Yawdarious Posted September 5, 2020 Share Posted September 5, 2020 Been playing off and on for several years, for stretches of each alpha release, and recently did so for alpha 19. Is there any detailed information on how zombies prefer to path, or how they are programmed to think? When i played my most recent game, and day 7 came the zombies did things that were totally unpredictable, which i understand they can do obviously, as they are set to do some random block breaking etc. However the odd thing was almost none of them took the easy path into the core of the base, and the vast majority decided to bash through several walls belligerently, which i found odd. I will supply some images via high tech base rendering software to diagram this. The black perimeter line is a concrete wall The red perimeter line is an iron bar wall The purple building is a reinforced concrete building The brownish boxes are open entrances into a tunnel, leading directly into the purple building The blue arrows show where the zombies decided to smash through, totally ignoring the open unobstructed route directly into the reinforced concrete structure. So, can anyone explain why 90% (an accurate guess, not hyperbole) of the zombies decided to smash through 7,500HP-10,000HP worth of blocks, as opposed to making their way around, taking the unobstructed route tunnel into the purple bunker where i was positioned, and only having to attack 2,500HP-5,000HP worth of block to access me? Regarding random behavior, i would have assumed 90% would have come through the tunnel, and 10% would have beat on some walls, however the opposite was true. I would welcome some analysis to understand their behavior better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCrook1028 Posted September 5, 2020 Share Posted September 5, 2020 Is the tunnel down and up ladders? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yawdarious Posted September 6, 2020 Author Share Posted September 6, 2020 20 hours ago, JCrook1028 said: Is the tunnel down and up ladders? Yes, is that an issue? I've seen Z's use ladders before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCrook1028 Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 Ladders aren't a z's best friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlyssaFaden Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 But Z's WILL use ladders. And do so freely (save for dogs, of course). There *is* something weir din the AI, and you can see that in JaWoodles recent horde night defenses. IN that he has two "arms" out to a platform, which the zombies get to via ... ladders ... and then they walk the arms to a box where he is standing (all concrete, recently steel). And the zombies always always always walk to and hit ONE BLOCK IN APRTICULAR to oneside. IN fact, the block they are attacking would require that they take out 4 steel blocks to get to him, while hitting elsewhere would be 2. So they are ignoring the easiest route witht he fewest HPs and they are magically targeting the hardest route, and have been since his first horde defense. Same corner over and over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boidster Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 Every path has a cost, and they can only calculate paths with so many nodes. When we see them taking the "wrong" path it's either a) they are not doing the AI task we think they are b) the "right" path is too long for them to calculate c) the "right" path's cost is not what we think it is and/or the AI is not calculating the cost correctly Sure sounds like JaWoodle's results are option (c) and if it's literally the difference between breaking 2 blocks or 4 blocks, with all blocks having the same HP and nothing behind the blocks which would affect the path cost (a trap for example) it seems the AI is mis-calculating the cost. I hope he submits bug reports for that stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezed Posted September 6, 2020 Share Posted September 6, 2020 IMO, ditches are better than walls for making zombie paths Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eXSe Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 When thinking about AI pathing, one proverb comes to mind... less is more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCrook1028 Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 23 hours ago, Boidster said: Every path has a cost, and they can only calculate paths with so many nodes. When we see them taking the "wrong" path it's either a) they are not doing the AI task we think they are b) the "right" path is too long for them to calculate c) the "right" path's cost is not what we think it is and/or the AI is not calculating the cost correctly Sure sounds like JaWoodle's results are option (c) and if it's literally the difference between breaking 2 blocks or 4 blocks, with all blocks having the same HP and nothing behind the blocks which would affect the path cost (a trap for example) it seems the AI is mis-calculating the cost. I hope he submits bug reports for that stuff. Plus different zombies have different behaviors. Not all will do the same thing. As intended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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