How to stop Grass Gekko spawns without mods

[zzKratoszz]

I have seen several posts asking about Grass Gekkos and how to turn them off in a pre-existing games. The main concern seems to stem from grass farms packing their bags and leaving. This peaked my interest and I decided to look into their lua file for possible solutions or workarounds. 

Spoiler

 

These 2 lines of code caught my eye.

if #TheSim:FindEntities(x, y, z, 10, { "grassgekko" }) < 8 then

local gekko = SpawnPrefab("grassgekko")

The "10" stands for distance and the "< 8" is the spawn threshold. (feel free to correct me if I am wrong)

To put this knowledge to the test we need to know 1 more thing. How big is 1 distance? As seen in this image, 1 distance is the same size of 1 wall; and 1 tile is the same as 4 distance. So in theory, as long as we have 8 or more Grass Gekkos with in 10 distance of our grass, no more Grass Gekkos should spawn.

I decided to put this theory to the test using trial and error (also godmode) and made an 8X8 enclosure. I used 8X8 instead of 10X10 in case hugging the walls glitched the Grass Gekkos into the next tile. I planted grass, fertilized it, and picked grass until my inventory was full. In conclusion, I can find 1 of 2 things to be true. Either A I just got lucky and some how never caused more spawns after the first 8. Or B no Grass Gekkos can spawn when 8 or more are already near by.

http://imgur.com/a/OaNZT

I would like to stress 1 more thing. The images show an 8X8 area of grass. 10X10 should be perfectly legal and can easily hold a stack and a half of grass not counting the Grass Gekkos.

[DarkXero]

TheSim:FindEntities(x, y, z, 10, { "grassgekko" })

This returns a table with all entities that have the tag "grassgekko", that are within a 10 units radius.

#

This operator returns the number of entities on the table.

< 8

This is a number comparison.

Therefore

if #TheSim:FindEntities(x, y, z, 10, { "grassgekko" }) < 8 then

means "if the number of entities with the grasgekko tag is less than 8, within a 10 units radius".

 

B is correct.

[zzKratoszz]

Thanks. That is exactly how I read the argument (thanks non lua but math reading skills) but I wasn't entirely sure. The reason the body is so long is because I needed to be sure this wasn't another gobbler. Even though the gobbler has stupid damage it never actually attacks anyone.