Use "statistical method" for faster planet farming

[skunkiferous]

I have built what AFAIK is an "optimal" planet farmer, considering the maximum number of salvage beam allowed on the server I am on (100). It's 900 salvage modules per salvage beam setup, with 100% missile slave. According to the wiki, it takes about 5 seconds for the cooldown, but the server itself takes more like 15 seconds to update anyway, so I cannot salvage as fast as the setup would allow (and I'm also upsetting the other players by bringing the server to a crawl).

My suggestion would be, in the case of 100% missile slave, reduce the number of beams by 8 (or 9, as it would then mean 1 beam per output again), but remove a 2^2^2 cube of blocks per beam. It would be approximately the same amount of salvaging per second, but would (I hope) reduce the server load to about 1/8, so that the server can keep up with the salvaging.

AFAIK, beyond huge battles, planet farming is what is usually bringing servers to their knees, and so I think it would be welcome by everyone, assuming I'm right that removing blocks in cubes of 8 is 1/8 of the "work/server load".

 

[NeonSturm]

If your server allows 100 beams and your module-output makes 10 beams, you can only have 10 outputs to stay below the limit!

I like your suggestion, but I think there should also be an option to remove 3x3x3 cubes (27 blocks) at once, even if it takes a bit more blocks or power. Just for the case somebody wants to enable that for his server.

 

[Hizeron]

Is most of the lag from calculating so many different salvage beams, or the sheer number of blocks being removed? if it is the latter then I don't see this idea working.

But, if the lag is from the beams, then it may work but you would be changing the way the missile slave works with them. Still, reducing lag is always nice.

 

[skunkiferous]

If your server allows 100 beams and your module-output makes 10 beams, you can only have 10 outputs to stay below the limit!

It doesn't work like that. The limit is a hard limit; you simply cannot activate more then 100 outputs on that server. But you can have each output shout 9 beams by using missile slaves. The admins themselves recommended me to do that.

I like your suggestion, but I think there should also be an option to remove 3x3x3 cubes (27 blocks) at once, even if it takes a bit more blocks or power. Just for the case somebody wants to enable that for his server.

3x3x3 would be a multiple of 9, so I guess that might be a better choice. OTOH, sometimes using a "power of 2" when programming gives the best performance; only the devs can really know in this case.

 

[nightrune]

I think the plan for planets was to allow passive resource generation for factions. Making it a bit more useful long-term then mine and go. Would you still want this then?

 

[skunkiferous]

I assume it depends on how fast "passive resource generation" works...

 

[Aynslei]

There are few worse lag machines than salvage/missile hitting multiple plates at once.
I suggest you just make it regular beams if you are getting that much of an impact drain, or you know, kill the core.