Respawn Delay, Increasing Zombie Spawns, and Multiplayer

[ProlificPoultry]

Hello! I want to increase the zombie spawns for my friend and I in our world and we tried a modlet that makes the zombies spawn 4x and 3x as much with a respawn delay of 0. However both of these got incredibly overwhelming, even with walking zombies on default difficulty. (We also play with feral sense on) 

 

I think that increasing the respawn delay is the way to go but I would like to know what exactly changing the value means. A value of 0 means there is no delay but what does a value of say... "0.5" mean? In the spawning.xml there is the note at the top " respawndelay: game days - .000278 real seconds, .0167 mins" but I can't really make sense of this. I have seen people say that the number is in-game days, but I have also seen people say it's minutes. Which, if any, is it? 

 

Another question. What affect does multiplayer have on the spawns? I feel like when I test the modlets by myself then it doesn't feel so bad but when I'm with my friend then they are. 

 

I want the zombies to be a constant threat but not so many at a time where the game becomes unplayable like with x3 and x4. I'm going to try x2 but I feel like with a respawn delay of 0 then the same thing is going to happen. I might try a spawn max count of 1 and no respawn delay and see if that is any good. We have been meaning to start a new world that's slightly more difficult but I don't want to keep making them test this stuff out with me.

[bdubyah]

I think the respawn delay is basically in game days. So a .5 means half a game day. I prefer higher spawn counts, but a bit higher delay so you can kind of clear areas for a bit, but that's just a preference. Probably just need to do some tests changing the spawn counts and the delay till you find something you like. I'd say something like 2-3x vanilla spawns with vanilla-ish delay would be a decent starting point, in my mind.

 

MP I wouldn't think would affect biome spawns much, other than if you have real high spawn counts set and a few people spread out on a server you could hit the cap and start seeing less spawns. Especially when sleepers start getting activated and whatnot. I'm not sure if biome spawns are per player in MP or not. I wouldn't think so.