PC Blade Traps are trash, but shouldn't be...

[wondercoolguy]

So I came up w/ this plan to have zombies fall into a pit during horde night and be chopped up by the blade trap. Not even one hour into horde night the blade broke.  It made me sad because it was an epic plan and it worked. Why isn't the blade trap up-gradable or better longevity? I would be willing to pay two or three times the amount of resources for them to last longer. What is the over all purpose of the blade TRAP if they don't really stand up to the horde.

 

[HungryZombie]

So I came up w/ this plan to have zombies fall into a pit during horde night and be chopped up by the blade trap. Not even one hour into horde night the blade broke.  It made me sad because it was an epic plan and it worked. Why isn't the blade trap up-gradable or better longevity? I would be willing to pay two or three times the amount of resources for them to last longer. What is the over all purpose of the blade TRAP if they don't really stand up to the horde.

I think it is to make you put thought into your design so you build a way to repair the trap during horde night. 

 

[II Blittz II]

There's blade traps on the console version?

 

[Liesel Weppen]

What is the over all purpose of the blade TRAP if they don't really stand up to the horde.

Bladetraps would be heavily overpowered if they lastet a whole bloodmoon easily.

Adept your base design so either it can handle some destroyed blades and/or you can repair them during bloodmoon. So maybe place 1/2 blocks below them and make the room under them accessible so you can repair them through the 1/2 blocks. Using electric fence over the blades to stun the Zs, so they can not easily hit the traps is a also a common design.

Furthermore i guess you haven't had demolishers yet? They will just mow through your blades even if they had triple the amount of HP.

On the other hand you could also ask why spikes break... BECAUSE!

 

[Gazz]

1 blade trap = win the game?

That's why they break. =P

 

[FileMachete]

@wondercoolguy, just in case you're not already aware of these bits;

Blade Traps take a portion of the damage they deal to zeds themselves. Meaning, even when you protect the central hub/motor of a blade trap from being hit by angry zeds, they will still break after dealing x amount of damage.

That said, an awful lot of designs expose the blade traps middle to getting hit by zeds &/or cop puke, or cop/demo explosions. Or even being shot by the player.

While you can shoot through the _blade_ part without damaging the trap, if you shoot the center motor it will take damage.

Won't assist with your design but for a corridor kind of setup, using flat half-height blocks will effectively 'sort' which zeds a blade trap will hit in the head. With the half-height then only tall zeds like the cop, demo & wight will be hit, and I've never had this config set off a demolisher. While normal, full-height blocks lane that has blade traps set to hit all the zeds has been reported to set off demolishers.

Point of view in the pic is slightly elevated to clearly see the setup. Zeds enter from there. First hitting e-fence to stun lock them standing on a trigger plate over a dart trap. I'm on the far end shooting towards camera popping z-heads, heh. Then the first blade trap. Can see the two side lanes are half-height so BTs only skull crush tall zeds. Center lane is blocked, so zeds are very unlikely to swing at the BT motors. I have had cop puke damage the two BTs after the one you can see, when the cop was in the lane 'away' from where I was at the time.

With this setup I just had day 49 horde night, gs ~160? had 5 demolishers, only a few cops for some reason, fair mix of rads etc. I was actively shooting zeds as they came in and got their first zap; used ~200 9mm & ~250 AP 7.62, only a few spiders made it to the end of the lane. That first BT only took ~500 damage; I was making sure to focus on the big baddies of course. Those first dart traps burned ~1700 darts and their e-fences were almost broken. And they would have been but the horde rng kept sending vultures so the whole night was a bit slow, had to keep running upstairs to lure the vultures down, and then some of the other zeds would get confused where to come in. oh, and only 8 at a time, old potato comp.

 

[Boidster]

Hah, looks like an automated zombie-wash. Please place your zombie in the left or right channel, place brain in neutral, and take your foot off the brake.

Can you post a couple of other pictures, showing where the dart traps are and how it looks from your POV? We are just done with the day 14 horde and we're ready to build a bespoke horde base. Your design intrigues me as it is more advanced than anything I would dream up.

 

[wondercoolguy]

@wondercoolguy, just in case you're not already aware of these bits;

Blade Traps take a portion of the damage they deal to zeds themselves. Meaning, even when you protect the central hub/motor of a blade trap from being hit by angry zeds, they will still break after dealing x amount of damage.

That said, an awful lot of designs expose the blade traps middle to getting hit by zeds &/or cop puke, or cop/demo explosions. Or even being shot by the player.

While you can shoot through the _blade_ part without damaging the trap, if you shoot the center motor it will take damage.

Won't assist with your design but for a corridor kind of setup, using flat half-height blocks will effectively 'sort' which zeds a blade trap will hit in the head. With the half-height then only tall zeds like the cop, demo & wight will be hit, and I've never had this config set off a demolisher. While normal, full-height blocks lane that has blade traps set to hit all the zeds has been reported to set off demolishers.

Point of view in the pic is slightly elevated to clearly see the setup. Zeds enter from there. First hitting e-fence to stun lock them standing on a trigger plate over a dart trap. I'm on the far end shooting towards camera popping z-heads, heh. Then the first blade trap. Can see the two side lanes are half-height so BTs only skull crush tall zeds. Center lane is blocked, so zeds are very unlikely to swing at the BT motors. I have had cop puke damage the two BTs after the one you can see, when the cop was in the lane 'away' from where I was at the time.

With this setup I just had day 49 horde night, gs ~160? had 5 demolishers, only a few cops for some reason, fair mix of rads etc. I was actively shooting zeds as they came in and got their first zap; used ~200 9mm & ~250 AP 7.62, only a few spiders made it to the end of the lane. That first BT only took ~500 damage; I was making sure to focus on the big baddies of course. Those first dart traps burned ~1700 darts and their e-fences were almost broken. And they would have been but the horde rng kept sending vultures so the whole night was a bit slow, had to keep running upstairs to lure the vultures down, and then some of the other zeds would get confused where to come in. oh, and only 8 at a time, old potato comp.

View attachment 8835

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question in such detail. Demolisher zombies reek havok on my horde base these days. I will add a blade trap like this to see about taking out their legs rather than junk turrets making them blow up

1 blade trap = win the game?

That's why they break. =P

False

Me asking for a stronger device isn't asking to beat the game

 

[Dethar]

You want zombies to fall in pit and die, are you in pit with them? Sound like horde night avoidance to me. Don't know your full base design tho.

 

[Boidster]

Sound like horde night avoidance to me.

Without changing game settings or using console commands, the horde night cannot be 'avoided'. It can only be survived (or not). There is no cheese; all survival strategies are equally valid. Enjoyment of the game is the only criterion.

 

[Dethar]

Without changing game settings or using console commands, the horde night cannot be 'avoided'. It can only be survived (or not). There is no cheese; all survival strategies are equally valid. Enjoyment of the game is the only criterion.

It can easily be avoided. Deep water or deep underground are the 2 easiest. I have no problem with people avoiding horde night if they want. Avoiding it an getting xp with practically Unbreakable trap is difficult story. Which is what this thread sounds like.

Dont get all high and mighty on me.

 

[Sydious]

Debating/arguing what should or should not be on this is pretty much pointless.  If the damage blade traps takes is to much or to little in your opinion you can just edit the health of the blade trap in the xml files.

 

[Ti2xGr]

Debating/arguing what should or should not be on this is pretty much pointless.  If the damage blade traps takes is to much or to little in your opinion you can just edit the health of the blade trap in the xml files.

This...It's in the blocks.xml search for "bladetrap". Max damage is 2000 by default. Look in 7 Days To Die\data\config. 

 

[FileMachete]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question in such detail.

You bet

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On horde nights in general I miss A15/16. The gap between an OP'd or Fail! base was wide enough to allow for some scary moments.

Like the base I showed above. It's OP'd (can only run 8 active). Day 56 horde, GS 229, upped to warrior diff. Used ~230 9mm, ~350 AP 7.62 & lots of darts.

Even managed to set off a demolisher (poor shooting) at the entrance and he took out the intial dart traps, e-fencing & first blade trap.

No issue afterwards. Remaining sets of darts/fencing/blades did as designed and kept setting up zeds for head shots. Never had a group make it to the shooting cage bars.

(Had the first two dart traps filled w ammo so used/loss 3000 darts there. Stack & a half of Iron to make 3k darts so a few minutes w an auger.)

For me, I prefer not to burn through so much ammo that I have to spend the next week restocking, so testing another base design that allows me to be active during horde night, but not be in a position where a badly timed M60 reload results in the base failing.

Fwiw I've tried a number of designs in the hopes of getting some of that earlier magic back during horde night, but no luck so far.

Edit: to clarify; base is OP'd for what my comp can handle, only 8 alive at a time. Might not be OP'd with 64 heh.