Stopping random Zombie spawns near/Inside taken over POIs

[plumpvole]

I bought the game many years ago when it first was available and only recently started playing it. Its very fun and i enjoy the building system a lot and think I could have many hours of quality playtime on this game. One of my favorite aspects about the game is the pre-made houses/buildings that are missing parts or halfway demolished. From the various post zombie-apocalyptic stories or movies ive seen, I was always amused with the different ways people bolt up their homes or alter them into defendable fortresses they can kill zombies from. This game perfectly portrays the broken down or bolted up structures I came to enjoy and i would love to be able to transform them into some kind of zombie defense fortress (perhaps several homes surrounded by a wall like in the walking dead communities). However, upon taking over a large red barn and the farmhouse across the street from it (POIs ive come to learn) and surrounding the property with a double layered wall that my friends and I can shoot through, ive noticed that the same group of zombies will spawn inside the walls every so often. And its not a matter of days like the "sleepers" are supposed to repsawn by, sometimes its multiple times a day/night. I especially keep seeing the same female zombie in a white dress who seems to pay me a visit at least once a day if not more either by herself or with a group. to me this is very frustrating as It breaks the immersion that my friends and i are bolted up inside our fortress and when we leave its dangerous. perhaps im asking to much, i know the dev team is relatively small, but I was wondering if any of you folks knew anything about stopping this from happening? It would make me enjoy the game alot more. thanks!

[Sydious]

Land Claim Block will prevent that. You can see the range by targeting and pressing E. Shown with green box once activated. You can adjust the range in your game settings.

[plumpvole]

Land Claim Block will prevent that. You can see the range by targeting and pressing E. Shown with green box once activated. You can adjust the range in your game settings.

 

okay thanks ill try that! some people were saying that it didn't stop them from spawning but that forum was like 2 years old.

[Sydious]

Yeah if you click on the little book icon after selecting the land claim block while in your inventory, it will tell you all its functions.

[mavetgrigori]

 

On 4/27/2020 at 6:33 PM, Sydious said:

Land Claim Block will prevent that. You can see the range by targeting and pressing E. Shown with green box once activated. You can adjust the range in your game settings.

He's talking about a Screamer though. Screamers come no matter what to investigate sources of activity typically, which in turn when spotting a player, summons a small horde to that location. You can't prevent her spawning, she's a mechanic that makes it so you have to balance high amounts of activity with potential risk

[Boidster]

On 4/27/2020 at 5:09 PM, plumpvole said:

However, upon taking over a large red barn and the farmhouse across the street from it (POIs ive come to learn) and surrounding the property with a double layered wall that my friends and I can shoot through, ive noticed that the same group of zombies will spawn inside the walls every so often. And its not a matter of days like the "sleepers" are supposed to repsawn by, sometimes its multiple times a day/night. I especially keep seeing the same female zombie in a white dress who seems to pay me a visit at least once a day if not more either by herself or with a group.

I think your main problem is that your base is too big to be covered either by bedrolls or land-claim blocks, both of which prevent normal spawns (but not bloodmoon spawns). If you were running a server you could modify how many LCBs each player gets and how big of an area they cover so you could spam the area with LCBs to try to prevent all spawns (edit: except for screamers, apparently; see UnholyJoe's reply below).

The game doesn't have any way to calculate "inside the wall" vs "outside the wall", it can only calculate a distance from you (or from a 'hot chunk', see below) and then try to spawn whatever. If your base is quite large, you definitely will get zombies spawning inside the wall. If they spawn repeatedly in the same area, my guess is that's the area not covered by your bedroll or LCB.

One solution is to pick one or the other building as your "home" and use the other as your "work" (forges, workstations, chem stations). Put the wall around home (or put a wall around each if you want) and link the two via bridge or tunnel. The white-dress lady will probably spawn around "work" most of the time. The LCB will be something of a conundrum, since it both prevents spawns (good for home) and allows you to move forges/workstations (good for work). You'll have to choose which is more important if the two POIs are too far to be covered by one LCB.

If you want, I think (have not tried this for single-player) you can edit serverconfig.xml in your game install folder and change one or more of these options:
 

BedrollDeadZoneSize - how big of an area does the bedroll protect
LandClaimCount - how many LCBs can you place
LandClaimSize - how big of an area does the LCB protect

Another solution, though probably not practical: replace every surface block with a player-placed non-terrain block. Zombies won't spawn on player-placed blocks (except dirt/terrain). So if you paved your entire base with wood frames, you'd probably be safe.  See this video.

In general, smaller bases will work better long-term, in my opinion. In my co-op game we often take over a fairly large concrete POI for the first couple of blood moons, but quickly the wall/trap maintenance becomes too expensive and we build or take over a smaller - say 10x10 or 15x15 - base for the rest of the game.

A 'hot chunk' is a chunk (16x16 area) which has a lot of activity in it. Torches, running forges, campfires, workstations, even just doing construction work (like building a wall) creates 'heat' in the chunk. When the heat reaches a certain threshold, the screamers will start to show up. If they see you before you kill them, they call for backup. So it's a good idea to keep your "work" base some distance away from your "home" base, so they're not always bashing down your house. If work is just across the street, you probably could snipe the screamers before they call their friends.

 

[unholyjoe]

4 hours ago, mavetgrigori said:

 

He's talking about a Screamer though. Screamers come no matter what to investigate sources of activity typically, which in turn when spotting a player, summons a small horde to that location. You can't prevent her spawning, she's a mechanic that makes it so you have to balance high amounts of activity with potential risk

screamers can not be blocked by LCB and bedrolls that's right. as for the screamers, you have time to kill her before she can scream a few times and that's when the others come to her call. roaming types cant be blocked either but if you dont catch their attention, they will most likey just wonder off.

@Boidster gives some good examples.

thanks
QA Tester-unholyjoe

[Boidster]

3 minutes ago, unholyjoe said:

screamers can not be blocked by LCB and bedrolls

So the only way to prevent  the screamer herself from spawning (not wandering) "inside your walls" is to make sure the size of your base/area enclosed by walls are small enough so that the normal spawn distance (from the heat) will always be "outside", do I have that right? What about her friends, do the bedroll or LCB block them? If she screams right next to your wall, and the entire "inside" of the walls is protected by LCB, will her friends all spawn outside the wall?

I've never had a screamer spawn "inside" anything I've used as a base, nor have any of her friends. I dunno if I've just been lucky or if it's game mechanics. Off to the YouTube.

The player-placed block thing blocks all spawns, including the wandering hordes, if Vedui's video is any proof.

[CrainBramp]

Usually, I'll set my bedroll to around 61. This will hold a decently sized base, while allowing the occasional wandering zombie / horde to spawn outside the zone and wander in.

You may need to play with your bedroll size until you find something that works for you. I'm not interested in living in a bubble, but I do hate being interrupted constantly.

[Boidster]

I think bedroll zone expansion is the way to go. I tested the LCB dealio and I think it doesn't block any type of environment spawn. Possibly it'll block sleeper respawns, I didn't test that. I set the LCB size to 255 (hex edit on gameOptions.sdf in the save game folder) and then set up 6 forges in the middle of the protected area. I got all of the usual spawns well within the LCB boundary, including screamers of course.

 

IMO the LCB description in-game is misleading at best.

[Guest Rust Buddy]

it is definitely ********.

[Tahaan]

Screamers come to activity.  Lots of torches and/or forges in particular.  (In the game this referred to as "chunk heat")

Screamers will "yell" when they see you (line of sight) which will attract a small horde.  Note that screamers have different "screams" - there is one specific scream which indicates that she saw you and is the call for her friends to come feast on your lovely warm brains.

 

To deal with her: 

1. Make sure you have a wall so that as she approaches she can't get line of sight before you know that she is there.

2. Set up auto-turrets to eliminate her before you see her.

 

 

Turn off the auto-turrets when you're home.  Free XP will come wandering to your home and you get a nice loud warning yell.  But do turn the turrets back on if you plan on leaving with your forges all raging.  Otherwise you get a surprise like the one at the end if this video: https://youtu.be/yd2wMDK4wuA?t=1976

 

 

Also screamers call little hordes.  Perfect for testing your defenses without having to wait for the main horde...

 

And who doesn't like a nice screamer anyways?