Basebuilding is NOT an Outdated Survivalstrategy!!!

[With_Faith]

I'm excited to see how many different base plans people start to come up with as stuff gets tweaked here and there. I haven't had the most time in the world to play but for the horde nights I have experienced with my group so far we have just roamed and climbed a random 2-3 story building and fought off of there. No late cycle hordes yet though

[Kalarro]

Looks like a maze, which is exactly the point, doing a maze to chese AI is the way to go, instead of building strong defenses.

[Kalarro]

I started my base build partway into day 3 and it took most of the rest of the week to get it all done, minus some little side missions for the trader and looting a couple nearby POIs. I was on nomad with 90 minutes days but I always afked at night and I had a forge in a nearby POI but I didn't get level 20 until day 8 so I mostly used the stone axe. I've used the same base for multiple hordes with only relatively minor upgrades and it's worked quite well. The picture I added shows the damage after the first horde with a gamestage of around 40 using only a hunting rifle and a bow with stone arrows on my part.

 

Im glad that something like that worked. From where did you shoot? I see no angle from top floor to shoot the zombies beating on the columns that are destroyed.

[IgnyteZero]

We've found on our server that the most viable way to build a base atm is a variant of stilt/tower-type base. Just make a tower with 2-3 or so floors. Surround each level with bars to walk on and shoot through. Dig a moat around the base and reinforce the inner walls if possible (make it at least 4 blocks deep from ground level). Make easy accessible ramps or paths to get out of the moat. Build ramps on each side to the base but keep a 3 block spacing between the ramp and the first tower floor with bars (use wood frames to create a bridge over when needed, but ofc not when fighting zombies).

 

Do not make floors, tunnels in the basemant and cellar of this tower whatsoever ofc.

 

Zombie hordes will try to walk over the ramps to rach you, fail to jump and fall down. They will then run out of the moat up your ramp and fall over and over again until they die from falling damage.

 

Only real issues are now cops, spiders and vultures, but those can be dealt with through other supplemental tactics.

 

This is of course a multiplayer tactic as digging out that moat will take time, but you'll get enough clay to build cobblestones for ages, that's for sure.

 

(Still not a good idea to keep forges or anything like that in the base though. So those are preferably kept at other locations.)

 

It proves though that base defending in A17 isn't harder per se necessarily, just more boring. Because you need to find ways to work around the zombie behaviour instead of actually defending against them.

[Ghostlight]

Guys, all this base building theory is only needed for early game (if at all). Once you get around level 100 and can craft level 5 or 6 weapons and have mods to fill the slots and perks to boost your performance (which is all actually a LOT easier than it sounds), you will be 2-shotting even irradiated Zombie Cops, and a flimsy box base will be enough for horde night.

 

Much as I have berated the early game in A17 in the past, I now find (as do many others) that the player becomes super OP in A17 even faster than you did in A16.

 

I guess it is fair to add that I mainly play co-op. Solo might be different, I wouldn't know.

[Kalarro]

Dig a mote around the base

What is a mote? A pit?

 

 

Zombie hordes will try to walk over the ramps to rach you, fail to jump and fall down. They will now run out of the mote up your ramp and fall over and over again

 

But that's absolutly not a fun defense system.

It proves though that base defending in A17 isn't harder per se necessarily, just more boring. Because you need to find ways to work around the zombie behaviour instead of actually defending against them.

 

Exactly

[Ghostlight]

Moat

[IgnyteZero]

Moat

 

Ah yes, my mistake. I'll edit in the correct spelling.

[IgnyteZero]

What is a mote? A pit?

 

 

 

 

But that's absolutly not a fun defense system.

 

 

Exactly

 

Oh indeed it's not. But VERY effective. And a very viable base building strategy, which was the point of the post.

 

I really prefer the old version BM and AI balance where you could build whatever you wanted and defend it however you wanted. Overground, Underground, Sideways, Waterways, Armored or Nude, Working or Slacking. Diversity is more fun, period.

[meganoth]

Lets try to define the goal of the horde defense mechanism: A horde base should preferably be best if it uses similar defenses to a castle in the middle ages. I think this is the ideal we want.

 

 

Some important rules to achieve that would be:

1) thicker walls generally means better walls.

2) if you have weaknesses, the enemy will try to attack there

3) a castle will have access ways, but they will be designed so that attackers have a hard time using them

4) defenders always have the better position

5) but all defenses can be broken if the attacker has numerical superiority and the defender makes mistakes or does nothing

 

Look at how the new AI has made 2 a reality and 3 a successful design principle.

 

Now Fataal said (I'm rephrasing here) that he is working on further reducing exploitable AI behaviour as far as time permits. But it should be clear that the enemy attacking weaknesses of the castle is expected behaviour.

 

Fataal also said that as a polishing step he will randomize zombie behaviour, so that some will attack not the weakest point but the next-weakest or even fairly strong points. This is consistent with the low intelligence of the zombies but also in a way good tactical behaviour to make the defender have to watch and defend all sides of the castle. It will also mean that even walls that are not meant to lure the attacker to attack them have to withstand those attacks for a while.

 

That this polishing can't happen now in A17 is easily explained by the fact that randomized zombies makes finding AI bugs at all possible, because with randomisation we alpha-testers would never know if a zombie is doing something he shouldn't do because of a bug or is just a zombie with a randomized behaviour.

 

Also because we have a game where you start weak and ill-equipped and work up to be great, your first castle will not be great, it will be weak, but only weak enemies will attack, so thats ok.

 

So

A) A17 will definitely not be the last step on the journey, an important ingredient is missing (randomization) that is missing deliberately

B) your first castle will be small and out of cobblestone or even wood, concrete is an upgrade for later (if you don't like that at all, there are multiple ways around that, creative mode alone has multiple ways around that). If this isn't true and you can build with concrete from the start, even low level zombies would need the massive block damage to go through concrete. Which would make cobblestone walls of any thickness useless.

C) once all stuff is in, i.e. balancing, reduction of exploits, randomization, zombies could have reduced block damage and could still be effective. Cobblestone will be effective again at low levels. Castles that exploit specific zombie behaviour by not being castle-like might fail because of randomized behaviour of zombies.

[Kalarro]

Lets try to define the goal of the horde defense mechanism: A horde base should preferably be best if it uses similar defenses to a castle in the middle ages. I think this is the ideal we want....

 

That's exactly whan I want.

But while you try to theorize the points saying they are accomplishing that, the real outcome is that mazes of weak materials are better than castles with thick walls. And exploiting the new AI is even more useful now than in previous builds.

[IgnyteZero]

Lets try to define the goal of the horde defense mechanism: A horde base should preferably be best if it uses similar defenses to a castle in the middle ages. I think this is the ideal we want.

 

 

Some important rules to achieve that would be:

1) thicker walls generally means better walls.

2) if you have weaknesses, the enemy will try to attack there

3) a castle will have access ways, but they will be designed so that attackers have a hard time using them

4) defenders always have the better position

5) but all defenses can be broken if the attacker has numerical superiority and the defender makes mistakes or does nothing

 

Look at how the new AI has made 2 a reality and 3 a successful design principle.

 

Now Fataal said (I'm rephrasing here) that he is working on further reducing exploitable AI behaviour as far as time permits. But it should be clear that the enemy attacking weaknesses of the castle is expected behaviour.

 

Fataal also said that as a polishing step he will randomize zombie behaviour, so that some will attack not the weakest point but the next-weakest or even fairly strong points. This is consistent with the low intelligence of the zombies but also in a way good tactical behaviour to make the defender have to watch and defend all sides of the castle. It will also mean that even walls that are not meant to lure the attacker to attack them have to withstand those attacks for a while.

 

That this polishing can't happen now in A17 is easily explained by the fact that randomized zombies makes finding AI bugs at all possible, because with randomisation we alpha-testers would never know if a zombie is doing something he shouldn't do because of a bug or is just a zombie with a randomized behaviour.

 

Also because we have a game where you start weak and ill-equipped and work up to be great, your first castle will not be great, it will be weak, but only weak enemies will attack, so thats ok.

 

So

A) A17 will definitely not be the last step on the journey, an important ingredient is missing (randomization) that is missing deliberately

B) your first castle will be small and out of cobblestone or even wood, concrete is an upgrade for later (if you don't like that at all, there are multiple ways around that, creative mode alone has multiple ways around that). If this isn't true and you can build with concrete from the start, even low level zombies would need the massive block damage to go through concrete. Which would make cobblestone walls of any thickness useless.

C) once all stuff is in, i.e. balancing, reduction of exploits, randomization, zombies could have reduced block damage and could still be effective. Cobblestone will be effective again at low levels. Castles that exploit specific zombie behaviour by not being castle-like might fail because of randomized behaviour of zombies.

 

Keyword: Zombies.

 

Not occupying french army or zergs or conga line dancers... well you get the idea. Zombies. Siege-behavior should be erratic, not co-dependant or focused.

[cricket504]

I started my base build partway into day 3 and it took most of the rest of the week to get it all done, minus some little side missions for the trader and looting a couple nearby POIs. I was on nomad with 90 minutes days but I always afked at night and I had a forge in a nearby POI but I didn't get level 20 until day 8 so I mostly used the stone axe. I've used the same base for multiple hordes with only relatively minor upgrades and it's worked quite well. The picture I added shows the damage after the first horde with a gamestage of around 40 using only a hunting rifle and a bow with stone arrows on my part.

 

I'm using a similar design but then tried a bit of pathing to only have one side to defend. Putting up walls on 3 sides of the base and then putting walls 6 out from the base to only let the pathing work them to one side. Down fall of it was multiplayer had attack paths that bust the outer walls since not everyone can stand in the middle of the one side. Finding this in many designs I'm seeing in multi-player.

[RestInPieces]

Keyword: Zombies.

 

Not occupying french army or zergs or conga line dancers... well you get the idea. Zombies. Siege-behavior should be erratic, not co-dependant or focused.

 

And at the same time enemies need to have decent AI. There has been a huge improvement towards that goal. As you said, they do need to be more erratic and I am sure more improvements will be done on that front, with more zombie profiles, for example with some zombies that keep hitting foundations even if you move to the next pylon, some others not using the 1st most optimal path to you etc.

[meganoth]

That's exactly whan I want.

But while you try to theorize the points saying they are accomplishing that, the real outcome is that mazes of weak materials are better than castles with thick walls. And exploiting the new AI is even more useful now than in previous builds.

 

Keyword: Zombies.

 

Not occupying french army or zergs or conga line dancers... well you get the idea. Zombies. Siege-behavior should be erratic, not co-dependant or focused.

 

You are both critizising the non-randomized behaviour of the Z's (for example mazes of weak materials don't work if some zombies hit on the weak materials). That's why I tried to explain that for the moment predictable behaviour is necessary for the efficient development of the AI and can't be fixed at the moment.

 

In other words predictable conga-line zombies are not bugs but a development decision because adding randomization last makes development easier.

[IgnyteZero]

In other words predictable conga-line zombies are not bugs but a development decision because adding randomization last makes development easier.

 

Which is fine and dandy if that's the case. But if this behaviour persist it might be problematic. TBH, zombie behaviour is my greatest worry in A17. Skillsystems and whatever will be tweaked to no end in patches coming, that's what TFP has always done more or less. Zombiebehaviour has so far not been something they've prioritised. But maybe they are now, and this is not some overblown basebuilding nerf backfiring on gameplay making it tedious and boring as some fear. Then all is good. But I do think no matter that it is imperative that we report how easy and boring it is to circumvent this so called AI, and how much we think a bad zombie AI might hurt the game experience.

 

And at the same time enemies need to have decent AI. There has been a huge improvement towards that goal. As you said, they do need to be more erratic and I am sure more improvements will be done on that front, with more zombie profiles, for example with some zombies that keep hitting foundations even if you move to the next pylon, some others not using the 1st most optimal path to you etc.

 

Yeah that's what I'm hoping. Having some zombie types act smarter and some less smart would make things really interesting I think. In theory.

[meganoth]

Which is fine and dandy if that's the case. But if this behaviour persist it might be problematic. TBH, zombie behaviour is my greatest worry in A17. Skillsystems and whatever will be tweaked to no end in patches coming, that's what TFP has always done more or less. Zombiebehaviour has so far not been something they've prioritised.

 

Well, somewhere near the start of A17 development TFP have hired a new programmer (Fataal) specifically for redoing AI (he has a few more areas to work on like everyone else in the team, but AI is probably the "center piece" of his work, at least for A17). And Fataal has more than once said that randomized behaviour will be done in the polishing phase which is not clearly defined but still a few months away, at least.

[Luzifer]

Heya guys nice to read your debate here, i just wanted to tell ya, that I uploaded a Vid on YT showcasing the base i posted and also uncovering a Bug in the process of it. I had to be very silent tho, because everyone else was sleepin already so maybe bump your speackers/ headset a tad up. I get louder the longer the vid goes so please stick with me and or just see what i Uncovered.

 

[InSanity]

Im glad that something like that worked. From where did you shoot? I see no angle from top floor to shoot the zombies beating on the columns that are destroyed.

 

You can't clearly see it but I have 4 3x3 sections of the floor on that first level made of iron bars that I can see every angle of the columns from.

[RipClaw]

Heya guys nice to read your debate here, i just wanted to tell ya, that I uploaded a Vid on YT showcasing the base i posted and also uncovering a Bug in the process of it. I had to be very silent tho, because everyone else was sleepin already so maybe bump your speackers/ headset a tad up. I get louder the longer the vid goes so please stick with me and or just see what i Uncovered.

 

 

You where in debug mode when testing this. If you hit the * key on the numblock this disables the AI and the zombies stop walking. Maybe this is what happend.

 

Thanks for the showcase of the base. It looks nice but against stronger horde you should add some traps to slow them down like barbed wire on the floor or electric fence posts. And dart traps would also be an idea. The downside of this many traps would be the you need a loot of ressources to keep this base up and running.

[RipClaw]

Well, somewhere near the start of A17 development TFP have hired a new programmer (Fataal) specifically for redoing AI (he has a few more areas to work on like everyone else in the team, but AI is probably the "center piece" of his work, at least for A17). And Fataal has more than once said that randomized behaviour will be done in the polishing phase which is not clearly defined but still a few months away, at least.

 

This is a little problem. The only way to defeat a enemy which is stronger than you, outnumbers you and behaves in a unpredictable way is to use as much firepower as possible and this is not very elegant or creative. And in the end you will loose because you are out of ammunition.

[meganoth]

This is a little problem. The only way to defeat a enemy which is stronger than you, outnumbers you and behaves in a unpredictable way is to use as much firepower as possible and this is not very elegant or creative. And in the end you will loose because you are out of ammunition.

 

But there is all kinds of random, for example ALL zombies attack a random location or EACH zombie attacks a random location or a gauss function is used.... I think a combination of random behaviour and lower block damage of the zombies will keep the difficulty at the same level but make the defense much more interesting.

[Luzifer]

You where in debug mode when testing this. If you hit the * key on the numblock this disables the AI and the zombies stop walking. Maybe this is what happend.

 

Thanks for the showcase of the base. It looks nice but against stronger horde you should add some traps to slow them down like barbed wire on the floor or electric fence posts. And dart traps would also be an idea. The downside of this many traps would be the you need a loot of ressources to keep this base up and running.

 

...really? i´ll try again but i doubt i pressed anything but walk in the second it happened

 

I know i know its just a basic design, there is plenty room for more Turrets n fences n wires and and and.

 

I was just surprised with the Ai not doin anything but attack the me in 1.5 m

[Krougal]

...really? i´ll try again but i doubt i pressed anything but walk in the second it happened

 

I know i know its just a basic design, there is plenty room for more Turrets n fences n wires and and and.

 

I was just surprised with the Ai not doin anything but attack the me in 1.5 m

 

It's an interesting design. I'd like to see a vid how it does against an actual horde if you find the time to do one. Really curious too if you fill the paths with barbed wire how it will affect pathing. If it doesn't then this would work well even without turrets & blades since they have a path to you but are slowed enough for even 1 person to be able to keep up with killing them I think.

[sadpickle]

I found it's incredibly easy to use the zombie pathing to make zombies walk on spikes. Zombies will treat spikes as a platform they can stand on, and attempt to use them to scale a wall that is 2 blocks high. As an illustration, this is a crude cutaway side view of my defenses

 

 

=====#

^^^^#

 

^ are spikes and # are walls. = is empty space. If a spike is placed on the ground next to a 2-high wall, they zombies will attempt to jump on the spike, to then jump on the wall. However the spike breaks before the zombie can use it (if they can at all), and they move to the next spike, and so on. In this way a 2-high wall or platform surrounded with spikes can use every spike directly adjacent to the wall before the zombies attempt to break through. They will sporadically hit walls, but if there is a spike available to step on they will attempt to do so.

 

I have since closed in the design I'm using and am waiting for the next horde night to see if they will still take the bait. There are no doors reachable from the ground, so they have to tunnel through the bottom or jump over the wall (now impossible) to get to me. I'm at work so no pictures, but I'll try to take one when I get home.