Any way to keep zombies from spawning inside my compound?

[xMrGreeneJeansx]

To be clear, I replaced all the dirt with forest ground that I crafted. Zombies still spawn on it. Do I have to replace it with, like, concrete blocks or something, because I'm pretty sure they don't spawn on those.

[Thelek]

build an underground compound. or a very smallparimeter. and neither is a sure thing.

[Damselx1]

How big is your compound - can you put a bedroll in the middle and stop the spawning? Replacing the soil won't stop zombies spawning - I think SylenThunder said it was just tilled ground that they can't spawn on.

 

I'm using a compound at the moment, the bedroll is in the centre, in a hut raised off the ground. No problem with zombies spawning in.

[xMrGreeneJeansx]

I actually made it out of a military camp because of the large, flat area. I built square walls surrounding the circular trench. So imagine a military camp fit perfectly within a square, or about 40x40.

 

I thought tilled ground would work as well. Maybe it does for, like, single zombies. But I have a 15x20 garden all tilled and with fertilizer, and I physically watched as a roaming horde spawned in the middle of it. It seemed the horde was smaller though, about 10 zombies rather than the thirty I got the next day outside my base.

 

My bed is not directly in the center of the compound, but fairly close. It's in an underground basement about ten blocks below the surface. I've still seen zombies spawn within 10 blocks of it on the surface, though. I'm not sure how large an area the bed covers so this may be normal.

 

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The compound has a lot of open space because I've been concentrating on building the walls, towers, and defenses. Will building a bunch of stuff in the middle help? It will be pretty tight once I'm done, sort of like those abandoned survivor compounds you find in places.

[Outlaw_187]

Yea I remember reading someone saying something about tilled ground or fertilized soil being "non spawn" areas.

 

Z's aren't suppose to spawn with a certain radius of the bedroll. I forget the exact numbers....I'm wanting to say a 40×40 block area surrounding the bedroll but that could be totally wrong.....actually that sounds too big now that I think of it.

I guess I have no f'n clue!!

Try the fertilized soil thing. That'll take some time but worth it if it stops the spawns

[Damselx1]

I've seen comments that the bedroll stops zombies spawning withing a 15 and 30 block radius - not sure if either of these are correct. My largest base was a 27x27 block area and the bedroll was in the centre - never had a problem.

 

I've also read that if a POI is classed as a spawn point, you can still get zombies even with a bedroll down - again, not sure if this is a thing or not. Unless someone else can confirm it one way or the other, it might be worth filing a bug report, in case there's something going wrong.

[xMrGreeneJeansx]

Thanks for the comments! I can confirm that fertilized soil does *not* work. I watched a roaming horde spawn in the middle of my fertilized garden. Right on patches of white, tilled soil.

 

Oddly enough, it seems like zombies do not spawn nearly as much inside my compound as they do outside. I'd say overall 80% spawn outside. More noticeably, I have a forge underground pretty much directly beneath my wall. Screamers spawn outside the walls 95% of the time. So something, idk what, at least is making them less likely to spawn in the compound.

[Walterstj]

I thought zombies couldn't spawn on a player created block? I always dig out the first layer and use frames or cobblestone or concrete later on and have never had an issue with a zombie spawning in it...

[Skarfayce]

I didn't get Z's in my compound until I moved my bedroll underground. Now the prefab I used in the beginning as a hold over until I could move underground gets a few Z's almost daily. Never have a wandering horde inside though, I could see that being annoying! Perhaps it's the moving of bed rolls or a prefab glitch? I'm still new to this; just wanted to share my experience.

[SylenThunder]

I didn't get Z's in my compound until I moved my bedroll underground. Now the prefab I used in the beginning as a hold over until I could move underground gets a few Z's almost daily. Never have a wandering horde inside though, I could see that being annoying! Perhaps it's the moving of bed rolls or a prefab glitch? I'm still new to this; just wanted to share my experience.

If the Console got the same update to Bedrolls that the PC version did, the range is not longer infinitely vertical. It's only 15 blocks.

[DeToX86]

We have a very large perimeter to our base and have been having this problem recently. We spread out our bedrolls in an attempt to limit it with varied results. One issue might be that I'm not sure it's picking up the bedroll as a non spawn area if the player is not online? With 4 of us playing I don't think it's been an issue other than screamers. (My understanding is that screamers can spawn them pretty much anywhere around them.) When there are only 2-3 of us online we will occasionally get them spawning inside. The last couple of blood moons we've had it spawn cops in the base right at the start of the blood moon. Standing on the wall and getting blasted in the back from inside your base while trying to scout out the horde is not a great way to start out a blood moon.

 

I recently added a very large garden (25x40 at least) so I'll keep my eyes open to see if they can spawn on the tilled soil. Might have a long night ahead of me tilling our entire yard.

[xMrGreeneJeansx]

Thanks again for the responses! I'm eager to see how the experiments you guys have mentioned doing turn out.

 

So here's my current thinking on removing zombies from my base entirely. Basically replace all the dirt with concrete blocks or cobblestone, aside from the garden. That should prevent zombies from spawning anywhere besides the tilled soil. Then dig out a room underneath the garden and use it as my bedroom, placing my bed directly beneath the center of it. That should stop the spawns I would think. Idk.

[Damselx1]

You could try raising the level of the ground - not sure if this is a thing either but on one of the creative challenge builds, they raised their garden up high (believed that zombies wouldn't spawn on the player laid blocks but could on the crops if the soil was at ground level). It worked for them, but I don't know if it was because of this, or because of other factors.

[andrewcu]

Ive been having exact same issue. I actually found a prison in my random gen world and took camp there. I get anything from the random zombie on horde night, to a bear while i was away exploring recently. I was told that placing blocks on the ground should help, so i started placing cement blocks around the edges and im going to do wood blocks on the inside

[xMrGreeneJeansx]

You could try raising the level of the ground - not sure if this is a thing either but on one of the creative challenge builds, they raised their garden up high (believed that zombies wouldn't spawn on the player laid blocks but could on the crops if the soil was at ground level). It worked for them, but I don't know if it was because of this, or because of other factors.

 

That's an interesting idea. Maybe making it a raised garden supported by concrete pillars would work...shame to waste the fertilizer, but I'm at the point now where I don't really need it anymore. I've got stacks of corn, potatoes, and every other plant pretty much.

 

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Ive been having exact same issue. I actually found a prison in my random gen world and took camp there. I get anything from the random zombie on horde night, to a bear while i was away exploring recently. I was told that placing blocks on the ground should help, so i started placing cement blocks around the edges and im going to do wood blocks on the inside

 

Will you let me know if it works? I'll be interested to know if the zombies spawn within the prefab prison when you're done as well.