SMP8 Public Wild Utilities

Aikar is saying that Pigmentus is causing lag. Can we engineer the farm to make it "turn off" or put in an auto-kill functionality?

A couple of thoughts:

1) Rebuild this so the portals are higher up and thus we can put in a "kill" and "no-kill" switch with some pistons.
2) Put up signs asking folks not to AFK
3) Put pistons near the portals if that's possible to push the pigmen down? not sure if this would cause lag or if it'd even be possible.

I noticed recently ("recently" being after the farm was made public) that some people like to wait for tens of thousands of Pigmen to "pile up" into the kill chamber before doing a darn thing. Not saying who, but this behavior needs to stop.

Also, I believe there needs to be some sort of communication between players, such in the instance of if someone is done using the farms, they should let us know instead of leaving, then coming back, or "standing next to the kill chamber until the entity count is maxed." I brought this up with someone before and they said they were "trying to count how many could spawn at once." Again, not naming names, because whoever's reading this thread right now knows who they are.

However, I DO have a slight change idea, but it's a change I'm sure not many will be happy with.

Reduce the portals down to about a half or third of the portals being used right now, and funnel the Pigmen down to the central kill chamber using opened trapdoors and flowing water. This WILL make the farm slower, and may require adjustments that will take several hours to accomplish, but Pigmen won't try to run through several of the portals to get to the central kill area, overlapping the Nether teleportation sequence several dozens of times as Aikar mentioned here:

Basic Internet Networking 101, guys.
When you spam a server with too many request packets, what happens?
Well, imagine trying to stuff a giant, inflated beach ball into a small water bottle.
Let's say the beach ball is the data being sent, and the water bottle is the server.
The beach ball will not only fail to fit in the water bottle, but it will be blocking the way to get inside, and nothing else will be able to get through into the bottle because of it.

(If anything, imagine a car accident on a highway and trying to drive through that going at less than 5 miles per hour on average when the maximum speed is at least 55 -- that "car accident" being all the Pigmen spawned. Yeah, pretty sure this "lag" would make anyone upset and it's better related than my previous example analogy. It's also why I logged off of EMC earlier when I wanted to be online. )

It's a fast farm, so it's very efficient -- don't get me wrong. The problems here, however, are

1. It's TOO efficient, and they spawn too quickly, while at the same time:
2. People will just stand there and wait for MORE THAN 250 (the max. limit) Pigmen to spawn without attacking a single one.

Couldn't the same thing be accomplished by making a "kill" and "no-kill" switch like most enderman farms have? I mean you could stand there and get the items without getting the XP right? if you wanted of course...

You would need to manually go and shut down every portal. Then go back and manually re-light every one again.

I wonder if there''s a less intensive option. Maybe turning the kill chamber into an AUTO kill chamber, so that even if someone is crazy enough to AFK there, the pigmen can just fall to their deaths (like Sushi Drop!) and not lag out the server. Problem with this is, then it has to run like the AFK gold farm and people complain about people taking other people's stuff while 1 AFKs for 20 minutes on end.

Then again, I'm not the brain behind most of these builds. Anyone got a better idea? Chris's is the best I've heard so far but would require the top half of Pigmentus to get a massive surgery.

The point of this farm is that it was super efficient and for manual farming ONLY. Not for an afk farm. But since it is a public build, people will abuse it and ruin the fun.

Since it is a new farm, I say we try reason first and then opt for a serious change if players won't cooperate. So: let's set some rules with signs. There is no reason to let pigmen pile up. There is no point. Once you start killing them, they keep coming. You barely get ahead of them before more drop down. Then entcount should stay between 30-90 if you are actively killing.

Therefore, no inactive playing of any kind at the farm. With the exception of storing or using the villager to trade flesh, we should get rid of anything else that takes time to do something. Active killing only. Anyone caught AFKing at the site should get a warning that they are not allowed back.

If this doesn't work, I vote to make it a single cell version of the same build. 1/4th of the total build. It would still operate somewhat quickly, but would be slow enough to make afk not as good.

I don't like the idea of a drop farm. The rewards are much less and it will only encourage AFK style play.

Actually, its not that safe to AFK near SushiDrop, slimes sometimes spawn and can kill you.
Maybe we should have fake warning signs like,

WARNING: Zombies sometimes spawn, unsafe to AFK.
I don't like the drop farm idea either, more people would AFK there. I don't know of any ideas, hopefully a solution will come soon.

At Slime Time, I used a book & quill to display messages about how to use the farm to players. We could implement that at Pigmentus also. I am just seeing this, so I've had only a few minutes to think about redesigns. It took me some hours to design and test it, so I can't turn on a dime to fix what sounds like a misuse of the farm.

Off the top of my head, it boils down to teaching players how to use the farm responsibly. We can take out the safe AFK room, but really, a player could afk anywhere. From the sound of what Aikar said, the issue was caused by someone being there but not aggravating them (which causes them to run towards that player who is either on the central walkway or at the kill chamber - causing the piggies to get out of the portals and into the water stream).

If this build is being used incorrectly or irresponsibly, then we have to put the good of the server ahead of the build. We'll shut it down and redo it as a traditional gold farm which is far slower but moves the pigmen more quickly out of the portals. Let me write to Aikar and see how he would like us to proceed. Bottom line to me right now, it turns out this design can be abused and that's too dangerous to be a public build. I didn't realize it had that kind of potential or I wouldn't have built it.

Let me think on it a bit. If we need to go out there and turn off the portals while I do that (and hey people, feel free to help me find solutions for this problem!), then so be it. My first instinct is to shut it down while we find a resolution. Let me write to Aikar though and get some more information. Thanks!

I'm also willing to make a DC of diamond swords with Unbreaking III, Looting III and Smite V for cheap sale at my smp8 shop. We can put up a sign that they are available. I think if it is easier to get great, fast results so that you inventory is full quickly, people won't do as many foolish things.

Yes, khixan, there does need to be training at the farm so that they use it right. I was going to make a book to explain how to use the cleric for good zombie flesh trading that is beneficial and doesn't ever get locked up. It is a lot of detail and a book is the best way to train. I'll write it soon. Look out for the item frame with the book in it soon.

Just have an auto kill farm that is super effiecent? It'll compensate for any lack of extra goodies as killing would do by killing hundreds of pigman in no time. Unless you make it an auto/manual kill farm and get fancy. No need to handicap spawning right? Just make something happen to the entities so they never max out.

What happened is this... I was afk down by the villager for awhile and so the pigmen weren't aggravated and thus didn't come down into the water to be swept away and they were just milling about in the portals which caused lag. Once I moved and hit them they all moved towards the water.

I guess the issue here is that you just can't afk anywhere which to me is unrealistic. I wasn't afk'ing because I was waiting for the pigmen to build up, I just had to step away for a few minutes. I could've been doing anything, I could be farming around the farms, I could've been exploring the mines below, I could've been building something, enchanting something, etc. You can't just think of this as someone "afk'ing waiting for the pigmen to build up" because someone could be active and just not hitting the pigmen.

So what I'm trying to say here is that this is a design issue, not a player issue. Unless we want to expect players to only go to pigmentus when they are ready to hit pigs and leave the chunk when they're done... but then we have to get rid of all the other activities in the immediate vicinity.

Pigmentus is temporarily CLOSED.

Justynn lost his good picks helping me and Wayne shut it down. We're hoping Prometha picked them up by accident and that a piggy didn't steal them.

I am getting on Mumble if you want to discuss redesign ideas with me. Thanks all!

Just thinking out loud here...

Without knowing the specifics of how all this operates, would it be possible to implement something that either aggros or kills them on a timer? That shouldn't drastically reduce output but could help alleviate this specific issue when they're not being actively killed. *shrug*

Or perhaps there is a way to tier the portals so the pigmen drop down and cannot be milling around between the active portals?

you could put spaces in between each portal

the current design they were just back to back but maybe if we put a space then the pigmen will fall... but then we'd have to re-design the bottom part so water would push them to where we need them to be

Great minds are thinking alike. MD and I are on mumble discussing design changes to solve issue. Feel free to join us in discussion.

I think that realistically for a public farm, this needs to be a fall to death only farm using the usual trapdoor method. It can be an ideal version of that, but to avoid the above mentioned problems, it should be a passive farm. Otherwise, if it is to remain an active farm, it can only be for active players only and any other activity should be quick and simple. Nothing that takes time and lets them build up.

I fixed griefing at iron farm, so it should work normally again

I had to log off because of family affairs (real life trumps EMC).

Justynn, when I am able to actually get in game, I will check if I have your picks and return them if I find them. If not, I will compensate you for the pickaxe(s) that were lost.

(MSG me on what I should be looking for/replacing)