Make zombie digging a toggle

A

Ascillian

New member
There are many things I really love about 7d2d, but one thing that really bugs me right now is digging zombies.

Now, I understand that you shouldn't be able to just dig a hole three blocks down, pop a wooden frame over you and sit there for hoard night. I think that letting zombies dig during hoard night is fine (dunno how complicated that would be, but since the zombie ai and run speed are different day/night/hoard, I imagine it might be possible), but for regular days I find it a little crazy.

The big thing, for me, is when I am not doing things that are creating either a lot of heat or noise, and still all the zombies in the area mystically know where I am...and beat through bricks insanely quick, to get to me.

I used to love making underground bases. Just places to keep my stuff and my crafting tables. I rarely hid in them at night, and never during hoard night. I hate hiding at night, I'd much rather be out and doing stuff...just sitting around in my base at night drives me crazy! And hoard night has way too much exp to be missed, plus it's a fun challenge to figure out new ways to build bases to survive the hoard (or to try running around with a hoard following you, killing them on the ground).

Zombies that walk over my base 15 blocks down and somehow know exactly where I am breaks immersion for me. Just like the new smart ai for all zombies breaks my immersion. The fact that a zombie will calculate the block strength and find the weakest one to beat down to get to me is just weird, and the same goes for zombies that dig (and the most crazy ones who won't walk down a staircase but will instead try to beat down the banister and break through the floor to get to me....what's up with that?)

I know a lot of people do like the fact that zombies can did, so I think if it were a toggle option, much like the variable hoard night is, that would be a very cool way to allow for people to play the way they want.

 
Hopefully, before or soon after the game goes gold, you'll have a "dig/no dig" options for zombies so those that don't want digging zombies don't have to have them, but, from what TFP have said at the moment, it's currently tied up in the AI, so I wouldn't expect the option any time soon.

 
I was really on a fence about digging zombies and then I realized a few things.

1. Turning it on or off is a VERY specific and detailed AI ask.

What is an allowed block? Below/Above/Directly in front? Only specific block types? It would take a LOT of specific AI checks that are not currently in place. That could slow things down in the Zombie AI department.

2. You can easily avoid hordes if you dig down to bedrock and across a hundred blocks or so from the entrance. That confuses the AI a great deal. I will do this in front of a mountain, and then dig forward until I'm basically on bedrock under the summit. The AI has a really hard time figuring out how to get to you. THAT is where you make your heat generating objects (forge/fire/chem station) If you are 100 blocks under a summit of a mountain, and the heat is centered on there, zeds aren't able to tell which way to go. They will likely dig down or into the side of the mountain, but it will take FOREVER for them to get to you if you are building a base like NORAD or the Norway Seed Vault. The key is placing the entrance a good CHUNK away from the place where you do most of your activities.

 
I think this stuff is defined in the entityclasses.xml as AI tasks.

I'm not absolutly sure of this... as it is just speculative on my part.

But I have reassigned the order of these AITasks with wildly varied results.

namley <property name="AITask-1" value="BreakBlock" />

and specificly <property name="AITask-2" value="DestroyArea" />

break block is as it says... break a block (from the blocks.xml I suppose)

destroy area is terrain based ... so the zombieHand targets the dirt

the terrain based blocks are tagged as such and react differently to the hit effect

you could mod the terrain damage that zombies do... lowering or nerfing it completly

or try moving AITask DestroyArea to a lower ranking or remove it completly

theres tonnes of ways to customize the game to remove things you dislike

 
break block is as it says... break a block (from the blocks.xml I suppose)destroy area is terrain based ... so the zombieHand targets the dirt

the terrain based blocks are tagged as such and react differently to the hit effect

you could mod the terrain damage that zombies do... lowering or nerfing it completly

or try moving AITask DestroyArea to a lower ranking or remove it completly
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Destroy Area has nothing to do with digging. Destroy Area is then triggered the player is not reachable.

Then they start to destroy blocks in the nearby area. This will cause the zombie for example to cut down a nearby tree or hit the wall. Usually the weakest blocks are destroyed first.

 
Destroy Area is triggered when the player is not reachable. Usually the weakest blocks are destroyed first.
Click to expand...
Like I said... speculative. Ive never actually sat in front of the game and spawned stuff in to 'test' it.

I'm more of a "mod the crap" outta it then jump into a game and see what works and what doesn't...

... and if it don't work I'm'a gonna make it. Or at least try and make it.

 
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