Maybe the ping/shout feature could limit the amount of shout pings to something like one per minute to keep it from being overwhelmed.
Instead of receiving multiple individual ping back messages from each user in range it could just collect all the received ping responses and display the total number of users in range in a single message.
Ping shout replies would also be received by other users who didn’t send out the ping shout request but their devices would not give any notification. Instead their device would save the quantity of users currently in range as well as the time stamp. This should also reduce the overal amount of ping shout requests sent out when many users are in close proximity since users will be able to see the results of others ping shout requests without needing to send out their own shout ping.
It would also be nice if permanent relay nodes would also ping back from the shout window showing how many relay nodes are currently in range. Then we would be able to get a better idea of our potential communication range.
There could be 3 user activated options/switch settings for shout pings.
1: ping users
2: ping relay nodes
3: disable auto shout ping replies (manual ping reply & or block all shout ping requests)