Zombie Heat Map

[Raptortwenty2]

So We know what causes the heat value to increase (for the most part) but could someone help to explain how to lower it or if it changed any way since alpha 17

[Kosmic Kerman]

I don't know if it decays over time but a screamer spawning will lower the heat map in that chunk. The heat accumulation and screamer spawns were changed fairly drastically in A18. I don't know the precise changes but I know that it takes much more than it used to to spawn a screamer from workstation activity and that screamers spawn more regularly from mining iron.

[Sjustus548]

I believe once you stop doing activities that raise the heat level it will start decreasing over time.  Sadly I don't see heat level as anything worth worrying about anymore.  Last Screamer we had scream on us called in 2 zombies and a dog.  Not much of a threat anymore.

[Boidster]

It decays over a loooong time. I don't know precisely how long, but I'm running a test right now on that.

The other day I watched a chunk for 2 hours in-game time and the heat value never decreased. But when I came back hours (real-time) later the heat was at 0%.

 

I just M60'd a chunk up to 99% heat and I'll watch the game over the next couple of (real-time) hours.

[Boidster]

1 hour ago, Boidster said:

I just M60'd a chunk up to 99% heat and I'll watch the game over the next couple of (real-time) hours.

Okay well crap, I got sidetracked and 10 in-game hours passed before I got back. Heat was at 0% so at least I have an upper bound. Or maybe a screamer spawned and lowered it. Going to try again...

[xXx]

Only way to decrease it is to wait and do nothing. Interestingly gamepedia says that even by lollygagging the heat map increases so I don't know how's that possible.

[Danidas]

9 minutes ago, xXx said:

Only way to decrease it is to wait and do nothing. Interestingly gamepedia says that even by lollygagging the heat map increases so I don't know how's that possible.

Leave the area on a long raiding mission for a few days using small satellite bases to unload your inventory then cart it all back to base in a few trips.

[xXx]

22 minutes ago, Danidas said:

Leave the area on a long raiding mission for a few days using small satellite bases to unload your inventory then cart it all back to base in a few trips.

Yes. That could work. Still this unnecessary complication is grinding my gears. I didn't spend 24 hours building my base with all the goodies to avoid it.

[Boidster]

1 hour ago, xXx said:

Only way to decrease it is to wait and do nothing. Interestingly gamepedia says that even by lollygagging the heat map increases so I don't know how's that possible.

Well I've only seen that if something is actively going on in the chunk (or surrounding chunks, because heat does spread apparently).

 

I didn't watch quite closely enough, but here's what I saw so far:

 

1200 Day 2: M60 firing until heat was at 99.6%

2200 Day 2: heat still 99.6%

0300 Day 3: heat still 99.6%

0800 Day 3: heat had at some point dropped to 22.95%

 

AI was off, so no screamers spawned. It took a loooooong time to drop, and it appears to drop very quickly when it does. I really need to lower my day length to 30 minutes for easier testing (assuming this is game-time based, not real-time based).

 

Edit: I dunno, maybe never mind that. It doesn't seem consistent with later results (below)

[xXx]

1 minute ago, Boidster said:

Well I've only seen that if something is actively going on in the chunk (or surrounding chunks, because heat does spread apparently).

 

I didn't watch quite closely enough, but here's what I saw so far:

 

1200 Day 2: M60 firing until heat was at 99.6%

2200 Day 2: heat still 99.6%

0300 Day 3: heat still 99.6%

0800 Day 3: heat had at some point dropped to 22.95%

 

AI was off, so no screamers spawned. It took a loooooong time to drop, and it appears to drop very quickly when it does. I really need to lower my day length to 30 minutes for easier testing (assuming this is game-time based, not real-time based).

Interesting data. Thank you.

[Boidster]

Yeah, but it gets weirder. I tried again, but this time I increased the 'ticks' setting, so the game would run faster. This time, within about an hour of in-game time, the heat had dropped from ~80 to zero. I need to do more testing; I have no good idea what is going on.

 

Edit to add: okay so instead of testing 4 clips of M60, I tested in much smaller increments:

 

1 pistol shot: 110 in-game minutes to 0% heat

2 pistol shots in rapid succession: 110 minutes to 0% heat (one shot's worth disappeared right after the other)

10 in-game minutes of continuous pistol fire: first reduction occurred at 110 minutes, with all others coming off in rapid succession over the next 10 minutes

1 in-game hour of M60 fire (enough to get over 90% heat): first reduction occurred at 110 minutes, with the rest coming off in rapid succession (with appropriate delays during at the points when I was reloading 110 minutes before)

20 M60 shots, wait 100 minutes, 20 more M60: the first group of 20 starts decaying off at 110 minutes as expected (the subsequent shots did not reset the counter of the first 20)

 

So this was all consistent - each firing "event" lasts 110 minutes or so.

 

Multiple dev Super Digger (block destroyer) shots to damage a building: the gun itself gives no heat, but block destruction & collapse do; the collapse events start decaying very quickly - within 10 minutes game time.

 

I cannot explain why I had over 14 in-game hours sitting with no heat decay. Still need to replicate that result.

[theFlu]

I have no idea about that 14-hour event, but otherwise what you're seeing is what I've always understood it to be;

Different events give different amounts of heat, but ALSO "decay" at different rates. Gunshots seem to be one group in your test, kinda makes sense; but torch heat, forge heat, building and mining are separate beasts.

 

With that in mind, for you 14 hour experience; it wouldn't be too far fetched that some heat type is just simply bugged - the xml settings for heat are perfectly unreadable, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone just misremembered the system while doing a change..

 

Also it used to be the case (not sure for current patch) that even jumping/landing would cause heat, which made testing .. annoying.