On a Blood moon, Do Z's ignore you when you are at a particular location?

[Maikeru]

The Blood Moon was my favorite part of the game.  It is like a tower defense game where you prevent the Z's from their final goal - kill you.

 

I have a base underground and they still managed to find me and break through though I managed to survive all of them except the first time it happened when I was in the middle of nowhere.

 

Anyway, I decided to take the fight to a different place where I can execute a choke point - at the middle of a lake @ 70 E 591 N.  I made a long bridge 1 block wide from that location straight east connecting to land.  About 10 blocks from land, I placed 5 wooden spikes and then an iron door.  And behind that iron door an Auger Turrent then further into the middle more wooden spikes and at point 70E 591 N is a 4x4 block surrounded by iron fence.  Technically caging myself in.  And to keep me company, a robotic turret.

 

The long bridge is made up flagstones.  

 

Plan is to shed their health from the spikes where the iron door will signal me that they are breaking through.  The auger turret will regulate some to be knocked back and control the outpour.   And since it is just a 1 block width, a rifle shot or a blunderbuss will skewer 3-5 Z's in one shot - maybe even more.

 

I was excited to try it and when the blood moon came I was stoked.  The color of blood filled the sky accompanied by roaring thunder.  22:00, 23:00,........Until the clock counted down till 4am and NOTHING happened!  

 

All that work and...nothing!  My original base was still intact and not a spike was harmed.  Nothing was in the water.

 

I just raged quit the game.

[meganoth]

Should not happen, zombies can swim. But possibly they can't spawn in water and the lake was too big !? If not this might have been just a glitch.

 

Anyone know if zombies can spawn in water?

 

[theFlu]

Seems like the horde can't spawn on water... now, for the cheesiest of cheese (or just to test), add some Top Soil blocks to the sides of you bridge some 30-50 blocks away from your defensive position. If they can't spawn on water, they'll spawn on the blocks you've placed and you'll have perfect control of where they're coming from...

 

The distance where they spawn at is pretty close, but you might have to figure it out precisely, by placing a Top Soil every 5 blocks or so. Otherwise the block you've placed may be outside the range they're willing to spawn at.

 

Bug, annoying and pointless? Yeh. Just try to make some lemonade from it ...

[Boidster]

Vedui did a video recently on basically this topic. His latest horde base design is a platform in a lake. No, the zombies won't spawn in the water, so @Mikeru that was likely your problem. You were so far out that zombies couldn't find any terrain (dirt/gravel/sand/snow/etc.) to spawn on.

 

 

[Maikeru]

Well, after playing for sometime of staying more time in my "ambush" point in the middle of the lake where I setup a campfire and a chest there.  I noticed that I do get under attack.  Well, not me exactly, but the foundations of my platform/bridge.

 

I noticed this when I was cooking at an ordinary night and I hear some "screeching" noises like when you alerted them your presence.  I took a light into the water and saw about 5 of them swimming and erratically attacking the foundations in the bottom of the lake.  One would hit a foundation once, then swim around then walk at the lake bed then hit another foundation.  Some even tried to surface when I dove into the water.  I picked them one by one easily with a rifle.

 

So...they do spawn I guess...sometimes....on the lakebed?  Strange that nothing ever spawned during the blood moon.  

 

I am not dismissing Boidster's findings though, as it could've been a glitch as the game wouldn't have probably known a player would build his safehouse in the middle of the lake as it was too tedious - yeah, took me quite a while to build it without drowning and a lot of trial error too since it was collapsing on my first few attempts.

[Boidster]

It might possibly have something to do with different spawn radius for a scout/screamer vs. the horde? Or it could be where you were working around the base you very briefly were within X blocks (forget the exact number; it's in Vedui's video) of the shore, just long enough for a scout to spawn in and then call in her friends. But during horde night you were camped in your ambush spot which was too far from land.

 

Here's a straight "will they spawn in water" test: 

 

 

[Maikeru]

7 hours ago, Boidster said:

It might possibly have something to do with different spawn radius for a scout/screamer vs. the horde? Or it could be where you were working around the base you very briefly were within X blocks (forget the exact number; it's in Vedui's video) of the shore, just long enough for a scout to spawn in and then call in her friends. But during horde night you were camped in your ambush spot which was too far from land.

 

Here's a straight "will they spawn in water" test: 

 

 

 

Nope, I was just there chilling at the middle of the lake @ 70 E 591 N.  After my last reply, another couple of game days in and I heard them again and this time in the day time.  Just 3 of them though and again, same behavior.   

 

70 E 591 N is more than 30 blocks from the shore.  You could run and deplete your stamina before reaching land.  

 

Tough in Vedui's video - he's at the sea - and not sure how deep it is.  In the middle of the lake in Navezgane, that is around 25-30 block depth only so you could still shoot Z's using a pistol/crossbow.

[Boidster]

Alright I did some tests at that location. I noticed right away that zombies were spawning on the shoreline (only) and a few randomly wandered into the lake (but not obviously at me - just meandering). I fired a gun and a couple of them then started swimming my way from the shore.

 

I then used the spawnscouts command to force a screamer spawn. I did this several times and every time she spawned on the shoreline and then headed my way. At no time during my testing did I see any zombies spawning in the water - they all walked in from the shore. The only way I could get a spawn directly in the water was to use the zombie spawner (f6).

[Maikeru]

12 hours ago, Boidster said:

Alright I did some tests at that location. I noticed right away that zombies were spawning on the shoreline (only) and a few randomly wandered into the lake (but not obviously at me - just meandering). I fired a gun and a couple of them then started swimming my way from the shore.

 

I then used the spawnscouts command to force a screamer spawn. I did this several times and every time she spawned on the shoreline and then headed my way. At no time during my testing did I see any zombies spawning in the water - they all walked in from the shore. The only way I could get a spawn directly in the water was to use the zombie spawner (f6).

 

Your discoveries are incredible!  I think I should learn those commands as well soon.  Though I would wish the devs would address the blood moon AI as players would just camp out at the sea or lake as a safe haven.  I guess I have to move my ambush point near the shore.

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

This may well have been fixed, however I have found a location that you can skate by unscathed on hoard night save a few initial zombies. 

The lookout at the far end of the canyon in Navezgane. They seem to exclusively spawn in the canyon when they do spawn, but none ever made it to us and we were surprised when it happened. If you stay in that building and don't leave, we never had a single problem. We don't use this spot anymore for this reason, but that's the one place I've found so far. Second best is to build a bridge to a base in water and rig that bridge up with traps. I've never seen zombies spawn in water if there is land they can spawn on.

[meganoth]

On 10/23/2021 at 5:42 PM, Lenny Lettuce Lips said:

This may well have been fixed, however I have found a location that you can skate by unscathed on hoard night save a few initial zombies. 

The lookout at the far end of the canyon in Navezgane. They seem to exclusively spawn in the canyon when they do spawn, but none ever made it to us and we were surprised when it happened. If you stay in that building and don't leave, we never had a single problem. We don't use this spot anymore for this reason, but that's the one place I've found so far. Second best is to build a bridge to a base in water and rig that bridge up with traps. I've never seen zombies spawn in water if there is land they can spawn on.

 

If you want the devs to know about the canyon, make a bonafide bug report, see the link in green on top of the page. Posting the coordinates should be sufficient, no need for a logfile.

 

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

On 10/25/2021 at 7:58 AM, meganoth said:

 

If you want the devs to know about the canyon, make a bonafide bug report, see the link in green on top of the page. Posting the coordinates should be sufficient, no need for a logfile.

 

No way man, then they'll take away my spot!

 

[unholyjoe]

hmmmmm interesting 🔎

 

did anyone try this in mp? if only sp then its not hurting anybody else.

Edited October 28, 2021 by unholyjoe (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

@Lenny Lettuce Lips

 

Uh oh, unholyjoe is on the case.  Looks like you might lose your "special" spot  😉

 

[Lenny Lettuce Lips]

8 hours ago, unholyjoe said:

hmmmmm interesting 🔎

 

did anyone try this in mp? if only sp then its not hurting anybody else.

Myself and two others discovered it. It will work in single or multi. It seems to screw with how they detect you versus where they can spawn. We were moderate gamestage and only saw I think three of four zombies at all. 

[pahbi]

Sounds like I need to put my crafting base in the middle of a lake, and the blood night base on the lake shore.

 

I really hate hassling with the screamer zombies that constantly spawn and have to be killed.

 

 

[Maikeru]

So, aside from my base in the lake, as I mentioned, my base was underground about 30 blocks down.  The ladder leads to a long hallway where they come to me in a single file and I pick them off one by one.  If I encounter a spider and the opportune chance of reloading, I get hurt quite a bit but still manage to survive.  

 

So I decided to put an iron bar in between to hopefully get out un-scathe.

 

But...instead of the Z's going down the ladder and attacking me straight, they stopped in the middle of the ladder and tunneled their way to me.  I thought I am screwed if they then tunnel down from the ceiling.

 

To my disappointment, the first wave was stuck there.  They were just  on top of me but still below ground.  Until the blood moon ended at 4:00am and I had to go up the stairs and meet them.

 

The AI of Z's needs fixing.  They are forced to go to the path of lease resistance but they can't tunnel downwards.  But they stand more of a chance if they overrun me in the hall.  

 

So, there you go, another way/loophole to get away un-scathe on a blood moon.

[meganoth]

I assume they first did dig downwards otherwise they would have been stuck at middle of the ladder height. So they principally are able to dig down but some bug must have stopped them. If you know of a way to replicate it with high probability, write it down and make a bug report.

 

Edited November 5, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[theFlu]

6 hours ago, Maikeru said:

So I decided to put an iron bar in between to hopefully get out un-scathe.

Hmm. There's two things that seem odd to me in that story:

1) why did they stop at the halfway through the ladder?

2) why didn't they dig down once above you?

 

For 2 I can guess it was maybe a matter of timing; they were going to dig, but you had the morning interrupt their feral senses and either proceeded to clear them fast enough, or they just gave up soon after - after losing "legitimate" aggro on you.

 

For 1) though.. the zeds are really reluctant to attack terrain. (My info may be from a18, I'm not sure when I've last tested this) They'll attempt pretty much any path before they touch dirt (or stone). Are you sure you didn't force them to dig by breaking the path to you some other way; even as simple as standing on a two-block high terrain "ledge" will make the path to you Require hitting dirt, at that point, they'll behave pretty randomly.

 

For an easy example, if you dig a two-deep hole in your tunnel floor, they won't see that as a path anymore and will try something else instead.

Edited November 5, 2021 by theFlu (see edit history)

[Maikeru]

2 hours ago, theFlu said:

Hmm. There's two things that seem odd to me in that story:

1) why did they stop at the halfway through the ladder?

2) why didn't they dig down once above you?

 

For 2 I can guess it was maybe a matter of timing; they were going to dig, but you had the morning interrupt their feral senses and either proceeded to clear them fast enough, or they just gave up soon after - after losing "legitimate" aggro on you.

 

For 1) though.. the zeds are really reluctant to attack terrain. (My info may be from a18, I'm not sure when I've last tested this) They'll attempt pretty much any path before they touch dirt (or stone). Are you sure you didn't force them to dig by breaking the path to you some other way; even as simple as standing on a two-block high terrain "ledge" will make the path to you Require hitting dirt, at that point, they'll behave pretty randomly.

 

For an easy example, if you dig a two-deep hole in your tunnel floor, they won't see that as a path anymore and will try something else instead.

 

I didn't change anything to my tunnel except put an iron bar in the middle of the tunnel.  Purpose of that is to keep them long enough on the other side coming from the ladder where there is an electrical fence and idea is for me to shoot/finish them off or either that they break through.

 

There's probably one that went down from the top - reason is I have an electrical fence too there at the hole opening.  He might gotten stunned and fell down into the hole (without taking the ladder) straight to my tunnel floor.  And the strange thing is he went up again to where the others are (middle of the ladder) and proceeded to dig.  They managed to reach my location (albeit above me) at around 1:00 AM.  And they just circled there from what I hear from below till the crack of dawn.  And it is only a solid layer of rock between them and me.

 

Next experiment is I removed the iron bar (well I had too, or else I won't be able to get out of my tunnel), and I replaced it with an iron door.  Since they like to break down doors, maybe that'll motivate them to come down again.  If not, I'll just remove it and just do it like previously but that'll be boring since the purpose of all of this is to create "artistic" defenses.

[Maikeru]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

I assume they first did dig downwards otherwise they would have been stuck at middle of the ladder height. So they principally are able to dig down but some bug must have stopped them. If you know of a way to replicate it with high probability, write it down and make a bug report.

 

We'll see.  But I think it is more of an AI behavior than a bug though.  But will see.

[PBRstreetgang]

My guess is the Zs analyze the next block they would need to break to get to you. So the 250(?)hp earth/stone block or the 500(?)hp+ iron bar. That's why they choose a door over 2 concrete blocks or a cobble block over a concrete block. The Zs in this game are quite the engineers! I think your iron door idea might work. I suggest using an iron or vault hatch instead so you can fight them while they beat on it.

 

*PS- I've also had Zombies dig/jump/climb/run around an electric fence to avoid it.