Hello!

First of all, thank you for making this mod. It's extremely cool and is going to allow me to create something extremely special:

Explaining what I am doing will explain the settings I need, I believe.

I have created a horror server. There are *extremely* few zombies, but they all are tanky superhuman sprinters, that dive through windows, unlock doors, have eagle-eye hearing and long memories, etc.

They're basically monsters. And, with the "Knock Knock" sound mod, they honestly sound like monsters too.

However, any experienced player knows the standard behavior of zombies. I can't put them on "pinpoint" hearing or it kills all stealth. Pinpoint is just too good.

So, currently, players are able to spot zombies and relatively fearlessly circumvent them. If the monsters haven't seen a player yet, they're not monsters... they're just normal zombies. And the players have nothing to fear.

That is an issue.

I'm seeing that your mod would allow me to do some wild behavior. I would love to make this work.

- tiny horde size (3-5)
- extremely unpredictable movement
- as wide of a wander range as possible
- ideally they'd spread out and then when one spots a player, they'd all go for that player, but I may need another mod for this.

Help would be much appreciated. Thank you for your unique addition to the modding community :)

Originally posted by Fahr3n:

Hello!

First of all, thank you for making this mod. It's extremely cool and is going to allow me to create something extremely special:

Explaining what I am doing will explain the settings I need, I believe.

I have created a horror server. There are *extremely* few zombies, but they all are tanky superhuman sprinters, that dive through windows, unlock doors, have eagle-eye hearing and long memories, etc.

They're basically monsters. And, with the "Knock Knock" sound mod, they honestly sound like monsters too.

However, any experienced player knows the standard behavior of zombies. I can't put them on "pinpoint" hearing or it kills all stealth. Pinpoint is just too good.

So, currently, players are able to spot zombies and relatively fearlessly circumvent them. If the monsters haven't seen a player yet, they're not monsters... they're just normal zombies. And the players have nothing to fear.

That is an issue.

I'm seeing that your mod would allow me to do some wild behavior. I would love to make this work.

- tiny horde size (3-5)
- extremely unpredictable movement
- as wide of a wander range as possible
- ideally they'd spread out and then when one spots a player, they'd all go for that player, but I may need another mod for this.

Help would be much appreciated. Thank you for your unique addition to the modding community :)

Accept the friend request.

Reading into this mod is getting me pretty excited. Where would I go to learn the details of what the different settings/terms mean for the gameplay?

Such as the flee, radius, interrupt, follower/ticks, homing, etc. I presume flee is when zombies leave an area, radius is the area distance around a player that will effect the zombies with homing, and I assume homing means the zombies wander towards the players general location?

Originally posted by TheoCHill95:

Reading into this mod is getting me pretty excited. Where would I go to learn the details of what the different settings/terms mean for the gameplay?

Such as the flee, radius, interrupt, follower/ticks, homing, etc. I presume flee is when zombies leave an area, radius is the area distance around a player that will effect the zombies with homing, and I assume homing means the zombies wander towards the players general location?

Tooltips contain more information. If you need more elaborate details, you can either ask here or check out the source to see how it works for yourself.

You've nailed it. Just some clarification though:

Flee is the opposite of homing. Homing is a direct path towards the player, flee is a direct path away from the player.

Random Radius, while it's name can be misleading, is a part of the homing: zombies outside the radius are allowed to use the homing settings when it's time for them to choose a path. Zombies inside the radius will never use the homing settings for choosing a path. If you have the Random Interrupt enabled, zombies that are homing that cross the boundary stop homing.

Flee Radius applies to zombies inside the radius.
A flee path is attempted before a homing path, which is attempted before a random path.

All this is mentioned in the tooltips.

Originally posted by Ryuku:

Originally posted by TheoCHill95:

Reading into this mod is getting me pretty excited. Where would I go to learn the details of what the different settings/terms mean for the gameplay?

Such as the flee, radius, interrupt, follower/ticks, homing, etc. I presume flee is when zombies leave an area, radius is the area distance around a player that will effect the zombies with homing, and I assume homing means the zombies wander towards the players general location?

Tooltips contain more information. If you need more elaborate details, you can either ask here or check out the source to see how it works for yourself.

You've nailed it. Just some clarification though:

Flee is the opposite of homing. Homing is a direct path towards the player, flee is a direct path away from the player.

Random Radius, while it's name can be misleading, is a part of the homing: zombies outside the radius are allowed to use the homing settings when it's time for them to choose a path. Zombies inside the radius will never use the homing settings for choosing a path. If you have the Random Interrupt enabled, zombies that are homing that cross the boundary stop homing.

Flee Radius applies to zombies inside the radius.
A flee path is attempted before a homing path, which is attempted before a random path.

All this is mentioned in the tooltips.

With this mod, if I were to fine tune it, it looks like I could simulate zombies 'coming out' in the morning with the homing, and then fleeing towards the evening to simulate returning to buildings sort of like I am legend right? I love it so far.

Originally posted by TheoCHill95:

Originally posted by Ryuku:

Tooltips contain more information. If you need more elaborate details, you can either ask here or check out the source to see how it works for yourself.

You've nailed it. Just some clarification though:

Flee is the opposite of homing. Homing is a direct path towards the player, flee is a direct path away from the player.

Random Radius, while it's name can be misleading, is a part of the homing: zombies outside the radius are allowed to use the homing settings when it's time for them to choose a path. Zombies inside the radius will never use the homing settings for choosing a path. If you have the Random Interrupt enabled, zombies that are homing that cross the boundary stop homing.

Flee Radius applies to zombies inside the radius.
A flee path is attempted before a homing path, which is attempted before a random path.

All this is mentioned in the tooltips.

With this mod, if I were to fine tune it, it looks like I could simulate zombies 'coming out' in the morning with the homing, and then fleeing towards the evening to simulate returning to buildings sort of like I am legend right? I love it so far.

Yes, you can do that, although, they won't specifically enter the buildings -- It's just not an option at present. There is the "Zombies Fear The Sun" mod, or something like that, where they do flee into buildings during the day, etc. Might be one that does the opposite, if that's all you're specifically after.

I have a question, how often do zombies break away from groups if you have hordes and merging available?
I have found that zombie groups out in grass fields tend to stay in their groups much better than in a town with lots of breakable objects, I tend to see them all split off into smaller packs wandering around rather than in a mass ball like I want them to. I have WZ on with Random zombies and I have the hordes separated by speed, I want large groups of slow shamblers marching through the cities with smaller groups of fast shamblers cutting corners and blocking my escapes, however when I put it into practice I tend to see them all forming smaller groups everywhere. I have rally size set to 0 so they should just be forming into giant masses of destruction correct? Perhaps I have the migration time set too fast and they just don't have time to build up? I want to create a feeling like the hordes are always moving around and not just sitting in one spot for too long but I can't seem to find the sweet spot with it.

Another question, what constitutes an idle zombie and how long or what action takes place that an lone idle zombie joins a group, is there a setting in WZ that adjusts this, do I need to adjust the lone zombie settings to have them do nothing in order to make them idle and join a horde? I have the distance traveled to join group at max in vanilla zombie settings.

Originally posted by allanpullay:

I have a question, how often do zombies break away from groups if you have hordes and merging available?
I have found that zombie groups out in grass fields tend to stay in their groups much better than in a town with lots of breakable objects, I tend to see them all split off into smaller packs wandering around rather than in a mass ball like I want them to. I have WZ on with Random zombies and I have the hordes separated by speed, I want large groups of slow shamblers marching through the cities with smaller groups of fast shamblers cutting corners and blocking my escapes, however when I put it into practice I tend to see them all forming smaller groups everywhere. I have rally size set to 0 so they should just be forming into giant masses of destruction correct? Perhaps I have the migration time set too fast and they just don't have time to build up? I want to create a feeling like the hordes are always moving around and not just sitting in one spot for too long but I can't seem to find the sweet spot with it.

Another question, what constitutes an idle zombie and how long or what action takes place that an lone idle zombie joins a group, is there a setting in WZ that adjusts this, do I need to adjust the lone zombie settings to have them do nothing in order to make them idle and join a horde? I have the distance traveled to join group at max in vanilla zombie settings.

Any zombie that becomes distracted (Has a target, as in, a player, an object, or a sound) will separate from the group. You can either give them time to destroy all the distractions, or disable destruction / limit it to indoors.

Any zombie that strays further than Rally Travel Distance will also separate out.

Horde formation only ignores zombies that have a target (player, object or sound). Moving doesn't impact horde formation. Zombies inside buildings cannot join hordes (but they won't leave them just because they're in buildings), and for a zombie to join a horde they must share the same Z height (vertical), as well as be within Rally Travel Distance.

General Support was fine, btw, your post is about more than just the settings. ;)

EDIT: It's worth mentioning in a future update zombies will stick to their horde more. No ETA though, as I'm waiting for B42, I'm afraid it might break Wandering Zombies.

EDIT2: If you're not using Merge Hordes, it sounds like you might want to. Make sure you adjust the cooldown if it's too aggressive / not aggressive enough.

For random settings, am I correct in understanding "the time period" refers to the counter setting? Reason being I'd like to get hordes to wander constantly, but with random brief pauses (emphasis on brief!) in their movement to make them feel a bit more sluggish with less perpetual movement -- any recommendations for the best way to go about that?

Right now I have Rally Group Size 0, Merge Hordes on, ticks at default settings but with Follower Ticks 0.05 (maybe a little performance boost + extra randomness with larger hordes being a little slower to go pathfind). I've set Start Hour to Random with Min/Max 0-23. Random Chance is Static Max 80. Total Hours I'm about to try at Random and Min/Max 1-2.

If I'm understanding how it works, I think this should mean hordes wander with an 80% chance for 1-2 hours, then stop, and start moving again once the counter/ticks setting randomisation cycles the Start Hour to the right place.

However, I'm not sure how well this will accomplish what I want, and I'm especially wondering if it may be best to mess with the counter/ticks settings to get this result, but I'm cautious playing with those since I'd guess they could have a major impact on performance if misconfigured. Would appreciate any input!

Originally posted by Sowilo:

For random settings, am I correct in understanding "the time period" refers to the counter setting? Reason being I'd like to get hordes to wander constantly, but with random brief pauses (emphasis on brief!) in their movement to make them feel a bit more sluggish with less perpetual movement -- any recommendations for the best way to go about that?

Right now I have Rally Group Size 0, Merge Hordes on, ticks at default settings but with Follower Ticks 0.05 (maybe a little performance boost + extra randomness with larger hordes being a little slower to go pathfind). I've set Start Hour to Random with Min/Max 0-23. Random Chance is Static Max 80. Total Hours I'm about to try at Random and Min/Max 1-2.

If I'm understanding how it works, I think this should mean hordes wander with an 80% chance for 1-2 hours, then stop, and start moving again once the counter/ticks setting randomisation cycles the Start Hour to the right place.

However, I'm not sure how well this will accomplish what I want, and I'm especially wondering if it may be best to mess with the counter/ticks settings to get this result, but I'm cautious playing with those since I'd guess they could have a major impact on performance if misconfigured. Would appreciate any input!

The time settings are independent from the Counter settings. Very shortly after the randomised time has elasped, a new time is calculated. Generally speaking, the purpose of the time settings is for creating specific times of movement, like only day or night. You can, of course, use them however you want, but I'm not sure you're going to get the effect you're after.

You'll want to modify the Rand Ticks, is my guess. A random value from 0 to Rand Ticks is added onto Ticks, to determine the cooldown between movement attempts.

You really don't need to worry about performance, Wandering Zombies only processes a set amount of zombies per frame, and at default, that's only 20. Shouldn't be a need to change it, either. At a constant 60fps, that's 20 * 60 (1200) zombies processed per second. For most people, that's actually probably overkill, as the average number of zombies around you is usually about 200, so they get processed 6 times per second. Not too fast, not too slow, and since it is a set limit, if more zombies happen to spawn in for whatever reason, you don't suddenly incur a performance cost, the zombies are just updated less frequently.

EDIT: If you want, feel free to send me a friend request, and I can provide live assistance.

Ah, I get it now, I misunderstood total hours in particular since I read it as meaning when zombies wander, they will try to move for a total of this many hours, instead of it being the number of hours where the mod can make them try to wander/move to begin with. So basically it's just ticks I need to tinker with to make movement more sporadic, which is a lot simpler than I thought, especially not worrying as much about performance.

Thanks a lot! I think I should be fine getting the settings where I want now (will post in the preset thread when I do), but if I have any trouble I might take you up on that offer.

Hello i recently installed the mod, but my problem is that i tend to stay outside of 1 house killing zombies for several hours on the first day of apocalypse with peak zombie pop day being 40, and starting pop 0.05, and they just keep coming like its endless how do i make them come less often since its just crazy that the pop should be technically small but theres so many. Also how do i make them not destroy everything they ♥♥♥ see in its path, going into the unknown goes below reasonable level since every window, every barricaded door is gone.

Originally posted by XD!:

Hello i recently installed the mod, but my problem is that i tend to stay outside of 1 house killing zombies for several hours on the first day of apocalypse with peak zombie pop day being 40, and starting pop 0.05, and they just keep coming like its endless how do i make them come less often since its just crazy that the pop should be technically small but theres so many. Also how do i make them not destroy everything they ♥♥♥ see in its path, going into the unknown goes below reasonable level since every window, every barricaded door is gone.

Modify the Homing and Destructive settings.

Originally posted by Ryuku:

Originally posted by XD!:

Hello i recently installed the mod, but my problem is that i tend to stay outside of 1 house killing zombies for several hours on the first day of apocalypse with peak zombie pop day being 40, and starting pop 0.05, and they just keep coming like its endless how do i make them come less often since its just crazy that the pop should be technically small but theres so many. Also how do i make them not destroy everything they ♥♥♥ see in its path, going into the unknown goes below reasonable level since every window, every barricaded door is gone.

Modify the Homing and Destructive settings.

Homing is disabled (both set to 0) but they just keep coming like if they are focused on me also i made destructive only indoors for horde and lone but seems like they focus all things they see. Also i just changed the ticks for "ingamehours" so they will wander way less maybe that will help.

Sorry for repost, realised I put it in the wrong section:

Under the performance options in sandbox settings, would lowering or increasing the 'Update Limit (milliseconds)' option increase performance? I'm using a heavily modded game, and im trying to increase performance to reduce random chugs. I play with 'normal' population settings, but have update limit to 3, so some zombies wander around occasionally but not all of the all the time, And I have update limit set to 1, my thinking is if the limit is lower, it isn;t allowed to take us as much time, thus increasing performance, or do I have it backwards, where giving it more time would increase performance?