Glowing feral cop....An all day sucker????

[lesipher]

I have long ago learned that cops "generally" aren't worth the effort it takes to kill them( at least in my experience). Today however ; I was curious to see just what one of the glowing feral versions took to kill...

My toon is lvl 106 and on day 31..shouldn't be That hard, right?

Well, 193 round of shotgun ammo, 178 iron crossbow bolts, 250 arrows, 19 barbwire fences, and 31 wooden spikes I decided to give up. Even if I only hit half the time, There has got to be something buggy about that...or are they just THAT hard to put down?

 

DID my cop glitch out or is this what I have to look forward to next blood moon?

[zombie4hire]

They regenerate.

[Pico]

Takes from 3 to 5 hits on the noggin with a sledghammer at that level. All done in less than 15 seconds.

 

I do have an issue with these glowing suckers however, as they continue to get tougher (and more common) with each level after 100, but our weapons by comparison have hit their peak, and get increasingly less effective against them when compared against the enemies hit points, so you eventually get to a state where, regardless of how good you may be, they will be too tough for you to reliably finish them... so why keep on playing? I don't play to get killed over and over.

[lesipher]

Thanks for the responses.

 

I was assuming either my game was buggy or they healed...good to know that they actually aren't worth the trouble, at least not with my preferred play style...crossbow and spiked club.

In a zombie apocalypse silence is golden.

 

Might be doable if I were using exploding bolts..which I will look into. As it is, I think they should maybe have a slightly reduced regen for single player mode...at least till max level is reached....for now I am going back to avoidance. Call me a coward if you want but that kind of bullet sponging is out of balance.

[chaosterone]

I have long ago learned that cops "generally" aren't worth the effort it takes to kill them( at least in my experience). Today however ; I was curious to see just what one of the glowing feral versions took to kill...

My toon is lvl 106 and on day 31..shouldn't be That hard, right?

Well, 193 round of shotgun ammo, 178 iron crossbow bolts, 250 arrows, 19 barbwire fences, and 31 wooden spikes I decided to give up. Even if I only hit half the time, There has got to be something buggy about that...or are they just THAT hard to put down?

 

DID my cop glitch out or is this what I have to look forward to next blood moon?

 

Two or three explosive bolts work if you don't want to melee.

[Jugginator]

Not entirely a bullet-sponge, I usually have no troubles with a compound bow + steel arrows. Make sure you're snagging headshots, and yeah he regens along with the rest of rads and since the crossbow takes half an hour to reload per-shot I'd stick with something else on him. Shotguns you're prob a bit too far back from him, make sure you're dead close and blast his face. Just remember to back up when you hear the hear beats lol. Also, look into using Flaming Arrows -- the steady DPS prevents the healing: hit with a flaming arrow, shotgun / steel arrows to the head then repeat. AK-47 or SMG for good measure. THey are tough, though.

 

Magnum works wonder, too. Fire arrow then 5 to the head (to avoid reloading), then fire arrow then more fire arrows or shotgun / whatever other gun.

[Pico]

I'd love to have a Magnum to finish them, but haven't had more than 3 out of 4 magnum parts for more than a year. Those parts are so rare now they may as well have been removed from the game.

 

Cops used to be good for Magnum parts, but not any more. As the OP has commented, they generally aren't worth the bother any more (other than the challenge and the adrenalin once they start to 'tick').

[The Batman]

Regeneration speed is set way too high. OR it starts way too fast after taking damage.

 

Said many times to devs, they don't seem to care one bit.

[lesipher]

Not entirely a bullet-sponge, I usually have no troubles with a compound bow + steel arrows. Make sure you're snagging headshots, and yeah he regens along with the rest of rads and since the crossbow takes half an hour to reload per-shot I'd stick with something else on him. Shotguns you're prob a bit too far back from him, make sure you're dead close and blast his face. Just remember to back up when you hear the hear beats lol. Also, look into using Flaming Arrows -- the steady DPS prevents the healing: hit with a flaming arrow, shotgun / steel arrows to the head then repeat. AK-47 or SMG for good measure. THey are tough, though.

 

Magnum works wonder, too. Fire arrow then 5 to the head (to avoid reloading), then fire arrow then more fire arrows or shotgun / whatever other gun.

 

My problem is that I play on a potato, there are times when i have up to a whole second delay between mouse button press and action. Not all the time but at critical times like when a cop pukes...or if there are lots of zeds...so accuracy really isn't an option a lot of the time.

[Khulkhuum]

Can't imagine how radioactive cops will regenerate when A17 hits... It will be an endless battle with them.

 

I always had troubles with those guys, especially in POIs where they naturally spawn and you have to kill them so they disappear permanently from the building. When they occur in the wild i mostly make them explode (regular and radioactive types). Also most irradiated zombies are bullet sponges, which i find it unfair for the player, even if hitting in the head. Not to mention that the cops don't fall down or get stunned, which makes them that much more dangerous.

 

On the other hand, when you get a machete and your skills in knives are top notch, i seriously stop having troubles with any zombies. I DO prefer knives over clubs strictly because of the higher chances of dismemberment in the skills, specifically when you target heads. Even easier on various mods when you can build machetes, not only find them.

 

It's not hard to solo a 7 day horde with a machete... Been there, done that... several times...

[Roland]

In A17 when a sleeper cop explodes it counts for its death and it doesn’t respawn.

[Jedo]

In A17 when a sleeper cop explodes it counts for its death and it doesn’t respawn.

 

And there was much rejoicing.

[icharis]

I'm pretty sure that one of the past release notes mentioned that cops are specifically vulnerable to any types of explosive damage such as exploding bolts, pipe bombs and rpgs.

[skullpoker]

Were you using Slugs or regular Shotgun Shells? Because if you are using shells and you're more than a couple blocks away, you're not doing much damage at all. One sneaking headshot with a sniper rifle or a shotgun slug should put them down.

[Noctoras]

Regeneration speed is set way too high. OR it starts way too fast after taking damage.

 

Said many times to devs, they don't seem to care one bit.

 

This!!

 

One of the most immersion breaking elements to me - the whole regen thing I don't like, since it's physically a no brainer that radioactivity heals you .... that said, if they do regenerate, please at a level which allows for a good gameplay.

[canadianbluebeer]

They are why I upgraded the sniper rifle to do a bunch more damage.

Won't kill in one shot, (unless they are sleeping, you're crouching, and do a head shot), but 1 mag will take'em down.

 

in items.xml, change entity damage to the 175,350

original the max is like 69. um, wet noodle does more damage.

 

<item id="251" name="partsSniperRifle_barrel">

<property name="Extends" value="partsMaster"/>

<property name="DescriptionKey" value="partsSniperRifleGroupDesc"/>

<property name="PartType" value="Barrel"/>

<property name="Weight" value="40"/>

<property class="Attributes">

<property name="EntityDamage" value="175,350"/>

<property name="BlockDamage" value="8,14"/>

<property name="DegradationMax" value="3500,8750"/>

</property>

<property name="EconomicValue" value="875"/>

</item>

 

 

[Damocles]

In several games, regeneration applies only up to a certain % of the health-bar.

Lets say there are 4 stops, at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%.

 

If the damage does not drop below one of the cutoffs, it will regenerate to the next higher one.

 

Thats a more fair system mixing regeneration with damage progress.

[Jedo]

They are why I upgraded the sniper rifle to do a bunch more damage.

 

Why not just tweak the zombie's health or regen?

 

In several games, regeneration applies only up to a certain % of the health-bar.

Lets say there are 4 stops, at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%.

 

If the damage does not drop below one of the cutoffs, it will regenerate to the next higher one.

 

Thats a more fair system mixing regeneration with damage progress.

 

That sounds good.

[Gazz]

Why not just tweak the zombie's health or regen?

Because then the rifle might not be crazy OP on everything else.

[Jedo]

Because then the rifle might not be crazy OP on everything else.

 

Shhh. I was going to get there.

[canadianbluebeer]

Shhh. I was going to get there.

 

 

um, it SHOULD blast the weaker ones with one hit. The tougher ones it does not.

(the black wolf takes a couple hits usually)

 

It's my equiv of the .50 cal. Radioactive monstrosities do survive.. for a bit.

 

 

now, for a piston, we need the .454 Casull.

 

 

edit: besides, Just Die Already is the crazy OP gun. hee-hee.

[TeleClassy]

great thing about the .xml format the game uses is you can customize values pretty easily if you can just find the right fields to edit. i'm currently looking through entities and going to loot next just to see what the values are set to so i know what they'll be going into it. i love changing things like stack sizes simply to reduce tedium in the game, maybe reducing these guys' regen/health or buffing their loot would be a good investment of your time. i'd love to make a golden chicken or something rather that has wall-to-wall loot - either really good, or really stupid - and i'm pretty sure it can be done mostly through .xml edits.

 

if you're interested, i'll share what i can find as far as where this entity's values are stored so you can adjust them yourself

 

EDIT: in entityclasses.xml, line 983: <entity_class name="zombieFatCopFeralRadiated" extends="zombieFatCopFeral">

i have yet to find where the radiated buff is stored, but every radiated zombie has it. it's set to 80 by default (spiders are 40 and i believe they're the lowest)

radiated cop's buff can be found on line 989

 

line 1518 of loot.xml has zombie cop loot, and i believe the feral loot on line 1798 would be an extension for feral+/radiated cops, so if you want to buff their drops change those values (find the categories these groups call on to get more specific) but remember the integer you use is a percentage where 1=100% chance to receive a drop from that group. if you want them to drop more ammo, for instance, you'd want to start on the ammo lootgroup on line 467 and adjust those values first. i don't know what it means that there is no probability value set for cops' ammo lootgroup drop, my first guess is that they don't drop it (ammo that would drop would be part of one of the other groups instead). you can probably just change the line from

<item group="ammo"/>

to

<item group="ammo" prob="x"/>

or

<item group="ammo" count="x,y"/> (this expresses a defined range for the loot, so if you reference an existing lootgroup you might be able to specify a certain number of rolls on that group rather than just a chance that it'd drop)

 

you can probably add somewhere a separate lootgroup specifically for irradiated cops and their ferals, though i don't know how

[Vedui]

I have long ago learned that cops "generally" aren't worth the effort it takes to kill them( at least in my experience). Today however ; I was curious to see just what one of the glowing feral versions took to kill...

My toon is lvl 106 and on day 31..shouldn't be That hard, right?

Well, 193 round of shotgun ammo, 178 iron crossbow bolts, 250 arrows, 19 barbwire fences, and 31 wooden spikes I decided to give up. Even if I only hit half the time, There has got to be something buggy about that...or are they just THAT hard to put down?

 

DID my cop glitch out or is this what I have to look forward to next blood moon?

 

As people highlighted, they regenerate. Cops and weights use the larger one, 80 hp every 3 secs. I believe the spider zeds use the minor which is 40 per 3 secs.

 

If your difficulty level is up, you also do a lot less damage, taking even more time.

 

Worthwhile to note, is that trap damage isn't affected by difficulty level, just player damage. So your defenses (dart/blade traps chop glowies up fast) work as well on easy as insane difficulty. This means as you bump difficulty level, base defenses become even more important

[canadianbluebeer]

Shotgun turrets do chop them up quite quickly.

 

Oh, rather than fiddle with the regen values, I'd rather just hit them a bit harder. (short of the rocket launcher that is... at least after I dug out a ginormous pit shooting at a horde with it... oops!)