(A19) WalkerSim - Enhanced roaming zombies

[ZehMatt]

this is such a cool development!....I hope you're still active with it cuz it feels like there's so much potential.

a couple questions.... (I'm experimenting with it but haven't done enough yet)

How do Wilderness Spawn increase modlets affect this? (like JaxTeller's x5 multiplier) 

same for increased wandering hordes and increased screamers? do they change the way WalkerSim works and/or are they compatible?

and to run on a dedicated server, can I just use the server version on the server or do the clients need the DMT version as well?

thanks for the cool mod....if I was a better programmer (not just a hack-n-slasher/copy-n-paster) I could really dive into this more(!)

The animal spawning should be unaffected by this mod in general. Screamers should be still triggered by the heat map, I don't recall them being part of wandering hordes, I might be wrong here, so in theory the Mod should not influence it either.

And for the dedicated setup only the server requires the mod, clients can play with vanilla client.

 

[danielspoa]

hey zeh, do you still work on this? or plan to work for it once a20 drops?

 

[Ragnar]

Hey everyone! I've finally managed to adapt this mod to Alpha 20!

Plus I've changed respawn logic a bit: now killed zomibes enque to respawn to for a big amount of days. So you can feel, how you clean the world around you. No more non-stop zombies flow. I compensate ingame with high population, high value of max zombies and high chance to spawn at POIs. But I want to make this respawn options configurable.

I also changed walking behaviour: zombies now target the closest 5 POIs, not random on the whole map. So if you use high POITravellerChance, this would lead to zombies staying near their original POIs. For example, a big number of them would walk in a city, but won't stray far from it! With default behavior, they get spayed equally all over the map past time disregard the actual location (even amounts in the woods and cities).

Plus I fixed state saving to mod's bin file. I don't know, if you noticed, but zombies location and numbers was resetted at every game startup (like when you use "walkersim reset" cmd).

It's 3am at my place now, so I gonna sleep, than polish release version (couple of hours) and post it here.

 

[Milkshakes]

Would this new Cooldown logic also impact sleeper respawns on interiors, like the Stayclear mod does?

And if it does, would these interior zombies appear from the outer edge of the map, or (after their cooldown is up) return to their designated prefab?

 

[bdubyah]

ZehMatt is working on an update himself, just so you guys know.

 

[Ragnar]

Here it is https://github.com/RagnarHbUa/7d2dWalkerSim !
Maybe this would help ZehMatt to update his version. Not perfect UX, sorry, you need to copy files yourselves as described, but I've spend all weekends on 3 C# mods, adapting them to A20, plus editing misaligned scopes in Tactical Action. And I have working week ahead.

Milkshakes , no, WalkerSim, nor mine, not original, doesn't interfere with Sleepers and their spawning. They are left vanilla. And from A20 source code I see, that their respawn is tied with Loot Respawn option. So if you've set loot respawn to 60 days, sleepers would populate cleared buildings also on the 60th day.

But I've made a mod on Sleepers too: extending their sleeper box, for them to spawn earlier when player comes (some spawns are too tight, like when you enter the room, they appear almost on your head, behind your back), spawn amount limiter (to save fps, some POIs have too much z's with mine prespawning enhancements, original sleepers are spawned in packs, in a cycle; I hate when I see sleepers in already cleared room), chanche for sleepers to spawn awake, etc. I would post it here soon.

 

[mr.devolver]

This is a good mod, but unfortunately both the original AND the updated version by Ragnar have some game breaking problems.

WalkerSim completely ignores game zombie spawning events, ie. zombie spawning during the quest buried treasure. If you're going to completely replace zombie spawning, you should make sure your system respects vanilla game rules and still spawn zombies when and where the game wants them to be spawned, especially during quests. Why? The answer leads to another issue - this mod breaks the quests where zombies are involved and as a consequence some mods that are ALL about quests, especially those quests that involve killing lots of zombies (ReQuests mod for one) are broken due to this. WalkerSim + ReQuests mod = no joy. You buy quests from the board and can't activate them. Why? Because you have Enemy spawnings set to OFF. Why? Because you have WalkerSim installed which requires Enemy spawnings to be OFF.

 

[JaxTeller718]

This is a good mod, but unfortunately both the original AND the updated version by Ragnar have some game breaking problems.

WalkerSim completely ignores game zombie spawning events, ie. zombie spawning during the quest buried treasure. If you're going to completely replace zombie spawning, you should make sure your system respects vanilla game rules and still spawn zombies when and where the game wants them to be spawned, especially during quests. Why? The answer leads to another issue - this mod breaks the quests where zombies are involved and as a consequence some mods that are ALL about quests, especially those quests that involve killing lots of zombies (ReQuests mod for one) are broken due to this. WalkerSim + ReQuests mod = no joy. You buy quests from the board and can't activate them. Why? Because you have Enemy spawnings set to OFF. Why? Because you have WalkerSim installed which requires Enemy spawnings to be OFF.

He doesnt HAVE to make this mod compatible with other mods.

 

[mr.devolver]

He doesnt HAVE to make this mod compatible with other mods.

Nowhere did I say he HAS to make this mod compatible with other mods, I'm merely providing my feedback and personal experience which as it stands right now is that for my needs it is still useless. This is not even criticism, because I'm aware that other players may like different things, however for those who find themselves in a similar situation like me when they'd want to try different things and perhaps try out this particular combination of mods and wonder why it doesn't work, this information may be useful and save them some time trying to find where the problem is.

 

[Ragnar]

This is a good mod, but unfortunately both the original AND the updated version by Ragnar have some game breaking problems.

WalkerSim completely ignores game zombie spawning events, ie. zombie spawning during the quest buried treasure. If you're going to completely replace zombie spawning, you should make sure your system respects vanilla game rules and still spawn zombies when and where the game wants them to be spawned, especially during quests. Why? The answer leads to another issue - this mod breaks the quests where zombies are involved and as a consequence some mods that are ALL about quests, especially those quests that involve killing lots of zombies (ReQuests mod for one) are broken due to this. WalkerSim + ReQuests mod = no joy. You buy quests from the board and can't activate them. Why? Because you have Enemy spawnings set to OFF. Why? Because you have WalkerSim installed which requires Enemy spawnings to be OFF.

I'll definetly look into ReQuests and WalkerSim compatibilty due to the fact, that I enjoyed both of this mods in A19, they worked fine. I've even upped kill counters in ReQuests to up difficulty and take note of massive sleepers spawning and hordes outsite (every kill was accounted for, not only sleepers back in A19).

On the second matter, buried treasure, this issue makes quest very easy, right? Just dig, no threat if you are in wilderness. I'll try to come up with something, but that needs research. One idea is to generate sound programmatically, when player is dealing with the treasure, that would attach WalkerSim zeds (like original heat system). Because WalkerSim has awesome sound alarm system. That't not how it would look right IRL (nor the vanilla spawn around dig site), but for the sake of game challange it may be okay.

Thanks for the input! Now I know I must sweat some more without actuall playing, but I know this beforehand. Forewarned is forearmed

Can't make concrete date promises, guys, because end of the year is nightmare at my job, you know how it is  But ReQuests would be my first priority. Still haven't got a time to play the game actually. Just adapting C# mods and sights in Tactical Action. And attemts to generate decent map in scarce free time 

 

[mr.devolver]

I'll definetly look into ReQuests and WalkerSim compatibilty due to the fact, that I enjoyed both of this mods in A19, they worked fine. I've even upped kill counters in ReQuests to up difficulty and take note of massive sleepers spawning and hordes outsite (every kill was accounted for, not only sleepers back in A19).

On the second matter, buried treasure, this issue makes quest very easy, right? Just dig, no threat if you are in wilderness. I'll try to come up with something, but that needs research. One idea is to generate sound programmatically, when player is dealing with the treasure, that would attach WalkerSim zeds (like original heat system). Because WalkerSim has awesome sound alarm system. That't not how it would look right IRL (nor the vanilla spawn around dig site), but for the sake of game challange it may be okay.

Thanks for the input! Now I know I must sweat some more without actuall playing, but I know this beforehand. Forewarned is forearmed

Can't make concrete date promises, guys, because end of the year is nightmare at my job, you know how it is  But ReQuests would be my first priority. Still haven't got a time to play the game actually. Just adapting C# mods and sights in Tactical Action. And attemts to generate decent map in scarce free time 

You're welcome, thank you for looking into it. Just a note, the buried treasure quest was just an example I used in attempt to explain what I mean that the game has some hardcoded events where it spawns entities including zombies and these are all gone with WalkerSim installed. I think it would be better if WalkerSim still allowed vanilla code to spawn entities including zombies for these events for sake of compatibility (not just for mod compatibility, but especially for compatibility with the vanilla game systems such as those quests where the game situationally throws some zombies at you), but that's just my opinion, please do not feel like I'm trying to demand any changes here, I'm just sharing my thoughts about this mod, suggestions for improvements which you can totally ignore if you don't like them.

 

[Ragnar]

WalkerSim + ReQuests mod = no joy. You buy quests from the board and can't activate them. Why? Because you have Enemy spawnings set to OFF. Why? Because you have WalkerSim installed which requires Enemy spawnings to be OFF.

So, I've tried ReQuests with my version of WalkerSim on recently released stable verison. I've failed it deliberately by leaving area, but I activated it (from bulletin, from spawn console (U key)), killcount was working (any zombie passes, not just prefab sleepers). Evereyting is just like A19. Below are the proofs.
 

Spoiler

What I've also encountered, is that ReQuests strugles to find place for some quests. After reading paper and accepting a quest, you might get location "NO TRADER". That is mentioned by the author himself in ReQuests description. It's known issue and one shold drop such quest and try again.

I've double-checked source code of this quest stage, finding fitting location for quest: it's standard, since ReQuests is XML mod only, and this stage has no mentions of spawns or enemies whatsoever.

On the other hand, WalkerSim only disables vanilla wandering hordes and spawning in biomes, open world. Plus alters sound notification. It doesn't disable spawning completely like game option in world configuration menu.

But I couldn't reproduce yellow quest marker disfunction as described. Have you installed other .dll mods? Especially that require direct game files modification (7DaysToDie_Data\Managed directory).

 

[mr.devolver]

So, I've tried ReQuests with my version of WalkerSim on recently released stable verison. I've failed it deliberately by leaving area, but I activated it (from bulletin, from spawn console (U key)), killcount was working (any zombie passes, not just prefab sleepers). Evereyting is just like A19. Below are the proofs.
 

Spoiler

What I've also encountered, is that ReQuests strugles to find place for some quests. After reading paper and accepting a quest, you might get location "NO TRADER". That is mentioned by the author himself in ReQuests description. It's known issue and one shold drop such quest and try again.

I've double-checked source code of this quest stage, finding fitting location for quest: it's standard, since ReQuests is XML mod only, and this stage has no mentions of spawns or enemies whatsoever.

On the other hand, WalkerSim only disables vanilla wandering hordes and spawning in biomes, open world. Plus alters sound notification. It doesn't disable spawning completely like game option in world configuration menu.

But I couldn't reproduce yellow quest marker disfunction as described. Have you installed other .dll mods? Especially that require direct game files modification (7DaysToDie_Data\Managed directory).

I'm sorry, I was explaining this problem in different places, perhaps I forgot to mention some important details here, so I'll try to explain again. I opened the bulletin board, purchased the quest, and the Read option on that quest item was grayed out, so I couldn't even read the quest item, that's what I meant by being unable to activate the quest. I found out that this happens when I set Enemy spawning to OFF in game settings. I believe the author of original WalkerSim said that it must be set to OFF for WalkerSim to work, so I've been doing that ever since with every WalkerSim installation. When I set Enemy spawning to ON again which I believe deactivates WalkerSim and switches zombie spawning back to vanilla mode, I'm able to Read those quest items normally. I am using other dll mods, but when I isolated this problem, it was only WalkerSim, ReQuests and its dependency TacticalAction installed, so there was no interference with anything else.

On a side note, while you're saying that WalkerSim only disables vanilla wandering hordes and spawning in biomes, open world, in my game I've noticed lack of various animals such as wolves that usually come at night and I've never encountered any zombie during vanilla quests to clear the area, the sleepers that are always guaranteed to be there in the POI with vanilla spawning were missing with WalkerSim active, so if that's some unexpected behavior, perhaps it could be a hint of faulty installation of the mod, but I installed it pretty much in the same fashion as I always install mods.

 

[Ragnar]

I believe the author of original WalkerSim said that it must be set to OFF for WalkerSim to work, so I've been doing that ever since with every WalkerSim installation. When I set Enemy spawning to ON again which I believe deactivates WalkerSim and switches zombie spawning back to vanilla mode, I'm able to Read those quest items normally.

Well, you should not disable enemy spawning in game menu. WalkerSim is fine with it turned on. Moreover, it completely ignores it Disabled "read" button is vanilla behaviour of quests and enemy spawning option. Nothing changed in this regard since A19.

the sleepers that are always guaranteed to be there in the POI with vanilla spawning were missing with WalkerSim active

Definitely not WalkerSim! I develop C# Sleepers mod myself, double checked their work several times in A19 and in A20 as well. SleeperVolume code, that is responsible for spawning sleepers hasn't changed in major terms. And WalkerSim doesn't touch it at all. Sleepers are different realm from Biome spawning.
 

I've noticed lack of various animals such as wolves that usually come at night

That is indeed true. EnemyAnimals relate to Biome Spawns changed by WalkerSim. WalkerSim takes enemy biome spawning data from spawning.xml, but only uses "Day" or "Any" time entries, ignoring Night time spawns. I believe that was made due to the fact of existing persistence and horde unification, so that one wouldn't meet  horde of 400 enemies with 46 wolves in it. Because 400 zomibes are okay near city, but 46 wolves are not. Enemy class is chosen on each enemy spawn, but numbers in WalkerSim usually are much greater than in vanilla. And currently each biome has 4 night spawn groups, one of which is "enemy animals" only (spawning.xml). That's 25% of all night spawns guaranted. And wolves are present among other 3 lists too. So that may be more than 25% in the long run.

Nonetheless that's interesting feature, I'll try to balance enemy animals with humanoid zomibes in the future. Note taken.

Currently, if you want enemy animals very much with WalkerSim, you can add them (to entitygroups.xml sections) with low chance to spawn to groups "ZombiesAll" and other sections of Day or Any time in spawning.xml of each biome. ZombiesAll is default for WalkerSim if fitting hasn't been found.

 

[mr.devolver]

I haven't actually tried to leave Enemy spawning ON with WalkerSim installed for too long, but I had the feeling that on that setting it simply acts like vanilla anyway, but if you say that WalkerSim is still active with Enemy spawning ON, I'll take your word for it. While I had WalkerSim uninstalled, I tested a different mod that simply increased zombie spawns and also a mod which randomizes the hordes and gives you more control over them - how often do they happen and how many zombies do they spawn. It was almost like playing with WalkerSim, except all the spawning events worked as expected per vanilla standards (sleepers in POIs, zombie spawn events such as those during buried treasure quest) and I've also encountered vultures, wolves, snow lions etc., so those enemy animals were also working fine. I might give WalkerSim another try, but from what you said about the spawnings, I feel that I would need to make some extra changes just to have a correct setup. I wanted to play the game rather than trying to mess with the settings trying to find how to fix this or that, if you know what I mean, but I'll consider my options here, because I still like the concept of this WalkerSim mod.

 

[Ragnar]

but I had the feeling that on that setting it simply acts like vanilla anyway

That's because actual spawning mechanism is vanilla. For example, WalkerSim zombies still spawn behind rocks or trees in the forest in 100 or 200 meters from you, etc. After they are spawned (player can see them), their behaviour is vanilla. They choose path, organize themselves, spot enemy "with their eyes", engage in combat in vanilla way.

The cool feature is that WalkerSim populates the whole world, zombies move in this world even when they aren't spawned and you can't see them in game. WalkerSim controlls their moving direction and priorities (their next target in path, reaction to events like sound). Respawning is also made per zombie in WalkerSim (which I intend to develop further). Vanilla respawn is about biome chunk of area (like grids in WalkerSim). With that difference, that eveyrting happens in this world chunk only when player present in it, and all changes are tied to this chunk only. While WalkerSim grid system is more of a map and zombies act in the whole world, they may be spawned at any place (random POI, concrete grid (vanilla behavior), at the border instantly (vanilla WalkerSim behavior) with possible delays, etc. It's another level of flexibility. One just need to code a little bit of options and behaviour, but what ZehMatt put in the foundation is amazing.

Other mods you mentioned (I suppose XML) can't simulate infected cities and prioritize zombies location and path on the map by POIs and other criteria. I've tried them too. If you are fine feeling existence in small chunk of the world around you (approximately vanilla city size), no matter the size of the world around you - this is fine. But it's too limited system in my view.

 

[mr.devolver]

That's because actual spawning mechanism is vanilla. For example, WalkerSim zombies still spawn behind rocks or trees in the forest in 100 or 200 meters from you, etc. After they are spawned (player can see them), their behaviour is vanilla. They choose path, organize themselves, spot enemy "with their eyes", engage in combat in vanilla way.

The cool feature is that WalkerSim populates the whole world, zombies move in this world even when they aren't spawned and you can't see them in game. WalkerSim controlls their moving direction and priorities (their next target in path, reaction to events like sound). Respawning is also made per zombie in WalkerSim (which I intend to develop further). Vanilla respawn is about biome chunk of area (like grids in WalkerSim). With that difference, that eveyrting happens in this world chunk only when player present in it, and all changes are tied to this chunk only. While WalkerSim grid system is more of a map and zombies act in the whole world, they may be spawned at any place (random POI, concrete grid (vanilla behavior), at the border instantly (vanilla WalkerSim behavior) with possible delays, etc. It's another level of flexibility. One just need to code a little bit of options and behaviour, but what ZehMatt put in the foundation is amazing.

Other mods you mentioned (I suppose XML) can't simulate infected cities and prioritize zombies location and path on the map by POIs and other criteria. I've tried them too. If you are fine feeling existence in small chunk of the world around you (approximately vanilla city size), no matter the size of the world around you - this is fine. But it's too limited system in my view.

I like what WalkerSim does and I see the difference clearly, when there are many zombies spawned at once, that's something that would never happen in vanilla unless you increased zombie spawning. To that point WalkerSim is a fine mod, but then there are those issues I had with it. Perhaps it'd be all fine if I switch Enemy spawning back to ON, I will try that. Anyway, those other mods weren't all just xml. The increased zombie spawning was xml, but the modified horde system is dll mod from KhaineGB.

 

[Ashnak]

When I first bought us 7d2d in 2014, my wife wouldn't want to play anymore after a short while, because she hated the magically appearing zombies. For years she told me "I want a zombie game, where you can clean an area and new zombies will spawn at the edge of the map and need to walk from there to your position". I was thrilled when I found this mod, heartbroken when I saw it was abandoned, and now thrilled again that it was picked up!

Alas, then I saw

That's because actual spawning mechanism is vanilla. For example, WalkerSim zombies still spawn behind rocks or trees in the forest in 100 or 200 meters from you, etc. [...] While WalkerSim grid system is more of a map and zombies act in the whole world, they may be spawned at any place (random POI, concrete grid (vanilla behavior), at the border instantly (vanilla WalkerSim behavior) [...]

and what I really would love is an option to limit spawning to the vanilla WalkerSim behavior. Perhaps coupled with an <ActiveChunkTravellerChance> value, similar to <POITravellerChance>, if that's even a possibility. That would be a dream coming true

 

[Ragnar]

and what I really would love is an option to limit spawning to the vanilla WalkerSim behavior. Perhaps coupled with an <ActiveChunkTravellerChance> value, similar to <POITravellerChance>, if that's even a possibility. That would be a dream coming true

Then I'll release version with a possible choice of several respawn systems: at the border, near some POIs, instantly or on a set day. I hope it will be done this week

In the meantime here's patch, that:
- Brings more configuration. Now you can set persistense save interval in config. I use 2 minutes with no problmes. What does it affect? Say, you've made zombie massacre, got to the trader or safe spot and about to finish your game session. If you set PersistenceSaveInterval too big, for example, 10 minutes, that's gonna mean, that if you quit game faster than in 10 minutes after massive shoot out, all zombies would be restored on the next launch.
- Persistense fix. Although I fixed simulation file save and turned off insta respawn, all zeds were restored on the next launch. Now finally fixed and tested.

https://github.com/RagnarHbUa/7d2dWalkerSim/releases/tag/v2.0.0

 

[-Holo-]

I can't say I understand -exactly- what this does but i'm intrigued.

I have been talking with my firends for a long time about how much more threads we have available now and it would be nice to have an option to use 'free' threads to do pathing and other cpu intense things to allow for more zombies at a time.

I don't know if this is whats going on here, but seems like a start

How does it handle sleepers? For example I would love to be able to see stray zombies roaming around inside POI's from outside or the building close to it.

How's sound handled? That's also something I think would be amazing for a gunshot inside a city causing large amounts of zombies within say, 200 blocks radius to investigate the sound, maybe even waking some sleepers inside nearby POI's, causing them to come crashing out windows and walls.

Would make making noises in cities really interesting