Screamer

It is working as intended. Learn to manage your base heat better, or learn to mitigate the screamers better. Literally a single ring of spike traps will kill 3/4 of them without you even noticing.

Here is what I have on how the mechanic functions.
  • The activity level required to trigger is 25%. A single campfire burning fuel with no other activity takes over an hour to hit 25%.
  • Once that triggers, it then has a 20% chance to spawn a screamer.
  • If nothing spawns, reset activity level, and wait 4 minutes without accumulating additional activity level.
  • Repeat activity level build up, the 20% chance, and the 4 minute cooldowns until one spawns.
  • When one does spawn, wait 22 minutes for a long cooldown before starting over.
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I posted earlier in the past week about getting a feral white barely into day 2 and two screamers as soon as I hit the Junkie POI. As soon as I killed the White, two screamers appeared and they, along with their minions got the broadside of my club as well lol.
 
I'm on day 8 of my current playthrough. I had a forge going and two dew collectors. After a bit, SIX screamers showed up, not all at the same moment, but six nonetheless, and of course they screamed without even seeing me, calling in all of their best friends. It took a while for my sledge to do its work, but in time I got it done. The XP is nice, but six screamers, on day 8??? Calling in their buddies when there is no way they could see me? Sometimes it does feel out of control. Just my opinion, of course.
 
You all got me curious, so here is my question. If "HeatMapTime" is per world time hour, and crafting timer is per real time hour,
then does that mean that, a 90min game heats up at 125% the speed of 120 min game, 60 min game twice as fast, and 30 min game
is nearly 4 times as fast. So say for a 60 minute game I can use my forge twice as long as a 60 minute game before I get Screamers.

I only use my campfire, for just under ten mins real time max, same for my forge and the other stations, then I go do something else.
I ask because the only two screamers, I have seen were part of a POI spawn. For me 1 hour ingame time is 5 mins. for 60 mins that would
mean every 2.5 minutes on the crafting timer.
 
4sheetzngeegles said:
You all got me curious, so here is my question. If "HeatMapTime" is per world time hour, and crafting timer is per real time hour,
then does that mean that, a 90min game heats up at 125% the speed of 120 min game, 60 min game twice as fast, and 30 min game
is nearly 4 times as fast. So say for a 60 minute game I can use my forge twice as long as a 60 minute game before I get Screamers.

I only use my campfire, for just under ten mins real time max, same for my forge and the other stations, then I go do something else.
I ask because the only two screamers, I have seen were part of a POI spawn. For me 1 hour ingame time is 5 mins. for 60 mins that would
mean every 2.5 minutes on the crafting timer.
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I think HeatMapTime is real time as well.
Also seems that POI screamers don't actually scream. I know I had a few scares in T1 POIs too.
 
This is where i got the thought. It is from the Blocks.xml. After reading the posts i wondered if each
player was playing at different day lengths, so I started checking. Either way I'm ok with it, RnG will catch
me sooner or later.

<property name="HeatMapTime" value="4000"/> <!-- 1000 per world hour. str1, t6000, f5 = 2.5; str1, t9000, f5 = 4; str4.05, t12000, f15 = 4.05-8.1; -->

Yeah, I'm gad POI screamers don't, but on the other hand they could turn a T1 into war.
 
Bonedaddy48 said:
this is ridiculous and needs to be fixed
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It wasn't always so and they didn't always spawn in pairs until 1.0, but this is a MP game, so I assumed they were made ridiculous in an effort to spice things up for teams.

If you'd like to balance things out for solo play and/or are just tired of being unable to do anything/being driven from your base for the screamer "hordes" constantly showing up at your door while you're trying to build your base, especially, or cook a few bacon and eggs or what have you, there is a mod to remove screamers that I resorted to when they started showing up every couple of minutes when I was otherwise happily rebuilding the candy factory. (Don't know if it works for 2.0.) Just as easy to fix yourself if you'd like to keep screamers, but would just as soon they weren't so ridiculous, I'm sure. No help to console players, of course.

There was a very long thread on this topic a while back. Legitimate concern, imo, and I'm not sure why TFP didn't just provide an option to turn off/on screamers and/or set the heat index at which they'll spawn.
 
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They are easy enough dealt with, ring of spikes, but this makes them more of a recurring nuisance than a threat. Previously when the heat needed to hit 100% to spawn a screamer it was something you only had to look out for whilst mining, going full bore with your work benches, or going loud with guns--and it was a lot more exciting when you heard them out there.

I just dispense with heat control at the moment. It's not worth worrying about. Screamers are just par for the course now, which is a shame considering the idea is pretty cool. If they knock it back to 100%--but makes Screamers WAY worse, screaming more, summoning more zombies--it would make them a more engaging feature.
 
OneManStanding said:
Screamers are just par for the course now
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True. There's nothing special about them anymore. I hadn't thought about that. Something might be reserved for special encounters, but nothing has been. Nothing stands out when unique zombies are treated like just another zombie variant.

If the idea was to spring surprise attacks on players when clearing POIs, etc., choosing Screamer to be the trigger rather than coming up with a new mechanic essentially robbed her of her special status. I wouldn't mind seeing the Wight afforded special status, either. As is, he's just a slightly tougher zombie in a group of regular zombies despite his unique appearance.
 
I manage my forge and my campfire burning so that I rarely get screamers. It's four lumps of coal split between the forge and the campfire. One or the other will get will get more than the other depending on what my needs are. Sometimes the campfire will have three lumps of coal and the forage will have just one.

I usually get them when I'm making something on the workbench that takes more than a few minutes and I'm cooking something and forging iron or steel bars. They almost always hit me when I make my first set of armor on the work bench.

I spend a little time away then I come back to the base and start something up and then go out and do something else.
 
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