BI bad with numbers?

[purepassion 22]

@cripsis

you're always welcome! :)

[ProfTournesol 956]

For rivers to be there pathfinding should be good enough for AI to at least cross bridges in a normal manner

Oh yes, i could sacrifice a little kitten to have AI finally be able to cross bridges on foot...

[pvt_ryan 10]

I'm a noob, but 40 civilians per village sounds fine to me. Don't want them getting in my way at any rate... According to wikipedia the total population of the island is around 18,000. The 2,000 cited by the OP comes out to 11% of the island population being represented in-game. Taking into consideration various factors that would lead to various segments of the population being less conspicuous than others (children for example) and therefore the fact that those segments would be less represented in the game, that means one could interpret that 11% to be much higher.

Also one must take into account decreasing marginal returns- each additional NPC would take roughly the same amount of technical resources to maintain (I'm no computer expert though, so I'm really just speculating), while adding less to the gampeplay experience. So even though having 3,000 NPC's might be mathematically closer to reality, if the last 1,000 are just placeholders, do they really add anything to the game, other than allowing you to cite a more impressive number when people ask how many NPC's there are?

[Maddmatt 1]

Also one must take into account decreasing marginal returns- each additional NPC would take roughly the same amount of technical resources to maintain (I'm no computer expert though, so I'm really just speculating), while adding less to the gampeplay experience. So even though having 3,000 NPC's might be mathematically closer to reality, if the last 1,000 are just placeholders, do they really add anything to the game, other than allowing you to cite a more impressive number when people ask how many NPC's there are?

Why do you think the game will track every civilian? That would just be stupid. It's a game, you fake it.

[pvt_ryan 10]

Why do you think the game will track every civilian? That would just be stupid. It's a game, you fake it.

Perhaps I was a bit unclear, but I certainly realize that only NPC's across the island wouldn't eat up the same amount of memory at any given time as one right next to you, but in the end the fact of the matter is that it takes up space if it's in the game. I trust BIS to make a good, informed decision on the matter because simply there's no reason or incentive for them not too.

[Tonci87 163]

I guess civilians will work just as in arma 2. If you approach a town, civies will spawn. If you go away, they get deleted

[Minoza 11]

I guess civilians will work just as in arma 2. If you approach a town, civies will spawn. If you go away, they get deleted

^^Exactly.

No need to have them eat any extra resources, since you can easily spawn them where and when needed.

[djfluffwug 10]

In the dynamic civ spawning, do civs have simplified movement if further away from the player then the closer ones?

I assume they would have implimented this but just clarifying.

[metalcraze 290]

I think not

I don't think it matters though - as was stated above they get simply removed and that distance is ~500m

[pvt_ryan 10]

^^Exactly.

No need to have them eat any extra resources, since you can easily spawn them where and when needed.

Of course, but this discussion shouldn't just be limited to the costs associated with physical memory, but also the time and effort it would require BIS to put into this as opposed as to some other feature. Of course, any suggestion has such an opportunity cost, but given that 2000 already seems like a fairly large number to me, I for one would rather have the developers put in more work on AI so at least there could be 2000 well-programmed civilians as opposed to 3000 not so well-programmed ones. Obviously it's all a matter of personal opinion though, and there will certainly people who hunger for an in-game society that's more realistic purely by numbers, I suppose.

[rye1 21]

If you spawn them then they don't exactly act like civs, having it as a module is best.