Does an underground base work?

[Vresiberba]

 Will this design funnel the horde down the slope or will they dig down above my location? I'm not looking for cheese, just want the pathing to work and for them to come at me (bro) at the end just because I fancy the idea of having an underground base. I've tried this before but they just don't want to go down the ramp.

 

The design will obviously involve walls and roofing in either concrete or steel, but before I commit to this again, I want to confirm this will actually work.

 

 

 

[meganoth]

The field above your base has to be plated in cobblestone or concrete, not just the ceiling of your base. So that a single digger does not create a hole that eventually presents a faster path. Also there needs to be a field of spikes and later turrets to pick off the zombies that go into destroy mode instead of following paths.

 

Headspace may be a problem, even if you can walk down there without hitting your head the pathing of the zombies might see it differently.

 

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Doesn't look really deep.

 

From what i have seen from the pathing, they do not take the shortest "walking" path, they use the path with least resistance.

So from this picture, diging through only 5 dirt blocks and 1 stone, may be less resistance than walking around the hole + 10 blocks down the slope.

[theFlu]

The zeds don't really like to dig, they'll rather break things. BUT. They'll choose to dig if they don't have a "fair" path to you. So, if you're standing three blocks above your cave floor on a structure without a ladder/staircase leading from the floor level to you, they may choose to dig. All the more likely if the "structure" is terrain (ie stone, left there for lazy reasons).

 

The path to you can be blocked by concrete/steel, but it needs to exist. So no jumping puzzles / broken ladders / etc in underground bases.

 

While they can jump, they don't use that to path to you (they'll only jump as the last step to you, not to cross a ditch away from you). So, no moats either, unless you have a complete bridge across them.

[Vaeliorin]

3 hours ago, theFlu said:

While they can jump, they don't use that to path to you (they'll only jump as the last step to you, not to cross a ditch away from you). So, no moats either, unless you have a complete bridge across them.

Even if you have a complete bridge, if the area you dug the moat around is too big and they come from the wrong side, they'll completely ignore the bridge and just pile into the moat and start beating on the walls.  So no large moats, even with bridges, assuming we're talking about horde bases.  Big moats work fine for a living base, though it makes repairing the stuff the inevitable screamers/wandering hordes damage a pain.

[Crater Creator]

I think it would help to put a mass of blocks at surface level, two blocks high, directly above where you’ll be standing. It doesn’t have to be that strong - just something to deflect the zombies from getting directly above you, because that’s when they’ll start to dig.  I haven’t tested this design personally though.

[Ringkeeper]

i think, if you want underground base like that, choose a mountain side. So you have already huge amount of natural tiles above you. Still strengthen your ceilings with couple blocks of reinforced concrete.

 

So the easy way is to walk to you and not dig.

 

I have a similar idea for a horde base , plan is to build it at the border of forest and dessert biome (there is a huge mountain range on my map) with entrance from dessert biome (easier to dig for me) and dig down to bedrock and then a huge ramp into the dessert for all 3 sides there.

[PoloPoPo]

I'm a big fan of underground bases as well and therefore have had a few of them already. It works if you design it correctly. From my experience Zombies will take the path to you that offers the least resistance in terms of block HP they have to hammer through. For example if at the end of your tunnel only two or three blocks of steel bar sort you from the Zombies whereas above, behind and by the other sides of you there are five blocks of steel then the Zs should aim for your desired pathway. Or some other blocks that have more HP in addition than the three blocks of steel at the entrance.

 

If you add an escape tunnel, however, with only a door between you and the outside then the Zs will recognize this path as the easiest and go for that. Some Zs sometimes will just smash at random blocks causing damage where you wouldn't expect damage (can also happen by vulture/cop spit or demolishers). Always include some extra HP for your surroundings as a buffer to avoid Zs from changing their pathing all of a sudden making your whole base design worthless just because one block broke down at the wrong spot.