1. A method for packet flooding over a computer network comprising two or more network node devices, each of the network node devices comprising at least one transceiver device and a processor that implements a data communications protocol to communicate data to other ones of the network node devices, wherein the data sent is divided into data packets, the method comprising: (a) maintaining, in each of the network node devices, a system-wide global flooding threshold setting; (b) maintaining, in each of the network node devices, a count of neighbor network node devices; (c) for a received packet that specifies flooding, comparing the threshold setting maintained in step (a) to a number of neighbor network node devices of each neighbor network node device; (d) if it is determined in step (c) that the count is below the threshold setting, using a unicast transmission to forward the received packet to each of the neighbor network node devices in turn; and (e) if it is determined in step (c) that the count is at or above the threshold setting, forwarding the received packet to each of the neighbor network nodes, wherein step (e) comprises using a broadcast.