4 hours ago, PoppaSmirk said:Thats a mighty fine theory but did it somehow slip the thought process that One or more of us returned to our Base POI around Day 16 or 17 and that the Screamer and Zeds had broken through the wall section where the estate has a 4 block high fence and they were up at the main building thumping on the glass , walls and the exterior deco? All of that didn't happen just as we rode up on our minibikes, it takes some time to go through two doubled sections of cobblestone fence sections (4 blocks at 1500 hp a block ) We even had a deer within the grounds of the Estate/Base that came in through the hole the zeds made. A day or so later another of our group found basically the same thing, Same area of fencing, but they broke through a few spaces/blocks away from the first 'invasion'. After it happened a third time, We started leaving someone at the Base, and that was also when we set up the cement mixer and upgraded the blocks first on that section.
What I told you are the facts: In a chunk that isn't loaded there are no zombies and a screamer only spawns zombies if it has actually seen the player.
How that fits with what you were experiencing I can't say without actually knowing all details. You probably don't either because you just heard the condensed version from that other player.
Maybe the guy stopped in the neighborhood and harvested the farm or cut a few trees before actually going round the house and noticing them. Maybe he didn't see them but was seen by the screamer, went inside and only then heard the ruckus outside. A fence hasn't much HP, as soon as the screamer has summoned a few zombies that shouldn't be much of a defense.
As I said, spike traps are one way to deal with screamers. Though when the screamer already has seen you and spawned helpers you should intervene because the traps don't help as well against a group of "bigger" zombies.