Modlet Improved Hordes [A21.2]

[Cypherdiaz]

Fantastic. Will have to give it a test.

 

My server has no 7day hordes (I find them arbitrary and annoying and predictable) so boosting thr scariness of random hordes keeps up the pressure.

 

And by the way, I have to give credit where due. Instead of just addressing folks issues, the integration of user options is fantastic! Wish more mods would do things that way so you can tailor a mod to your desire.

EDIT:

One other piece of feedback from the previous alpha.4 version, though I fear its also in the alpha.5 version.

Our base is a POI (Rural_Wedding_Lake or whatever). Next door is the new T5 Corrections.

During the craziness I described prior, we noticed that A LOT of zombies were spawning in one of the Corrections Towers. See pic.

Like they spawned up there and ended up trashing the railing to get out.

Is there a way to prevent the hordes from spawning IN a POI? Could be problematic.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Cypherdiaz
additional info added (see edit history)

[FilUnderscore]

11 hours ago, Cypherdiaz said:

Fantastic. Will have to give it a test.

 

My server has no 7day hordes (I find them arbitrary and annoying and predictable) so boosting thr scariness of random hordes keeps up the pressure.

 

And by the way, I have to give credit where due. Instead of just addressing folks issues, the integration of user options is fantastic! Wish more mods would do things that way so you can tailor a mod to your desire.

EDIT:

One other piece of feedback from the previous alpha.4 version, though I fear its also in the alpha.5 version.

Our base is a POI (Rural_Wedding_Lake or whatever). Next door is the new T5 Corrections.

During the craziness I described prior, we noticed that A LOT of zombies were spawning in one of the Corrections Towers. See pic.

Like they spawned up there and ended up trashing the railing to get out.

Is there a way to prevent the hordes from spawning IN a POI? Could be problematic.

I’ll see what I can do about this, may need to improve the poi detection algorithm.

[CrimsonKing]

Just got myself a Red Error wondering what it is. Did I get this error from reducing the thread? game was stuttering too often on default settings I changed <max_horde_threads> from 4 to 3 also keep getting the yellow Error "Calling Animator.GotoState on Synchronize layer" whenever the character panel is opened though don't know if it's from this mod or not.

 

2023-06-24T07:41:23 5288.777 ERR [Improved Hordes] [WorldEventReporter] <Update>b__1(Task): UpdateTask was terminated due to a fault.
2023-06-24T07:41:23 5288.789 ERR [Improved Hordes] [WorldEventReporter] <Update>b__1(Task): #1 - An exception occurred during UpdateTask: The given key '19, -36' was not present in the dictionary. 
Stacktrace: 
  at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[TKey,TValue].get_Item (TKey key) [0x0001e] in <03bd9b261dff4c2b8b568aca27f561b2>:0 
  at ImprovedHordes.Core.World.Event.WorldEventReporter.UpdateAsyncVoid (System.Single dt) [0x00127] in <38ddc35aab0145e4abba4134f2213af6>:0 
  at ImprovedHordes.Core.Threading.MainThreadSynchronizedTask.UpdateAsync (System.Single dt) [0x00001] in <38ddc35aab0145e4abba4134f2213af6>:0 
  at ImprovedHordes.Core.Threading.MainThreadSynchronizedTask`1+<>c__DisplayClass7_0[TaskReturnType].<Update>b__0 () [0x0000d] in <38ddc35aab0145e4abba4134f2213af6>:0 
  at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.InnerInvoke () [0x0000f] in <03bd9b261dff4c2b8b568aca27f561b2>:0 
  at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute () [0x00000] in <03bd9b261dff4c2b8b568aca27f561b2>:0 
2023-06-24T07:41:23 5288.792 ERR [Improved Hordes] [WorldEventReporter] <Update>b__1(Task): UpdateTask was terminated due to a fault.
2023-06-24T07:41:23 5288.793 ERR [Improved Hordes] [WorldEventReporter] <Update>b__1(Task): #1 - An exception occurred during UpdateTask: The given key '19, -36' was not present in the dictionary. 
Stacktrace: 
  at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[TKey,TValue].get_Item (TKey key) [0x0001e] in <03bd9b261dff4c2b8b568aca27f561b2>:0 
  at ImprovedHordes.Core.World.Event.WorldEventReporter.UpdateAsyncVoid (System.Single dt) [0x00127] in <38ddc35aab0145e4abba4134f2213af6>:0 
  at ImprovedHordes.Core.Threading.MainThreadSynchronizedTask.UpdateAsync (System.Single dt) [0x00001] in <38ddc35aab0145e4abba4134f2213af6>:0 
  at ImprovedHordes.Core.Threading.MainThreadSynchronizedTask`1+<>c__DisplayClass7_0[TaskReturnType].<Update>b__0 () [0x0000d] in <38ddc35aab0145e4abba4134f2213af6>:0 
  at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.InnerInvoke () [0x0000f] in <03bd9b261dff4c2b8b568aca27f561b2>:0 
  at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute () [0x00000] in <03bd9b261dff4c2b8b568aca27f561b2>:0

 

PS: Don't know if this was the correct place to put this or make a post on your Github page about it.

Edited June 24, 2023 by CrimsonKing (see edit history)

[FilUnderscore]

22 minutes ago, CrimsonKing said:

Error "Calling Animator.GotoState on Synchronize layer" whenever the character panel is opened though don't know if it's from this mod or not.

Yes this is not mod related, vanilla game also has this.

 

23 minutes ago, CrimsonKing said:

Just got myself a Red Error wondering what it is. Did I get this error from reducing the thread? game was stuttering too often on default settings I changed <max_horde_threads> from 4 to 3

No, the error seems to be harmless unless it's spamming your console. Seems like I might've missed some checks, the error is related to the chunk heatmap decay feature (not thread related). I'll get this fixed next patch so it doesn't spew errors in rare cases.

 

Update on the POI issue: might've been exacerbated by a typo I made while coding up the zoning algorithm - the zones while debugging appeared smaller than they actually are and could've been the cause of getting lots of hordes in cities because of the size being misreported (lots of things depend on the zone sizes, so this is sort of a big issue, mainly the density of cities being misrepresented by their size). I've ended up rewriting most of the zone logic while trying to figure out what was causing the issue (and tidying up since it was quite messy), so the next patch should have much more accurate spawns (including a fix for hordes spawning in POIs).

[Picklefart]

Would you consider making an "add-on" for this mod where the air drop works like a screamer. Calling in a horde to the spot the air drop lands. Not sure if that's possible.

 

Also with the new version release I've noticed less zombies in the hordes. I'm at game stage 92 and friend at about the same. We only get probably 10 zombies in a horde. We are in the pine forest but I'd think at that game stage you would quite a bit more. As well see much less horde activity.

 

I did change max_entities_spawned_per_player to -1 to try and spawn all in horde per player at once.

 

would increasing the max density from 2.0 - 4.0 increase the horde size?

 

Also I see this under hordes.xml, am I to understand changing the min-max count to a higher number increase zombies per horde? such as the lines listed in red.

 

            <group name="Zombies">
                <gs min="0" increaseEvery="5"> <!-- 3 zombies @ GS 0, 20 zombies @ GS 55 (1/3 of 165), 10 zombies @ GS 110 (2/3 of 165), 0 zombies @ GS 165+ -->
                    <entity time="day" biomes="wasteland" group="ZombiesWasteland" minCount="3" maxCount="8"/>
                    <entity time="night" biomes="wasteland" group="ZombiesWastelandNight" minCount="3" maxCount="8"/>
            
                    <entity time="day" biomes="pine_forest,snow,desert,burnt_forest" group="ZombiesAll" minCount="10" maxCount="20"/>
                    <entity time="night" biomes="pine_forest,snow,desert,burnt_forest" group="ZombiesNight" minCount="10" maxCount="20"/>
                </gs>
                
                <gs min="70" increaseEvery="8">
                    <entity time="day" biomes="wasteland" group="IHZombiesAllFeralWasteland" minCount="1" maxCount="10"/>
                    <entity time="night" biomes="wasteland" group="ZombiesWastelandNight" minCount="1" maxCount="10"/>
                
                    <entity time="day" biomes="pine_forest,snow,desert,burnt_forest" group="IHZombiesAllFeral" minCount="10" maxCount="20"/>
                    <entity time="night" biomes="pine_forest,snow,desert,burnt_forest" group="IHZombiesAllFeralNight" minCount="10" maxCount="20"/>
                </gs>

 

Or have I just created a monster with these edits?

Edited June 24, 2023 by Picklefart (see edit history)

[Survinator]

 

I don't know why, but the hordes just run somewhere, ignoring me...

[CrimsonKing]

1 hour ago, Survinator said:

 

I don't know why, but the hordes just run somewhere, ignoring me...

 

Yup getting the same problem don't know what's causing it I can shoot at them or make as much noise as possible but they still ignore me running to where ever their destination lies.

[FilUnderscore]

12 hours ago, Picklefart said:

Would you consider making an "add-on" for this mod where the air drop works like a screamer. Calling in a horde to the spot the air drop lands. Not sure if that's possible.

 

Also with the new version release I've noticed less zombies in the hordes. I'm at game stage 92 and friend at about the same. We only get probably 10 zombies in a horde. We are in the pine forest but I'd think at that game stage you would quite a bit more. As well see much less horde activity.

 

I did change max_entities_spawned_per_player to -1 to try and spawn all in horde per player at once.

 

would increasing the max density from 2.0 - 4.0 increase the horde size?

 

Also I see this under hordes.xml, am I to understand changing the min-max count to a higher number increase zombies per horde? such as the lines listed in red.

 

            <group name="Zombies">
                <gs min="0" increaseEvery="5"> <!-- 3 zombies @ GS 0, 20 zombies @ GS 55 (1/3 of 165), 10 zombies @ GS 110 (2/3 of 165), 0 zombies @ GS 165+ -->
                    <entity time="day" biomes="wasteland" group="ZombiesWasteland" minCount="3" maxCount="8"/>
                    <entity time="night" biomes="wasteland" group="ZombiesWastelandNight" minCount="3" maxCount="8"/>
            
                    <entity time="day" biomes="pine_forest,snow,desert,burnt_forest" group="ZombiesAll" minCount="10" maxCount="20"/>
                    <entity time="night" biomes="pine_forest,snow,desert,burnt_forest" group="ZombiesNight" minCount="10" maxCount="20"/>
                </gs>
                
                <gs min="70" increaseEvery="8">
                    <entity time="day" biomes="wasteland" group="IHZombiesAllFeralWasteland" minCount="1" maxCount="10"/>
                    <entity time="night" biomes="wasteland" group="ZombiesWastelandNight" minCount="1" maxCount="10"/>
                
                    <entity time="day" biomes="pine_forest,snow,desert,burnt_forest" group="IHZombiesAllFeral" minCount="10" maxCount="20"/>
                    <entity time="night" biomes="pine_forest,snow,desert,burnt_forest" group="IHZombiesAllFeralNight" minCount="10" maxCount="20"/>
                </gs>

 

Or have I just created a monster with these edits?

Great idea for an add-on, I'll look into it after all the issues have been fixed. I did hard nerf the hordes for now (sizes and numbers) to try and figure out what should be balanced and temporarily fix the out of hand hordes others have been experiencing. Increase the density will increase the horde size, as well as tweaking the entity min-max counts. You can also look to tweak the increase every X gamestages on how quickly you want your hordes to grow.

 

4 hours ago, Survinator said:

 

I don't know why, but the hordes just run somewhere, ignoring me...

 

3 hours ago, CrimsonKing said:

 

Yup getting the same problem don't know what's causing it I can shoot at them or make as much noise as possible but they still ignore me running to where ever their destination lies.

Looking into this!

[Cypherdiaz]

Thanks for all the hard work.

 

Looks like the POI issue uncovered a more serious issue from your post about it.

 

As for others reports of the horde just doing their thing, one thing I noticed in version4 (we haven't added version 5 yet) was similar. Our base turrets would rip into them but never caused them to target thr base. Like they'd run by and as long as they didn't spot a player. They'd keep going (which I'm totally fine with) but if they ran near my base, it would light them up and they wouldn't react to suddenly multiple mp5 and shotgun turrets engaging them. Always found it weird. 

[Picklefart]

For my situation in the new version. 

 

It seems random that the zombies will react to gunfire or proximity. Though it happens outside of the wandering hordes. I had it happen with a cop car alarm as well. The zombies that spawned from the car alarm going off did not seem to 100% react to me some would and some wouldn't.

 

Also now that I increased the density and the min-max zombie count I am now receiving nice size wandering hordes. It is pretty glorious. I may have to alter the density back down though because them roaming zombie dog hordes are no joke, and the bears, oh the bears. 😂

[Picklefart]

Just experienced an influx of screamers. 

 

Disclaimer:

this is with adjustment of -1 instead of 16

Density 4x instead of 2x

Min 20 Max 30 instead of Min 1 Max 10

 

I was only able to snap 2 screenshots before my game became completely unplayable.

 

I am not sure if those adjustments would have caused all these screamers to appear. I ended up having to do the "Killall" command. Game became unplayable at home base once the zombies would not stop spawning in after 2-3 "Killall" commands. It was definitely interesting to say the least. 

 

 

[FilUnderscore]

On 6/26/2023 at 2:32 AM, Cypherdiaz said:

As for others reports of the horde just doing their thing, one thing I noticed in version4 (we haven't added version 5 yet) was similar. Our base turrets would rip into them but never caused them to target thr base. Like they'd run by and as long as they didn't spot a player. They'd keep going (which I'm totally fine with) but if they ran near my base, it would light them up and they wouldn't react to suddenly multiple mp5 and shotgun turrets engaging them. Always found it weird. 

 

22 hours ago, Picklefart said:

It seems random that the zombies will react to gunfire or proximity. Though it happens outside of the wandering hordes. I had it happen with a cop car alarm as well. The zombies that spawned from the car alarm going off did not seem to 100% react to me some would and some wouldn't.

Looked into it, seems to have been a bug regarding how the AI processes interruptions and was slightly affected by the event distance nerf as well. They seem to be reacting much better in the dev build for next release.

 

Update on the POI: I've tweaked and improved the detection algorithm, for comparison here is what we had so far (10k pregen map for reference):

vs what's coming:

The yellow squares are individual POIs, I've managed to get up to separating the city POIs from rural/wilderness POIs, and now that's left to do is correctly group the squares to form bigger simpler squares that represent town/city zones.

 

EDIT: Further update, here's the grouped city zones from the above picture:

These zone outlines will allow the spawning system to deduce the density of these zones by knowing the size and number of POIs within these zones. Still need to test that it works properly in other RWG maps, then I can begin to tweak the spawns within the zones.

 

Compared to the first picture (2.0.0-alpha.5), the picture above is what it should look like.

Edited June 26, 2023 by FilUnderscore (see edit history)

[wolverine576]

I had to edit the world max spawned zombies <max_world_density>100.0</max_world_density> because i had 544 zombies spawn in the area. Not sure if i had a setting wrong

I was the only one on the server. execpt for the max spawn going to 544, mod seems really good

 

Edited June 26, 2023 by wolverine576 (see edit history)

[m4ntic0r]

there is a really annoying stuttering with this mod in a21 latest version 5 (never tried older)

even from the beginning of a new game.

after ~1-2min i have all 2-3sek this stutter.

i tried lowest video options etc.. but its not the problem

 

same savegame/world without mod -> butter smooth

 

default mod settings, i did not change anything on mod or game in any file.

Edited June 26, 2023 by m4ntic0r (see edit history)

[FilUnderscore]

39 minutes ago, m4ntic0r said:

there is a really annoying stuttering with this mod in a21 latest version 5 (never tried older)

even from the beginning of a new game.

after ~1-2min i have all 2-3sek this stutter.

i tried lowest video options etc.. but its not the problem

 

same savegame/world without mod -> butter smooth

 

default mod settings, i did not change anything on mod or game in any file.

Try reducing the number of threads that the horde simulation uses, https://github.com/FilUnderscore/ImprovedHordes/wiki/Settings#threading

Inside the file:

Mods/ImprovedHordes/Config/ImprovedHordes/settings.xml

 

Try lowering the horde threads to 2 to begin with.

 

55 minutes ago, wolverine576 said:

I had to edit the world max spawned zombies <max_world_density>100.0</max_world_density> because i had 544 zombies spawn in the area. Not sure if i had a setting wrong

I was the only one on the server. execpt for the max spawn going to 544, mod seems really good

 

Currently a bug with horde populating, expect a fix next update (should be ready in the next day or so).

[m4ntic0r]

56 minutes ago, FilUnderscore said:

Try reducing the number of threads that the horde simulation uses, https://github.com/FilUnderscore/ImprovedHordes/wiki/Settings#threading

Inside the file:

Mods/ImprovedHordes/Config/ImprovedHordes/settings.xml

 

Try lowering the horde threads to 2 to begin with.

 

This does not change the stutter.

I tried 1, 2 or 8

 

I dont see any % more cpu load with the mod. only the stutter. fps are ok, the dont drop.

I dont have a "weak" system, 5600x, rtx 3090

 

With mod every second there is a short stutter, not every 2-3sec, this was wrong.

Without loading the mod no problem, tried it again.

Edited June 26, 2023 by m4ntic0r (see edit history)

[MrSamuelAdams]

What's up with the zombie wandering hordes just booking it and not coming to you even with feral sense? lol

[Dragonchampion]

Your upcoming changes have me super excited. I can't wait for your full-scale dynamic traveling horde system.

[FilUnderscore]

IMPROVED HORDES 2.0.0-alpha.6 for A21 EXP b317 released.

 

This is an experimental release of Improved Hordes. If you encounter any bugs/performance issues regarding the mod, report them in the Issues section of the repository with the experimental label.

 

Download: https://github.com/FilUnderscore/ImprovedHordes/releases/download/2.0.0-alpha.6/ImprovedHordes-Experimental.zip

Changelog

Added

• Feral sense support
  • If you enable feral sense options for your game, hordes will be able to sense you up to a slightly greater distance.

Changed

• Reworked zone horde spawning
  • Improved the POI zoning algorithm to more accurately determine towns and cities through proper POI clustering.
  • Also tweaked some parameters to spawn hordes better depending on zone size and POI count.
• Multi-threading changes
  • Slightly tweaked how data between threads is shared.
• Increased event_interest_distance_multiplier from 0.25 to 0.5.
  • This is also in part to fix hordes not being interested in nearby activities.
  • Additionally, increased the weight of heatmap activities which should make hordes interested much more quickly.
• Increased max_world_density from 200.0 to 350.0.
  • This is mainly so that wilderness hordes can properly populate throughout the world. City hordes are much bigger than wilderness hordes, but there are less of them.
  • Depending on your world size, you may choose to increase/decrease this number.
• Reduced roaming horde speeds to be more inline with the game's entity walk speeds.
• Increased wilderness wandering horde sleep chance from 0.3 to 0.7.
• Increased zone wandering horde sleep chance from 0.3 to 0.5.
• Renamed horde_biome_sparsity_multiplier to horde_biome_multiplier.
  • Increasing this number will increase the number of hordes populated throughout the world (in zones/wilderness).
  • Reducing it does the opposite effect.
• Hordes will now wander around areas of interest for sometime depending on the amount of interest accumulated.

Fixed

• Biome-specific horde population rules not being applied to unloaded chunks.
• Horde AI interrupt commands not being properly processed.
  • Hordes should now be better attracted to nearby heatmap activities.
• NullPointerException when attempting to fetch previous heatmap event data in chunks.
• Screamers not being able to merge with wandering hordes in certain cases.

Known issues

• Horde respawning of same type/number of entities inconsistent.
• Entities sometimes frozen in place when sleeping, or the game AI lags behind if there are too many entities spawned.

22 hours ago, m4ntic0r said:

 

This does not change the stutter.

I tried 1, 2 or 8

 

I dont see any % more cpu load with the mod. only the stutter. fps are ok, the dont drop.

I dont have a "weak" system, 5600x, rtx 3090

 

With mod every second there is a short stutter, not every 2-3sec, this was wrong.

Without loading the mod no problem, tried it again.

New update I've tweaked some things to try and reduce this stutter, let me know if it works.

8 hours ago, MrSamuelAdams said:

What's up with the zombie wandering hordes just booking it and not coming to you even with feral sense? lol

Been fixed in the latest release.

6 hours ago, Dragonchampion said:

Your upcoming changes have me super excited. I can't wait for your full-scale dynamic traveling horde system.

This has already been running since the first update, but with the bugged POI detection hasn't really been that noticeable. City hordes should be more balanced now, might need to do a bit of tweaking still but it should be much better now. There are still some things I'd like to add in like horde decay in different biomes so hordes don't get out of hand (size-wise) when moving between them.

Edited June 27, 2023 by FilUnderscore (see edit history)

[laerbn]

Super super interested and excited for this.  My group used this mod last time we played and it was a blast.  The amount of screamers was definitely too much, however, so hopefully the reduced/no screamer mod you had for A20 makes a return.  Thanks for your work on this!  The vanilla game feels lifeless outside of POIs themselves and this mod adds so much more danger to the world.

[EpicSpire]

Are the hordes Game Stage locked? like would the hordes that spawn on day 1 be consistant with what a palyer would expect to see on day 1 are is it going to be radiated cops and wights and bikers and crap (just an example). 

[FilUnderscore]

9 minutes ago, EpicSpire said:

Are the hordes Game Stage locked? like would the hordes that spawn on day 1 be consistant with what a palyer would expect to see on day 1 are is it going to be radiated cops and wights and bikers and crap (just an example). 

Yes that is a core feature of the mod. On day 1 unless you go into a harder biome which raises your game stage, you can only expect to see some small and medium sized hordes with basic zombie types depending on whether you enter a city or you’re in the wilderness.

[MrSamuelAdams]

with the latest version i'm getting some strange hitching every second or so... only last like a millisecond, but annoying nonetheless. 

[MrSamuelAdams]

Also updated to the latest version, unfortunately. getting like 3-4 wandering hordes a day which is super rough and still a bunch are just running right by us even with feral sense on ALL. 

[Agame]

Just started using this as I have been looking for mods to spice up the threats in game, as vanilla world feels EXTREMELY empty when you are roaming around.

 

Anyway I am at day 7 and I have yet to see any hordes, I typed in the 'show horde' command but I have no idea what the info there means. I am running KHA20-DangerousCities mod which is clearly working, maybe it is incompatible with this mod? Are the hordes supposed to spawn in near the player or could they be on the other side of the map and I am just not seeing them?