4uall☣]

I'm kinda all for this being tweaked, even double the mobs in an area would be an improvement

[OzzyKP]

I strongly support this.  I go through a ton of wool in my city, being able to fit more sheep in my pens would be a huge help.

[SalsaInABowl]

I strongly support this.  I go through a ton of wool in my city, being able to fit more sheep in my pens would be a huge help.

This is actually what it was designed to stop. Oddly enough I had about 40 sheep in a generally free area about 50x50 back then and now they are all gone.

[tiggy26668]

I strongly support this.  I go through a ton of wool in my city, being able to fit more sheep in my pens would be a huge help.

This is actually what it was designed to stop. Oddly enough I had about 40 sheep in a generally free area about 50x50 back then and now they are all gone.

It's because regardless of the pen size the AI tends to huddle them together, then on chunk load they get culled, re huddle, culled, re huddle, etc

This is why in an ideal situation I'd like to see the number increased such that the AI doesn't let them huddle close enough to get culled, but if for example 50+ mobs were unnaturally forced together in a small area ie: chicken farm, they would get culled.

I believe there's a certain number where the game physics that push entities apart would be enough to keep them from stacking given enough space in the pen to separate them.

If you consider holding up wheat in a cow pen, they form a tight circle around you, but the natural physics wont let entities overlap regardless of how many there are because the cows move speed isn't enough to counteract the push back force of the entity group. So the ideal number is really the amount of animals that naturally settle into a 4x4 area during this process. unfortunately this number is more than 6, which is why they get culled off over time, however I highly doubt it would exceed 20, unless of course the space they're in is to small such that they're forced to overlap.

[jcgaming]

1 problem is the next update with the manual killing of irongolems as people would cram golems into tiny place however i would really hope this plugin is changed/removed

[tiggy26668]

1 problem is the next update with the manual killing of irongolems as people would cram golems into tiny place however i would really hope this plugin is changed/removed

well that already happens anyway.... if you refer back to the dev post here:
http://www.opticraft.net/index.php/topic,12512.msg115877.html#msg115877

there's no culling while you're there it only happens when the chunk loads/unloads so that issue is irrelevant

as it stands right now you can stack golems infinitely but the second the chunk loads/unloads they despawn

the real concern of this post is for the animal herds that like to bunch up and get culled every time you go near them till u end up with nothing or a fraction of your herd left, and of course the issue of not being able to breed more than 6 because the second you hold out the necessary breeding item the entire pen runs to you and the plugin prevents them from spawning babies cuz there's too many in a 4x4 area.

[OzzyKP]

I strongly support this.  I go through a ton of wool in my city, being able to fit more sheep in my pens would be a huge help.

This is actually what it was designed to stop. Oddly enough I had about 40 sheep in a generally free area about 50x50 back then and now they are all gone.

I don't think anyone is calling for the limit to be completely removed, just relaxed.  Any change would be good for me and make a big difference.

[SalsaInABowl]

I strongly support this.  I go through a ton of wool in my city, being able to fit more sheep in my pens would be a huge help.

This is actually what it was designed to stop. Oddly enough I had about 40 sheep in a generally free area about 50x50 back then and now they are all gone.

I don't think anyone is calling for the limit to be completely removed, just relaxed.  Any change would be good for me and make a big difference.

That was kinda the point of my story.

[☣2crzy4uall☣]

I still think we should raise the limit, at least double the current.

[Gogar72]

I strongly agree with this! I tend to be one of those players that makes a hole, and stays in it (Seems legit). So this would make SMP bases So much easier which would allow you to branch out an underground base or something.

[NatanylJames (N8MATTHEWS)]

COnsidering the mob culling was added when optic raft had a much bigger player count, i think it can be raised now

[hammysandwhich]

I made out these little chicken pens underground. All of my chickens despawned and they were not causing any lag... Poor chicks, you shall not be forgotten.