Modlet Improved Hordes [A21.2]

[FilUnderscore]

53 minutes ago, Agame said:

<max_horde_density>2.0</max_horde_density>

<density_per_km_squared>9.3</density_per_km_squared>

<horde_biome_multiplier>0.5</horde_biome_multiplier>

 

If I change all these to much higher then its going to get very crazy in game right? I would like to remove the horde nights and use this mod as an alternative.

Yep, just watch out you don't crash your game with too many zombies. You'll want to run "improvedhordes flush" if you're changing these settings for an existing game to reset all hordes, or wait around 7 in-game days for them to respawn.

[Venturai]

1 hour ago, FilUnderscore said:

Yep, just watch out you don't crash your game with too many zombies. You'll want to run "improvedhordes flush" if you're changing these settings for an existing game to reset all hordes, or wait around 7 in-game days for them to respawn.

Wouldn't that be impossible to do unless you were also modding values like the MaxSpawnedZombies in your serverconfig.xml file?

[FilUnderscore]

Just now, Venturai said:

Wouldn't that be impossible to do unless you were also modding values like the MaxSpawnedZombies in your serverconfig.xml file?

Yep, but I don't know what other settings they might be changing on top of the ones they've listed already, like MaxSpawnedZombies as you've mentioned. If you're using default setting of 64 zombies, hordes just stop spawning in until you've cleared out some zombies.

[Agame]

14 hours ago, Venturai said:

Wouldn't that be impossible to do unless you were also modding values like the MaxSpawnedZombies in your serverconfig.xml file?

Ah good to know, I was wondering if there was a maximum zombie setting like that somewhere, thanks.

[Agame]

And thats interesting does it mean if say I come across a horde of 100 zombies and then go somewhere else those 100 stay spawned in? So if my max zombies was 100 I would not get any new spawns elsewhere from 'natural' spawns?

 

Also a question on horde count, I have noticed via stats that it has been steadily decreasing during game time, from 100s to now 50. Previously it always seemed to stay at a steady amount 400 to 500, not sure why it keeps dropping.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Agame (see edit history)

[FilUnderscore]

1 hour ago, Agame said:

And thats interesting does it mean if say I come across a horde of 100 zombies and then go somewhere else those 100 stay spawned in? So if my max zombies was 100 I would not get any new spawns elsewhere from 'natural' spawns?

 

Also a question on horde count, I have noticed via stats that it has been steadily decreasing during game time, from 100s to now 50. Previously it always seemed to stay at a steady amount 400 to 500, not sure why it keeps dropping.

The zombies will despawn when they get out of view distance until you get near them again.

 

Horde count may be dropping due to the biome decay where when they cross over into other biomes they start to shrink unless they return or die out. Should repopulate after 7 days of initial spawns.

[T0R]

thx to this great mod and the overall nice A21 im getting close to my 5k hours. Rly great i just wonder why this isnt in vanilla. Thx one more time for this mod

[FilUnderscore]

2 hours ago, T0R said:

thx to this great mod and the overall nice A21 im getting close to my 5k hours. Rly great i just wonder why this isnt in vanilla. Thx one more time for this mod

Glad you're enjoying it!

[Venturai]

Okay, I've set everything back to default for now, except for max entities spawned per player which I can't not set at -1 (because I'm damaged like that).

 

We had an interesting experience yesterday while running some of the settings Picklefart suggested a couple of pages ago (max horde density from 2.0 to 4.0 and the possible groups for wandering hordes set to mincount 20 maxcount 30).

 

We were in the midst of dealing with one large horde and had another in the near distance, but a sizeable chunk of them (I'd say a minimum of 20) had crouched and were non-responsive, only agro'ing when we got closer (like when clearing out a POI). At a guess I'd say it's because we were hitting a limit in some way despite having forced too many zombies to spawn.

 

So much fun though.

[Agame]

52 minutes ago, Venturai said:

Okay, I've set everything back to default for now, except for max entities spawned per player which I can't not set at -1 (because I'm damaged like that).

 

We had an interesting experience yesterday while running some of the settings Picklefart suggested a couple of pages ago (max horde density from 2.0 to 4.0 and the possible groups for wandering hordes set to mincount 20 maxcount 30).

 

We were in the midst of dealing with one large horde and had another in the near distance, but a sizeable chunk of them (I'd say a minimum of 20) had crouched and were non-responsive, only agro'ing when we got closer (like when clearing out a POI). At a guess I'd say it's because we were hitting a limit in some way despite having forced too many zombies to spawn.

 

So much fun though.

I have been messing around with settings and decided you can actually have to many hordes, I got to the stage where I did not have enough time to even make ammunition, so I am backing it off for now!

 

It is great fun though and I am also very surprised the devs have not done more work with the hordes mechanic, as it creates a much smoother and more realistic experience in game than the 'horde night' which feels so artificial and cheap.

[MrSamuelAdams]

could this run in conjunction with Khaine's "Wandering Horde Frequency" Modlet? 

[FilUnderscore]

3 hours ago, Venturai said:

Okay, I've set everything back to default for now, except for max entities spawned per player which I can't not set at -1 (because I'm damaged like that).

 

We had an interesting experience yesterday while running some of the settings Picklefart suggested a couple of pages ago (max horde density from 2.0 to 4.0 and the possible groups for wandering hordes set to mincount 20 maxcount 30).

 

We were in the midst of dealing with one large horde and had another in the near distance, but a sizeable chunk of them (I'd say a minimum of 20) had crouched and were non-responsive, only agro'ing when we got closer (like when clearing out a POI). At a guess I'd say it's because we were hitting a limit in some way despite having forced too many zombies to spawn.

 

So much fun though.

Yeah I believe vanilla pathfinding calculations has support for up to 8? entities at a time, which might be what’s happening. Looking into any changes I could make to improve this in the mod. Could also be related to the new A21 optimisations for zombie pathfinding depending on distance from a player.

 

Still marked as a known issue until I can figure out a way to improve this.

 

2 hours ago, Agame said:

I have been messing around with settings and decided you can actually have to many hordes, I got to the stage where I did not have enough time to even make ammunition, so I am backing it off for now!

 

It is great fun though and I am also very surprised the devs have not done more work with the hordes mechanic, as it creates a much smoother and more realistic experience in game than the 'horde night' which feels so artificial and cheap.

I did warn you lol

 

1 hour ago, MrSamuelAdams said:

could this run in conjunction with Khaine's "Wandering Horde Frequency" Modlet? 

Should do, the mod now handles hordes with its own system. It has disabled vanilla screamers from naturally spawning though since they cause enough havoc around town now.

[MrSamuelAdams]

10 minutes ago, FilUnderscore said:

Should do, the mod now handles hordes with its own system. It has disabled vanilla screamers from naturally spawning though since they cause enough havoc around town now.

So should be okay with leaving his in my mods folder or should I take it out? lol

[FilUnderscore]

Just now, MrSamuelAdams said:

So should be okay with leaving his in my mods folder or should I take it out? lol

Should be fine to leave them in.

[Dragonchampion]

Any ETA on the Massive Hordes submod?

[FilUnderscore]

5 hours ago, Dragonchampion said:

Any ETA on the Massive Hordes submod?

Started working on the add-ons since last update - expect the first round by the end of this week.

[Grimlock_Arts]

I'd like to chime in also on this mod. I'm running it on a 7D2D VR server (VR is client side but we select mods to compliment VR) and we're loving the action and energy this brings to the game.

[T0R]

On 7/9/2023 at 5:10 PM, Grimlock_Arts said:

I'd like to chime in also on this mod. I'm running it on a 7D2D VR server (VR is client side but we select mods to compliment VR) and we're loving the action and energy this brings to the game.

hell yes this sounds good. Didnt made it to get the vrmod running with linux but only coz im playing all the time with this mod. So whats the servers info if i wanna come around?

[Wyrm]

I'm having trouble in A21 with getting proper hordes with this mod. I loved it in A20, and with some tweaks I had awesome blood-moon-like experiences at random locations at random times.  But it feels very underwhelming at the moment. Both few hordes and not very large even though we are three people playing together.

 

Also, I've had several instances with screamers not spawning anything when they scream.

 

I've been tweaking around with horde density and horde sizes in the files, but seen no real improvement.

[FilUnderscore]

10 hours ago, Wyrm said:

I'm having trouble in A21 with getting proper hordes with this mod. I loved it in A20, and with some tweaks I had awesome blood-moon-like experiences at random locations at random times.  But it feels very underwhelming at the moment. Both few hordes and not very large even though we are three people playing together.

 

Also, I've had several instances with screamers not spawning anything when they scream.

 

I've been tweaking around with horde density and horde sizes in the files, but seen no real improvement.

Are you running the "improvedhordes flush" command when tweaking the density and populator settings? It resets all the hordes and applies the new settings instantly, otherwise you'll have to wait for the next re-population event to take place (by default 7 days in the wild and POI zones).

 

Lowering the populator sparsity values from "32" to "16", for example, will spawn 2x more hordes in the wild. Consider also increasing the horde_biome_multiplier and density_per_km_squared settings if you want more hordes in every biome throughout the world, but be warned the number of hordes will quickly increase after resetting the hordes with the command.

 

Screamers don't spawn hordes anymore but rather notify any hordes within a couple hundred meters distance of your location (you can adjust this through the event_interest_distance_multiplier setting to increase/decrease this distance). When coupled with the modifications above, it will be truly menacing I can assure you. When you finally figure out how each setting impacts the roaming horde spawns in the world, you can achieve a lot more than in the A20 version.

 

I've kept the settings relatively easier for the default version of the mod, however when the add-ons release later this week, you can expect similar experiences as I've described above.

Edited July 12, 2023 by FilUnderscore (see edit history)

[Wyrm]

44 minutes ago, FilUnderscore said:

Are you running the "improvedhordes flush" command when tweaking the density and populator settings? It resets all the hordes and applies the new settings instantly, otherwise you'll have to wait for the next re-population event to take place (by default 7 days in the wild and POI zones).

 

Lowering the populator sparsity values from "32" to "16", for example, will spawn 2x more hordes in the wild. Consider also increasing the horde_biome_multiplier and density_per_km_squared settings if you want more hordes in every biome throughout the world, but be warned the number of hordes will quickly increase after resetting the hordes with the command.

 

Screamers don't spawn hordes anymore but rather notify any hordes within a couple hundred meters distance of your location (you can adjust this through the event_interest_distance_multiplier setting to increase/decrease this distance). When coupled with the modifications above, it will be truly menacing I can assure you. When you finally figure out how each setting impacts the roaming horde spawns in the world, you can achieve a lot more than in the A20 version.

 

I've kept the settings relatively easier for the default version of the mod, however when the add-ons release later this week, you can expect similar experiences as I've described above.

 

I didn't run the flush command, but I have had the repopulation done at every 2 days. I will try flush when we play again tonight. I have also tweaked the event_interest_distance_multiplier, so next screamer in conjunction with other changes will probably (and hopefully) kill us  

 

I will try getting an overwhelming response and if found too difficult, tweak it in the other direction.  I'm looking forward to trying this out now though.

Thanks for your reply 

[Wyrm]

I changed a few things as I was tipped about, increased the radius for screamers and ran the flush-command.

Slightly more hordes, but still quite small ones.

 

I took a little dump from the console after running the stats command

 

 

The hordes are still underwhelming.
I have fond memories from Alpha 20 where we often attracted hordes and screamers when doing large POIs and being nearly unable to fight them because the spawning of new zombies never ceased. Probably due to the previous screamer mechanics, causing new screamer-spawns during the fight.  More often than not, we had to fight our way to our vehicles and run away. I loved that and currently we're not getting close. We have had some small groups attack us in POIs but rarely more than 10-15 zombies. Screamers still doesn't seem to attract other hordes...

 

I dump the current settings.xml here as well for reference

 

<!-- Settings for Improved Hordes. -->
<improved_hordes>
	<!-- https://github.com/FilUnderscore/ImprovedHordes/wiki/Settings -->

	<!-- Entity Spawn Limit -->
	<max_entities_spawned_per_player>-1</max_entities_spawned_per_player> <!-- -1 to disable. Note: This is still limited by the game's MaxEnemyCount and MaxAnimalCount settings. -->

	<!-- World Spawn Limits -->
	<max_horde_density>6.0</max_horde_density> <!-- Max Horde Density per Horde. (Horde biome size) -->
	<density_per_km_squared>12</density_per_km_squared> <!-- Max World Horde Density. (Number of hordes in world) -->
	
	<!-- Horde Biome Spawn Settings -->
	<horde_biome_multiplier>1.0</horde_biome_multiplier> <!-- Biome multiplier. Higher = more hordes. -->
	<horde_biome_curve_scale>2.0</horde_biome_curve_scale> <!-- Biome Curve Scale. Higher = more hordes in the wasteland. -->
	
	<!-- Horde Merge Distances -->
	<loaded_merge_distance>10</loaded_merge_distance>
	<unloaded_merge_distance>50</unloaded_merge_distance>
	
	<!-- Horde Populator Settings -->
	<wandering_animal_wilderness_sparsity>64</wandering_animal_wilderness_sparsity>
	<wandering_animal_enemy_wilderness_sparsity>32</wandering_animal_enemy_wilderness_sparsity>
	
	<wandering_enemy_wilderness_sparsity>32</wandering_enemy_wilderness_sparsity>
	
	<wilderness_horde_repopulation_days>2</wilderness_horde_repopulation_days>
	<zone_horde_repopulation_days>2</zone_horde_repopulation_days>
	
	<!-- Events -->
	<event_chunk_radius>5</event_chunk_radius>
	<event_interest_distance_multiplier>1</event_interest_distance_multiplier>
</improved_hordes>

 

[Wyrm]

I think I finally managed to get some sort of result after leading a screamer through the world for multiple in-game hours

 

Feels wonky that they don't seem to bother the ordinary roaming zombies when they scream, but the horde that eventually came is terrifying

 

 

 

 

Oh, as a side-note. Screamers seem to scream once a while after you pause the game. Made me nearly crap my pants when it happened the first time  

That is probably not related to the mod though

 

 

- edit - adding more screenshots

 

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Wyrm (see edit history)

[FilUnderscore]

43 minutes ago, Wyrm said:

Feels wonky that they don't seem to bother the ordinary roaming zombies when they scream, but the horde that eventually came is terrifying
 

Oh, as a side-note. Screamers seem to scream once a while after you pause the game. Made me nearly crap my pants when it happened the first time  

That is probably not related to the mod though

Looking into how I can bring back some of the screamer horde spawning functionality without overdoing it, something like adding a cooldown timer in an area so that screamers will still primarily notify hordes but spawn a decent sized horde first time round.

 

I'll look into the screamers screaming during paused game, might be an oversight on my end.

[Paixetamour]

Hello FilUnderscore. Im currently using your FastAI mod on my dedicated server and today i saw it removed from nexusmods and github. May i ask the reason ?