Massive Number Of Nil Instances

[0xD00TD00T]

So I came across a < thread > recently, where they used this line to calculate the number of Nil instances in their game:

return stats().InstanceCount - #game:GetDescendants()

So just out of curiosity, ran that on one of my games, which yielded this:

181,100??? That can’t be right. Let’s try just playing the game instead of running this in studio–

5,870. That seems a bit more reasonable, but still an awful lot of nil instances for a game that’s been running for less than a minute.

My question to you all is: Why? Why are there SO many nil instances in Studio in particular, but also so many even in a game that just started? If there a way to view these/clean them up?

[Prototrode (Vernumerator)]

One possible explanation is that the studio emulator is filled with dev-only tools that are hidden in the background, for example, the selection box whenever you select something.

Try this yourself, open up an empty baseplate and spawn in a part. Check the number of nil instances. Now, select the part with the selection tool. Recheck it. Select it again by clicking on it again and repeat. The nil instance count will magically grow.