PC Loot not respawning if regularly in the area

[Riamus]

Had anyone noticed that she tries if loot or loot locations will never respawn if you are regularly in the area?  Did example, if I place my base in that open area inside the oval road next to a trader, the cars on the road (not within my land claim or bed borders) will not respawn loot... Ever, as far as I can tell.  Yet go a ways away from your base and where you regularly are and it respawns normally.

Similarly, if you go to the same trader regularly, loot inside the trader area won't respawn as long as you are regularly going there.  But if you don't go there for a while, it will.  This one may be by design considering traders have a decent amount of loot and nothing to fight to get it, but maybe not.

Anyhow, just wondering if others have noticed this and if it is by design or a bug?

 

[theFlu]

By design, can't just setup on top of a loot pile at a Tier 5 to keep looting it over and over.

The mechanic is, roughly: every time you go close to a container, the timer for that container is reset to zero. Can't remember how close, but reasonably close.

 

[Gamida]

From what I understand if you pass within 8 blocks of looted container it resets the timer. Some have changed this by putting any item in the container after looting and then after the loot respawn time is up then if you open the container and remove that item, close it again, the loot will then respawn.

I am pretty sure someone did a video on it.

 

[Riamus]

By design, can't just setup on top of a loot pile at a Tier 5 to keep looting it over and over.

The mechanic is, roughly: every time you go close to a container, the timer for that container is reset to zero. Can't remember how close, but reasonably close.

That seems a poor design, though.  There could be something that says if any player placed objects are within X meters (horizontal so height doesn't affect it in tall POIs), then don't respawn so you can't build a base over a tier 5 loot room and see it respawn.  I don't understand people who would play that way, but oh well.

But even so, this doesn't affect traders.  I'm sure they just use the same code everywhere, but they could exclude traders since you can't build over them anyhow and their loot isn't anything overly special.

Either way, good to know the reason even if I think a way could be found to deal with it in a reasonable manner.  Even just limiting this "feature" to certain types of containers such that things like cars aren't affected, but the main loot containers are would solve the main concern.

 

[theFlu]

That seems a poor design, though.

I kinda agree, but I'd solve it towards the opposite direction; I'd rather not have any loot respawn automatically anywhere. It makes no sense, who goes around dropping things into trash bins, refilling tool crates etc etc?

The tying in of zombie respawns to loot respawns is a step in 'a' right direction, at least there's some challenge added to it; but spawning new zeds into already-busted hiding spots is silly. I'd still rather not have loot respawns.

Although, note, I play solo or two-player co-op, might be quite different on old/large servers.

Traders, sure their loot makes some sense to respawn, but stealing their junk should also cause them to kick you out..

There could be something that says if any player placed objects are within X meters

There's couple problems with that,

1) the game doesn't generally know what is a player-placed block, if it did, you wouldn't need a land claim to pick up your workbenches.

2) It's a whole lot more expensive to check against "all nearby player-blocks" than it is to check from a player to "containers within 8 meters".

Now, even if I dislike the current respawns, I wouldn't be opposed to a gradual re-setting of the world by some means smoother than quests. Kinda hard to imagine how to, without breaking player outposts and such, but as an idea a world that would slowly grow towards a "usable" state after being plundered would be pretty nice.

 

[Riamus]

I kinda agree, but I'd solve it towards the opposite direction; I'd rather not have any loot respawn automatically anywhere. It makes no sense, who goes around dropping things into trash bins, refilling tool crates etc etc?

The tying in of zombie respawns to loot respawns is a step in 'a' right direction, at least there's some challenge added to it; but spawning new zeds into already-busted hiding spots is silly. I'd still rather not have loot respawns.

Although, note, I play solo or two-player co-op, might be quite different on old/large servers.

Traders, sure their loot makes some sense to respawn, but stealing their junk should also cause them to kick you out..

There's couple problems with that,

1) the game doesn't generally know what is a player-placed block, if it did, you wouldn't need a land claim to pick up your workbenches.

2) It's a whole lot more expensive to check against "all nearby player-blocks" than it is to check from a player to "containers within 8 meters".

Now, even if I dislike the current respawns, I wouldn't be opposed to a gradual re-setting of the world by some means smoother than quests. Kinda hard to imagine how to, without breaking player outposts and such, but as an idea a world that would slowly grow towards a "usable" state after being plundered would be pretty nice.

Writing this on phone, so can't separate the quote into parts, so I am sorry it isn't as clear as it could be in my reply...

I do agree that loot respawning is unrealistic, but it is not an unusual game feature.  I'd be fine with being able to turn off loot respawns, but not removing them for those who want them.  Granted, the only loot I normally gather again other than in quests is typically cars nearby or the occasional crate or workbench or similar that is visible near a road I frequent, so it isn't really that big of a deal to me.  But definitely with more players, it can be important.

Traders keeping you from looting within their sight would make sense, but anything else wouldn't get you kicked out unless they had cameras added to make that make sense.

You are right about problems relating to identifying player blocks.  I wasn't thinking about that difficulty.  It could be simply tired to whether it is in a POI, though.  If the loot container was visited by a player (nearby) and it's within the bounds of a POI, then it resets the timer. Otherwise it does not.  That would be an easy thing to determine for the game and would solve both issues.  You wouldn't see a car in a POI parking lot reset if you go past it regularly, but anything on roads or in the wilderness would.

 

[Gamida]

There's couple problems with that,

1) the game doesn't generally know what is a player-placed block, if it did, you wouldn't need a land claim to pick up your workbenches.

I am wondering about this one. I thought, from what we were told, that the game did know what is a player placed block as zombies were not suppose to spawn on player placed blocks. I recall seeing players place tons of blocks inside their base to prevent this. As for workbenches I also thought the only reason we had to use land claim was so the specific person who placed the bench could pick it up and not just any player.

Again, I am not sure of all this so someone in the know could confirm this.

 

[theFlu]

I thought, from what we were told, that the game did know what is a player placed block as zombies were not suppose to spawn on player placed blocks.

Yeh, I guess that's the main source for the myth of "player-placed-anything". World spawns and hordes don't spawn on blocks, they spawn on terrain. Covering your dirt with wood blocks prevents spawns inside. Covering your terrain with terrain, doesn't.

With the caveat that no, I haven't covered a world to test it ...

EDIT: Vedui42 did thou, some of his musings in this one:

 

[Riamus]

I am wondering about this one. I thought, from what we were told, that the game did know what is a player placed block as zombies were not suppose to spawn on player placed blocks. I recall seeing players place tons of blocks inside their base to prevent this. As for workbenches I also thought the only reason we had to use land claim was so the specific person who placed the bench could pick it up and not just any player.

Again, I am not sure of all this so someone in the know could confirm this.

As theFlu said, that isn't the case.  Zombies will not spawn on POI blocks* either.  It just limits the kind of blocks they can spawn on, not whether or not a player placed them.

*Before anyone corrects me on it, by POI blocks, I am not referring to terrain blocks that zombies CAN spawn on, regardless of they are POI or wilderness or player placed.

 

[Rotor]

Hell, I should have never read this thread.  Now I am confused.  Before I only worried about sleeper timer and concrete blocks hehe.

 

[Riamus]

Hell, I should have never read this thread.  Now I am confused.  Before I only worried about sleeper timer and concrete blocks hehe.

Confused about what?

 

[Rotor]

Nothing, I fried the data module.  I am sticking with blocks other than dirt for base flooring and land claim block in a PoI I want for moi.

 

[ElDudorino]

Right, it is by block type. You can see which blocks allow spawns in blocks.xml.

I had experimented with making all blocks capable of spawning zombies because I wanted wandering zombies in my PoIs but unfortunately the game is designed to only spawn zombies on the highest-elevation block at a given set of coordinates, so instead of spawning in PoIs they just spawn on the ROOFS of the PoIs. Bummer

 

[Riamus]

Nothing, I fried the data module.  I am sticking with blocks other than dirt for base flooring and land claim block in a PoI I want for moi.

That may or may not be necessary depending on what you are trying to do.  Normal spawns will not happen within your land claim regardless of block type.  Only blood moon spawns have that possibility, and those will not spawn within a certain distance of any player, so if you are in the POI during blood moon and it isn't too large of a POI, you are probably safe from spawns regardless of block type.  But for a large POI, it would be something to consider just for blood moon.

 

[Gamida]

Yeh, I guess that's the main source for the myth of "player-placed-anything". World spawns and hordes don't spawn on blocks, they spawn on terrain. Covering your dirt with wood blocks prevents spawns inside. Covering your terrain with terrain, doesn't.

As theFlu said, that isn't the case.  Zombies will not spawn on POI blocks* either.  It just limits the kind of blocks they can spawn on, not whether or not a player placed them.

*Before anyone corrects me on it, by POI blocks, I am not referring to terrain blocks that zombies CAN spawn on, regardless of they are POI or wilderness or player placed.

I didn't realize they would still spawn on player placed terrain blocks. Then I should have mentioned that the blocks I saw them placing were wood frames. I don't think anyone would dig up dirt and place dirt (then again if they didn't know about the terrain blocks maybe they would)

I think the situation I saw was they had a base and made an exterior wall larger than their beds/claim block covered so they placed the wood frames to keep zombies from spawning inside their walls

 

[theFlu]

I think the situation I saw was they had a base and made an exterior wall larger than their beds/claim block covered so they placed the wood frames to keep zombies from spawning inside their walls

That's a valid tactic, frames aren't spawnable. The phrase "player placed" is just purely misleading. It doesn't work to prevent spawns when placing the wrong blocks, and it doesn't work to Allow spawns, POI/world deco blocks spawn with the same rules, POI-concrete doesn't spawn, but the POI-dirt does.

Sure, players won't often place terrain blocks - I do sometimes place asphalt blocks for their terrain nature, zeds don't see terrain as a valid target to randomly destroy, at least if they have any other way to get to you (digging is a little different). It makes for easy AI hacks and is quite resilient to random damage. But that's why the phrase lives on, as it "works", even when rather incorrect...

 

[wolfpackmars2]

Had anyone noticed that she tries if loot or loot locations will never respawn if you are regularly in the area?  Did example, if I place my base in that open area inside the oval road next to a trader, the cars on the road (not within my land claim or bed borders) will not respawn loot... Ever, as far as I can tell.  Yet go a ways away from your base and where you regularly are and it respawns normally.

Similarly, if you go to the same trader regularly, loot inside the trader area won't respawn as long as you are regularly going there.  But if you don't go there for a while, it will.  This one may be by design considering traders have a decent amount of loot and nothing to fight to get it, but maybe not.

Anyhow, just wondering if others have noticed this and if it is by design or a bug?

Because Santa only delivers presents when no one is looking.

I do agree that loot respawning is unrealistic

Santa, obviously. Totally realistic.