Entities in the system

[Cody]

Entities in the system: how much is this number likely to fluctuate over short periods of time?

I’ve been seeing massive jumps and drops, like up to well over two hundred, then down to a hundred or so very rapidly, then in quiet systems fifty or so.
I don’t often fly with the shift+f thingy, so I don’t know if this is normal.

[Switeck]

Depends on how many OXPs you have installed -- some such as Dictators can add 30 asteroids per astrofactory. A "freighter" ship dying can leave 10-15 cargo canisters, an escape pod, and maybe even an alloy panel.
Asteroid miners can turn a single asteroid into 2-6 boulders and then each boulder into 2-6 shards...so entity numbers can go up from time-to-time while they do that.
Standard Deep Space Pirates can add lots of extra ships and asteroids...unless you're always killing them after they get added.
Laser fire can cause very rapid increases of 1-5 entities, as can ships leaking fuel/glowing globes on them when they're very low energy.
The destruction of OXP stations seems to leave mad quantities of alloy entities, at least in my experience...though it's been rare that happens. I had it a few times in testing Nuit (medusa) station, when destroying it on purpose.

For "regular" activities, I only see ~40-70 entities in less busy (poorer!) systems and 60-150 entities in busy systems. A Thargoid invasion can spike the numbers over 300 from all the debris fields and inactive Thargons.

[Griff]

have you got installed the normalmapped shipset from the deep horizons website? that's got a version of the exploding debris oxp built into it, this generates a big cloud of exploding bits made from polygons then removes them after about 15 seconds, might explain the spikes you're seeing in the number of entities.
the thargoid/griff "exploding debris" oxp does this too

[Cody]

that's got a version of the exploding debris oxp built into it, this generates a big cloud of exploding bits made from polygons then removes them after about 15 seconds, might explain the spikes you're seeing in the number of entities.

That might well explain the sudden spikes... cheers Griff.
It seems to cause a 'stutter' on my machine... that's why I was asking.

[Griff]

do you have the exploding debris oxp installed? there's so many different models & textures and whatnot in that oxp that it does give oolite a lot to search through when deciding what wreckage to spawn, that oxp really got a bit out of hand and needs severe pruning ( i hope that's the right word, 'pruning' seems a bit odd, prunes, p-r-r-r-unes ) the wreckage in the all-in-1 at deep horizons is a lot simpler so i was hoping it wouldn't stutter

[Cody]

I'm using the latest all-in-one... can I disable (easily) the exploding stuff in that?

[Griff]

i don't have the oxp on me at the moment, i think we just need to comment out the script line in each ship, i'll just download the oxp and be back with what we need to do (a "replace all" in notepad++ should sort it, just replace
script = "whatever the exploding script is called.js";
with
// script = "whatever the exploding script is called.js";
back in a mo..

ok, there are 3 "script =" lines that we need to comment out (by putting // at the start of the line), in the shipdata.plist in this oxp open it up in a text editor and do a replace all:-

script = "griff_spawn_wreckage.js";
replace with..
// script = "griff_spawn_wreckage.js";

script = "griff_spawn_sparks.js";
replace all with..
// script = "griff_spawn_sparks.js";

script = "griff_remove_spark_debris.js";
replace all with..
// script = "griff_remove_spark_debris.js";

that should do it (i think)

[Commander McLane]

Rapid increases are most likely due to something exploding. One entity (be it station or ship) is replaced by many temporary debris entities (I think maybe even the sparks count as single entities), and then more permanently by some alloys and containers. At the same time you should see a multiplied increase in the collision count number, because all these new entities are checked against each other for collisions, which can raise the count to the tens or hundreds of thousands very quickly. Then it sinks almost as rapidly while the temporary explosion entities are removed again. The debris stage takes about two seconds.

Sometimes I enjoy the fun of emptying a system completely, killing all ships and asteroids and scooping up the debris. From this I know that an entity count in the low teens is the bare minimum (sky entity, sun and planet entities, dust entity, stations and beacons, rock hermits, and myself). Usually, if the entity count gets below 30, you'll have to fly around a lot in order to even find another entity.

On the other hand there isn't really an upper limit. Vanilla Oolite places between around 40 and 80 entities in a system, the biggest variation coming from the number of asteroids generated. Depending on your OXPs the entity count rises. In my personal configuration 65 entities would be a fairly empty system and 140 would be fairly crowded. It gets only higher than that during Assassins missions with big battles.

[Cody]

Thanks McLane... those numbers are useful as a reference for me.
Last night, the count hit 297 briefly... and I have no mission oxps installed.

[Cody]

Thanks Griff, just seen your edit... I don't really want to disable them, as they're real pretty, but I might have to.
I'll try that tonight... see how the entities count behaves... 'stutter' can be an immersion breaker.

[JensAyton]

One entity (be it station or ship) is replaced by many temporary debris entities (I think maybe even the sparks count as single entities)

The pre-explosion sparks are individual entities. The explosion special effects consist of at most four entities (two particle systems, an individual flash entity and an individual ring entity) except in the case of the player, but there may be secondary explosions from wreckage objects.