Does loot in persistent storage affect the spawn rates of the immediate area?

[koujou_1 0]

I'm the admin of a private, low-population cooperative play server hosted by Fragnet. We've had the server for about two weeks now, and after finding that a lot of nice loot spawns there (and no zombies spawn in the area) we've made our home in the Gorka police station. Everything went well until we erected a tent just behind the building, and placed a couple of barrels next to it. From that point, loot spawns inside the building (and only there) dropped from over ten to one single item.

 

Now, unsurprisingly, the stuff in the tent and the barrels is largely of the same type as that which spawns in the police station (i.e. weapons, ammo and gear) and unless something else made the spawn rate suddenly change (which seems unlikely) the obvious conclusion is that the game is taking into account the presence of all this stuff and therefore doesn't spawn any new loot.

 

I've tried restarting the server. I've also tried moving the storage containers farther from the building, but so far, nothing seems to be helping.

 

Does anyone have any clues or ideas as to what is going on?

[Niloc 19]

By low-pop = how many players?

Hoarding loot = How much loot do you have per player?

we are talking guns and ammo, right ?

 

is there a REASON you want to hoard Police Station Loot on a low-pop cooperative server?

 

Instead of stockpiling loot as fast as it spawns

What difference does it make if you throw all the guns and ammo out in the debug plains?

Edited January 5, 2016 by pilgrim

[Niloc 19]

Note - for pubic hive excessive storage of loot

there are some notes HERE and a link to the original persistence loot explanation by the Devs

Edited January 5, 2016 by pilgrim

[pilgrim* 3514]

if you have a Private Server - perhaps you are storing all that gear too close to the original spawn points so it is still inside the item spawn range? 

(just a thought)

Really, try dumping it all out in the Debug Plains anyway - if you have a big stash and only a few players on your Private  low-pop cooperative server, then you have nothing much to loose, right ?

The gear will always go on spawning, you'll never be short of it.

 

Also you can not take that loot anywhere off the server,  and you seem from your OP to have not much you can DO with it ATM, except to go on collecting more and piling it up?

 

OR instead of the Debug Plains - You can always encourage more guest players, permanently OR temporarily, as an alternative - It is totally your own choice how many players you let in from one day to the next (though some Private Server players often like to stick with the same server habitually, over quite a long time).

 

Maybe hold some open days and events ? Bring in more members or guests.

Do you agree that the medium-high or high-pop Private Servers are IMO more fun than low-pop Private?

 

xx pilgrim

Edited January 5, 2016 by pilgrim

[Ahnìon 6]

(Excuse the late response. I finally managed to get my account working, although the database has apparently decided to connect posts I never made to it.)


Thank you for the link to the link to the thread about the central economy system. It goes some way toward making sense of the server's behaviour. (I threw some beans at your last post to get around the account hiatus, but they're meant for the one with the link.)

The storage isn't there specifically for looting the police station. Gorka is just where we have our camp. As for why we have stashes, uh... well... it's for exchanging and keeping stuff that we're likely to need in the short term. I'm fairly sure this is common practice on cooperative and/or RP focussed private servers. Guns and ammo are part of that (although there are only three actual guns) but it's also various other useful stuff that's tricky to come by.

Also, if this were related to the population of the server, the issue would have presented itself earlier, as population has been fairly stable and we've been using Gorka as our base for at least a week.

Our present plan is to move the camp well away from Gorka to see what happens. If loot starts spawning again, that is a pretty sure sign that loot in containers does affect spawn rates in the vicinity. I'll make a point of updating this thread with the results, for future reference (and probably making a bug report on the matter, as—regardless of the reason—it's pretty strange behaviour for a building to suddenly stop spawning loot.)



I don't, in fact, agree that high-population servers are necessarily more fun than low-population ones. I'm pretty sure it's entirely dependent on your gameplay style and how well you get along (or "fit") with the other players. Personally, I've never been much of a PvP fan. I don't hate it, but because of the way those who love PvP tend to act, I prefer to avoid open or large servers. The other folks on our server seem to generally agree with that, at least in the case of DayZ.

Once the administrative side of DayZ SA servers have developed far enough for private shard admins to enforce rules (i.e. more verbose logs and such) we may join an RP server, but for now, we enjoy playing on our own server a great deal more than we would in the death-match climate prevalent on the public ones.


Again—cheers for the link. Have fun out there!

[Ahnìon 6]

So, the answer seems to be "yes—as of now at least—items in permanent storage do affect local item spawn behaviour."

As we moved our stuff away from Gorka, the spawns in the police station started increasing again. We tried putting barrels with stuff inside residential buildings and found that while spawns weren't completely nullified, they got decidedly more rare in that building and nearby outbuildings (if they were close enough.)

Recently, I tried putting a tent on top of the police building and filling it with weapons, attachments and ammo. Very soon, the drop rate fell to one single item in the entire building. I tried moving the stuff to a barrel with no discernable difference. When the items were removed, spawns slowly rose to their normal levels again.

I haven't seen any effect from items in vehicles, though this may simply be because they never get close enough. Since it takes a while for items to spawn and despawn, I haven't had time to do any tests on this.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Ahnìon

[pilgrim* 3514]

I have noticed on one server I play where I know there is a lot of loot stashed (probably a very large amount) - a spawn slowdown (?)  seems to happen.

Maybe I'm wrong:

If I enter a village there is hardly any loot around, really not a lot (couple of shirts and hoes) - but after I have been in that local area maybe 10 mins it seems to respawn more actively and stock itself up again..

 

At first I thought this was because other players had been through recently = normal. 

But I have also played when there was no one else on the server - me alone for an hour before -  and it SEEMS to me that this still really happens, just the same.

Also these are little village places I'm looking at - not the locations where players usually log in for a quick grab and log out again..

Same when the serve is populated - other players are very often regulars who stay on for a long time, and they are not even in that half of the map.

 

I hardly ever see stuff spawn in front of me (two or 3 items in a week maybe) but if I hang around a while in that village, it is worthwhile making a second pass through the houses. - In fact making a first pass is not worthwhile, only the second time through seems OK.

I thought maybe this was the server being slow because it already has large stocks of stored loot to 'check off' for the loot cycles.

 

I hear that - in one case at least - the GSPs have begun to say DayZ is taking up more sever resources, so they are "having to" increase the price:

1 ) this could be be the usual yearly price-adjustment bull**** excuse everybody sends out (and even if it is true and SA is now taking "more resources"  it may be nothing to do with loot numbers)

2 ) it could just be my idea about this spawn slowdown when the server is accounting for large loot-piles may be totally completely wrong

 

this is only an impression I get, with no evidence. But I'm starting to feel used to it and play to it, know what I mean?

 

xx

 

I like the test you did with the police building Ahnion - that is interesting..OK, .. hmm

Edited January 21, 2016 by pilgrim

[Ahnìon 6]

Hmm. Well, if I understand the loot economy right, there is a maximum amount of loot spawns server-wide, so the only way that the amount of loot would rise above that is if it is stored in containers which contents are ignored. Considering my own testing, it would be even more strange if items in tents and barrels counted toward local loot spawns and not the global max. (It's possible though, if they're testing things out.)

 

Still, with all the reports of loot avalanche bugs, it would hardly be surprising if there are still issues with this system. It is also possible that the loot spawn system prioritizes populated areas. Either of those might account for your experiences.

 

Respawns are definitely quick in general, though. When we've raided the military base near Myshkino, we've usually done two sweeps through the tents, because once we've gotten to one side, loot has respawned on the other (and two sweeps is just about what we have time for before the zeds start popping back in.)

 

Most likely, we're going to see the loot economy change again more than once before the beta, but it's still interesting (at least for server admins) to get some idea of how things work for the moment.

[pilgrim* 3514]

Hmm. Well, if I understand the loot economy right, there is a maximum amount of loot spawns server-wide, so the only way that the amount of loot would rise above that is if it is stored in containers which contents are ignored. Considering my own testing, it would be even more strange if items in tents and barrels counted toward local loot spawns and not the global max. (It's possible though, if they're testing things out.)

 

Still, with all the reports of loot avalanche bugs, it would hardly be surprising if there are still issues with this system. It is also possible that the loot spawn system prioritizes populated areas. Either of those might account for your experiences.

 

Respawns are definitely quick in general, though. When we've raided the military base near Myshkino, we've usually done two sweeps through the tents, because once we've gotten to one side, loot has respawned on the other (and two sweeps is just about what we have time for before the zeds start popping back in.)

 

Most likely, we're going to see the loot economy change again more than once before the beta, but it's still interesting (at least for server admins) to get some idea of how things work for the moment.

 

Yes - I agree with you about the loot economy - what I meant was, that all the stored loot has to be generated and placed by the server, so that it "exists" inside the tents and barrels - unless it is only "created" by the server when you actually open the tent and look inside (still, it has to be taken into account, so the server always knows where it is and knows it has not been moved, etc).. so I wondered,, even though it is not counted in the loot spawn economy, there might be some part of the loot spawn software function that has to "mark up" that <x items are in this tent and Y items are in that tent, etc etc>.. each tick.. (so the persistent loot that does not change is all accounted for and in place) and then the server goes on to do the normal loot spawn - it does the spawn without including what is in storage .. but it does have to enumerate and locate/update everything in storage as well.. I wondered if that might slow down the part of the program that deals with loot.  

 

this was simply an idea, is all.. due to me thinking I see an odd spawn rate that starts a few minutes after I move into a deserted area (unlike my previous experience). You may be right about the way the loot is prioritized by area, because when I arrive the existing loot is uninteresting (shirts, mainly.. ), and the more generally interesting stuff - ammo, pristine objects, beanz, - seem to turn up after a few minutes.. Not an enormous amount, but I think I notice an increase in interesting items.

 

I'm experimenting.. only that - but your experiment with the police station is good, because a tent in the area should have zero effect on loot spawn there, in theory. But that seems not to be the case.

 

Also I'm sure the Devs are adjusting a number of loot related areas fairly frequently (or ATM fairly constantly?). They can do it at any time from the office, directly to the Central Hive server, without having to send changes out with scheduled updates. 

 

also, thanx for the info and the research Ahnion

 

(Great Scott! - I need to figure how to use this as a tent detector)

 

xx pilgrim

[Ahnìon 6]

I see where you're going. If your theory is correct, then this should have started when they introduced barrels (simply because tents are a lot more rare and thus there won't be enough of them to make that much of a dent in the economy.)

 

Trying to think about this from BI's perspective, I would probably make stored loot affect the economy to some measure, but not enough that it unbalanced things too much for a new player on a full and laden server. Also, stored loot probably counts toward the maximum amount that Eugene mentions in his post about the central economy (for load limiting purposes.) If it doesn't... well... let's just say I think the devs are smarter than that. :)

 

(As for tent detection—that would be entirely dependent on how far the effect stretches. If it's only a few metres, you'd have to be really close to notice anything, and if it's too far, you'd never figure out where the tent was.)

Edited January 21, 2016 by Ahnìon

[pilgrim* 3514]

..//..

 

just a note about your police station experiment

A tent or a barrel is a standard spawn object - it just has a very long lifetime before despawn (10 days?) - I mean that a tent is ordinary countable loot, it is not inside a stash, it is lying on the landscape like any loot object.  So if you piled 20 empty tents on the roof of a building, they would not despawn until you had left them untouched for a long time - but - the building would still think it had 20 loot objects lying around in it.

If you put all those tents inside one tent - then the building would think it had just one loot object lying around.

 

eg: This is why there is a max number of barrels that can spawn one one server.. when all the barrels are hidden away by players, they are still counted as loot objects on the landscape (they are not stashed inside anything) so no more will spawn at the spawn points.

But as long as you keep putting ALL the spawned AKs inside stashes, then they don't count in the spawn calculation, and AKs will go on spawning at the same rate as if there were none around.

 

So a server with a lot of stashed gear will stop spawning tents and barrels before it runs out of new gear to stash in them.

 

eh .. I think.

Edited January 21, 2016 by pilgrim

[Szymowich 9]

I hear that - in one case at least - the GSPs have begun to say DayZ is taking up more sever resources, so they are "having to" increase the price:

1 ) this could be be the usual yearly price-adjustment bull**** excuse everybody sends out (and even if it is true and SA is now taking "more resources"  it may be nothing to do with loot numbers)

2 ) it could just be my idea about this spawn slowdown when the server is accounting for large loot-piles may be totally completely wrong

 

 

 

This is untrue. From what I have seen personally, costs on server contracts have actually gone down in pricing.

 

I have two servers... one Fragnet and one GameServers. Both have dropped in pricing that, at current cost, you can get a 50 slot for just a few bucks more than a 30 slot a year ago. As an example, My 30 slot GS server went down in price $24.00 a month... from 69 bucks down to 45 (and anyone that rents servers take note: When prices drop, they do not automatically adjust your rate. If/when you find the current price is lower than what you are presently paying, you have to submit a ticket to have it manually adjusted. I found this out when I randomly saw pricing somewhere and it was like "wait, what the... ?").

 

I have checked 4 of the server providers (GS, Frag, Vil and GD) and, in pricing, they are all in the same ballpark - $38.00 to $45.00 a month for a 30 slot (prices rounded to nearest dollar).

 

*and no, I am not here advertising for these providers or saying one is better. just wanted to point out some facts, as I highly doubt loot files cause inflation of server prices*

[pilgrim* 3514]

This is untrue. From what I have seen personally, costs on server contracts have actually gone down in pricing.

 

re read my post

then argue it out among yourselves here

https://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/231007-server-prices-are-going-up/#entry2329605

 

click on this image to read what one GSP says about it

thanx

xx

Edited January 21, 2016 by pilgrim

[Szymowich 9]

re read my post

then argue it out among yourselves

 

https://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/231007-server-prices-are-going-up/#entry2329605

 

 

thanx

xx

 

I was in no way arguing anything. Was just stating concrete facts from my experiences. 

 

Will say that Multiplay is one that I never dealt with, nor did I check pricing. Regardless, that does kind of sound like a typical corporate excuse to just raise a price, as I have never ran across a statement like that coming from other providers... but who knows. 

 

Just browsed Multiplay pricing. They seem to be the most expensive out there at $59.00 for a 30 slot. This the new price? Or after the increase?