Modlet Improved Hordes [A21.2]

[Greymantle]

^^^  I see why it went nuts. 3 scouts per person with 3 summons max each. That was 20 zombies we got to start then each scout could summon 20 more. No wonder it got crazy. I lowered it down to 1 scout per person and only 6 zombies per person in horde. This way it won't snowball so fast and make it a bit more manageable. That would make it a max of 48 zombies if the scouts summon 3 times.

 

Update: It seems to keep summoning screamers who then summon more. Even with my tweaks the zombies just kept coming. I couldn't keep up with the ammo with this mod. IMHO the horde spawns to often and way to many with the addition of the scouts/screamers.

Edited April 16, 2022 by Greymantle (see edit history)

[Yakov]

Hey,

Is there a way to configure this to spawn a custom scout, and custom group, as well as keeping the original scouts and groups?

I basically want there to be a chance to spawn these custom scouts.

Might be too specific a request 😛 

[FilUnderscore]

17 hours ago, Yakov said:

Hey,

Is there a way to configure this to spawn a custom scout, and custom group, as well as keeping the original scouts and groups?

I basically want there to be a chance to spawn these custom scouts.

Might be too specific a request 😛 

 

You can add custom groups in the hordes.xml file either by modifying it directly or using xpath, outlined more in the wiki on how to go about it:

https://github.com/FilUnderscore/ImprovedHordes/wiki/Custom-Hordes

[Yakov]

On 4/23/2022 at 3:06 PM, FilUnderscore said:

 

You can add custom groups in the hordes.xml file either by modifying it directly or using xpath, outlined more in the wiki on how to go about it:

https://github.com/FilUnderscore/ImprovedHordes/wiki/Custom-Hordes

 

thanks mate, this is how i want to do it but its not working this way, unless im doing something wrong

 

 

[FilUnderscore]

4 hours ago, Yakov said:

thanks mate, this is how i want to do it but its not working this way, unless im doing something wrong

 

The hordegroup tag doesn't support a group attribute so you can remove that, so it becomes:

<hordegroup name="RaiderScout" weight="0.25">

----

The entity tags work similar to the entitygroups.xml entries where you are specifying the entity name from the entityclasses.xml. For example, wolves are defined in the entityclasses.xml as "animalWolf". Here you are saying that you are wanting to spawn an entity defined in the entityclasses.xml as "RaiderScout". So the entity name needs to match the name of the entity you are wanting to spawn from your entityclasses.xml file.

 

Example from wiki:

----

 

The top part of the above:

The way this works for scouts is this defines the chance that another scout will spawn alongside a scout-summoned horde, so if you want to do this with your custom group then you would change the entity entries to look similar to this:

<entity horde="scouts" group="RaiderScout" chance="0.1"/>

This basically picks the RaiderScout hordegroup from the scouts horde type (there are only 4 horde types - wandering, scouts, scout, and patrol).

 

Example from wiki:

----

And these entries below are picking the "Raiders" group that is defined in the entitygroups.xml file, an example of a group defined in that file is "ZombiesAll" or "ZombiesNight".

 

Example from wiki:

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by FilUnderscore (see edit history)

[Yakov]

Awesome thanks for taking the time to help. Just one more question, is there a way to switch off certain components of the mod? For example if i want to use my own wandering horde code since its custom, would i just need to comment out that part of it from the horde.xml?

[magejosh]

16 hours ago, Yakov said:

Awesome thanks for taking the time to help. Just one more question, is there a way to switch off certain components of the mod? For example if i want to use my own wandering horde code since its custom, would i just need to comment out that part of it from the horde.xml?

Awesome question. I'd like to know more as well.

 

For my use in Purgatory I setup custom entitygroups to be called on for that, but if there's other ways to manipulate this I'd love to see them.

 

Currently i'm just spawning too many due to too many avenues for spawning and probably running too high settings in this mod as well. While i love having a world this full of activity, it gets a little tanky on the FPS for my older laptop to handle sometimes if RNG isn't in my favor.

[FilUnderscore]

On 4/27/2022 at 8:45 PM, Yakov said:

Awesome thanks for taking the time to help. Just one more question, is there a way to switch off certain components of the mod? For example if i want to use my own wandering horde code since its custom, would i just need to comment out that part of it from the horde.xml?

 

On 4/28/2022 at 1:42 PM, magejosh said:

Awesome question. I'd like to know more as well.

 

For my use in Purgatory I setup custom entitygroups to be called on for that, but if there's other ways to manipulate this I'd love to see them.

 

Currently i'm just spawning too many due to too many avenues for spawning and probably running too high settings in this mod as well. While i love having a world this full of activity, it gets a little tanky on the FPS for my older laptop to handle sometimes if RNG isn't in my favor.

 

Currently only scout hordes can be disabled in the settings.xml file, however I am looking into adding the option to disable wandering & patrol hordes. Expect this in a future patch. The mod is intended to be played with all 3 hordes active (and will be balanced as such), so the option to disable hordes will mainly be for those wanting to further modify hordes.

[John Black]

Hi Fil,

Am I correct in assuming that the games' "Feral Sense=on" option will override your horde settings?

 

I’ve been struggling to manage the level of action in the wasteland. With feral sense=off during the day, normal zombies have a lackluster threat level. I therefore set feral sense=on during the day, which results in what I feel to be an appropriate threat. This unfortunately seems to have the side-effect of making every IH feral. At insane difficulty, 200% block damage and with my current horde settings, its a bit much especially as the horde can’t be avoided(from my testing). Would it be possible to have IH not be affected by the feral setting of the game and only use the setting from the IH settings.xml?

 

<min_hrs_between_occurrences>0</min_hrs_between_occurrences>

<min_occurrences>6</min_occurrences>
<max_occurrences>21</max_occurrences>	

<feral_horde_chance>0.01 (also tried zero)</feral_horde_chance>

 

[FilUnderscore]

3 hours ago, John Black said:

Hi Fil,

Am I correct in assuming that the games' "Feral Sense=on" option will override your horde settings?

 

I’ve been struggling to manage the level of action in the wasteland. With feral sense=off during the day, normal zombies have a lackluster threat level. I therefore set feral sense=on during the day, which results in what I feel to be an appropriate threat. This unfortunately seems to have the side-effect of making every IH feral. At insane difficulty, 200% block damage and with my current horde settings, its a bit much especially as the horde can’t be avoided(from my testing). Would it be possible to have IH not be affected by the feral setting of the game and only use the setting from the IH settings.xml?

 

<min_hrs_between_occurrences>0</min_hrs_between_occurrences>

<min_occurrences>6</min_occurrences>
<max_occurrences>21</max_occurrences>	

<feral_horde_chance>0.01 (also tried zero)</feral_horde_chance>

 

 

This seems to be unrelated to the feral hordes and more related to the new stealth system. Just to confirm you are running the latest version (1.1.0)? The game seems to amplify player noise levels when feral sense is enabled, including sounds such as movement which results in the zombies going to the place they last heard you. I will look into this.

[John Black]

1 hour ago, FilUnderscore said:

 

This seems to be unrelated to the feral hordes and more related to the new stealth system. Just to confirm you are running the latest version (1.1.0)? The game seems to amplify player noise levels when feral sense is enabled, including sounds such as movement which results in the zombies going to the place they last heard you. I will look into this.

1.1.0 on this end - Thank you -

[Rodent]

Hi Fil,

Thanks again for this great mod.  My server is set to a 90 minute day

Is there a way to configure the time a horde lingers before moving on to the despawn point?

 

Also I've noticed if I have the ZombieFeralMove set to high (3 sprint) much of the horde group make it to the despawn point without lingering around.

 

[FilUnderscore]

On 5/15/2022 at 9:55 AM, Rodent said:

Hi Fil,

Thanks again for this great mod.  My server is set to a 90 minute day

Is there a way to configure the time a horde lingers before moving on to the despawn point?

 

Also I've noticed if I have the ZombieFeralMove set to high (3 sprint) much of the horde group make it to the despawn point without lingering around.

 

Not at the moment, but do expect more settings to be available regarding hordes/AI in the next update. The zombies should be lingering around however if they are say, a feral wandering horde. Patrol hordes do not currently linger around, however I am looking to change this within the next update.

[FilUnderscore]

IMPROVED HORDES 1.1.1 UPDATE RELEASED FOR ALPHA 20.5 B2.

 

Changelog:

• Updated for compatibility with Alpha 20.5 b2.

Added

• Optional Mod Manager support.
• New Settings
  • <enabled> in <wandering_horde> to enable/disable custom wandering hordes.
  • <enabled> in <heat_tracker> to enable/disable the heat difficulty settings and patrol hordes.
  • New <horde_ai> option group.
    • <sense_dist> The distance in meters at which hordes can sense players nearby.
    • <threshold> The threshold before players nearby are sensed.
    • New <advanced_settings> option group.
      • <wander_time> The number of ticks that horde entities will wander before moving on.

Edited June 3, 2022 by FilUnderscore (see edit history)

[Rodent]

A great mod gets Better!

Appreciate your hard work and effort, Thanks.

[Mr.SantaMan]

It says this mod brings back the old scout but when I went in the spawn list to take a look at it I cold not find it do I need to enable it or something or does it not show up in the spawn list or am I just missing something

[FilUnderscore]

20 minutes ago, Mr.SantaMan said:

It says this mod brings back the old scout but when I went in the spawn list to take a look at it I cold not find it do I need to enable it or something or does it not show up in the spawn list or am I just missing something

The old scout used to be a spider zombie, so the mod makes it so that you can either get a group of spider zombies (up to 3 like before), or a screamer to spawn.

[Mr.SantaMan]

15 hours ago, FilUnderscore said:

The old scout used to be a spider zombie, so the mod makes it so that you can either get a group of spider zombies (up to 3 like before), or a screamer to spawn.

Ok I started playing in A15 did not know they used to be spider zombies

[FilUnderscore]

IMPROVED HORDES 1.2.0 RELEASED FOR ALPHA 20.6 B9.

 

Changelog:

• Updated for compatibility with Alpha 20.6 b9.

Added

• POI Tags for horde spawns.
  • This means you will no longer encounter animal hordes in cities/towns, and this makes them more common in the wilderness/smaller pois. This also means you will now encounter more zombie hordes while looting large areas, since the potential horde pool is smaller in those areas.
  • Additional information in the improvedhordes stats command regarding the current POI tags in your area. (Requires permission level 0.)

Changed

• Commands have been rewritten to be more modular behind-the-scenes.
  • This should change none of the existing functionality, but provide easier navigating through the console command menu.
• Hordes and gamestage difficulty is now additionally decided on where the horde will spawn location-wise, on top of the player group's average gamestage, instead of what biome the player group is currently in.
  • This means that hordes that spawn in the wasteland near a wasteland-forest, wasteland-desert, etc. boundary will have the difficulty of a wasteland horde, vice versa.
  • So don't build too close to the wasteland when starting out, or you'll have a lot of zombies knocking on your door.
• Animal horde AI now prioritizes running away from players first before going to their target location.

[Noggog]

Hey Fil!

 

Just wanted to swing by and say looking awesome!   The game needs more mods like these.  Had to do a double take, as it looks extremely similar to a mod I was working on in 2021 that I sidelined for other hobby projects:  https://github.com/Noggog/VolatileHordes

It's in a fairly developed, but not yet playable state.  Spawning and AI systems are fine tuned a good deal, but the overall "director" still needs design and implementation work.

Seems like great minds were thinking alike at the same time in 2021, lol!   Seems like we're going for very similar vibes, and just doing the guts a bit differently.

Anyway, I'll definitely be giving your version a spin in a playthough I'm hoping to do in the next few weeks.   Also if you feel like brainstorming, sharing ideas, or stealing code, feel free to hit me up here, GitHub, or wherever.   I'll definitely be taking a look at your heat detection code, as I never got around to figuring that one out.

 

Cheers!

- Noggog

[Dark_Shadow_231]

An issue I've had on a couple of quests now, wondering if this mod could be related.

On a tier 5 POI, the last zombies are not spawning in. We have the yellow marker which identifies the location, however even with god mode flying through they are not there.

Is it possible the dll for this mod, is spawning in so many zombies that it glitches the quest by hitting some kind of limit?

[FilUnderscore]

13 minutes ago, Dark_Shadow_231 said:

An issue I've had on a couple of quests now, wondering if this mod could be related.

On a tier 5 POI, the last zombies are not spawning in. We have the yellow marker which identifies the location, however even with god mode flying through they are not there.

Is it possible the dll for this mod, is spawning in so many zombies that it glitches the quest by hitting some kind of limit?

 

The game has the "MaxSpawnedZombies" setting that allows up to a maximum number of zombies to be spawned in the world at any given time, which is set to a default value of 60. This can be changed in the serverconfig.xml file in the game install folder.

 

The mod is configured so that it does not exceed this limit, and has another limit built in which is the max_alive_per_horde_player setting found in the mod's settings.xml file, which is set to a default value of 10 zombies spawned per player maximum per horde.

 

If there are no hordes showing up with the "ih list" command when typed in the console, then it might not be causing the issue you are describing, as the mod only spawns in zombies when a horde is generated. If there are multiple large hordes listed, you may wish to either increase the "MaxSpawnedZombies" value or decrease the "max_alive_per_horde_player" setting to allow the last few zombies to spawn in (if the mod is causing the issue).

 

Also check with the "le" command in the console if there are over 60 spawned zombies when the issue happens, to confirm that you are hitting the limit and that another mod is not causing the issue (assuming you are running other mods).

[Jarinex]

This mod has definitely made the game much more interesting. I have to watch my back more than I did before, and I love the customizable hordes!

[FilUnderscore]

On 11/16/2022 at 2:28 AM, Jarinex said:

This mod has definitely made the game much more interesting. I have to watch my back more than I did before, and I love the customizable hordes!

Great to hear!

 

IMPROVED HORDES 1.2.1 UPDATE RELEASED FOR ALPHA 20.6 B9.

 

Changelog:

 

Added

• Command to spawn in custom horde types that are not referenced in the Improved Hordes code.
  • Usage: improvedhordes spawn <horde type> <hordegroup name> <group distance> <all> (player id)

Fixed

• Fixed issue #8 "Null Reference Exception thrown when player logs out while HordeSpawner is attempting to spawn"
  • A warning message should now instead appear, letting you know that the entity spawn was attempted but unsuccessful.

[DoctorGreen]

Quick question, I'm testing mods together and it would be helpful to know how long into game I should be before the first hordes come out, does it follow game day, or player level?   If I don't see any hordes by (x condition), when will I know the mod is working or not?   So far I'm like lvl 3 in current world and have only seen single zombies at a time, wondering if that is normal with mod installed. tia.