Groups Limit Issue

[ShadowRanger24 50]

So, after working with a mission file which is used by a server which gets populated with over 100 players daily and has a 'group management' system, I have come to realize the issues with Arma 3's group system. As many of you may know, there is a 144 per side group limit in Arma 3. It cannot have over 144 groups at one time per side. If groups start getting created (or attempted to be created) when the amount of groups is high, issues start arising. Groups start bugging out and attempts to create new groups fail or attempts to add units to existing groups can be an issue as well. The thing is, having a cleanup system in to call deleteGroup on groups with no units (checking if (units _group isEqualTo [])) is not working. It does not seem to be removing groups properly. Here's a scenario I've had:

 

100 online players.

20 groups created with a 'group management' system

150 group count (count allGroups)

 

This is an example of the last time a gang system I have worked on has bugged out. The listed amount of players online and groups created above. We tried running the following code to clean up some groups:

 

{

    if ((units _x) isEqualTo []) then {

        deleteGroup _x;

    };

} forEach allGroups;

 

At first, running the above code didn't do anything at all, if so barely. The group count was still very high. Eventually it wen't back down, but not sure.

 

So ultimately, this group limit just seems to be causing so many issues, and I have no idea how to resolve it. Would be good if I could just put all of the civilians in 1 group who aren't in their own group but then that would make it so they can all see each other with hexagons around them etc. So I don't know what to do. Does deleteGroup have locality issues? Does it sometimes not work? Does anyone else experience group issues? Thanks in advance.

[wyattwic 38]

I remember having a similar issue once.  My solution was to place everyone in the same group, then in their init.sqf have them leave the group via "player join grpNull".

 

I haven't had to use this since Arma2, not sure if it will work in A3.

 

Based on what I have heard, the current release candidate will allow 288 groups, so there is that too.

[ShadowRanger24 50]

2 minutes ago, wyattwic said:

I remember having a similar issue once.  My solution was to place everyone in the same group, then in their init.sqf have them leave the group via "player join grpNull".

 

I haven't had to use this since Arma2, not sure if it will work in A3.

 

Based on what I have heard, the current release candidate will allow 288 groups, so there is that too.

Thanks for the reply. Are you sure that works? I'm pretty sure I've tried calling "player join grpNull" but that just recreates a random group for them, doesn't actually put them in a null group. As for that 288 groups limit, where did you hear this? If you could show me where it says that please do as it would definitely relieve me a bit haha.

[wyattwic 38]

I am not sure if it works or not.  I last used it in A2, I haven't had that issue with A3 since my missions typically involve no more than 64 players.

 

Here is where I saw it at, last edited by @killzone_kid on 1/5/17.  I dont remember when the RC is due for release, but it should be in the comming months.

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Group

 

[wyattwic 38]

Another thought.  Deletegroup is a local effect.  Try running that in a remoteexec.

[ShadowRanger24 50]

Yeah I'm thinking it might be possible deleteGroup might have a local effect. Will do some testing with that and remoteExec. Also with that 288 group limit, that will definitely be a relief. Can't wait.

[ShadowRanger24 50]

This is ridiculous. deleteGroup is not working. I'm calling it properly, I am checking the locality of the group, if its local, deleting it there otherwise on the server. This is not working though. The groups just keep stacking up and staying around 120-160 groups. I've got multiple checks in place to remove empty groups, but they are just refusing to get removed. Any ideas?

[ProfTournesol 956]

Are the groups empty ?

[ShadowRanger24 50]

1 minute ago, ProfTournesol said:

Are the groups empty ?

Yep, ran a script to show me all the groups with allGroups. A whole bunch of empty groups came up, even know they should be getting deleted. The units array on the group was empty on them all, [].

[ProfTournesol 956]

This page contains several info about issues with delegroup and a new command (such as deleteGroupWhenEmpty) : https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/deleteGroup

 

 

[ShadowRanger24 50]

4 minutes ago, ProfTournesol said:

This page contains several info about issues with delegroup and a new command (such as deleteGroupWhenEmpty) : https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/deleteGroup

 

 

I've tried everything I can. Went through all the info on that page but nothing seems to work. Do you know much about the deleteGroupWhenEmpty? I thought groups are meant to be auto-deleted anyways.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Nope i don't know more but i suppose that if that command was created recently (1.67) it's because there was issues.

[ShadowRanger24 50]

--Edit--

 

Alright so it turns out I got deleteGroup to work properly. Going to see how this goes now and see if I have any other issues.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

if  (({(alive _x)} count  (units  _x)) isEqualTo 0) then  { .... };