ok, so I have 500 clones each set to wait 2 seconds before joining.
total users: 29
+l 30
JOIN
+l 31
JOIN
+l 32
JOIN
+l 33
JOIN
+l 34
JOIN
+l 35
JOIN
+l 36
JOIN
+l 37
JOIN
...
That does NOTHING to stop the flood and all it does is now instead of just being flooded with joins, you are also flooded with +l sets. The eggdrop scripts that do the same thing have a MUCH larger period. They set it currentusers+5 or currentusers+10 and they only execute the timer every 5 or ten MINUTES. Setting it to go even every 5 seconds still won't stop a flood. Most of the bots are set to keep trying to join. So if it gets a +l error, it will just try and join again, and since 4 seconds later the +l is changed, it will now make it in.