Underground Threats & More

[kamer1337]

now with digging zombies searching for underground bases in pvp will be easier, and harder to not left any traces

[The Batman]

At Roland.

 

How does that work if you were to be at -50 blocks , with a GPS horde above you? massive holes going down ?

[Minandreas]

Well the new pathing only allows zombies to dig when

 

A) They are in attack mode and

B) They detect you right below them.

 

Building your topside base in the day with a screamer bringing in a horde will not result in any diggers unless YOU go underground into your basement.

 

Even zombies that go down into tunnels and are underground already will not dig or destroy blocks horizontally if they are not in attack mode. When the timer counts down and they stop aggroing, they will stand idly or wander always pathing around obstacles and not breaking blocks. That is the intention and if it gets bugged then faatal will be working to fix such things.

 

So long as I don't have digging zombies jacking up my surface structures by ruining the supports, I'll be totally happy with them. Will be a welcome addition to the game in fact.

[Morloc]

 

 

You can almost see the cheerleader zombie pilot through the little windows....

 

 

-Morloc

[Roland]

At Roland.

 

How does that work if you were to be at -50 blocks , with a GPS horde above you? massive holes going down ?

 

Not massive...but a few. They aren’t making all zombies dig. For now just dogs. If they expand it from there probably to just one special type and they could limit the number of those that spawn in on a Horde night if too many created tons of holes.

[eidobunny]

Not massive...but a few. They aren’t making all zombies dig. For now just dogs. If they expand it from there probably to just one special type and they could limit the number of those that spawn in on a Horde night if too many created tons of holes.

 

Sprawling caverns then, since dogs will dig and zombies will be hitting the side walls while running in circles

[Maharin]

Zombie moles.

[Crater Creator]

Well the new pathing only allows zombies to dig when

 

A) They are in attack mode and

B) They detect you right below them.

 

Building your topside base in the day with a screamer bringing in a horde will not result in any diggers unless YOU go underground into your basement.

 

Even zombies that go down into tunnels and are underground already will not dig or destroy blocks horizontally if they are not in attack mode. When the timer counts down and they stop aggroing, they will stand idly or wander always pathing around obstacles and not breaking blocks. That is the intention and if it gets bugged then faatal will be working to fix such things.

 

I hope “right below”doesn’t mean literally only if you’re both on the same voxel horizontally. A fudge factor would be better for everyone.

 

First, a player could run in circles in their underground bunker for all of horde night. The diggers would never be exactly above the player long enough to make progress vertically, and the player would be perfectly safe for a cheesy reason, in the sense that running in circles underground is not challenging, or a thing in zombie fiction.

 

Secondly, even a player that isn’t looking for safety is going to be moving around. Nobody just sits in one spot for long unless they’re away from keyboard, or role playing that their character needs to sleep or something. So the incidental movement between one’s stations and crates and whatnot would cause diggers to dig horizontally if in attack mode, or just sit in a hole tying up resources if not.

 

All that ineffective horizontal digging would be a different kind of ‘Swiss cheese’. If instead the digger zombies would stick to their guns while the player is mostly under them, they’d be more efficient at reaching the player, and they’d cause less of the collateral damage that annoys people so.

[Roland]

Faatal did say mostly. Plus he’s devious. He was a fan of the game itself and longtime player before he was hired. He knows what players are likely to do and he’ll be keeping that in mind as he works on AI.

 

Most of what he’s done so far is just pathing. The first exciting actual AI bits he’s shared are that 66% chance to ignore their revenge target and whatever chance it is to attack while moving. Just that amount of randomness to what used to be behaviors that were 100% predictable is going to be huge. I can’t wait until other randomized behavior “choices” are added in.

[meganoth]

TFP, please export some of the zombie behaviour parameters to XML, like attack range or relative position to dig.

 

I would love to play a mod sometime where the landscape is fractured with holes and any POI has a good chance of crashing down if I so much as add a wood block. This is the apocalypse, dammit.

[Maharin]

TFP, please export some of the zombie behaviour parameters to XML, like attack range or relative position to dig.

 

I would love to play a mod sometime where the landscape is fractured with holes and any POI has a good chance of crashing down if I so much as add a wood block. This is the apocalypse, dammit.

 

And have a gravity modifier for each zombie like the minibike has. Ragdolls would be infinitely more fun that way. PLEASE!?!?!?

[Crater Creator]

Faatal did say mostly. Plus he’s devious. He was a fan of the game itself and longtime player before he was hired. He knows what players are likely to do and he’ll be keeping that in mind as he works on AI.

 

Most of what he’s done so far is just pathing. The first exciting actual AI bits he’s shared are that 66% chance to ignore their revenge target and whatever chance it is to attack while moving. Just that amount of randomness to what used to be behaviors that were 100% predictable is going to be huge. I can’t wait until other randomized behavior “choices” are added in.

 

You mention randomized behavior in ways that'll affect melee combat. I'm even more interested in ways it could affect building. For instance, it would be awesome if zombies sometimes mill around at the base of a ladder, but sometimes they 'figure it out' and climb up. Or if sometimes zombies plow straight into your spike field, but sometimes they try to go around. Sometimes a spider can't get over the lip at the top of a pillar, but sometimes it can.

 

If a design is completely effective at stopping the zombies, like staying underground, then it's overpowered. If a design is completely ineffective, then building it is pointless. I think the fun bits are the gray areas, where you build enough partially effective elements that, when layered together, they're probably enough to succeed.

[canadianbluebeer]

So I dig a ginormous pit down to bedrock. Put base there.

Mind you, clearing a 100x100 area down to bedrock is gonna take a lot of time.

 

No sappers going under MY walls. You want my beer?

Get through my defenses.

 

(by the time you do that, the beer will be gone)

[meganoth]

If a design is completely effective at stopping the zombies, like staying underground, they it's overpowered. If a design is completely ineffective, then building it is pointless. I think the fun bits are the gray areas, where you build enough partially effective elements that, when layered together, they're probably enough to succeed.

 

++. The best horde nights were always the ones where a few zombies broke through the defenses and part of the team had to kill them in melee and the rest had to close the hole. Or someone forgot to remove the wood frame of the access bridge. The forgetable horde nights were the ones you just worked at the zombie killing "front line" for 6 hours.

[The Batman]

Dats yer opinion though. I quite like it if my base is safe. With actively defending it of course.

 

Always do layered base builds! Wear rubber gloves! And clean your boots!

[Roland]

You mention randomized behavior in ways that'll affect melee combat. I'm even more interested in ways it could affect building. For instance, it would be awesome if zombies sometimes mill around at the base of a ladder, but sometimes they 'figure it out' and climb up. Or if sometimes zombies plow straight into your spike field, but sometimes they try to go around. Sometimes a spider can't get over the lip at the top of a pillar, but sometimes it can.

 

If a design is completely effective at stopping the zombies, like staying underground, they it's overpowered. If a design is completely ineffective, then building it is pointless. I think the fun bits are the gray areas, where you build enough partially effective elements that, when layered together, they're probably enough to succeed.

 

+1. This type of design seems to be standard fare for classic tower defense gameplay. There is no one layer that defeats 100% of the waves. You have to diversify. And I’m all for randomization in all zombie behavior.

[Aldranon]

Some people look at zombie hordes the wrong way. Zombies are like RL problems: I usually think of the opportunities they bring.

 

 

If you're looking for ore, ideally it would be nice if all the top layers were removed so you can see the ore veins more clearly. So you can dig a starter trench around a temporary base maybe 30x30 (I need to test this out) then when the horde is gone, look and see if anything looks good. Maybe it needs another "treatment" of zombies before the area is usefull or its time to move 60 meters and start your search for ore again.

 

 

Also controlling the zombie digging can be done from bedrock, so it sounds, by moving slowly around an area. But I don't think that's as efficient.

[Crater Creator]

So I dig a ginormous pit down to bedrock. Put base there.

Mind you, clearing a 100x100 area down to bedrock is gonna take a lot of time.

 

No sappers going under MY walls. You want my beer?

Get through my defenses.

 

(by the time you do that, the beer will be gone)

 

Do you go under your walls? Because under all the scenarios posited here, zombies have no reason to dig deeper than the player’s depth. To me, digging down to bedrock has always seemed to be more about imagined fears than anything.

[canadianbluebeer]

Do you go under your walls? Because under all the scenarios posited here, zombies have no reason to dig deeper than the player’s depth. To me, digging down to bedrock has always seemed to be more about imagined fears than anything.

 

 

When mining following the veins, you can end up past the walls. So I take them right to the bottom, grabbing everything.

Then go outside the walls, and mine more stuff.

 

I had a few mini-cave ins when following the sand/gravel to more iron/lead, and that's not so much fun.

So I put all the forges etc on bedrock.

 

Now, I don't have all the walls go down that far yet, just the support pillars (every 10 blocks), walls go down past the dirt/clay layer to the first couple of rock parts. (more in case of exploding zombies)

 

Plus, I do want to see what happens when the bloodmoon hordes pour off the tops, fall to bedrock, then start running/crawling towards the base(s)

 

Pity I can't just flood it/pump the water out easily. That could be amusing.

(same for pouring gas all over and turning them into torches...)

heh-heh

[RestInPieces]

The first exciting actual AI bits he’s shared are that 66% chance to ignore their revenge target and whatever chance it is to attack while moving. Just that amount of randomness to what used to be behaviors that were 100% predictable is going to be huge. I can’t wait until other randomized behavior “choices” are added in.

 

Was about time and imo should have been done before implementing all kinds of additional threats (dogs, vultures, irradiated zombies etc).

 

@Crater Creator zombie behavior could be randomized in a myriad of ways - preferably for me though, in ways that zombies will not lose their "identity" because even at the moment the game is more of a "monster" game than a zombie game.

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

What about toxic gas? If you dig too deep it knocks you out and kills your, or it causes an underground explosion if you dig with an auger or place a candle?

 

 

I go full viet kong in my 7 days to die games, and other similar games, and tunneling seems to be a super effective strategy. There are hardly any threats to you if you tunnel down to the bed rock.

 

Another thought would be underground water sources and oil deposits.... That would be a great way to ruin a tunnel by hitting an underground lake, and having your base flood. It is one of the options mentioned on the survey. Maybe even throw in crude oil or tar?

 

The big problem with digging mobs, is that they tend to destroy maps, Minecraft had this problem when they implemented the endermen, they then had to nerf them. Now, i love the thought of a random horde that just digs in one direction undermining entire pois and bases, but i can also see this destroying servers with lag....

[Crater Creator]

The thing about pockets of gas, water, oil etc. is that they are passive. They only matter when the player is mining or expanding their base. I think they could be cool, but active threats are what would really make a difference whenever players are underground. Hence I'm rooting for active threats to take priority.

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

The thing about pockets of gas, water, oil etc. is that they are passive. They only matter when the player is mining or expanding their base. I think they could be cool, but active threats are what would really make a difference whenever players are underground. Hence I'm rooting for active threats to take priority.

 

I'd like to see auger bandits and demolition bandits. Maybe even have the bandits make runner zombies which have no arms and jaws but lots of tnt strapped to them that charge your base to blow holes into the walls. I know in some of my earlier tunnel experiments i had a dobermen horde tunnel into one of my shallow tunnels. The spot that they tunneled into was also in the middle of a river, so i had a flood AND a dog attack all at once. Hence why i now tunnel to bedrock.

 

The down side to active digging mobs is that over a long period of time they can really mess up how the world looks, and may potentially lag servers. Minecraft had some issues with the endermen when they first showed up, in simulations they could destroy an entire minecraft world on a server in a few weeks.

 

The big hurdle i see is how do you tell a mob to dig vs not to dig? Are they digging toward a heat source, or toward a player? Will the zombies figure out how to dig around a pit so that they can walk down to you instead of falling to their deaths? I am an entirely underground guy. At the moment i am completely safe from almost every threat but my own incompetence. I am at the point where i can run forges and fires and have no worries about mobs. I even have a death pit that i stand next to to collect loot for when they fall to their 2nd deaths attempting to investigate.

[Zvex]

Well the new pathing only allows zombies to dig when

 

A) They are in attack mode and

B) They detect you right below them.

 

Building your topside base in the day with a screamer bringing in a horde will not result in any diggers unless YOU go underground into your basement.

 

Even zombies that go down into tunnels and are underground already will not dig or destroy blocks horizontally if they are not in attack mode. When the timer counts down and they stop aggroing, they will stand idly or wander always pathing around obstacles and not breaking blocks. That is the intention and if it gets bugged then faatal will be working to fix such things.

Faatal did say mostly. Plus he’s devious. He was a fan of the game itself and longtime player before he was hired. He knows what players are likely to do and he’ll be keeping that in mind as he works on AI.

 

Most of what he’s done so far is just pathing. The first exciting actual AI bits he’s shared are that 66% chance to ignore their revenge target and whatever chance it is to attack while moving. Just that amount of randomness to what used to be behaviors that were 100% predictable is going to be huge. I can’t wait until other randomized behavior “choices” are added in.

 

Sounds nice!

 

That is exactly what I wanted to see and suggested to implement for years in this forum, I guess.

 

The randomness in behaviour will close many gaps in AI exploiting, because some of zombies will allways break the rules that you wanted to exploit.

 

As for digging, there are many ways to make zombies dig and don't make swiss cheese. So when players argue that digging will turn the world to cheese - I never agree with them, because it strongly depends on the implementation of that feature.