PC How effective are non-electrical traps in A17?

For the first 4 hordes I only had cobblestone and wooden spikes and I only lost a single cobblestone block.
No loopy pathing tricks.

I have since upgraded to iron spikes. The last horde (bunch of cops and ferals) made it through the first ring of spikes but the 2nd ring (out of 6) was not breached.

So... effective? I'd say so.
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Curious, how big an area does the 6 layers of iron spikes protect? A 5x5 or..?

Math for a 5x5 would mean 1,056 forged iron to make the 264 spikes. Of course that's assuming a simple tower base build. I'd guess you're doing something a bit more than that :)

 
Footprint of the base structure is 9x10. No particular reason for that. I planned nothing and parts of it are totally inefficient. LOL

The spikes are spaced out and it should be a total of 350ish by now. Much easier to repair if you leave a walkable path between the rings instead of having to frame all over it.

Crafting/storage area is below the defensive structure.

Used to be cobblestone and 3 layers of wood spikes for the first 3 weeks or so. The early hordes aren't that big of a deal.

 
That was default diff (which makes no difference to the interaction between zombies, traps and blocks) and I think 16 per player.
And the current live version, of course.
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Just to confirm, you're saying that across all difficulties traps kill zeds at the same effectiveness?

 
Could definitely use more traps. Anyone remember that flame trap concept MadMole posted last year? That kinda stuff would definitely help. He had a few other ideas as well he did as concept art - I can't remember all of them. Maybe they are still planned..



In my experience, cobblestone is only effective in Warrior or below. On Survivalist or above it's just not very good unless you put up several layers. The repair rate becomes slower than the zombie damage rate. Similarly - the rate at which you can kill the zombie sponges - is slower than their overall damage output to the walls. So you're bottlenecked by all that. At concrete it's pretty much equalized on Survivalist and then Once you get to reinforced concrete it becomes gravy. At steel with blade traps, turrets and deep layers of iron spikes with barbed wire fencing - you can just AFK the thing.
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From my testing it didn't matter what difficulty you played on. They all do the same damage to blocks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it only affects damage done to the player and each level decreases player damage done to Z by 25%

 
I use a bridge base, no loop....the zombies CAN get in, but they have to charge down a 15-block straightaway....and i put barbed wire in it to slow them down.

the barbed wire rarely kills

It effectively slows, though it does get damaged and destroyed as the night wears on

You need to active defend your base, but the 1-block wide approach and barbed wire means they line up nicely and I can get headshots most of the time....bow and then pistol or shotgun when they get close covers the first 2-3 horde nights easy

 
I use a bridge base, no loop....the zombies CAN get in, but they have to charge down a 15-block straightaway....and i put barbed wire in it to slow them down.
the barbed wire rarely kills

It effectively slows, though it does get damaged and destroyed as the night wears on

You need to active defend your base, but the 1-block wide approach and barbed wire means they line up nicely and I can get headshots most of the time....bow and then pistol or shotgun when they get close covers the first 2-3 horde nights easy
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This to me is no different than a loop base (not a negative thing, just the current challenge). Clever use of blocks and active defending.

 
I use a bridge base, no loop....the zombies CAN get in, but they have to charge down a 15-block straightaway....and i put barbed wire in it to slow them down.
the barbed wire rarely kills

It effectively slows, though it does get damaged and destroyed as the night wears on

You need to active defend your base, but the 1-block wide approach and barbed wire means they line up nicely and I can get headshots most of the time....bow and then pistol or shotgun when they get close covers the first 2-3 horde nights easy
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sounds a bit like using the toothy in 16. you had to do the killing, and there is a slight chance of breach / being ove run. fall back positions for the win

 
That's incredible. How does that still perform? Do they just keep falling in that hole?

If you make that bridge even longer and add a second, do you think that would work?

Are there spikes beneath it?

 
It's been, I believe, a couple alphas since I use any non-electrical traps in any of my games. (That is, spikes, barbed wire, wire fences, mines... etc.).
How effective are they in this new alpha? Are they worth the cost of resources and time? Or are they still kinda meh?
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They can be VERY effective.

No magic. Zombies will just see the spikes as a stepping block, and try to path over it. They will sometimes jump atop of each other and get across though. The key is to keep the platform 1 block higher then the spikes. Perhaps a pyramid would work better, hmmm.

Disclaimer: Early A17 video. AI might have changed a little bit.

edit: Once a spike is broken, they will try the next spike, and so on.

 
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