Change building system to Claim Block (or use existing building ID). (different Claim Blocks for different claim sizes).
Advantage of Claim Block would be for server operator to define how many claims are allowed and in which size. (you can only build within one Claim, expandable by setting an additional Claim Block)
Scalable size class of the building by server setting. (Server message if size class is exceeded with x time to scale down, otherwise structure is deleted)
Sizes class can be determined using the number of following criteria.
Example:
Building Parts Factor Building Parts: 0.005
Placeables Factor Placeables 0.15
Lighting Factor Light 0.35
Example formula:
((Factor Placeables 0.15 * 30 Placeables ) + (Factor Lights 0.35 * 10 Lights) + (Factor Building Parts: 0.005 * 2000 Building Parts)) / 3 = Sizes Class 6
With this example formula you can put weight (factor) on the parts of the game that consume the most server resources. (adjustable via server settings of the maximum allowed class on the server, e.g. max. possible class would be 20 the server allows only up to class 10.
Advantage would be that server operators can adjust the allowed builds to existing hardware performance and that this system is maintenance free and works without work of administrators.
The database contains all the information needed for calculation.
This is only a rough idea from me for a possible approach to deal with the construction and land claims.
I expect many of these issues can be resolved with the right mod. Pippi for example has lots of options for land claim radius and all sorts of other server management tools.
The Pippi mod is unfortunately not developed further and could break with the 3.0 update. It’s also about it should be included in the vanilla game to fix problems on official servers.
As a server owner, I would like the system I’m proposing because it would save me some work.
With the claim block you could define a construction area, e.g. 50x60, 40x40 or 70x30 (fixed coded or via server setting), construction should only be possible on the claim including torches and placeables.
If you want an outpost or you want to expand a structure you have to create a new claim (limited by the personally / clan available claim blocks).
I think something like this would be excellent for a mod author to try (maybe even a first time mod author?). Then it could be studied and tweaked on a private server by people who are invested in it. Then, if it is workable (and I do appreciate the concept) it would have examples of how people adapted to it thru play before Funcom needed to devote resources to it. The problem with the Funcom resource first approach is that it doesn’t likely rise to the top of their “need to do” stack. Perhaps a mod author may read this and decide its interesting enough as a test case (and learning experience) to try on their own. The first question I have is, do the placeables have a tag on them that allows them to he counted differently or would a manual table need to he generated for the items, and as battlepass stuff becomes available, is there an automated way of grouping them so the author wasn’t manually adding data table entries…