i think it's time to try player caps.

[Kotlol]

To people who are hardline against this, I ask: what is your alternative, then?

Because there absolutely is an ongoing problem with high population making RP difficult. If we're going to be looking at 100+ population rounds soon it is going to be a nightmare.

"Caps reduce population", yes, but that is to some degree the point; the level of population is not conductive to the server's purpose.


The exact implementation details of a cap can be decided later, like how to handle redirecting players to another server, that sort of thing. But especially with tomato happening soon, this is going to become a much larger problem than I think anyone really expects.

There are many other ways to get people to spread out.

I already gave one suggestion but let's expand it to a few other ideas.

"Station cap"
Once the station is capped (so no infinite staffies), no one can join into the station to do a job.

So where do we dump the next players? Well they could be space diner patrons. And they can go to the station but will have no ID and we know how well that goes.
The idea is that Space Diner Patrons will get an uplink to the station to order things or ask for things.
No radio, no ID. Only an uplink terminal.

Of course on one station the diner is located right below the station and is veeeeeerrry small. But eh who cares.

"CentComm'd"
I know admins do not like shifts in cent comm as an idea... but.. hear me out.
Same as the station Cap one. Anyone spawning after the cap is hit will spawn in a "Section" of Centcomm, waiting to be send off to a station.
These players will basically be stuck in location till centcomm deems it nessarcy to send them to the current shift.

Have this section of centcomm have some small rooms to do things in and then let the players there have their own RP till they are hired. Now the chaos of 100 players is split between 70 on station and 30 on Centcomm.

"Cyborgs only allowed"
Simply put.. station cap is reached, only cyborgs can spawn. Now robotcists can decide the flow of extra players.

"The crew beyond the veil"
I know we don't like dead players giving away info and such and that REMAINS. But now dead / players who couldn't get in. Might be able to do lil things on the station if they join forces as ghosts. For example:
"Zoldorf or a player becoming Zoldorf" can use ghost players to peer around, collect power and effect the round as a "hive mind of ghosts"
They will have limited interaction, but it would be more fun if like 10+ ghosts all combine efforts to do 1 task and make it happen.
What tasks you may ask? I do not know.. this is just a rough idea.

The whole point of this player cap is to make em move to Goon 4, but.. in my opinion.. No one likes to see: "Due to a cap limit you will not be allowed to roleplay this round." 
You gotta give them a bone saying: "You can stick around and do minimal interaction, but it's better to hop servers"
It's why ghost critters exist... so let's just expand on it...or change things.

This can be especially annoying if you wanna play with friends and they are doing a round in goon 3 and then you get to see: "YEA NO BUB"
Have a way for these friends to sorta interact with eachother without it becoming chaos and a mess.