Very short blood moon

[Copper ant]

Hi, folks.

 

Since I updated to the latest stable version of Alpha 19, the blood moon attacks have been very short, with even the most savage onslaught finishing by 11:30pm. It makes no difference how I setup the game: number of Zeik, difficulty level, blood moon frequency,  dress code. The initial attack just stops dead at about 11:30 > midnight, without so much as undead dandruff to be seen after this time.  I have even had a BM attack finish by, and I kid you not, 10:45pm. The only way to kick the attack off again is to quit to menu and reload the game, at which point they will start to spawn and attack as before until about 1:30>2am-ish, when they quit again and you have to repeat the process until dawn breaks.

 

It can't be the number of Zeik in the settings as the final kill total of undead can easily be in excess of a thousand by the time dawn comes around.

 

This is frustrating enough in single player, but if I invite friends to join, they have to quit when I reload the game, with the next attack already half over before they can join in again.

 

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

Is there a fix to prevent Zeik from quitting to take a coffee break every hour and a half?

 

I can upload a video demonstrating this problem if so required.

 

Also, in this latest version of the game, I have noticed most Zeik spawn in the distance, only to form up into a conga-line as they advance on my base. This congregating action is more pronounced if they have to skirt an obstruction, such as a large rock. Whilst there's nothing much easier than shooting zombies in a corridor, it doesn't make for much excitement when all I have to do is point an M60 at one spot and hold the trigger down. 

 

Zeik also only appears to attack from one direction at a time, normally predictable variations of the cardinal points. It would be much more enjoyable if their actions were more unpredictable, with multiple random attacks on different areas of a base at anyone time.

 

Again, I can provide video evidence if required.

 

Oh, and how about flocks of vultures attacking at once? I mean like an actual 50 or so birds coming in from all sides at the same time. The anemic quantity that attack at the moment, even on insane settings, are more of an annoyance than a challenge!

 

I hope someone can provide feedback on the short blood moon attacks, as this really crimps the latest version of the game for me.

 

Thanks for any responses.

 

Copper ant

[Gouki]

6 minutes ago, Copper ant said:

Hi, folks.

 

Since I updated to the latest stable version of Alpha 19, the blood moon attacks have been very short, with even the most savage onslaught finishing by 11:30pm. It makes no difference how I setup the game: number of Zeik, difficulty level, blood moon frequency,  dress code. The initial attack just stops dead at about 11:30 > midnight, without so much as undead dandruff to be seen after this time.  I have even had a BM attack finish by, and I kid you not, 10:45pm. The only way to kick the attack off again is to quit to menu and reload the game, at which point they will start to spawn and attack as before until about 1:30>2am-ish, when they quit again and you have to repeat the process until dawn breaks.

 

It can't be the number of Zeik in the settings as the final kill total of undead can easily be in excess of a thousand by the time dawn comes around.

 

This is frustrating enough in single player, but if I invite friends to join, they have to quit when I reload the game, with the next attack already half over before they can join in again.

 

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

Is there a fix to prevent Zeik from quitting to take a coffee break every hour and a half?

 

I can upload a video demonstrating this problem if so required.

 

Also, in this latest version of the game, I have noticed most Zeik spawn in the distance, only to form up into a conga-line as they advance on my base. This congregating action is more pronounced if they have to skirt an obstruction, such as a large rock. Whilst there's nothing much easier than shooting zombies in a corridor, it doesn't make for much excitement when all I have to do is point an M60 at one spot and hold the trigger down. 

 

Zeik also only appears to attack from one direction at a time, normally predictable variations of the cardinal points. It would be much more enjoyable if their actions were more unpredictable, with multiple random attacks on different areas of a base at anyone time.

 

Again, I can provide video evidence if required.

 

Oh, and how about flocks of vultures attacking at once? I mean like an actual 50 or so birds coming in from all sides at the same time. The anemic quantity that attack at the moment, even on insane settings, are more of an annoyance than a challenge!

 

I hope someone can provide feedback on the short blood moon attacks, as this really crimps the latest version of the game for me.

 

Thanks for any responses.

 

Copper ant

 

Hi Copper ant

 

Do you have any mod installed?
I shared a mod in which from the first blood moon you get irradiated, demolitions, feral and lasts all night.

[meganoth]

I assume you don't mean the first blood moon but any blood moon after that as well? Because the first one is usually over very fast.

 

Did you check the logfile for any errors or problems?

[unholyjoe]

you neglected to say what level gamestage you are at... yep it does matter.

 

low level players at low level gamestage can now get a taste of the bloodmoon without being raked across the coals like befoe... they have a chance to survive and make it to the next bloodmoon... as each day passes and levels gained.... so will your game stage increase and so will the intensity of the bloodmoon... so it starts slow but you can be assured the next will increase... and so and so on.... after a while you'll start a thread saying its overwhelming.

 

enjoy it will pick up

[SylenThunder]

Yeah, my first BM I usually only get 5-7 zombies and it's done. Second one depends on how much building I did. Sometimes it's like 20 zeds and done, and sometimes it gets hectic.

 

Logs from when you experienced that would tell us a lot. You left that out in your first post.

[Copper ant]

Sorry I neglected these details.

 

Lvl 70, game stage 128, and it happens every blood moon. Even if I start a new game on defaults. Map makes no difference either: Navezgane or random gen, it's all the same.

 

No, I haven't checked the error logs as the game runs fine, and the zeds don't glitch at all. They just...give up!

 

The reason it irks me so is that it never happened in 18!

 

I read or saw somewhere that there is a new zombie engine, so maybe it's this if this is the case?

[SylenThunder]

Will definitely need your logs. That isn't normal.

 

EDIT: Unless you died.  If you die, the bloodmoon is halted until you begin interaction again by attacking a Z.

[Copper ant]

OK.  Soooo.....erm!  Where the log files?

 

I honestly don't know as I've never had any reason to look for them.

 

[SylenThunder]

There is a Sticky thread in this section that instructs you to read it before posting. Inside are instructions on how to get your log file and share it via Pastebin.

[Copper ant]

Excellent, thank you. I'll do that now.

 

In the meanwhile, I made a very short video demonstrating the problem. I hope it helps.

 

First BM ends about 00:09 and the second about 1:55.

 

Thanks for you responses.

 

 

 

 

[Copper ant]

OK, I checked the log files and there's a lot of them in there, and I don't know which one to post. So I'm going to kick off a BM and send the log file from that. It will be done today.

 

Thanks guys.

[Beelzybub]

Your log files are timestamped, so you should be able to find the ones that match your video, and upload them.

[Copper ant]

OK. Here is the log file from the blood moon I just completed. Justpaste wouldn't let me load anything, so I had to create two Pastebin entries.

 

Pastebin 1 - https://pastebin.com/A7CZf33S

 

Pastebin 2 - https://pastebin.com/FpkwgZgU

 

Sorry for the split file, but it was just easier this way.

 

First restart to continue blood moon at approx 23:49 pm,  second restart at approx 01:49 am.

 

Some facts from this blood moon - 

 

1 - BM started at Lvl 70, GS 129 and finished at Lvl 71, GS 130

2 - Approx 1532 Zeik bit the dust.

3 - There were no cops, screamers or sploders'.

4 - Approx 100 eggs were dropped.

5 - Between myself and my perimeter defense weapons, more than 35,000 rounds were fired. (Not including grenades or Molotovs)

 

I now have a depressingly large amount of reloading and maintenance to do.

 

Thanks guys.

 

 

[SylenThunder]

After seeing that video, the only reason they would be short is because your defenses are killing half the zeds before they reach you, and the other half just get creamed. Then you're essentially depleting your bloodmoon pool of zombies because you're simply killing them too fast.

 

Code for GS115, which is what it used for your gamestage.

<gamestage stage="115"><spawn group="feralHordeStageGS103" num="162" maxAlive="37" duration="2" interval="21"/><spawn group="feralHordeStageGS109" num="162" maxAlive="37" duration="2" interval="11"/><spawn group="feralHordeStageGS115" num="162" maxAlive="37" duration="7"/></gamestage>

 

You basically have three groups of 162 zombies, and that's it.  

 

Your issue is that your defenses are too OP for your gamestage. This isn't a client bug, this is a gameplay issue. You've built your own problem.

[Copper ant]

Hmmm....

 

Thanks for your analysis of this, and I understand your point, but....   I'm a little confused.

 

As I mentioned, the settings, game stage or stage of the game don't seem to make any difference to the blood moon fight length. For example, yesterday, as a test, I started a new game using the game defaults: Navezgane, adventurer, 8 Zeik, the usual, except for drop nothing on death. I setup my temp base in a fire station and used the small house next door as the grounds for my first blood moon. Zeik came stumbling on as normal, and I engaged them with a lvl 1 AK47 with about 240 rounds of ammo. But at approx 12.16 am, they were spent an no more appeared. I wandered the town searching for trouble, but apart from a few stray fidos, I found no more hordes.

 

Surely this can't be normal?

 

I don't remember such a thing happening in Alpha 18.

 

Also, your numbers are confusing me.  I've never looked at the log files and am pretty sure I don't know what I'm looking for when I do. However, your claim of 'three groups of 162 zombies' =486 zombies, doesn't match up with the figures reported by the game. As can be seen in the included image, which clearly shows well over that number.

 

I'm fully open to the fact that I'm missing something blatantly obvious to all except me, here. So if I am, can someone please point it out to me. As I really want to know what it is.

 

Damn it! I just remembered. Can mods affect the game in this way?

 

I only have two, the Willys jeep and a door pack.

 

I'll remove both of them and try again.

 

Thanks for responses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Copper ant]

Hi again, folks

 

OK. Now I’m more confused than ever. I removed the only two mods I had, the Willys Jeep and a door pack, and ran another blood moon. As before, the Zeik quit twice within ten minutes of the other times I reported, and both times I had to restart the game to get them to reinitialise, buuuuuutttt…….. This time something different happened. This time they never stopped coming at 4am. This time they kept coming with the last cosplay Harry Potter getting wasted at about 5:52 am. And I was inundated with screamers!!!!

 

There were almost 1900 dead Zeik, so many that the forty plus SMG and shotgun turrets protecting that side of the base ran out of ammunition, and I was reduced to grenades and insulting language.

 

If you are interested, you can watch a video of the last stages of this blood moon, from about 3:30 am onwards, at this link.

 

https://youtu.be/2gJGH0ymt6g

 

The reason I am not outright attacking the Zeik in this video is because I wanted to see if just using my bases perimeter weapons made any difference to the spawn rate, and to be honest, I’m not sure what conclusion to draw. The only difference between this BM and the previous one is that I removed the aforementioned mods. Though I am leaning toward the late arrival of so many screamers being the reason this BM was drawn out.

 

The reason I’m confused is that a previous message in this post alluded to my OP base wasting the allocated zombie pools before they could reach me. Does the above video prove this or not? I’m not being facetious here, I honestly don’t know. 

 

Anybody have any ideas?

 

I have included Pastebin links to the log file from the above game. (Split into two parts again, so sorry about that.)

 

pt1 - https://pastebin.com/kwNJe1iK
pt2 - https://pastebin.com/Eijq8EgW
 

I don't think there is a fix for my short blood moon problems, but any feedback would be wholly appreciated.

 

Thanks peeps.

 

CA

[Copper ant]

It appears I'm not the only person experiencing this issue.

 

Maybe it is a turret thing.

 

 

 

 

[SylenThunder]

Again, it appears that you are getting your alloted number of zombies for bloodmoon. Your issue is that you are killing them super fast, and so are depleting the horde. This is your own fault for gaming the system ahead of your gamestage, and not following a more natural progression.

 

I mean the only problem here is literally that your defenses are overkill. Get your gamestage higher, and maybe they won't be so much.

[Copper ant]

When you say I'm depleting the hordes too quickly, I believe you, I really do. I have no idea how the game engines work their magic, and I'm keen to see what happens in the later stages of this version of the game.

 

Thanks for your feedback.

 

CA.