Speaking The Truth
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Posts posted by Speaking The Truth
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8 hours ago, Boidster said:
The console (F1) will actually tell you when/why it's spawning things. It might offer clues.
So I couldn’t help myself and made a new file and sat on the top of a poi watching the console. It seemed to be constantly updating until night then suddenly I got some odd yellow text that stated:
WRN No chunk for position: (enter coordinates here) Followed by the types of entity’s:
players:1 zombies:0 entitys:3
I got this chunk of code repeating for a total of 4 times until it changed to:
WRN Calling Animator.GotoState on synchronize layer-followed by
players:1 Zom: 3 Entity:4
Shortly after that a dire wolf and spider zombie came knocking on the door as an aggressive entity and quickly killed me.
As such my theory still stands that the game absolutely spawns aggressive entity’s near the player for no reason other than the passing of time.
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2 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:
Its about as old school brute force base as you can get IMHO with no AI pathing tricks. I kind of thought it would be closer to your feel. It can easily be built into a POI. The fall back path being vertical instead of horizontal is a matter of semantics.
I would suggest giving it a try, its harder to manage than you think. I have been using it (one face anyway) in a MP play through (in the remnant Cathedral). It has been very underwhelming and been breached every horde night with doubled blocks. YMMV
Not sure of the night (28?) but his base does get breached... and bear in mind he is playing headshot only. The last horde night was his most intense by his own admission.
I didn’t have any problems with the escape ladder or anything like that. It is the ramps that lead them up to the floor that is a deal breaker for me. I want to build structures that focus on holding back the horde and killing them. I don’t really care for the idea of building a walkway for them to follow. Just a personal preference thing, I do think that the base idea is solid and I wouldn’t hold it against anyone if they choose to use it.
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On 2/6/2022 at 5:47 PM, 8_Hussars said:
Check out skippy0330 current Base Day 1 series for a good example of a bunker that works and is upgraded over time. I watched an A19 "Insane Vegan (no meat challenge) Max Hordes, Nightmare, Permadeath, Nomad player; play a Day 2 horde (random) with about 25 upgraded wood blocks and a Level 1 bone knife. They killed them all (and used a small loop) so there are many ways to skin the horde base cat. I encourage you to keep designing and experimenting.
I checked out day 7 and 14 of the suggested channel. Overall it was a pretty entertaining and fun looking base, however for myself I would still say that it takes advantage of the ai pathing too much. He basically built a tower with ramps to encourage the zombies to run up into a kill section, which is a viable method. I am looking more for something that looks and feels like a actual livable space, with multiple areas to fallback to, which then have similar style chokepoints to his. Think of the first nazi zombies if you have ever played it. In that game you typically start each level by trying to shoot the zombies that are breaking in, while repairing your barricades, but eventually you are pushed back into a corner where you must make a final stand. Im looking to replicate a similar concept, that will still blend in well with the surrounding environment and also still be able to hold its own. It's a bit of a challenge!
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16 minutes ago, Boidster said:
Obligatory, for me: there is no cheese. Did you have fun? Good. Did you survive? Double-plus good. (I'm all in favor of the devs making the "did you survive" part harder and harder with each patch.)
The scouts/screamers could be spawning due to base repairs, replacing traps, or normal forge-work/torches/other sources of heat. Any other zombie on the day after is probably just a biome spawn which was suppressed during the horde. The console (F1) will actually tell you when/why it's spawning things. It might offer clues.
Yes and no. The wandering hordes are spawned in with a target position calculated near a player at the time the horde was spawned. Their AI task is basically to walk to that point as though they had heard a noise there. They shouldn't have an actual target on the player unless they see/hear you using essentially normal detection rules. Now, if you're in/around your base when the wandering horde is spawned, then their target spot is likely very close to you and if they see you they'll do their normal thing, including bashing down your base. Are seeing behavior where you know for certain they haven't detected you and they beeline to your base and start bashing it?
Check the console as soon as you notice one of these. It will show some info I think about the horde spawn.
Thank you for the console tip, I will utilize this more in the future.
The zombie hordes that spawn don't seem to be the issue as they will do largely what you describe here. The dogs however will spawn in and run straight for me or my base and start attacking. I have even been outside and watched them spawn, then instead of running for me, they run up to my base and start attacking it, with nobody inside lol.
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41 minutes ago, Roland said:
That is much less true in Alpha 19-20 than it was for Alpha 17-18. There is currently code that assigns random zombies shorter path information so that they can't "see" the perfect least cost path to you although some still can. There are others that abandon paths altogether and go into destruction mode. The developers had to, in fact, dial back destruction mode a bit for Alpha 20.1 because too many were getting into that mode and getting stuck in it. So there is quite a bit of variety in behavior now
but
You may not notice it as much if your base's footprint is too small. If you are fighting in a base that is a 7x7 or smaller tower then even "short path" zombies will get around your base to the weak spot. I recently tried surviving a horde night on the ground floor of a standard brick POI which was probably more like a 20x15 sized structure and I had to repair blocks in several areas because the zombies with shorter path information were unaware of the near breaches on the other side of the POI so I did have a few different spots and they weren't all funneling to one place.
It's a tough balance. Maybe try surrounding your base with a wall that is 15 x 15 blocks and start the night fighting from the wall. If it breaches then you can fall back to your smaller base. I think you will find that there will be multiple places the zombies will be breaking on that wall because it is big enough to keep the short-pathers from finding an already existing weakness so they pound in a different spot.
This is very interesting and good to know, thank you for the pathing information. Oddly enough i felt like the previous versions had been forcing me to go into smaller compact builds and now it sounds the same compact builds may be my problem. I will try to take a villa or something next weekend and see if I can keep them from focusing on a single breach.
18 minutes ago, Roland said:efficient xp blender vs epic night of near death and breaches and fall backs and rallies. I've played horde night in bases that were so secure and easy for any horde night and I've played in bases that almost killed us. Fun for different reasons. I think I would personally avoid a base design only if it led me to boredom.
I am always trying to build the latter. It's really hard for me to make that base that provides a decent level of challenging, without getting immediately overrun, but it's also extremely easy to build something that will protect you with no challenge. It's very disheartening when you prepare a base for 7 days with multiple fallback points and die on the first hour and the horde disappears or build it so good that the horde doesn't push you back, so you never get to test or utilize all of those neat escape tunnels and fallback points lol.
Your last post encouraged me though. Next weekend I'm going mega big, with multiple safe rooms, tunnels and assorted traps...and beer! Gona be a good time I hope, despite my two gripes, this really is still the best zombie survival game on the market.
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7 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:
That's absolutely untrue. Nothing spawns a screamer except heat so............. think what you may but it is NOT the game progressively throwing you "sample" zombies. Just not at all what it happening.
The second again is not what is happening. The wandering hordes do NOT have an "attack base" command order given to them. Period. End of sentence. Full Stop. They have a path near you then IF they see you they aggro against you. Nothing aggros them against your base unless you are in it when they see you and they enter destroy area to get to you.
1. I see that you have a good bit of posts and have some experience, so I will take some of what you say as true and try to do some more testing to see what is really happening, but I am telling you that in my games i consistently get these sample spawns after every horde night. It's a thing I tell you!
2. I never suggested that zombies have an attack base function. You are twisting my post up, I said that they will spawn near the player as an aggressive entity and attack the base if I am near it. This is usually because of the ai pathing, and I believe they think that my base is an obstacle in their way to me. An unalerted normal zombie will simply walk into my spikes or go around the base where as these *random spawns will start attacking which adds to my initial theory that they have been spawned in to hunt the player.
26 minutes ago, Roland said:here are more but my point is simply that players can choose how far they wish to go in using their knowledge of zombie behavior against the zombies. A method is usually labeled as "cheesy" by those who don't use that method and feel that that method took less effort for better result than the one they are using.
First off sorry for shortening the post in the quote, i read the entire thing and it was a really good response that I'll be referring to in whole, I just didn't want my next reply to look like a wall of bricks lol. I think you did a really good job at breaking down the concepts behind a base defense and it's helped me decide on what my primary concern is with a standard horde night. Ultimately, I don't have a problem with other players using what I consider cheese bases, I see now that by using that term I have made a few players think that I am advocating for the removal of these and I'm really unconcerned with how others play in their own game.
In your three stages of a base defense every single strategy involves either predicting or manipulating the ai pathing system. Now some players have pointed out that I am still doing the same thing by using traps at all, which is a fair point, however I do believe my methods do it to a lesser extent and I think that there is a happy medium here. Afterall the entire game is as you've said a tower defense game and if the zombies attacked with zero predictability, then our base building and strategies would probably be less enjoyable. So with everything you and others have said I would like to refine my original post topic number 2...
I do not think that the AI should be constantly searching for the quickest and easiest route to the player. I think that on spawn the AI should decide on one path to the player and the travel path should only update interrupted by damage, or by having their travel path get updated. Additionally, I think that the games AI should pick out a path from a pool of options that is +/- 20% efficiency from the quickest and easiest route. This will ensure that as zombies spawn in they will stay on their pre-determined path unless interrupted. As a result the zombies would come bashing into a players fortified home from multiple different entry points which would allow a player to make use of a perimeter defense, rather than a funnel defense. By keeping the travel path at or near 80% efficiency we can still allow players to create a single-entry funnel point if they prefer.
My new and refined gripe with the current state of horde night is that the only viable base defense is not necessarily cheese, but rather the player is forced to create a funnel for the zombies. This can be changed by lowering settings, but the zombie behavior would stay the same and such they still all pile up in the single most efficient path, which I believe ruins emersion in the game.
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6 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:
I understand, it doesn't seem to fit your play style anymore but that really is a function of laying your conceptions of how the game "should" be played onto the game and not the game mechanics itself. Players are fee to play anyway they want in the big sandbox.
To be fair those examples you provided are somewhat dated and I do not think anyone builds a loop base to just hold out until 0400 not killing zombies. They build loops to ensure their DPM matches or exceeds the zombies. I for one perfer melee play and find the almost mandatory reliance on guns/ammo in late game gets tiresome.
In your case having multiple defenses and fall back points is good strategy. But it could be argued that spike trenches and choke points are just another way that a player "exploits" the zombie AI (to ensure DPM matches the incoming zombies), just in a way that feels more natural to you. You also have to lead them along the path to all the defenses...
Check out skippy0330 current Base Day 1 series for a good example of a bunker that works and is upgraded over time. I watched an A19 "Insane Vegan (no meat challenge) Max Hordes, Nightmare, Permadeath, Nomad player; play a Day 2 horde (random) with about 25 upgraded wood blocks and a Level 1 bone knife. They killed them all (and used a small loop) so there are many ways to skin the horde base cat. I encourage you to keep designing and experimenting.
Thanks for the referrals, I’ll check them out and get back to you an what I think of them. It is fair to say that I have predetermined conceptions of how the game should be played, but my concern is not that the exploitive bases exist. Rather my concern is that on default difficulty the exploitive bases are really the only viable way to build now. You have said that players are free to play any way they want, which is exactly what I am advocating for.
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1 hour ago, Blasphemous said:
Note from me on base building: I go for the "sacrificial anode".
To explain, it's a tower base where I live upstairs but the first 6-high blocks are steel, typically 10x10.
Sure, in the early stages, it's concrete but eventually I upgrade.
I build a 12x12 ring at the top, made from narrow blocks which extend beyond the walls and just nuke zombies banging at the foundation walls, with contact grenades and later rockets.
Funny part is, in 19.6, the zombies actually tried to burrow through the steel to collapse the base, I had to relocate around the circle so they'd bang on fresh walls.
In A20, the zombies just... pile in one spot world-war-z-style, without attacking the actual base. And still get nuked with explosives. I'm not even trying to cheese them at this point but this base design has worked for me for a looong time and its utterly simple.
My conclusion is that whatever the pimps do with the AI, inevitably some designs will be more resilient, some less so.
I went for the funnel-tunnel type with hatches, but they seem to be able to dig through 10 hatches, 21k HP each on a single horde night and that's impressive. After that, I just move back to my tower and nuke whatever's left. I play 64 zombie hordes.
This has been my experience as well. The horde bases can be easily designed to survive without much struggle, or they can end up being a giant nightmare. Its hard to design a base that meets in the middle. I'd like to have multiple layers with strategic fall back points, but this is no longer a viable strategy.
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What i mean by that is that when I open my game menu looking for defense solutions I am presented with traps and defensive structures to build, so I would argue that these are the games intended tactics, however in effect they are largely ineffective and the primary method of defending a base is to take advantage of the AI travel path, such as leading them along an endless loop. I don't want to remove the latter because there are some players who like it, but I think it's fair to say that it is not really an intended style of play.
8 hours ago, ElDudorino said:About the wolves, they killed me on my first game but after that I was aware of them so I was able to turn them into meat instead of the other way around. They don't know where you are when they spawn
7 hours ago, Rotor said:I believe that to be true. Atleast for a few seconds for sure. I was running back to base one day really early in game, but forget D#. The pack spawned like 50m in front, not sure, but effing close, I could not avoid them fast enough, but they ran past me
So that initial wolf back I am referring to definitely knows your location. Ive been underground hiding in a dark basement doing nothing and have had them spawn in and run straight into the building, aggroing on the blocks in their way. I have had instances when they have ran past me but only if im outside and away from anything they can destroy, so yes to some extent they dont know your EXACT location, but the idea that entitys will spawn pre aggroed and put on a pre-determined path to your location in such a obvious manner is annoying to me. Is it manageable? Yes, but I think that if the developers insist on spawning threats like that near the player then they should spawn like the zombies and not be aggroed from the beginning.
7 hours ago, BarryTGash said:'d suggest turning ai block damage down if you want to avoid tower defence, bunker-style bases. In addition, or instead, you could turn off bloodmoon hordes and try a larger wandering horde mod, or something like Khaine's Wandering Horde Frequency mod, which is configurable. Wandering hordes don't specifically target the player, they wander near by, so if you're not paying attention you could still get a nasty surprise but the choice is yours whether you engage, assuming you notice them before they notice you
This is realistically the perfect solution to my problem. I have always been hesitant on adjusting too many settings (I tend to leave everything default except for horde size to max, because giant hordes are fun!), because I've felt like the devs have designed their default settings to be the optimal balance between challenge and fun but I no longer think that this is the case. I do enjoy challenging horde nights and i want to still have my bases breached, with the threat of them being destroyed, but on the default settings the ai is just too efficient and tends to bypass my defenses by the first 2-3 hours, unless i cheese. Thanks for convincing me, to finally take that leap and start adjusting settings. Unfortunately, this probably means i won't be able to discuss balance issues in the future, but then again maybe thats why nobody else seems too concerned about it,
3 hours ago, JCrook1028 said:1. Day has nothing to do with wandering horde spawns. it's all related to gamestage.
2. Yes they do know where you are BUT their path is NOT directly to you, they run on a tangent to you. Quite often they will pass you by entirely without seeing you to aggro. They then reach the end of their pathing and disband into normal biome zombies wandering about.
1. I don't think this is true. The wolves could be related to gamestage, but i have noticed that after every horde night the next special zed is spawned, On day 8 a screamer spawns outside my base. On day 15 a spider spawns, on day 22 a cop spawns...now it could be total coincidence with my game stage and the actual day, but I believe that each one of these zombies spawn near the player after each horde night in that same order, its's a way notify the player that these threats will now start to spawn in. It's an introduction of sorts.
2. Honestly that part is irrelavent though, the primary concern is that they know your location and it dosen't matter if I am crouched in the dark being sneaky, they still spawn in as angry zeds and will start attacking your base if you are near it. I've learned to go out after every horde night now, to prevent these spawns from getting near my base, but this is crossing the line into exploitive territory for me.
3 hours ago, PoppaSmirk said:Interesting post, and I will slightly agree with one point, there does seem to be a feeling that Players are being a bit nudged to adapt a playstyle that takes certain directions. Supplies in loot for some items have become so limited that it does "feel" as if players are being shoved toward taking many more 'Traders Missions" to make any headway. I certainly feel pushed to go into the Wastelands at a much earlier stage than I used to start visiting it in previous Alphas. As for the wolves issue, I notice certain patterns in most of My playthroughs, right now I notice that as soon as the timer hits 22:00 hours I can practically see the wild animal population spawning in as I putt-putt along a road on minibike heading back to My base. I also have it almost timed about which day I will go outside at 4:00 am and see Buddy Bear sauntering up and down the street very near to My Base. The 'rot'-weilers that show up in packs of 4 or 5 are usually My ..."look out for trouble" item, as they do show up in My game around every 4th day or so. So, its not necessarily a bad thing, as one that I find more of a pattern, and I just suppose that I don't expect everything within the game to be totally random. Some elements are added just to give some extra action I suppose. I do hope that you find your happy medium in zomb activity though.
You said it best, and this is what I have been looking for. Nobody seems to be discussing this and I was starting to believe that the game was just picking on me lol. Thats my main problem with it. It's not that they are un-manageable (although 4-5 feral dogs on day 4 is a bit much), but that the it feels like the game is forcing the player into certain fights, just because it wants to. I think that a happy medium could be to remove the aggro state when they spawn in, but honestly I just dont like things spawning right next to me for a fight, especially when im just out chopping wood or something. I will be tweaking my settings in the future, I'm just happy that someone else has actually observed the spawning patterns too.
2 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:I was under the impression that the wolf pack was just one version of a "wandering horde" out of a few. A bunch of vultures and a dog pack being options, in addition to a Quality Street assortment of stock zombies as well. My most recent start had a Dire Wolf showing up on my elevated "safe" place during night one (it maneuvered around a horizontal elevated open door, my bad). For me, it was not a welcome surprise and a bit over the top for night one. However, its all just part of the game and it doesn't happen often enough to be noteworthy. YMMV
Those random hordes you mention are welcome additions to the game for me, but what i am discussing is not one of those. Those hordes spawn near the player on a set path and can be avoided, fought or whatever. The wolf pack I am talking about will always show up, around the same time in every single playthrough and their sole objective is to hunt and kill the player, wherever you are. The other weird thing about these threats is that they disappear after they kill you, unlike other wandering hordes that stay or move on, which even adds to the idea that the game just likes to bully the player at times.
2 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:I am a noob at Tower Defense but obviously a player only has so much DPM. A players very limited choice on how to manage DPM vs Zombie balance to ensure their DPM is enough at any given point during the horde; is through, block mass, path timing, passive and active traps, increasing DPM, or some combination of all of them
Yes, you would think that DPM is the solution...or block mass, or path timing etc...but they are not. In the default settings, the timespan for 7 days is not enough for the player to build enough defenses, or block mass to stop hold back the horde and manage their food, water and resources at the same time. The only viable solution you mentioned is path timing, which is what the majority of successful bases do now. They don't try to fight or hold back a horde anymore, but instead they just lead the zombies through a circuit until the morning comes. There are exceptions to this rule...some players build super high and just let the zombies smack at the bottom of their base the whole night and others will drive around in vehicles to prevent damage to their base. However the strategy still comes down to either avoiding the horde, or manipulating it. The average player who wants to build a spiked up, electric death fort will find their hard work quickly torn asunder, unless they manipulate the ai into one single track path.
2 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:Meh, I see it differently. It's all about managing zombie AI vs a players DPM. I do not think that there is any such thing as a "legit" horde base. They all exploit the zombie AI through one or a combination of the above limited choices.
Well I really enjoy this game because it allows me to live out my own scenarios for how I personally would survive the zombie apocalypse. You know that age old question you ask friends in real life? The whole "Where would you go during the zombie apocalypse, what weapon would you use, etc...this game allows me to live out those fantasy's...or at least it use to. Legit is probably the wrong choice of words here, but here is an example of a base i had tried to build for awhile:
I built a large farmhouse that was walled off, a spike trench surrounding it and a draw bridge. The house itself was mostly decorative with some nicely placed turrets for a bit of fire support, but the farmhouse had a bunker that I expanded and this is where the real killing and defense took place. The idea was pretty simple and straightforward, i would man the walls outside of the house for a bit and snipe high priority zeds as they make their way across the spike trench. As they breached the walls I would fall back to the farmhouse and take out a few more with the turrets, until they breached the building. Then I would fall back to the bunker and wait for the zeds to come and make a last stand. It sounds great on paper and the base felt like it fit the lore and theme of the world around me.
In previous versions It actually worked somewhat, but now the zeds just seem to be way too efficient. They now know the weakest point of your base and as soon as that part gets breached the others will all pile in through that one opening. They will run around the vault door you just fell back to and instead tunnel into your bunker from above, if it's an easier breach point. Or they will find some crazy alternative path to your base, such as scaling a rock and jumping over your walls. This has forced players to focus less on building a strong base and to focus more on predicting the path they will take. The end result are bases that either leave a specific area very open, to lead the zombies into the breach, or to create a base that endlessly leads them around until morning. On default settings it is no longer viable to simply build a strong bunker without specific breach points and I think that is a problem.
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3 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:
But it is one of those things you learn to develop a sense of 'gotta stay away from all that for the time being'
That’s my problem with point number one. You can’t. On day number 4 (or around that time, not sure what triggers it) I am consistently attacked by a dog horde that knows exactly where I am. I have tested this on multiple play throughout and there is no rhyme or reason to it. I have been out chopping trees, or hiding in a baddy for the night and they still come. Most of the time I just club them or something and it’s free meat, but the point is that the game will occasionally spawn entity’s near the player that immediately know your location and go feral, which overall is an unfair mechanic.
3 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:What do you consider 'natural and in sync with the game?'
I consider a natural in sync base to be something that highlights the promoted defense mechanisms provided to the player. The pyramid was just an example, but just visualize any horde base that is actually successful beyond the first few horde nights and you will find a common theme, where the base is more focused on predicting/manipulating ai pathing to either lead zeds into a death trap or simply stall zeds until the the morning. Both tactics are viable and I don’t have a problem with them, but neither is a promoted mechanic within the confines of the in game defenses and if you try to rely on those defenses alone, with default settings (except for horde value up to 64) your defenses will fail every single time.
4 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:You're meant to learn from those clutch moments. And while I wont just come out and spit the 'git gud' trope, but sometimes a little bit of self examination makes all the difference.
I just wanted to express my gratitude to this bit right here. You are making it clear that you disagree with me, without being disrespectful. There is not enough of this as of late and I appreciate the response to the topic. If you have any further refutations then fire away!
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Created an account just to express these two concerns/complaints I have with the game.
1. The first issue is that I’ve noticed on every 4th day or so I get a random pack of wolves, or feral dogs attack me out of nowhere. Nobody seems to be discussing but it has existed for quite awhile and frankly it’s more annoying than anything else. It doesn’t matter how stealthy I am being, a pack of 2-4 wolves spawn in an immediately home in on my location. The pack itself is a manageable threat now that I have built some experience, but it feels cheap when dying to the early stages because the game just decides to rush you with some wolves out of nowhere. How has nobody complained about this, is mind boggling to me.
2. This complaint is more serious for me. The horde nights are either way too easy or way too hard. Every base design out there that can actually withstand a 7th day horde looks like some crazy cement pyramid or some other oddly shaped contraption that stands out like a sore thumb with the rest of the environment. These base designs feel exploitive and dumb, to which I say-to each’s own. If you want to live inside a cheese grater then be be my guest, however...if you opt to live in a horde base that feels natural and in sync with the game, then you better be prepared to to receive a beating. It seems like the players who are designing the Uber powerful horde bases that are exploitive and boring are the same players that the developers are trying to kill. Therefore anyone who wants to play legit with a horde base that doesn’t exploit ai will get utterly rekt.
in short: This game has transformed from “player vs zombie” to “player vs ai”
Those are my ONLY two complaints with the game. This is my favorite zombie game because it allows players to have the freedom to survive the zombie apocalypse however they imagined. Every update feels like a push to play in a certain direction and it’s pushing me away.
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2 issues
in General Discussion
Posted
Aggressive was the wrong word, I should have said alert. You know when you make too much noise and zombies start knocking down your door? That’s what is going on except without the noise. No light source, default settings, and crouched in a dark attic just watching the console menu. I was in a neighborhood on a random gen.
If I move into the house during the day and then move outside on top of a big rock then I am able to see the wolf pack spawn in and instead of running after me, they run to the house that I cleared and start attacking it, until they get inside. Then they turn around and go after me. No mods are installed at this time.
I really appreciate you trying to investigate this rather than just calling me crazy. This reminds me of the days when players swore up and down that zombies were spawning behind them and the fun pimps would just deny the mechanic.
as far as your mod suggestion, I think that it is an awesome idea, and I again commend your methods of bringing science into this topic, but I think I’m just going to give up, I don’t know what’s wrong with my games, but apparently nobody else has the problem, so I suppose it’s not as important as I originally thought. I did find a post in 2019 from Roland that gave me a bit of useful information as well and maybe just some piece of mind that I’m not crazy:
”Random spawns, they aren’t supposed to spawn right behind you out of thin air in the open but they can spawn behind you around a corner out of sight. Any place that isn’t in line of sight is fair game for spawning.
Each chunk has a spawning mask that enables after the full number of zombies have been killed for that biome. Once that mask triggers nothing else spawns until the timer finishes. In the forest biome that is 4-5 days.By comparison the Wasteland biome has a much shorter mask.
But while zombies are still in queue to be spawned because you haven’t fully cleared the area they will spawn out of sight even if that is around the corner of a building a few meters away.
Now, as always, latency can make it so that the zombie suddenly moves rapidly right up behind you. If you take the time to thoroughly clear the surrounding area of all zombies until it is clear that no more are spawning in then you shouldn’t have to worry about something sucker punching you from behind.
I’m playing a mod that increases environmental spawns by 4x and it has really emphasized the need to completely clear the entire surrounding area and a set number of new zombies keep spawning in until you empty the queue and then you have peace for a time.”