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HOW TO WIN (Getting more Zombies in your Game)


Roland

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I'd like to add a very simple yet very hard way of increasing the difficulty of the game.

 

Decrease day time to minimum (10 minute days).

 

By the time you cut your second tree and because your campfire and forge are running, you'll get at least one wondering horde heading to your location. I think, but I'm not sure, it's because the heatmap scales with day time. Is this correct? Would that mean a 180 minute day server will require 3 times more heat to send screamer/horde?

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Is that with the duration="xx" portion?

 

It's the 24 hour cycle from the options.

 

I've tested it again and it seems that this parameter does affect heat map increase rate . Having twice and thrice the day duration will require twice and thrice the amount of heat required to summon hordes. In contrast having half or one third of the day duration will also mean having twice and three times more screamer and hordes appearing in your base.

 

Which means on 180 hours per day cycle servers I'll need three times more burning barrels to summon hordes...

 

Maybe I'm wrong but shouldn't this be a bug? The trees and the farms crop cycles do not scale with 24 hour cycle so why should the heatmap?

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It's the 24 hour cycle from the options.

 

I've tested it again and it seems that this parameter does affect heat map increase rate . Having twice and thrice the day duration will require twice and thrice the amount of heat required to summon hordes. In contrast having half or one third of the day duration will also mean having twice and three times more screamer and hordes appearing in your base.

 

Which means on 180 hours per day cycle servers I'll need three times more burning barrels to summon hordes...

 

Maybe I'm wrong but shouldn't this be a bug? The trees and the farms crop cycles do not scale with 24 hour cycle so why should the heatmap?

 

It might be a work in process still. Faatal did some improvement work but it might of been only to torches. Looking at the torch code is a good example of probably how heat should work for everything else...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I went through entityclasses.xml and changed all of these to empty string "" (deleted the <some value> entries):

 

<property name="SoundRandom" value="<some value>"/>
<property name="SoundAlert" value="<some value>"/>
<property name="SoundSense" value="<some value>"/>

 

No more sounds when zombies notice or target you. They still make sound when hurt, though. Pretty easy modlet to make, if it doesn't already exist.

Edited by Boidster (see edit history)
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2 hours ago, Boidster said:

I went through entityclasses.xml and changed all of these to empty string "" (deleted the <some value> entries):

 

<property name="SoundRandom" value="<some value>"/>
<property name="SoundAlert" value="<some value>"/>
<property name="SoundSense" value="<some value>"/>

 

No more sounds when zombies notice or target you. They still make sound when hurt, though. Pretty easy modlet to make, if it doesn't already exist.

Thanks a lot !

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Sure thing. I should note that all of the animals (I think) also have those settings, so unless you want wolves and bears to also be silent, restrict your changes to the zombies. Don't just go willy-nilly through the whole file or a fearsome rabbit with big pointy teeth might sneak up on you.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Roland, ironically enough I haven't followed the forums much these past months yet I have been playing more than usual, is there anything in the pipes regarding making towns/cities have their own subbiomes in A19?

 

The game definitely feels quite dead if you don't mod it but then again just adding more zombies everywhere gets tedious quite fast. I'd happily increase the number of zombies where they are supposed to be found the most, both for immersiveness and also to warrant for a bigger challenge where the bigger rewards lie.

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I don’t know whether they will do a “city biome” again but they are going to do radiated areas and I believe you will be able to make whole cities have a particular level of radiation and I also believe that radiated areas can have their spawn rates increased. If all that comes to be then we will once again be able to have dangerous cities with more peaceful wilderness. 

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On 5/14/2020 at 3:45 AM, Roland said:

I don’t know whether they will do a “city biome” again but they are going to do radiated areas and I believe you will be able to make whole cities have a particular level of radiation and I also believe that radiated areas can have their spawn rates increased. If all that comes to be then we will once again be able to have dangerous cities with more peaceful wilderness. 

That's very sad to hear especially since nothing in what you said seems certain. I wish buildings would have a certain heat associated to them so that "groups of building" would add up and raise the amount of zombies by a substantial amount. The fact an endless forest has the same amount of zombies than a big city is majorly disappointing both for immersiveness and for challenge.

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  • Roland unpinned this topic
  • 4 months later...
1 hour ago, errornull said:

after i customize the xml for wandering horde spawning, what's the easiest way to test it in game?

 

is there a console command avail to spawn a wandering horde? or does everyone just jump into the map and run in circles until a wandering horde shows up? 

I did not test it in A19 but the command was spawnwanderinghorde in previous version.
 

Edited by RipClaw (see edit history)
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3 hours ago, errornull said:

or does everyone just jump into the map and run in circles until a wandering horde shows up?

For what it's worth in my experience the wandering hordes spawn in only at certain times each day. Specifically, the time at which you are at maximum survival stress and the very last thing you need right now is a wandering horde to appear. 🙂 So waiting around for one might not work - better to go ride a bike in the wasteland until vultures peck you down to 20 health + broken leg + infection and you're out of medkits and low on ammo. BOOM, wandering horde will show up.

 

But seriously, the (now unused?) spawning.xml had a "day" and "night" wandering horde spawner. With the wandering horde spawners now in gamestages.xml I really don't know how the game decides when to spawn a wandering horde. I thought it was still at certain times? I'm sure somebody knows. I should find that person and ask...

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very nice yes ripclaw thanks. looks like the spawnwanderinghorde  command works. it doesn't always spawn the wandering horde immediately as it seems it's still constrained by the game engine to wait for a specific time frame that is always 12 hrs apart between day and night. i didn't test too much yet, but seem like the hordes want to wait for like around 9am and 9pm.

 

boidster - there are still plenty moments i'll be attracting vultures on my bike and screaming like a girl until the next wandering horde shows up lol.

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7 hours ago, errornull said:

very nice yes ripclaw thanks. looks like the spawnwanderinghorde  command works. it doesn't always spawn the wandering horde immediately as it seems it's still constrained by the game engine to wait for a specific time frame that is always 12 hrs apart between day and night. i didn't test too much yet, but seem like the hordes want to wait for like around 9am and 9pm.

I haven't used that command since 16.4, but I believe it used to function where it would spawn the horde at some point distant from your location and then they would slowly make their way toward the location you executed the command. This might explain the time gap depending on how long your days are, or it could have changed entirely in how the command functions.

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  • 5 months later...

I'll add here my modifications which sparked a new challenge for me and easy searchable quotes:

Entityclasses:

- Doubled screamer health to make them harder to 1 shot, 

Spoiler

 

<entity_class name="zombieScreamer" extends="zombieTemplateMale">
    <property name="Tags" value="entity,zombie,walker"/>
    <property name="Mesh" value="#Entities/Zombies?Zombies/zombieStandardScreamerRagdoll.prefab"/>
    <property name="SoundRandom" value="Enemies/Base_Zombie_Female/zombiefemalescoutroam"/>
    <property name="SoundAlert" value="Enemies/Scout_Zombie/zombiefemalescoutalert"/>
    <property name="SoundAttack" value="Enemies/Base_Zombie_Female/zombiefemalescoutattack"/>
    <property name="SoundHurt" value="Enemies/Base_Zombie_Female/zombiefemalescoutpain"/>
    <property name="SoundDeath" value="Enemies/Base_Zombie_Female/zombiefemalescoutdeath"/>
    <property name="SoundSense" value="Enemies/Base_Zombie_Female/zombiefemalescoutsense"/>
    <property name="AvatarController" value="AvatarZombie01Controller"/>
    <property name="ModelType" value="Standard"/>
    <property name="WalkType" value="3"/>
    <property name="Mass" value="110"/>
    <property name="RootMotion" value="true"/>
    <property name="HasDeathAnim" value="true"/>
    <property name="AIPathCostScale" value=".5, .6"/>

    <!-- Gameplay -->
    <property name="HandItem" value="meleeHandZombie01"/>

    <effect_group name="Base Effects">
        <passive_effect name="HealthMax" operation="base_set" value="150"/>

 

 

Entitygroups: 

- Added small chance to spawn overworld demolition zombies 

Spoiler

<entitygroups>
    <entitygroup name="ZombiesAll">
        <entity name="zombieBoe"/>
        <entity name="zombieJoe"/>
        <entity name="zombieSteve"/>
        <entity name="zombieMoe"/>
        <entity name="zombieYo"/>
        <entity name="zombieBusinessMan"/>
        <entity name="zombieArlene"/>
        <entity name="zombieDarlene"/>
        <entity name="zombieMarlene"/>
        <entity name="zombieSkateboarder"/>
        <entity name="zombieCheerleader" prob="0.3"/>
        <entity name="zombieOldTimer" prob="0.3"/>
        <entity name="zombieBiker" prob="0.3"/>
        <entity name="zombieFarmer" prob="0.3"/>
        <entity name="zombieStripper" prob="0.3"/>
        <entity name="zombieUtilityWorker" prob="0.3"/>
        <entity name="zombieJanitor" prob="0.2"/>
        <entity name="zombieNurse" prob="0.3"/>
        <entity name="zombieSteveCrawler"/>
        <entity name="zombieFatHawaiian" prob="0.3"/>
        <entity name="zombieDemolition" prob="0.1"/>
    </entitygroup>

 

- Possibility: Whenever heat triggers a scout (screamer), that can be changed to any number of chosen zombies, FE demos, if you want really to punish yourself. 

                -  <entitygroup name="ZombieScouts">
                    <entity name="zombieScreamer"/>

 

Spawning:

- Added multiple times more overwold zombies, making total number of zombies around you 32 during day/night time and 64 shortly after dusk/dawn. Respawn time will be 6  IG hours, at night 3 IG hours. You can set BM count up to 32 without being spawncapped. 

 

Spoiler

    -<biome name="pine_forest">
        <spawn maxcount="7" respawndelay="0.25" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />
        <spawn maxcount="8" respawndelay="0.12" time="Night" entitygroup="ZombiesNight" />
        <spawn maxcount="1" respawndelay="1" time="Any" entitygroup="WildGameForest" spawnDeadChance="0" />
        <spawn maxcount="1" respawndelay="1" time="Night" entitygroup="EnemyAnimalsForest" spawnDeadChance="0" />

 

- Heat spawned scout partys will have 2 screamers, can be changed to any number of any zombies as mentioned above

 

         

Spoiler

 - <entityspawner name="Scouts" dynamic="true" wrapMode="wrap">
              <day value="*"><!--* means it is used when no day is specified -->
            <property name="ResetToday" value="true" />
            <property name="EntityGroupName" value="ZombieScouts" />
            <property name="Time" value="Any" />
            <property name="DelayBetweenSpawns" value="1" />
            <property name="TotalAlive" value="2" />
            <property name="TotalPerWave" value="2" />

 

 

 

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At first I was like, "How did this thread get two pages of content without me seeing it?" and then I noticed the dates of the posts.  :p

 

Good thread, old thread, maybe Roland should re-pin this one and update it perhaps?  Not that I'm trying to boss him around or anything.

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  • 5 months later...
On 3/13/2020 at 11:29 PM, Roland said:

WANDERING HORDES

 

To increase your wandering hordes you do everything listed in the first post except that in step 7 instead of opening the spawning file you will want to find the file named gamestages and right click on it and open it using notepad or comparable program.

 

Once you open gamestages you will scroll down past a bunch of notes and other stuff until you get to about line 216 which starts the wandering horde section. Here is what it looks like:

 

<spawner name="WanderingHorde"> <!-- These will wrap around at 50. -->

<!-- Will probably have to undo that later. Rev 19924 /19944 -->

<gamestage stage="01"><spawn group="wanderingHordeStageGS1" num="05" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

<gamestage stage="02"><spawn group="wanderingHordeStageGS2" num="10" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

<gamestage stage="03"><spawn group="wanderingHordeStageGS5" num="06" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

<gamestage stage="04"><spawn group="ZombieDogGroup" num="04" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

 

It continues on through 50 different gamestage stages. All you have to do is increase the numbers I colored red. In vanilla the easiest horde is only 5 zombies which is hardly noticeable. Up it to whatever number you feel would be a fun horde size at that stage of the game. Make sure to read the spawn group name before the number to be sure you want to adjust that one-- such as the last one listed in the example. Changing an early game zombie dog horde from 4 dogs to 15 dogs might be a bad idea but it is your funeral.

 

So just to illustrate, if I change that first gamestage stage 01 horde from its default setting it would look like this:

 

<gamestage stage="01"><spawn group="wanderingHordeStageGS1" num="15" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

 

This change would make the horde be comprised of 15 zombies.

 

Now I know that you've been eyeing that maxAlive="30" value and wondering why not just up that to 64 for some truly epic hordes. I'm almost certain that number is hardcoded in elsewhere in the code and changing it here won't matter but I could be wrong and someone will be along shortly to correct me if I am and then I'll change this part. But by all means give it a go and type 64 in there and then change the number to 64 and see what happens. That is the fun with experimenting with these settings.

 

Just like with the spawning file, when you are finished changing the numbers for all fifty hordes makes sure to save and then close your files and game launcher and then start up your game. You will surely notice when a horde wanders by after this.

What does this do :maxAlive="30" 

 

does that limit it to only 30 zombies on map, or is that the upper limit of the zombies? 

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Not sure tbh

 

It could be that it limits the number of zombies on the map to 30 when the horde spawns and keeps it at a max of 30 for the duration listed. Or it could be the largest horde that can spawn is 30 zombies. Maybe someone wants to experiment.

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So i changed the values in darkness falls,  to be 50 to 100 in all those wondering hordes. I have not seen one yet. I will know if they are limited to 30 or not. However, i also got distracted and started playing chorno trigger again.... 

 

I really wish i got into xml editing sooner. This really is a game changer, it's fun and educational. I saw a fist of the north star mod on the nexus, which means we are close to a dragon ball zombie mod...

Edited by SenpaiThatIngnoresYou (see edit history)
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I've been using this to make the game more fun for a long time now. This game is awesome because of the modding potential. Plus the gameplay is smooth. And voxel world is fun for me. Thanks a lot for sharing this, it helps others enjoy this awesome game even more! Can't wait for alpha 20!

 

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As a small tidbit of a suggestion, one could also add more challenging types to nighttime spawns for the forest biome. :) I personally add in feral wights, cops, feral cops, soldiers, and feral soldiers, but one could easily add in radiated zombies for the extra scare factor (cops, soldiers, bikers, etc.). Heck, you could gut the entire list and replace it with nothing but rad zombies if you're a masochist.

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