help with zombie pathing

[Fibbonacci]

I built a base about 8 blocks up, and had a walkway to it about 17 blocks with a support in the middle.  the zombies broke the support.  I'm not sure why.  They would stop on the bridge and attack the block connected to the support.  this seems like very odd behavior, and I would like to understand why the zombies are doing this to help my base design in the future.  I have watched some videos from Izprebuilt, and GunsNerdsandSteel but I haven't seen an explanation.

[YourMirror]

When zombies can't reach you they go into destruction mode and try to break the building/structure you are in.

[Krougal]

Lizzy is generally acknowledged as giving the most in depth analysis of it:

More2Me 4Life's AI Testing:    • Analyzing the Rage Mode | Liz Labz (1...  

 

[Syphon583]

22 hours ago, Fibbonacci said:

They would stop on the bridge and attack the block connected to the support.  this seems like very odd behavior, and I would like to understand why the zombies are doing this to help my base design in the future.

As mentioned, there is a state called "destroy area" which is triggered when a zombie's path is broken or interrupted and take damage. This is most apparent if you are on an elevated fighting position. If they get knocked off, they will likely take fall damage and go into destroy area which will last for a short period of time (I think it's something like 15 seconds) after which they will attempt to path to you again.

 

That being said, what you are describing here is somewhat new in A21 and I do not know yet what causes it. I've observed it myself and it's slightly annoying. In past alphas, the zombies would never stop in the middle of an elevated path and start beating on it unless they couldn't get to you. For now, I would just make sure that the main path is strong (concrete if you can) and is regularly repaired between blood moons.

 

It's possible that a new mechanic in A21 is partly to blame. See, zombies will not go into destroy area if, after falling, they are more than 11 blocks away from the player. The reason for this is fairly simple: it reduces the load of the AI and makes for better performance. This means if you make your base tall enough, there shouldn't be any real danger to the supports below your fighting position (unless a cop or demo explode next to them). The thing is that if they get within the 11 blocks too quickly, their destroy area mode will still trigger. It's entirely possible that this is playing into the weird behavior of them stopping in the middle of the elevated path and beating on it. Ensuring that their path back to you is a longer one might help with the issue, but I haven't done enough testing on that yet to say for sure.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Syphon583 (see edit history)

[zombiehunter]

On 9/18/2023 at 10:43 AM, Fibbonacci said:

I built a base about 8 blocks up, and had a walkway to it about 17 blocks with a support in the middle.  the zombies broke the support.  I'm not sure why.  They would stop on the bridge and attack the block connected to the support.  this seems like very odd behavior, and I would like to understand why the zombies are doing this to help my base design in the future.  I have watched some videos from Izprebuilt, and GunsNerdsandSteel but I haven't seen an explanation.

I recently had the same thing.  My horde base is elevated 13 blocks high with a single block path 13 blocks long.  For support, I put a column in the middle of the path.  The Zs would stop there and start beating on the block directly above the support column.  I really don't know why.  So, for the next blood moon, I removed the support column after making sure the path wouldn't collapse and that Z behavior stopped.  Clearly it has something to do with the column but I don't know why.

[Khyron]

Back in Alpha 20, I used to make elevated maze-like structures for zombies to path down. The idea behind them was that if I put down a loooooooong path with a whole bunch of turns, it would take the zombies a very long time to reach me. Meanwhile I would be at the end of the path with robotic turrets mowing the zombies down while they could never touch me. I'd even add a few cube blocks along the path that'd force the zombies to stop, jump up, then jump down.

 

The idea worked 100%, but I noticed back in A20 that zombies who haven't been damaged in a while will go into that 'rage mode' where they stop and attack nearby blocks. Shooting them with a single pistol round would solve the issue; they'd immediately start pathing towards me again, and if I had turrets down they'd do a good job of chewing up the zombies and interrupting the rage mode.

 

I assume that this behavior is in fact intended because I've seen streamers and video creators mention that zombies go into rage mode based on proximity. Cautious Pancake's 6000 foot maze mentions a 'magic 11 block radius' and it's visible in the video where when a zombie gets within 11 blocks of a player even if they haven't been damaged they can stop and go into rage mode.

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by Khyron (see edit history)