Underground bases - what's the status of making them vulnerable to zombies?

[Gobarg]

You can take away my underground bases

You can take away my above ground bases

You can take away my freedom

but you can never take away my H key mwhahahhaha!!!!! *cough*

[Cadamier]

You can take away my underground bases

You can take away my above ground bases

You can take away my freedom

but you can never take away my H key mwhahahhaha!!!!! *cough*

 

But... If they take away your F1 key before you hit the H... You're in trouble <EG>

[Gobarg]

But... If they take away your F1 key before you hit the H... You're in trouble <EG>

 

Balloon meets pin!

[Fyrdrinc]

I meant a vertical shaft as in digging right below your feet all the way down instead of at an angle. You never dig straight down in Minecraft because you could fall into a cavern and die from a 30 block drop or even worse...lava. In this game you can dig straight down with impunity.

 

I can get behind this but I am not sure what the impact on engine performance would be. I have been in favor for a long time to a solution to the underground being that it is less stable and prone to cave-ins. Pockets of caverns underground, not necessarily connected by tunnels. Sections of rock that are not well supported, and will fall in large masses if not properly shored up. I think you could do that latter very easily by adding a single block type with minimal structural integrity - call it fractured rock - and latticing it all over the underground so that sections of rock can break away en masse if not supported well. Also make it so that fractured rock cannot count as "support" for anything above it structurally if the voxel below it is empty - this will keep people from pushing a pillar up to just a fractured rock, and make them firmly plant supports - which takes more time and caution. If you want to be really tricky, add in a feature where using explosives underground will blast X blocks away, and have a chance to turn individual rock voxels within 2X blocks away into fragments rock instead.

 

Pretty quickly you have a situation where people are very cautious about digging large areas without proper support, and need to tend to dig downward or at an angle to get the job done. Think you need to add a auditory cue when someone is digging on a voxel that has a void on the other side, just to be a little fair and realistic, though.

[Blazer777]

fine take away my underground and roof ill just hover in the gyrocopter out of the zombies detection range i warned you not to tempt me

[Roland]

Next thread: How to nerf the gyrocopter.

 

 

JUST KIDDING!!!!

[OzHawkeye]

Next thread: How to nerf the gyrocopter.

 

 

JUST KIDDING!!!!

 

Don't forget the minibike - since you can just ride around on that on Horde night. Oh, and walking/running, since you can stand in the middle of nowhere, spawn the horde there and run away.

 

Still, I get where you're coming from, I would LOVE to see underground be more interesting, more loot worthy, more dangerous, filled with long and twisting dark and foreboding tunnel systems, populated by masses of zombies just waiting just about of the shadows, scare me out of my seat and rip me apart, at the end of which is some otherwise nearly impossible to obtain loot container full of geekily joyous nerdvana loot! :-)

 

I just don't think digging zombies is the answer - as I alluded to in the first paragraph of this reply, a player who wants to avoid the Horde and/or Screamers can do so in any number of ways that doesn't involve underground bases. Indeed, they may as well put in a menu option to disable them.

[Doctor3D]

fine take away my underground and roof ill just hover in the gyrocopter out of the zombies detection range i warned you not to tempt me

 

lol...those in gyrocopters should probably get huge vulture hordes that attack until it crashes in flames....

[Roland]

Don't forget the minibike - since you can just ride around on that on Horde night. Oh, and walking/running, since you can stand in the middle of nowhere, spawn the horde there and run away.

 

Still, I get where you're coming from, I would LOVE to see underground be more interesting, more loot worthy, more dangerous, filled with long and twisting dark and foreboding tunnel systems, populated by masses of zombies just waiting just about of the shadows, scare me out of my seat and rip me apart, at the end of which is some otherwise nearly impossible to obtain loot container full of geekily joyous nerdvana loot! :-)

 

I just don't think digging zombies is the answer - as I alluded to in the first paragraph of this reply, a player who wants to avoid the Horde and/or Screamers can do so in any number of ways that doesn't involve underground bases. Indeed, they may as well put in a menu option to disable them.

 

Well at the least the digging ability should be able to be commented out by those who don't want it and ideally there will be a toggle in the options as there is for running and walking to make it so digging can be disabled. As for using the minibike or gyrocopter to avoid the horde, I have no problem with that. This was never about stopping people from avoiding the horde. If they wish to avoid the horde by treading water, zooming around in vehicles, renting a room in Duke's casino (someday), or joining a settlement (someday) at least those methods are specific strategies that don't involve making half the world uninteresting. Flying around in the gyrocopter doesn't affect anyone else's gameplay unlike having an entire biome exist outside the survival game for everyone.

[Crater Creator]

Even though large tracts of Navezgane

and many old and famous UMAs

have fallen or may fall

into the grip of the moats

and all the odious apparatus of traps,

we shall not flag or fail.

 

We shall go on to the end.

 

We shall fight in RWG,

we shall fight on the seas and oceans,

we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,

we shall eat your brains, whatever the cost may be.

 

We shall fight on the platforms,

we shall fight on the bedrock,

we shall fight in the wilderness and in the POIs,

we shall fight on the uneven varied terrain;

 

We shall never surrender.

 

And even if, which I do not for a moment believe,

this ravenous horde or a large part of it were exploited and confused,

then our Bandits beyond the seas,

armed and guarded by the programmers,

would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time,

the new AI, with all its power and might, steps forth

to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

 

- Zedston Lurchwell, Prime Minister of Zombland

[RestInPieces]

And we shall make an underground thread every month until we stick it to the mole pe... er, until we get our desired gameplay results.

[Kage848]

Why are we still on #undergroundbasegate?

 

When we should be talking #hpuigate!

[meganoth]

I just don't think digging zombies is the answer - as I alluded to in the first paragraph of this reply, a player who wants to avoid the Horde and/or Screamers can do so in any number of ways that doesn't involve underground bases. Indeed, they may as well put in a menu option to disable them.

 

Excuse me, but you still sound as if you were fighting that straw man of how other people play. Many/Most/All(?) people here arguing for underground think about their own game and I can assure you, while we want dangers to exist everywhere, we still want to survive eventually, despite the dangers.

 

I have no problem at all handling or avoiding zombie nurses on the surface. I can do so in any number of ways. I still don't argue for removing them or have a menu option to disable zombie nurses. That we think about a menu option for digging zombies is not because of the danger to us but because of the danger to structural integrity on long running MP servers (and maybe to placate people who can't imagine playing without safe underground because they are used to it)

 

So at least for me digging zombies are the answer, they are the gold standard of answers. Much better than some mini-game environmental hazard that would just degenerate to brainless grind.

[OneArmedBandit]

Even though large tracts of Navezgane

and many old and famous UMAs

have fallen or may fall

into the grip of the moats

and all the odious apparatus of traps,

we shall not flag or fail.

 

We shall go on to the end.

 

We shall fight in RWG,

we shall fight on the seas and oceans,

we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,

we shall eat your brains, whatever the cost may be.

 

We shall fight on the platforms,

we shall fight on the bedrock,

we shall fight in the wilderness and in the POIs,

we shall fight on the uneven varied terrain;

 

We shall never surrender.

 

And even if, which I do not for a moment believe,

this ravenous horde or a large part of it were exploited and confused,

then our Bandits beyond the seas,

armed and guarded by the programmers,

would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time,

the new AI, with all its power and might, steps forth

to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

 

- Zedston Lurchwell, Prime Minister of Zombland

 

omg this is GOLD!!!!!!!!

[canadianbluebeer]

I have both above ground and underground. I start with the above ground one, then I start digging.

 

after while, all the above ground is, is the entrance and security station. Defended to be sure.

 

My main reason isn't to hide from them, but to get the heat from the crafting stuff away from where I am.

Screamers are just annoying, and with enough forges etc going, they will constantly spawn.

 

Well, July is gonna be interesting, and, I've already booked that last week of July as vacation.

Let's hope they meet the target.

[Viktoriusiii]

Well then... I guess I'll give my 2 cents about it then...

As I was one of the people who complained about too safe bases (be it huge moats, base on stilz or underground bases)

I feel its my responsibility.

 

While I have a feeling, they will already implement this, this is my suggestion:

 

We can already use heatmaps to tell zombies where to go...

And we also have smell...

SOOO why dont we add a "human smell" element, that is basically a tracker of how much you have used a certain entrance/door, which will become a stronger smell, if used more often, meaning that if you go in and out through thje same entrance multiple times, zombies will be able to find their way to you, even if there is a huge tunnel between you. And every door/hatch becomes a stronger "smellwaypoint" so that they simply have to try and navigate from smellpoint to smellpoint to you. So instead of trying to find the fastest way to you, they will try and find the least waypoints to you.

So even if you have a super secret backenexit, if you never use it, they will never go for it, since its just another block to them, while the main entrance is, where they will be coming from.

 

And if players close up behind them with something, they will try and find the smallest distance waypoint and dig there...

OR you could make it more complicated and add numbers to these waypoints... and like that you can build a web of waypoints, and you can see which waypoint follows which, so you know which door is connected to which...

 

 

I fell like this way they dont dig up the ground around your base and create some sort of battlefield, but would still try and follow your tunnel.

 

I mean if the tunnelsystem is small enough, they already do it... but everything more then 15 blocks and the ai starts running in circles.

[Sydious]

Digging zombies... Man they better have some damn good AI for it if they do this. Unfortunately I predict zombies will be tearing the hell out of the landscape and sending my OCD into overload.

[Maharin]

We need zombies with OCD, Tourette syndrome (the verbal variety), and a speech impediment like stuttering. Yes, need is the correct word.

[Lorelando]

It would be nice if the player left something like smell trails that get created by taking a certain path often, then zombies try to follow it. This would make securing your doors way more important.

And if the corpse stacking came back, zombies would also be able to overcome some walls or reach windows. A zombie just punching through concrete always feels of...

[Roland]

We need zombies with OCD, Tourette syndrome (the verbal variety), and a speech impediment like stuttering. Yes, need is the correct word.

 

It would be too OP. Building a base with a four-block wide drawbridge leading to a single door would cause all the zombies to stop attacking and start walking around in circles and making sudden outbursts of stuttered euphemisms.

[Cadamier]

It would be too OP. Building a base with a four-block wide drawbridge leading to a single door would cause all the zombies to stop attacking and start walking around in circles and making sudden outbursts of stuttered euphemisms.

 

Hey! I'm here for the Zeds! If they wanna run around in circles, shouting euphemisms - More Power To Them!

[OzHawkeye]

Excuse me, but you still sound as if you were fighting that straw man of how other people play. Many/Most/All(?) people here arguing for underground think about their own game and I can assure you, while we want dangers to exist everywhere, we still want to survive eventually, despite the dangers.

 

I have no problem at all handling or avoiding zombie nurses on the surface. I can do so in any number of ways. I still don't argue for removing them or have a menu option to disable zombie nurses. That we think about a menu option for digging zombies is not because of the danger to us but because of the danger to structural integrity on long running MP servers (and maybe to placate people who can't imagine playing without safe underground because they are used to it)

 

So at least for me digging zombies are the answer, they are the gold standard of answers. Much better than some mini-game environmental hazard that would just degenerate to brainless grind.

 

If you read my posts, you'll find I'm very much in the "Live and Let Lie" camp on how other people want to play the game. If someone wants to play it underground then I say more power to 'em.

 

It is, and I've said this specifically, the dangers to compromised SI that I'm not in favour of digging zombies. I don't ever want to see my pretty, above ground base, fall into a sinkhole created by digging and/or tunneling zombies which I never saw and didn't even know where there slowly tunneling away under my base trying to reach me.

 

If anything, that solution makes an underground base (at bedrock) even more of an "I Win" button than it already is.

[Roland]

To be fair Oz they would have to fix the sound for you to not know they were somewhere close by. You would hear them like they’re right behind you but you wouldn’t see them anywhere and then you’d know it was time to go look for the tunnel openings.

[OzHawkeye]

To be fair Oz they would have to fix the sound for you to not know they were somewhere close by. You would hear them like they’re right behind you but you wouldn’t see them anywhere and then you’d know it was time to go look for the tunnel openings.

 

Relying on sound wouldn't be my first preference, but I could live with it if it also avoided the swiss cheese issue we dealt with last time we had them.

 

I'd still prefer - as I think you would also - to see underground become much more interesting and dangerous.

 

Long cave systems, filled with ores, loot and zombies as we sort of had once would be just fantastic I reckon. Make the loot especially good, make the zombies especially hard, make the environmental hazards especially challenging (fall hazards, gas pockets, lack of air, temperature issues, all these could come into play).

[Sydious]

Hey Roland, how about a poll? I know it's small sample of players but since they are done all the time anyway... Given MadMoles recent comment on diggers how about a poll asking if people are in favor of digging zombies or think a better solution should be looked into?