khzmusik

I did not make feral versions, and I did not make radiated versions. I'm not quite sure what I would have to do to create these - UMA zombies use a different controller than the rest of the zombies, and I'm not sure what I would need to do to change their behavior. I'm also not sure how (or if) I could get the green glow for the radiated versions. But, I also haven't even looked into it. If this is something that you would like to see, I can try it out. But right now I'm focusing on the modlets for the NPCs, since I'm more interested in that. So, you'd have to wait a while, unless you'd like to try your hand at it yourself. (If I can do it, you probably can too.) Also - what other UMA zombies are you using? I'm just curious to see what else is out there. Everyone else seems to be going the way of the Creature Pack zombies, which are not UMA (and have much better performance as a result).

They will not entirely replace the vanilla zombies, they are in addition to the vanilla zombies. I set it up so that they spawn with the "most appropriate" vanilla zombies - for example, zombie Vince (with his football helmet) spawns in the same groups as vanilla football player zombies. Because UMA zombies are resource hogs, they have a relatively small chance of spawning. It's possible to modify the spawn percentages in the XML if you think your computer can handle them. Just bump up the "prob" attribute in entitygroups.xml. If you know XML and XPath, it's pretty easy to modify the entitygroups.xml yourself to totally replace the vanilla zombies, if that's what you want to do. EDIT: There's a pretty detailed readme in the repo, if you want to create your own: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-...ik_UMA_Zombies

Hey, Xyth. I finally have enough free time to get back to my puny modlets. I've been trying to update them for the new Creature Pack system, and for the most part I have them working. But, my modlet to remove NPC tracking doesn't work any more. At your suggestion, I did this (which used to work): The NPCs may not have an icon, but their names still show up on the map. Any idea how to fix this? Also, thanks for the hard work - the NPCs are really good nowadays.

Quick update... As I'm sure you all could guess, the modlets that are modifying the Xyth NPC/Bandit modlets are no longer working since he moved over to Creature Pack. I have created updated/renamed versions of most modlets, but they are currently in another branch in Gitlab. I will update the main post when all is ready.

So, I just noticed this in the A18.4 exp bug fixes: Do you think this might fix the bug where turrets target hired NPCs? (Even if the turrets don't damage the NPCs, it still wastes ammo, and breaks immersion.)

Just the news that you'd be releasing the base version is very welcome news indeed. "Several weeks" is also not very long in the grand scheme of things. This is really starting to look like a game changer, literally. Can't wait to see where it ends up.

All of this is good to hear. But, regarding question 2 - I probably wasn't clear enough, even with the edit. My question was about creating "categories" of sleeper volumes, specifically for POI designers, so they can make a creature-dedicated POI that wouldn't have to be changed if another modder adds different creatures. (By "creature-dedicated" I mean things like a bandit camp, survivor-owned house, bunker guarded by mechs, etc.) I'm sure you know this, but for the benefit of people who don't, this is what you need to do to create a custom sleeper volume that spawns (certain kinds of) creatures: In gamestages.xml, a named group node, which includes a spawner node, referencing a spawner node (below) by name In gamestages.xml, a named spawner node (usually with "horde" in the name), which includes one or more gamestage nodes, referencing one or more entity groups (below) by name In entitygroups.xml, one or more entitygroup nodes, which includes one or more entity nodes, referencing an entity_class node by name (those are created by the creature designers) Here is the issue. The POI designers will only see the names of the group node in the UI. So, in order for POI designers to have consistent spawn groups, and for creature designers to add their NPCs to this group, the names of all those nodes should be standardized. TFP do this by creating "categories" of each. For example, the group nodes have names that describe their general "context" (purpose, or "kind" of POI): "abandoned house," "ghost town," "lab worker," and so forth. If we all could come up with a standardized name for all of these XML nodes, then creature designers could simply add their creations to the related entitygroup nodes - and they would automatically show up in sleeper volumes of POIs, without either modder even having known about the other. But, to do this, we'd need input from POI designers, since they'd know best what "kind" of creature they'd want to add to their sleeper volumes. As only one example: if you're converting one of the existing "survivor" POIs to include friendly NPCs, you'd want at least one spawn group for the NPCs in the lookout towers, and a different spawn group for the NPCs hanging out in the tents. That's probably not something that needs to happen until all these NPCs are stable. But if this is going to be the "semi-official" way to include NPCs (and if you can pull off what you want, I hope it will be), then it will be something we all should start thinking about.

I have to say, I'm really liking where this is going. I did like your DMT NPCs as well, but the lack of NPC variety was limiting. I have a couple of general questions: How will other modders create additional NPCs? Through XML only (similar to UMA) or will they need to create new Unity assets? You mentioned custom weapons through XML, but not things like different clothing, armor, skin color, etc. Is there a plan for adding these NPCs to POI sleeper volumes (EDIT: for NPC-only POIs)? For instance, a set list of groups and spawners for gamestages.xml and the matching entity groups? Is this in the Mod Launcher yet? EDIT: forgot one... Are the characters that are currently in your DMT NPC pack, going to be ported to this mod? Obviously this is all still pretty new, so if I can offer any help or suggestions, let me know.

Just so everyone knows: this is now fixed in the latest version of SphereIICore. If you want to add NPCs to sleeper volumes, add this to their entity classes: <property name="SleeperInstantAwake" value="true" /> They will spawn in active and wandering around.

Thanks! re: craftable beds - I don't think I've crafted a single bed in my 1.5K hours of gameplay, so I honestly didn't know they could serve as spawn points. You learn something new every day. I should be able to remove those too, in the same way I removed the bedrolls. EDIT: done. The bed/rolls remaining craftable (and pick-uppable and such), yet not serving as spawn points, would definitely require C# coding, which I'm trying to avoid for the moment. I have recently discovered dnSpy and Harmony though. Maybe if I have enough free time, but likely not. re: kicking the player from the server, deleting saves, etc. - That would require even more C# coding, and has the potential to cause a lot of problems, especially if we're talking about a MP server. I'm not sure I would even want to try that. In any case, I intentionally am not trying to mod in "permadeath." I don't want to lose the game world, I only want to start as a new character. Think of character death in State of Decay. (It was one of the few things I enjoyed about State of Decay.) I'm still trying to find the right term for that, if you know of one.

I put together a few modlets for my own enjoyment. I'm releasing them to the public, and I hope you find them useful. They can be installed by putting their contents into the 7D2D Mods folder, or by installing them using the Mod Launcher. I recommend using the Mod Launcher: http://7d2dmodlauncher.org Thanks to SphereII for including them in the Mod Launcher! Detailed installation instructions are in the Gitlab repo: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets Additionally, each modlet now has its own individual README file. These files can be read on the Web by going to the modlet's directory in the GitLab repo. The README files have many details about installation and usage, including whether it is recommended to create a new game world, as well as technical details about the creation of the modlet. Instead of leaving detailed descriptions in this post, I will instead point you to the individual README files. This is because those files are updated with the modlet itself, so will contain up-to-date information. There are quite a few modlets, and most are very small. That is intentional. Each modlet is meant to be something like a feature flag or game setting. You should be able to easily pick and choose which one(s) you want to use, without any extra "features" you don't want. Their small size also means they should be easy to modify, or to learn from, so that you can use them for your own purposes. Please do, they are free as in "free beer" and as in "freedom." Credit is appreciated, but even that is not required - go nuts! Stand-alone modlets These modlets do not have any dependencies on other mods or modlets. They use XML and XPath, and do not require SDX/DMT or changes to any .dll files. They may be used with or without EAC enabled, and may be installed on any multiplayer server. No Bedrolls https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/khzmusik_No_Bedrolls Updated to version 2.0.0 Removes the ability of beds and bedrolls to act as spawn points, or protect against zombie spawns. New in version 2.0.0: Beds and bedrolls are once again craftable (they are now merely ornamental). It is designed to be used with "dead is mostly dead" play styles. Upon death, the player is respawned in the same game world, with a "new" character (as opposed to "dead is dead" where the entire game world is lost or reset). It is inspired by player character deaths in State of Decay, though it's not possible to re-create that exactly in 7D2D. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/khzmusik_No_Bedrolls/README.md I also wrote a "manifesto" about the "dead is mostly dead" play style. Here's a link to that forum post: Reset Skills On Death https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/khzmusik_Reset_Skills_On_Death On death, this modlet will reset (not remove) skill points, and remove all books read. It is also designed to be used with "dead is mostly dead" play styles. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/khzmusik_Reset_Skills_On_Death/README.md UMA Zombies https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/khzmusik_UMA_Zombies These are zombie versions of the vanilla UMA archetypes. This modlet is almost certainly compatible with other modlets that add other zombies or NPCs. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/khzmusik_UMA_Zombies/README.md Modlets for SphereII DMT Mods These are modifications to SphereII modlets. These modlets require DMT. Installation instructions are in the above thread. (My modlets are XML/XPath only.) Forum topic for SphereII DMT Mods: Thanks to SphereII for making these incredibly useful modlets! Remove Enemy Health Bar https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/0-SphereIICore_Remove_Enemy_Health_Bar Switches off the enemy health bar that is introduced in the SphereII Core modlet. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/0-SphereIICore_Remove_Enemy_Health_Bar/README.md NPC Hire Text https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/SphereII NPC Dialog Windows_Hire_Text Sets the NPC hire text to "I would like you to join me." This makes more sense if you modify the NPCs to "hire" them using something other than Dukes, like canned food or medical supplies. (This modlet does not do that, it only changes the text.) For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/SphereII NPC Dialog Windows_Hire_Text/README.md NPC modlets These modlets affect the NPCs that are added by the CreaturePack modlets (which do not require DMT), or the DMT NPC modlets (which require DMT and add extra behavior), or both. Forum topic for CreaturePack NPCs: Forum topic for DMT NPCs: Huge thanks to Xyth for creating the modlets, and to all the people who created the NPCs themselves (including Xyth, Guppy, DarkStarDragon, and probably more by the time you read this). NPCPackHumans: Adjust Health and Stamina https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/tree/master/1-NPCPackHumans_Adjust_Health_Stamina Adjusts the health and stamina of human NPCs to be closer to player values. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/1-NPCPackHumans_Adjust_Health_Stamina/README.md NPCPackHumans: Adjust Hire Costs https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/tree/master/1-NPCPackHumans_Adjust_Hire_Costs Adjusts the hire costs of human NPCs. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/1-NPCPackHumans_Adjust_Hire_Costs/README.md CreaturePackHumans/NPCPackHumans: Remove Ghost https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/tree/master/2-CreaturePackHumans_Remove_Ghost Removes the Ghost (Motoko Kusanagi) NPC character from all spawn groups. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/2-CreaturePackHumans_Remove_Ghost/README.md CreaturePackHumans/NPCPackHumans: Remove Harley https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/tree/master/2-CreaturePackHumans_Remove_Harley Removes the Harley Quinn NPC character from all spawn groups. NOTE: This modlet is currently unnecessary, since she is was not ported from Xyth's old NPC modlet to the CreaturePack. I'm including it here in case it her character is added to a later version. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/2-CreaturePackHumans_Remove_Harley/README.md CreaturePackHumans/NPCPackHumans: Remove NPC Tracking https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/tree/master/2-CreaturePackHumans_Remove_NPC_Tracking Removes tracking of human NPCs in the game map. NOTE: This modlet is currently unnecessary, since tracking is disabled by default. I'm including it here in case it is enabled in a later version. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/2-CreaturePackHumans_Remove_NPC_Tracking/README.md NPCPackHumans: Adjust Sounds https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/tree/master/2-NPCPackHumans_AdjustSounds Adjusts the sounds and dialog made by human NPCs. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/2-NPCPackHumans_AdjustSounds/README.md CreaturePackHumans: Add to vanilla spawn groups https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/tree/master/1-NPCPackHumans_Adjust_Health_Stamina Adds CreaturePack humans to vanilla spawn groups. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/1-CreaturePackHumans_Add_To_Vanilla_Spawns/README.md NPCPackHumans: Add to vanilla spawn groups https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/tree/master/1-NPCPackHumans_Adjust_Health_Stamina Adds NPCPack humans to vanilla spawn groups. Note: Compatible with the CreaturePack version, above. For details, please see the README: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/-/blob/master/2-NPCPackHumans_Add_To_Vanilla_Spawns/README.md Deprecated Modlets for Xyth NPCs These are modifications to the original NPC modlets created by Xyth. He has now deprecated these modlets in favor of the CreaturePack and NPCPack modlets. I am including them here in case you still use Xyth's old modlets - but I recommend switching to CreaturePack or NPCPack modlets as soon as possible. Nearly all of them have equivalent modlets for CreaturePack or NPCPack, and I am working on updating the few that don't. Add Bandits To Zombie Spawns https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/Xyth Bandits_Add_To_Zombie_Spawns Add NPCs To Zombie Spawns https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/Xyth NPCs_Add_To_Zombie_Spawns Reduce NPC Hire Costs https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/Xyth NPCs_Reduce_Hire_Costs Reduce NPC Hit Points https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/Xyth NPCs_Reduce_HP Remove Ghost https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/Xyth NPCs_Remove_Ghost Remove Harley https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/Xyth NPCs_Remove_Harley Remove NPC Tracking https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-modlets/tree/master/Xyth NPCs_Remove_NPC_Tracking

I've been digging into this more, and I'm pretty sure the issue is with the C# code. It's too technical to go into here, so I sent a PM to SphereII with my findings.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to get this to work. I'm going to give details here, but let me know if this should be done over PM instead. I am testing this by modifying a renamed "survivor" POI, using the Prefab Editor, then hitting "playtest" in the editor menu. The only time the NPCs spawn in moving around, is when the "xuiSleeperVolumeTrigger" value is set to "Attack" in the sleeper volume. But this leads to undesirable behavior - if there are no zombies around, the NPCs wake by attacking the player, and once awoken, often attack other NPCs. I've tried using both other "xuiSleeperVolumeTrigger" values ("Passive" and "Active") but it does not seem to make a difference. They do animate, but all they do is look around; I assume this is their idle animation. And that's only for NPCs like Hunter that have idle animations - for instance, it seems the Nurse and Farmer do not. Also - I was mistaken before; the NPCs don't wake up even after you interact with them (unless they're attacking you in "Attack" mode). They won't "wake up" and start moving around until they are attacked - even after being hired. For instance, if you hire one and tell it to follow you, it will just stand there until you're far enough away for it to "teleport" to your location - and it won't even "wake" after being teleported. I only got them to start wandering by spawning in a zombie Boe (using F6) next to one of them; after the NPC was attacked and fought back, it behaved as normal. I did notice that the Mod Launcher hasn't picked up the SphereII Core changes yet; in the UI it says it was last modified on December 9th. To make sure I have the latest updated version, I downloaded the .zip file directly from GitHub, then uncompressed the "0-SphereIICore" folder directly into the "Mods" folder. I double-checked that the changes from the commit, above, were in the "EntityAliveSDX.cs" file. I launched the game using the Mod Launcher at that point, and it all seemed to work as expected, there were no compilation errors or anything like that. Though maybe the Mod Launcher compiling from a different folder than "Mods" or something? Don't know. This is a sample of the XPath I used to put in the "isAlwaysAwake" flag: <!-- entityclasses.xml --> <configs> <append xpath="/entity_classes/entity_class[starts-with(@name, 'NPC')]"> <!-- Also tried: <property name="SleeperInstantAwake" value="true" /> --> <property name="isAlwaysAwake" value="true" /> </append> </configs> Here's a sample of how I modified the XML so sleeper volumes can spawn NPCs: <!-- gamestages.xml --> <configs> <insertAfter xpath="/gamestages/group[last()]"> <group name="S_-Group_NPC_Generic" emptyChance="0" decoyChance="0" decoy1hpChance="0"> <spawner name="NPCGenericHorde" count="5,6" /> </group> </insertAfter> <insertAfter xpath="/gamestages/spawner[last()]"> <spawner name="NPCGenericHorde"> <gamestage stage="1"> <spawn group="NPCGenericGroup" num="1" maxAlive="1" duration="1" /> </gamestage> </spawner> </insertAfter> </configs> <!-- entitygroups.xml --> <configs> <append xpath="/entitygroups"> <entitygroup name="NPCGenericGroup"> <entity name="NPCBaker" /> <entity name="NPCNurse" /> <entity name="NPCFarmer" /> <entity name="NPCHarleyQuinn" /> <entity name="NPCAmmo" /> <entity name="Hunter" /> <entity name="Pest" /> <entity name="Ghost" /> </entitygroup> </append> </configs> I double-check the XPath by doing a config dump while play testing the POI, and the changes were there and in the expected places. Can you see anything that I'm doing wrong?

Wow, that's quick work, thank you! Is this change already pushed to your repo? EDIT: It is, and I hunted down the commit: https://github.com/SphereII/SphereII.Mods/commit/0050d7b5e959892466e5cbd31182682f9b421422 But from the added code, it seems like the property name should be "SleeperInstantAwake" correct? ("isAlwaysAwake" is the name of the local variable.) Also - by "the NPCs" I assume you mean their entity classes, correct? The same XML that has the AI targets and such?

Thanks. That matches what I observed, but seems like a really weird way to do it, so I thought I must be doing something wrong. By "custom spawner" I assume you mean a modified version of the C# code, compiled with DMT? As far as I know there isn't any other spawner available in the XML - but I could be wrong. EDIT: There are "entityspawner" tags in spawning.xml, but I don't think they're connected to POI spawning, are they? The spawn groups in the UI map to a "group" in gamestages.xml, and each group's "spawner" name is an entity class in entityclasses.xml. That's how I was initially trying to add NPC spawners. Searching for "entityspawner" in the forums didn't turn up any recent posts, and the old posts all seemed to do with either biome or blood moon spawning, which don't work the same in modern alphas. Are those even used any more? The NPCs never wake up, unless you directly interact with them. (Or, possibly, until you get close enough to trigger their dialogue and the animation to put the weapon away - I can do more tests if you like.) My intent is to have them immediately be active (wandering around, fighting any nearby zombies) when they're spawned in.

Update on adding these NPCs to POIs... Rather than add them to sleeper volumes, I tried creating a spawn block, modeled after the "spawnTrader" block: <block name="spawnNPCGeneric"> <property name="Extends" value="spawnTrader" /> <property name="CustomIcon" value="apparelSweatshirt" /> <!-- just to tell which is which--> <property name="SpawnClass" value="NPCBaker,NPCNurse,NPCFarmer,NPCAmmo,Hunter,Pest" /> </block> (Note: I've also done it the "explicit" way, by copying-and-pasting the entire "spawnTrader" block, and only changing the "SpawnClass" value.) This spawn block can then be placed in the POI like any other block. This works, in the sense that the NPCs are awake and wandering when spawned in. But, it works a bit too well... because the NPCs keep spawning until some predetermined limit is reached. I have no idea what that limit is. Depending upon the NPC, it could be only one, or it could be anywhere from five to nine. Am I missing something really stupid? Some XML property that I need to include/modify, or perhaps some way to customize the "settings" of the block in the prefab editor?

That's good news, thanks! (As an aside - this likely won't be ready for a while, for technical reasons which aren't relevant here. It's just good to know that if/when I can get them to work, I can distribute them.)

Question about modified versions of original 7D2D assets. I am creating a modlet that adds Xyth's excellent NPCs to POI spawn groups. To see them in action, I am taking some of the original 7D2D prefabs, and altering them (slightly) to spawn NPCs instead of zombies. Other than the spawn groups, the POIs are not modified (or at least not much). Here is the question: Can I distribute this modlet through GitLab or similar? I would imagine the XML/Xpath is not an issue, but the prefab files might be.

Stupid question, but after you ask them to "Follow me for your patrol route", did you try to dismiss them at that point, or did you say "Patrol your route" before trying to dismiss them? If you only asked them to follow, then my guess is the NPC is still waiting to finish learning the patrol route, and it's not possible to dismiss them until they've started patrolling (and therefore left that state). That's a guess though. If you haven't tried that yet, try it and see if it works.

Well, because I'm basically a PITA, I have another question. I'm trying to do a "dead is mostly dead" playthrough. I've got all of it working as far as the base game is concerned - you can't craft or pick up bedrolls, and your skill points are reset upon dying (technically, upon respawning). But, because I also like these NPCs, I would also like the ability to "unhire" them. Specifically on dying, but just the general ability to trigger this would be helpful. Is there any way to do this? EDIT: Well, I just looked in SphereII's C# code, and the answer is currently "no." It wouldn't be too difficult to make a method that would dismiss all entities associated with the player, but I have no idea how you could make it so that it is an event you could trigger through XML (as an "action" property in a triggered_effect tag). This is probably a question for the SphereIICore thread.

So, when I gave you folks leeway with spawning sleepers, I may have been a bit premature. It turns out that you can't spawn sleepers in POIs unless they are associated with sleeper spawns, in which case they need to be able to have their sleeper volumes be "woke" as a default. AFAIK this is not the default behavior, so sleeper volumes won't spawn NPC spawners correctly. Meaning, you can't currently spawn NPCs in POIs such that they are in a state that they would be active (wandering, whatever). Therefore, I would love it if you solved the issue where NPCs spawn without AI in sleeper volumes. Still not saying I expect anything, just saying this feature would make a bunch of things possible. Thanks for listening to a rambling lunatic.

I'm hoping that wasn't sarcastic... if it is, I'll keep my yap shut.

I've nothing to do with the development of the mod launcher. But, based on the first screenshot, it seems like the mod launcher needs to have SVN installed, and it isn't. I don't know why - neither why the mod launcher would need it (most repos use Git), nor why it wouldn't be installed. It should be included if the mod launcher was compiled using the appropriate package from Nuget. I could be wrong though, and you might need to download some version of the .NET runtime or something. This is the library that is associated with that .dll: https://sharpsvn.open.collab.net/

...Well, it turns out this doesn't work as I expected. As long as the modlet's folder is in the Mods folder, it will be active. I don't know why I expected otherwise though, since I'm pretty sure scanning that folder is done by 7D2D, not by the mod launcher. Oh, well. It's easy enough to temporarily move it somewhere else during development.

One thing I also noticed: The "Pest" NPC attacks all the other NPCs (but not the player, unless attacked). Is this intentional?