PC How deep do you have to dig so Zombies can't hear you anymore?

[hiemfire]

View attachment 15607

Here's to not having a wandering horde decide to knock out one of the ground level blocks of the tower. 

 

[doughphunghus]

I don't know the real answer, but from looking at some of the xml it appears if you're "doing something" to generate noise, there's more than just "the loudness of the noise traveling a distance" that's being calculated.  On top of that, I also believe that a "chunk" is from bedrock to max sky height, so anything done in a chunk (making a noise, etc)  should be calculated for the entire chunk.  Some of this has been talked about above, just leading on to my next points...

Anyway, it looks like anything that makes a noise contributes 2 things (at least): a "sound" and "heat".  Both appear to *not* "go away immediately" and may be additive, meaning if you make 2 loud sounds, the "noise level" from both sounds may be added together, and heat may both be added together.  I know if you make 0 noise/do no actions/generate no heat the heat map lingers and slowly decays over time.  It appears (from just looking at the xml) that sound may also linger for "some" time after it is made.

I'm not seeing anything obvious that indicates that a block or material the block is made from "deadens" or isolates the noise.

I don't know, but I'm going to guess things like stealth perks/actions (like crouching) and clothing are going to reduce "sound level" as well as how much heat is made from the player (but not from torches/vehicles/forges/etc)

Additionally, each zombie can have its own "sound seek distance" (in the XML: AINoiseSeekDist), I guess translating to "some can have better hearing than others".

Anyway, all of this still leaves some unanswered questions (for me, but probably as well for OP):

- Are sound levels calculated "for the chunk" like the heat map or do they only have a distance from the point they originated from? 

- Are there actually any sound effect dampening from blocks or the base materials blocks are made of?

 

[hiemfire]

It appears (from just looking at the xml) that sound may also linger for "some" time after it is made.

They do as indicated by what happens to the observability gauge while crouched and doing multiple things in "rapid" succession. The "fade time" for sound is allot shorter than for "heat" though.

I'm not seeing anything obvious that indicates that a block or material the block is made from "deadens" or isolates the noise.

Per a conversation on this subject over in the Alpha 19 Dev Diary several months back, there is currently no "deadening" (devs referred to it as "occlusion") of sound from blocks (terrain or otherwise). This may or may not change, time will tell.

 

[Kalen]

Are sound levels calculated "for the chunk" like the heat map or do they only have a distance from the point they originated from? 

I'm almost positive that sound is not chunk-wide.  Otherwise, a sound loud enough to wake a sleeper, would potentially wake an entire POI.  I believe Its distance based from the source (which, currently, is always you)

 

[Boidster]

Test Question


Method


Result


What happens to surface zombies as you increase vertical distance from them?


Spawned Arlene in a caged platform at the surface. Used god-mode flying to increase vertical distance while watching her behavior (AI active or not).


AI remained active until about +140m at which point Arlene despawned. Further attempts to spawn a new Arlene resulted in immediate despawn.



How far underground do you have to be for a chest opening to be undetectable by a surface zombie?


Spawned Arlene on surface, opened/closed a chest multiple times at various depths, listening for Arlene alert sound.


No reaction at -10m


How far underground do you have to be for a gunshot to be undetectable by a surface zombie?


Spawned Arlene at base of tower, fired pistol & M60 at 5m platforms until Arlene showed no AI reaction to noise (i.e. did not path to the corner of her pen closet to me).

Repeat test underground.



Above ground: for both pistol & M60, no reaction at +45m.

Below ground: no reaction at -35m



How far underground do you have to prevent Screamers from spawning in a hot chunk?


Fired dev pistol (unlimited ammo) at various depths under ground, watched chunk heat (F8) and console (F1) for screamer spawns.

Repeat above ground.



Both below ground and above ground, screamer spawns failed at about +/- 30m from the surface.

Anyway, it looks like anything that makes a noise contributes 2 things (at least): a "sound" and "heat".  Both appear to *not* "go away immediately" and may be additive, meaning if you make 2 loud sounds, the "noise level" from both sounds may be added together, and heat may both be added together.

I'm almost positive that sound is not chunk-wide.  Otherwise, a sound loud enough to wake a sleeper, would potentially wake an entire POI.  I believe Its distance based from the source (which, currently, is always you)

I think you both are talking about related mechanics and both are correct.

For the purposes of waking up a sleeper or attracting notice, sound is immediate and localized, with distance-based attenuation.

For the purpose of adding "heat" (they call it the Activity Map in the journal), sound affects the entire chunk, as do torches, forges, building/upgrading etc. You can press F8 twice to see current chunk heat, and shoot a pistol or something to see it go up. If it reaches 100%, a sleeper will spawn almost always (and reset the heat back to 0%).

 

[hiemfire]

Both below ground and above ground, screamer spawns failed at about +/- 30m from the surface.

No reaction at -10m

So have 30 blocks above your head if you don't want to be bothered at all, but anything over 10 blocks above your head should be fine if you don't mind the occasional screamer horde.

Sound spikes in a short duration tend to combine (not sure if it is additive or some other manner) from what I've seen using stealth, did you do multiple rapid opening and closing of the containers or just opened and closed them once?

The sounds levels are also different between the various container material types. Metal ones are louder than wood or cloth ones, though I don't know of any craftable cloth or metal containers (metal ones are purchaseable from the traders). Probably best just to have the base's ceiling 30 blocks underground and not fire weapons while in the base.

 

[Boidster]

So have 30 blocks above your head if you don't want to be bothered at all, but anything over 10 blocks above your head should be fine if you don't mind the occasional screamer horde.

Yes, if only opening/closing wooden chests and otherwise puttering around. I'll check upgrade sounds, since OP may want to upgrade his underground lair in peace.

Sound spikes in a short duration tend to combine (not sure if it is additive or some other manner) from what I've seen using stealth, did you do multiple rapid opening and closing of the containers or just opened and closed them once?

I'm not aware of any mechanic for sound to be additive, except as it applies to chunk "heat". In any case, I opened/closed the chests multiple times in rapid succession.

The sounds levels are also different between the various container material types.

I can spawn in the metal weapons boxes and try it out.

 

[Solomon]

I wanna establish my hideout underground in my current game and i wanna be sure im not bothered by them anymore. I dont mind the heat signature from using workstations, because i think they have a too much large range anyway and i'll just deal with the Zs attracted to it. What im talking about is just simple noises that i produce when opening/closing my storage boxes or by simply walking and using ladders. Im getting quite annoyed that the slightest sound of going through my stuff triggers Zs and i wanna walk around by hideout without being in stealth mode.

Also, if you decide to build a tall tower as an hideout, how high do you need it to be so you cant be detected? Is there a flat, specific distance at which you remain undetected and is it the same for when you're underground or high above street level? If there is, is it calculated in blocks?

Edit: I dont plan to fight hordes underground, so dont bother reminding me they can dig down to you, i already know

You cant really, experiments with upscaled spawnrates proved that in all sceniarios theres always a zombie set to home onto you.

They might be standing above you without entering a true alerted state but they will be there slowly following your trail.

 

[Kyonshi]

You cant really, experiments with upscaled spawnrates proved that in all sceniarios theres always a zombie set to home onto you.

They might be standing above you without entering a true alerted state but they will be there slowly following your trail.

Check Boidster experiments above.

Yes, if only opening/closing wooden chests and otherwise puttering around. I'll check upgrade sounds, since OP may want to upgrade his underground lair in peace.

I'm not aware of any mechanic for sound to be additive, except as it applies to chunk "heat". In any case, I opened/closed the chests multiple times in rapid succession.

I can spawn in the metal weapons boxes and try it out.

I wanna say an immense thank you Boidster, for that elaborate testing you just did. Im glad to had such concrete and limpid answer to my interrogations.

 

[hiemfire]

Yes, if only opening/closing wooden chests and otherwise puttering around. 1. I'll check upgrade sounds, since OP may want to upgrade his underground lair in peace.

2. I'm not aware of any mechanic for sound to be additive, except as it applies to chunk "heat". In any case, I opened/closed the chests multiple times in rapid succession.

3. I can spawn in the metal weapons boxes and try it out.

1. I spaced that too.

2. It's something I've observed while sneaking. Multiple actions that generate sound done in short succession or simultaneously cause a large increase in observability compared to doing them separately with a wait between them for the observability spike to fade. I did say I wasn't sure it was necessarily additive, but they definitely combine for a "louder" spike. That said you did cover that base.  

3. Nice. Looking forwards to the results when/if you post them.  

 

[Boidster]

2. It's something I've observed while sneaking. Multiple actions that generate sound done in short succession or simultaneously cause a large increase in observability compared to doing them separately with a wait between them for the observability spike to fade. I did say I wasn't sure it was necessarily additive, but they definitely combine for a "louder" spike. That said you did cover that base.

That's an interesting point. I wasn't really looking into the stealth meter itself; in fact my character was not crouched at all during the experiments (OP stated he did not want to have to sneak around his own lair). I know the effect you're talking about, which causes your own detectability to spike up and it lingers for a second or two before falling back down.

Assuming that the same general sound/detectability mechanism is being used whether sneaking or not (with sneaking just reducing the effects of sound and vision), then I guess whatever peak sound occurred due to multiple chest opens/closes (or the continuous fire of an M60) was not enough to trigger Arlene at the listed distance. I presume that the peak sound essentially equals "maximum possible volume and range" for whatever activity I was doing.

 

[hiemfire]

That's an interesting point. I wasn't really looking into the stealth meter itself; in fact my character was not crouched at all during the experiments (OP stated he did not want to have to sneak around his own lair). I know the effect you're talking about, which causes your own detectability to spike up and it lingers for a second or two before falling back down.

Assuming that the same general sound/detectability mechanism is being used whether sneaking or not (with sneaking just reducing the effects of sound and vision), then I guess whatever peak sound occurred due to multiple chest opens/closes (or the continuous fire of an M60) was not enough to trigger Arlene at the listed distance. I presume that the peak sound essentially equals "maximum possible volume and range" for whatever activity I was doing.

It'd make sense that they're the same thing, just sneaking "muffles" it a bit compared to not sneaking and most cases people aren't really going to care about it while they aren't sneaking so no observability bar.  

 

[th3s0n1c]

I'm not seeing anything obvious that indicates that a block or material the block is made from "deadens" or isolates the noise.

Like I had stated.. I believe it was removed, since I couldnt find those data anymore. But I'm pretty sure it used to be a thing.

Same as above for:

- Are there actually any sound effect dampening from blocks or the base materials blocks are made of?

And I dont know this for a fact, but I was always under the impression that terrain blocks have less "Sound occlusion" than player-manufactured blocks.

 

[Kalen]

And I dont know this for a fact, but I was always under the impression that terrain blocks have less "Sound occlusion" than player-manufactured blocks.

Faatal has pretty recently stated that there is no audio occlusion in the game

 

[Solomon]

Check Boidster experiments above.

I read it thanks but i was not talking about those. Theres a POI mechanic what is only observable when you rise up spawns, namely the system essentially spawns an non-alerted zed what is programmed to go towards you essentially home on you.

If i remember the thread right the guy who did the experiment opened a door to a POI, gone in, entered stealth and used the "killall" command to get rid of all zombies then waited while aboslutely doing nothing. He was out of sight and yet a zombie literally came into the room to find him.

Now im not sure if this is a POI only type of spawning or its applied everywhere but i think it should be true for underground too.

 

[meganoth]

I read it thanks but i was not talking about those. Theres a POI mechanic what is only observable when you rise up spawns, namely the system essentially spawns an non-alerted zed what is programmed to go towards you essentially home on you.

If i remember the thread right the guy who did the experiment opened a door to a POI, gone in, entered stealth and used the "killall" command to get rid of all zombies then waited while aboslutely doing nothing. He was out of sight and yet a zombie literally came into the room to find him.

Now im not sure if this is a POI only type of spawning or its applied everywhere but i think it should be true for underground too.

Good point, this is something that has to be taken into account. But "proved that in all sceniarios theres always a zombie set to home onto you"? Did he do this multiple times to make sure it wasn't just a coincidence? Did he convincingly show why this is happening and that no other interpretation is possible?

I searched for "killall" and found what you are refering to, that is I found Sycris who said someone did some test (once? twice? We don't know).

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/21879-can-we-get-rid-of-the-gpsing-zombies-when-enteringinside-a-poi/?do=findComment&comment=399904

Boidster tried to recreate the experiment and did not see the same thing happeneing:

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/21879-can-we-get-rid-of-the-gpsing-zombies-when-enteringinside-a-poi/?do=findComment&comment=400190

Also read two of the answers to this:

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/21879-can-we-get-rid-of-the-gpsing-zombies-when-enteringinside-a-poi/?do=findComment&comment=399954

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/21879-can-we-get-rid-of-the-gpsing-zombies-when-enteringinside-a-poi/?do=findComment&comment=400135

If Lazman is correct, the zombie is simply a result of using killall.

If Atomic is right, it has nothing to do with POIs. There definitely is no unavoidable homing. The breadcrump path has a fixed length and should stop leading to you when you are moving stealthed for a bit. Still, if the OP wants to avoid this he needs traps at his bunker entrance or find out the length of the breadcrump path and make sure the path to his lair is longer than that.

 

[Solomon]

I searched for "killall" and found what you are refering to, that is I found Sycris who said someone did some test (once? twice? We don't know).

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/21879-can-we-get-rid-of-the-gpsing-zombies-when-enteringinside-a-poi/?do=findComment&comment=399904

Thats it, i too tested it thought my game is heavily modded so im not quite sure if i actually found homing mechanics or blind luck with randomly moving zeds.

As you said the best solution would be to find out the lenght of the following distance and trap up the entrance.

 

[Boidster]

Faatal has pretty recently stated that there is no audio occlusion in the game

Yeah, this is what I thought. I can't completely explain why in my gunfire test I had to be 45m above the Arlene before she couldn't detect me, but only 35m below her underground. I need to take a closer look at that. There might be 1m or 2m absolute distance difference just due to the arrangement of the pit vs the tower, but not 10m. Arlene did have some freedom of movement in her little cage; that might factor into it. I may have to use X,Y,Z and a little geometry to calculate actual straight-line distance. I don't want to be posting fake hypotenuse! #dadjokes

 

[Roland]

But what about those auto-aggro volumes that exist in random areas underground....?