Alpha 19 (A19) WalkerSim - Enhanced roaming zombies

[Cork55]

I ended up settling on a population density of 60 combined with survivalist difficulty. A reasonable number of zeds lurking about and a tiny bit of a challenge to kill them.

[mr.devolver]

5 hours ago, Cork55 said:

I ended up settling on a population density of 60 combined with survivalist difficulty. A reasonable number of zeds lurking about and a tiny bit of a challenge to kill them.

For how many people on the server?

[Cork55]

8 hours ago, mr.devolver said:

For how many people on the server?

2 to 3 people. 

[Ragnar]

ZehMatt, you are the best!

I've been seeking to get back more dense population in cities with realistic hordes since A15. When you should be mindfull about triggering urban horde's attention. When those suckers don't appear in playing view behind closest stone or tree. And everything else is dead around you...

The configuration available in your mod is what makes it truly versatile!

Since A18 only biomes is what is left in spawning configuration, hell, I want zombies in cities, not in empty forests\deserts, it's logical! And those sleepers... I've dropped A16 and 17 because of them. Spawning right in front of you, spawning where you've already cleared - what the hell? Even got dnSpy software and tweaked the source code of SleeperVolume a bit to spawn sleepers beforehand in normal distance around player.

I've got one issue, though. Zombies spawn and roam offline in water too. Not fatal, but kinda funny. I'm playing map of UK (https://7daystodiemods.com/uk-map-pack/), checked with your viewer to be sure. Can be adjusted with "POI interest" option, but maybe you could make blacklist of terrain for roaming.

[CrainBramp]

Tried this out on stream last night, and although it's fun, like a few above, I got MOBBED by a steady stream of never ending zombies. After I killed 200+ of them ... with brass knuckles no less ... they were STILL coming, and I had to stop the server and take it off.

 

Definitely fun, but not even a tiny break to do anything ... no quests, no nothing.

 

[D00D]

Thanks for the mod, I really like how this changed the dynamic of the spawns and made Stealth so much more valuable. 
I would like to suggest an alternate mode though one with a fixed population across the map and refresh every bloodmoon.

 

Right now, there's a sort of negative feedback loop where the attracted zombies whacking a door draws in more and more zombies until there's a huge horde sitting outside my base besieging it. If there's a finite population, then this could be a viable tactic to try and clear them all so that surrounding POIs are easier to explore in the morning.

 

There's a game called They are Billions! where all of the map will aggro at the final wave, which gives incentive to clear out zombies before then. If the bloodmoon could have something where all zombies will dogpile you in an X radius on top of the usual horde, then clearing out zombies throughout the week would be a decent incentive. 

[D00D]

I would like to report what I think are bugs. Animals don't seem to spawn and I'm not getting sleeper Zombies respawn properly in Clear Area missions, I just instantly complete it after wandering around all the ambush points.

 

Edit: Tested it out again on Navezgane and I am getting Animals and Sleeper zombies spawning in Quests normally. Guess it's an issue with Compo Pois and a small Nitrogen map.

Edited September 12, 2020 by D00D (see edit history)

[Snufkin]

This mod sure is awesome but I'm having the same issue. Hostile animals are not spawning in a Navezgane game. Sleepers work OK.

Edited September 20, 2020 by Snufkin (see edit history)

[GneX]

This mod is amazing! still needs more "polishing" but amazing for what it is.

Sometimes I come across mods that kinda surprise me that they are even possible and this is one of them I hope ZehMatt continues to support & develop this mod for a long time  

Edited September 20, 2020 by GneX (see edit history)

[mr.devolver]

13 hours ago, Snufkin said:

This mod sure is awesome but I'm having the same issue. Hostile animals are not spawning in a Navezgane game. Sleepers work OK.

Snufkin, you are alive!

[ZehMatt]

I'm still working on this mod and I will eventually look into why hostile animals don't spawn, my current guess is that they are considered normal zombies and that no slots are available for them to spawn. Also I believe that the clearing is pretty hard currently as the zombie speed might be too high. I want to add a few modes to the simulation so instead of every zombie being a loner I want some of them to follow another fellow zed instead which would create some groups.

 

My plan is to refactor most of the code which I already started, the main reason for this is I want to be able to test the simulation without being in the game since the offline simulation doesn't require players until the zombie spawn is requested. Also glad people enjoy this.

[mr.devolver]

@ZehMatt, it would be cool if you could make it compatible with CreaturePack and DMT NPC mod.

Edited September 22, 2020 by mr.devolver (see edit history)

[D00D]

Okay, this one is not really a bug but a limitation of the engine. It's really cool that most of the "Clear POI" quests will generate enough noise that a zombie horde will be trying to breakin as you are clearing the place. However, for Tier 5 POIs, you generate too much noise and the zombie hordes from Walkersims end up blocking the spawning sleepers in the Tier 5 POIs, preventing completion. 

Perhaps for Tier 4 and above clear quests, activating quests like this can generate a "Deadzone" where the walkersim is temporarily ignored? Usually Tier 4 and above POIs have swarms of zombies already.

[ZehMatt]

3 hours ago, mr.devolver said:

@ZehMatt, it would be cool if you could make it compatible with CreaturePack and DMT NPC mod.

Are there currently issues running both together? I thought the the idea of DMT is that multiple mods can be used at once.

[JaxTeller718]

EDIT: Never mind i got it fixed. user error lol

Edited September 23, 2020 by JaxTeller718 (see edit history)

[mr.devolver]

3 hours ago, ZehMatt said:

Are there currently issues running both together? I thought the the idea of DMT is that multiple mods can be used at once.

The last time I tried both mods, I had console errors and the game was practically unplayable.

[ZehMatt]

On 9/23/2020 at 12:50 AM, mr.devolver said:

The last time I tried both mods, I had console errors and the game was practically unplayable.

Can u paste me the logs?

[xyth]

The CreaturePack zombies work fine.  The characters using the bandit and survivor classes spawn in but never move, even if attacked.  These are vanilla classes, not extra code.  Its like they are stuck in sleeper state.  I didnt test the NPC (code) versions as the vanilla base versions would need to work first.

 

I tried it with and without Sphereiis core.  Both error on exit.  Heres the error on exiting the game with no code loaded (no core or any mods besides the creaturepacks)

 

2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.266 INF [WalkerSim] World no longer exists, stopping simulation
2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.266 INF [WalkerSim] Worker Finished
2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.298 INF Persistent GamePrefs saved
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at EntityAlive.Update () [0x00134] in <b96846cfb0544c2da3579e57837d9053>:0 
 
(Filename: <b96846cfb0544c2da3579e57837d9053> Line: 0)

 

Really fun gameplay, The spawned survivors really helped pull off some off the zombies.

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by xyth (see edit history)

[mr.devolver]

1 hour ago, xyth said:

The CreaturePack zombies work fine.  The characters using the bandit and survivor classes spawn in but never move, even if attacked.  These are vanilla classes, not extra code.  Its like they are stuck in sleeper state.  I didnt test the NPC (code) versions as the vanilla base versions would need to work first.

 

I tried it with and without Sphereiis core.  Both error on exit.  Heres the error on exiting the game with no code loaded (no core or any mods besides the creaturepacks)

 

2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.266 INF [WalkerSim] World no longer exists, stopping simulation
2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.266 INF [WalkerSim] Worker Finished
2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.298 INF Persistent GamePrefs saved
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at EntityAlive.Update () [0x00134] in <b96846cfb0544c2da3579e57837d9053>:0 
 
(Filename: <b96846cfb0544c2da3579e57837d9053> Line: 0)

 

Really fun gameplay, The spawned survivors really helped pull off some off the zombies.

 

Thank you for testing this! 💗

 

I was going to re-test with the usual CP + NPC bundle, because the last time I tried it with this WalkerSim was A19.0 and I was getting errors in the console, I couldn't even load into the world. At first I thought the problem was in CP + NPC bundle as it was just updated at that time, but it turned out it was actually the WalkerSim incompatibility with the CP + NPC bundle, because everything worked fine when I removed WalkerSim.

 

I guess this means there's no point in re-testing if it doesn't work properly with the base CP alone without DMT NPC code. You're absolutely right, DMT NPC mod itself will have to wait for the second phase of testing, once the base mod works as intended.

[xyth]

I did some more testing.  I removed the humans from zombie and sleeper spawns and removed the animal zombies from groups so the only thing that could spawn are zombieclass entities and humans spawning in the enemyanimal groups.  Eventually I get the same error on exit, so not sure what else to test. 

[ZehMatt]

3 hours ago, xyth said:

The CreaturePack zombies work fine.  The characters using the bandit and survivor classes spawn in but never move, even if attacked.  These are vanilla classes, not extra code.  Its like they are stuck in sleeper state.  I didnt test the NPC (code) versions as the vanilla base versions would need to work first.

 

I tried it with and without Sphereiis core.  Both error on exit.  Heres the error on exiting the game with no code loaded (no core or any mods besides the creaturepacks)

 

2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.266 INF [WalkerSim] World no longer exists, stopping simulation
2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.266 INF [WalkerSim] Worker Finished
2020-09-24T11:40:29 276.298 INF Persistent GamePrefs saved
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at EntityAlive.Update () [0x00134] in <b96846cfb0544c2da3579e57837d9053>:0 
 
(Filename: <b96846cfb0544c2da3579e57837d9053> Line: 0)

 

Really fun gameplay, The spawned survivors really helped pull off some off the zombies.

 

If its just an error on exit I'm not exactly sure what I should look for, if theres a hidden exception that stops the A.I. tasks that would explain why they stop moving but without any errors/exceptions I'm clueless on whats wrong.

 

I might install those mods eventually but I need to prioritize on fixing bugs in my own code first.

 

  

On 9/22/2020 at 5:56 PM, D00D said:

Okay, this one is not really a bug but a limitation of the engine. It's really cool that most of the "Clear POI" quests will generate enough noise that a zombie horde will be trying to breakin as you are clearing the place. However, for Tier 5 POIs, you generate too much noise and the zombie hordes from Walkersims end up blocking the spawning sleepers in the Tier 5 POIs, preventing completion. 

Perhaps for Tier 4 and above clear quests, activating quests like this can generate a "Deadzone" where the walkersim is temporarily ignored? Usually Tier 4 and above POIs have swarms of zombies already.

I will look into having active quests disable spawning from the simulation that are nearby.

Edited September 24, 2020 by ZehMatt (see edit history)

[xyth]

I think I resolved the exit error by moving the human class entities out of the zombie spawn groups.  The humans spawn in as friendly animals but not as enemy animals.  I have yet to see a single enemy animal, wolf, bandit, or otherwise.  Is there a work around for this?

 

BTW I will build a 2-Walkersimcompatibility modlet for the CreaturePacks once this is all sorted.

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by xyth (see edit history)

[zackss]

It would be great to be able to configure which edges of the map new zombies appear from.  You could then, for example, set the eastern edge to be the spawning edge and simulate an approaching mega hoard that in the early game you can keep ahead of if you keep moving west.  This would be especially cool if you could start with few zombies, but keep ramping it up over time.  With no loot respawn (and no trader quest resets) that would create a tension between looting the eastern side when it's not totally overrun and moving on to safer areas in the west, and then later make the prime untouched loot locations (for later gamestage looting) in the area where there are both the most zombies and which have the quickest respawn (as killed zombies respawn nearby).

[Midnighter90]

Really loving this so far, adds a lot to the game. Please allow more configuration options to be set eg: max distance the zombies will hear you and walk towards you (inactive ones), zombie speed (when inactive).

 

Oh and btw how does it handle horde night? I haven't tried so far. Massive shooting resulting in even more zombies?

[Motive313]

Is this mod still alive?

 

I'm trying to use it in a19.3 and my server is constantly outputting this error. 

 

Quote

MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)
MissingMethodException: void EntityAlive.SetInvestigatePosition(UnityEngine.Vector3,int)

 

I believe this is happening when the mod is supposed to spawn a zombie as my world has no roaming zombies. I've turned on the simulation viewer and there do appear to be Zeds roaming, just not getting spawned when activated by a player.

 

This is the only mod I have running on my server.