This is a continuation of my previous mod (A19) WalkerSim - Enhanced roaming zombies - Mods - 7 Days to Die but written from scratch. If you ever felt like this game lacks wandering zombies then this mod will be what you are looking for.
What is this?
Instead of having zombies spawned at random this mod will simulate thousands of zombies on the map and when a player is close enough it will actually spawn them in-game, if the player is too far away the zombie will despawn and be put back into the simulation also remembering the state such as health and class. So if you clear some area then this area is actually clear until the zombies advance in the simulation to that area again.
This is a fast-forwarded illustration of how the simulation reacts to loud noises, the red circles illustrate the position and will fade out over time. WalkerSim will also load the roads which the zombies will prefer to navigate creating a more realistic behavior, even the undead probably prefer a path with least resistance. Most aspects of the simulation can be modified, see the xml file and its schema, proper documentation will follow at some point.
This preview is from the Viewer which is not polished enough yet to release and acts more as a debug tool for me, however you can see the simulation in-game by using the console command walkersim show which looks like following:
I want to see it before I test it!
@Guppycur did stream some testing,
Download
You can download the latest version from Releases · ZehMatt/7dtd-WalkerSim2 (github.com) (Last updated 8/30/2024)
Contact
Feel free to hop on the Discord Channel if you have any questions or issues, the channel is kindly hosted by @Guppycur
Installation & Usage
Local/Singleplayer
Download the latest version and unpack the zip into <YOUR_STEAM_PATH>/steamapps/common/7 Days to Die/Mods , so when unpacked it will be <YOUR_STEAM_PATH>/steamapps/common/7 Days to Die/Mods/WalkerSim/WalkerSimMod.dll
Servers
Download the latest version and unpack the zip into <PATH_TO_INSTALL>/steamapps/common/7 Days to Die Dedicated Server/Mods , so when unpacked it will be <YOUR_STEAM_PATH>/steamapps/common/7 Days to Die Dedicated Server/Mods/WalkerSim/WalkerSimMod.dll
WalkerSim comes with a standard configuration file which was created to work with Navezgane, the best way to modify the simulation configuration is to run WalkerSim.exe which is located in the Mods/WalkerSim directory, this is a GUI application to help you configure and preview the simulation before starting the game/server. The best way to get started is to import the default configuration Mods/WalkerSim in the GUI and change it as you please, once you are satisfied with the preview simply export the configuration and either replace the default WalkerSim.xml or place it in the world folder, if WalkerSim.xml exists in the world folder it will take priority and load that instead of the one inside the Mods/WalkerSim directory.
EAC NOTE
When using this mod on your computer, EAC should be turned off. When the mod is installed on a server then the clients do not require to turn it off.
LINUX NOTE
In case you see some exception when starting a dedicated server on Linux you may be missing some dependencies, run apt-get update && apt-get install -y apt-utils libgdiplus libc6-dev to resolve the issue, depending on your OS it might be a different package manager, just ensure libgdiplus and libc6-dev is installed.
! Beta !
The reason I'm putting it out there right now is to get early feedback and suggestions. A lot of the functionality is not properly documented.
Changelog
0.9-beta.8
- IMPORTANT: The configuration MaxAgents is now replaced by PopulationDensity to better support multiple world sizes with a single configuration. The new configuration specifies how many agents per square kilometer, so the total amount of agents will be square kilometers multiplied by density, for example having density set to 160 and playing on a 6k map will be 6 x 6 x 160 which will be 5760 agents in total.
- A lot of fixes to the viewer. If you don't see any Worlds in the Viewer that means it failed to detect your 7 Days to Die Install, I will fix this in the next version.
- A couple bug fixes in the mod.
- Added new movement processors and re-organized them, existing configurations will probably no longer function correctly.
- Added walkersim stats console commands to print some information.
0.9-beta.7
- The simulation is now persistent which means that if a game is continued from a save file the simulation will be also restored.
- The viewer 'WalkerSim.exe' should be in a usable state now, you can now setup and preview the simulation and export the configuration.
- Fixed an issue that wouldn't fast forward the newly created simulation when using TicksToAdvanceOnStartup
- Fixed custom sounds not being registered in the simulation.
- Changed how sound events decay, instead of decreasing the radius it has a duration and stays the same size.
- EnemySpawnMode is now respected, when disabled no zombies will be spawned.
- Added walkersim timescale <value> console commands to modify the simulation speed.
0.9-beta.6
- Fixed a performance issue.
- Implemented more functionality in the viewer.
0.9-beta.5
- Fixed exception when game is starting.
0.9-beta.4
- Fixed zombies not spawning near players that previously died.
- Respawning is now implemented, agents will respawn according the configuration of AgentRespawnPosition
- Added walkersim pause and walkersim resume console commands to pause/resume the simulation.
- Added detection to see if the client is the host and disables the mod accordingly, joining servers with the mod installed will no longer error.
