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Snukfin's Server Side Z(S)ombies

Curious who this strange bald zombie is. Was wondering if he's maybe the cowhead or juggernaut? You can see the scarecrow without his head on the left of the bald one, so figured maybe it was a similar issue of the server struggling to keep up with the 60 max zombies setting. 
Yes, you are correct with your assumption on the Cowhead without his weapon and headdress. I have seen that as well. As I approached closer they reappeared again. In this case you are really close and the mayhem is clearly competing for processing priority. I have seen some really high specification servers/client rigs have exactly the same issue and believe it's a game code/software setup thing as much as a hardware thing. Here is what I've seen with such issues for various visual/updating problems:

For clients - The current game caching and optimising system plus a slower HDD = Issues with Prefabs showing imposter walls, etc and issues with updating Snufkin zombies.

For servers - The current game caching and optimising system plus a slower HDD = Issues with synchronisation with can exacerbate the clients issues if they are on a HDD.

A double cascade.

Ensuring virtual paging is turned on for the OS drive or additional drives depending on setup has brought good results for both client and server. A recent post about a 32 player Slovakian server confirmed paging impacts stability even with 128gb RAM. The 30th player was often getting booted even though there was so much redundant RAM. Paging was turned off as it was considered so much redundant RAM would suffice. It was clear that certain processes were very dependent on software paging in the background. And having an SSD for client or server certainly makes a difference with the extra read/write redundancy. I was getting a huge amount of the imposter walls showing up around Prefabs and had my game on an HDD with the OS on SDD because of size restrictions. Bringing the game over to the SDD solved 95% of the issues instantly with only periodic imposter issues on trader doors and stairs from time to time. I hope it holds up. It looks to be connected with an Editor feature with 'stability glue' and has been reported.

Oh the big sighs of relief we'll hear once the game reaches serious optimisation stage.

 
Ok i'm not sure how to check those things on the server as I'm using pingperfect to host it. i will look into it, i believe i can upgrade to it being hosted on a SSD though. My client is installed on SSD. I'm not too worried about the zombie, it honestly added variety to have them show up slightly different through out the night. Even saw one bomber without his barrel on his back. I just wasn't sure who that one was. He got me twice. This mod is really one of the best available for this game. Thank You to everyone responsible for it!

On a side note, I'm curious if it's possible to make the banshee's scream capable of calling in a wandering horde like the screamer does? Should i just add her to my scout entity groups or is there a more elegant way?

 
On a side note, I'm curious if it's possible to make the banshee's scream capable of calling in a wandering horde like the screamer does? Should i just add her to my scout entity groups or is there a more elegant way?
I see. A very interesting concept such as through this easy method of adding her directly to the default entitygroups.xml via Snufkin entitygroups.xml as a last entry so she joins her cousin:

    <append xpath="/entitygroups/entitygroup[@name='ZombiesScouts']">
        <entity name="zombieBanshee"/>
    </append>

And seeing if her scream will have the same impact as the zombieScreamer since the banshee already shares multiple properties of hers, including scream, and they may be connected.

Go for it! We await your feedback as this can take BM or even regular day roaming to another level should it already be integrated without needing further appendages. And if it doesn't work, there can always be further tweaks.

 
I added it in above the wandering horde section. I'm about to test and I'll get back with you.

Seems that didn't work according to the server console.

scouts code fail.png

 
Seems that didn't work according to the server console.
You tried, and now we know. Thank you.

It is either hardcoded to be that way or missing something fundamental either at the same level or connected to a level up the hierarchical chain where they may separate.

As a temporary workaround, maybe also adding the screamer to the regular Blood Moon feralHordeStage can add the illusion of anybody's screams bringing extra hordes. Maybe dropping the regular Blood Moon amount by 1 that can be alive at any time and adding her to the Snufkin Zombies blood moon group would offer a twist. There would potentially be periods of mellower play followed by periods of out and out mayhem as screamer hordes joined the array. A moment to breathe before the next onslaught. That is if there aren't any hardcoding conflicts.

 
I just visited a pretty new server running a variety of server side mods which included Snufkin Zombies. The Admin, 'Catman' gave permission to share the details if you are ever wanting a place to play. My ping was 250+ and I know that was pretty true due to my location but it felt very stable in there.

Search ZombieShack PVE in the server name or drop in directly to 51.89.217.222:26910 which should stay the same as it's a rented server.

I hadn't even reached the first trader and came across this challenge, which I ultimately ran away from as the Scorcher just brushed off anything I could throw at it.

20201023172903_1.jpg

If any other server hosts want to share their own servers running Snufkin Zombies, it will give clients options. If we get enough, we can collate them into a list.

 
You tried, and now we know. Thank you.

It is either hardcoded to be that way or missing something fundamental either at the same level or connected to a level up the hierarchical chain where they may separate.

As a temporary workaround, maybe also adding the screamer to the regular Blood Moon feralHordeStage can add the illusion of anybody's screams bringing extra hordes. Maybe dropping the regular Blood Moon amount by 1 that can be alive at any time and adding her to the Snufkin Zombies blood moon group would offer a twist. There would potentially be periods of mellower play followed by periods of out and out mayhem as screamer hordes joined the array. A moment to breathe before the next onslaught. That is if there aren't any hardcoding conflicts.
so i took a look at Doughphungus' a19 update of Kheldon's Screamer Bears mod. After looking at it and the work you all and Snufkin did in the entitygroups xml. Decided to try out meeting your specific format to append the other entitygroups for the zombiesScouts. Added zombie banshee the same way you added the others, but took off the probability code because that just means 100% without it right?

As it stands, this version of the code did not throw up that same error I got last time. And I could load into the server without any red flags. 

Decided to just go find an old a18 mod for reducing the heatmap from different blocks. Instead reversed that logic on the campfire and made that into my first mod, Death by Campfire. That should do the trick of screamers spawning more often that will summon a horde, and hopefully with this addition there will be equal chance it's a screamer or a banshee. 

snufkins screamer banshee.png

 
Hello,
there is any way to lower gpu usage?
I mean after installing this modification on my pc, use of gpu went from 70W to 110W ( in watts ) and i had to lower resolution to don't hear helicopter in my room :D
It's just a question, with my gpu ( cleanliness, undervolt etc. ) is everything ok

 
Decided to try out meeting your specific format to append the other entitygroups for the zombiesScouts. Added zombie banshee the same way you added the others, but took off the probability code because that just means 100% without it right?

View attachment 15963
Let's check what's happening here.

Using the <entitygroup name="ZombiesScouts"> in the same format as the lower section possibly attempts to commit the request as a totally new group as it's not getting @ tagged to an existing group. But then again, I have not moved away from the original variables and am interested to see how it will effect the original ZombieScouts group; such as overwriting it or appending it. There are typically multiple ways to perform the same action with some working better than others. It'll either add, replace, or be ignored. I am interested to see.

Death by Campfire.... I shall be looking out for it as a public release.

Hello,
there is any way to lower gpu usage?
I mean after installing this modification on my pc, use of gpu went from 70W to 110W ( in watts ) and i had to lower resolution to don't hear helicopter in my room :D
It's just a question, with my gpu ( cleanliness, undervolt etc. ) is everything ok
These new zombies are certainly a much more powerful stock than the usual ones...

Has your GPU wattage increased just in an ambient setting, when you see 1 Snukin Zombie, or when facing a Blood Moon, or all of these?

Each zombie has additional models attached to their bodies and the demand on processing has quite possibly intensified. Especially if they are throwing around fireballs, and such. All you can really do is turn off or down some more of the graphics features to reduce demand and see what the impact is. Unfortunately, this is the first report I recall in this thread of such an occurrence and your own tweaking of your graphics settings will be a learning experience for us all.

 
Let's check what's happening here.

Using the <entitygroup name="ZombiesScouts"> in the same format as the lower section possibly attempts to commit the request as a totally new group as it's not getting @ tagged to an existing group. But then again, I have not moved away from the original variables and am interested to see how it will effect the original ZombieScouts group; such as overwriting it or appending it. There are typically multiple ways to perform the same action with some working better than others. It'll either add, replace, or be ignored. I am interested to see.

Death by Campfire.... I shall be looking out for it as a public release.

These new zombies are certainly a much more powerful stock than the usual ones...

Has your GPU wattage increased just in an ambient setting, when you see 1 Snukin Zombie, or when facing a Blood Moon, or all of these?

Each zombie has additional models attached to their bodies and the demand on processing has quite possibly intensified. Especially if they are throwing around fireballs, and such. All you can really do is turn off or down some more of the graphics features to reduce demand and see what the impact is. Unfortunately, this is the first report I recall in this thread of such an occurrence and your own tweaking of your graphics settings will be a learning experience for us all.
Ok, took some work to get Death by Campfire fine tuned the way I liked. Now it is an effective base defense to have a campfire in a pathway, but it will call in a screamer every 20 seconds of burn time or so. Cooking just got a lot more dangerous on my server. Plus side is it's server side only as well. How does someone post a mod on here? Just make a post and describe it with a link to download it is my guess.  

What that has allowed me to do is test the zombieScout banshee code, and determine it never considers the banshee during the heatmap event. Only screamers show up, and there have been a few hundred during my testing this weekend with no banshee spawns at all. I'm wondering what group the screamer's summon comes from and if I can just add the banshee to that group. Haven't been able to figure that out yet though. 

 
some players have such this error (A19-Stable-2020Oct22)​
Thank you Sunbursts. Looks like completion of the Juggernaut quest. I have yet to receive the Juggernaut quest from the trader and appreciate the feedback to check on the reward settings.

 
Really love that Banshee, finally got her to show up in the scout hordes. Was much simpler than having to go in and add her to each scout horde game stage level with these three lines borrowed from Jawoodle's screamer wandering hordes modlet added in after the feralHordeStageGS lines. 

  <insertAfter xpath="//entity[starts-with(@name, 'zombieScreamer')]">
    <entity name="zombieBanshee" prob="0.5" />
  </insertAfter>


Also, if you want to check out Death by Campfire here's the post on it. 




251570_20201027015150_1.png

 
some players have such this error (A19-Stable-2020Oct22)​
Sunbursts. The Juggernaut quest is still the original and has not changed at all since the very first release.

This is the first issue we've heard about it and I don't think the quest is given/completed so often and not the most popular part of the mod.

My tests so far:

I went into debug mode 'dm' and used 'givequest killjuggernaut' to activate the quest.

1. I tested the quest 20 times in SP as a level 1 player with no quest reward skills. I was offered 2 rewards each time with no problems and accepted 1.

2. I tested the quest 10 times on a dedicated server with level 300 and 5 quest reward skills. I received the same warning as you 1 time but also 9 successful completions.

This tells me there is a conflict with a random item that is rarely given as a reward.

I checked the code to look for the conflict.

This message is in the quests.xml file in the default game at the top of the file.

Prepared quest loot groups:

        groupQuestAmmo (*)        random but higher ammo quantity than in general loot
        groupQuestArmor        all armor excluding cloth/scrap
        groupQuestMedical (*)    migher quality/quantity medical items and drugs
        groupQuestWeapons        all weapons
        groupQuestSchematics (*)    schematics like the sham secret recipe
        groupQuestTools        tools, not stone
        groupQuestMods (*)        all available mods
         (*) not scaled for item quality but can scale for probability, like more drugs at higher gamestage


The original Snufkin mod which is the same as now has the following for rewards:

            <reward type="Exp" value="500"/>
            <reward type="Item" id="casinoCoin" value="10000"/>
            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestTools" ischosen="true" isfixed="true" value="6"/>
            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestArmor,groupQuestMedical" ischosen="true" isfixed="true" value="6"/>
            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestAmmo" ischosen="true" value="6"/>
            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestMelee,groupQuestRanged" ischosen="true" value="6"/>
            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestSchematics" ischosen="true" value="6"/>
            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestMods" ischosen="true" value="6"/>

I believe the mod is requesting groupQuestMelee,groupQuestRanged as rewards but these are not in the Prepared quest loot groups.

I think it is a conflict as these do not appear in any of the default game rewards at all. Maybe they used to in A18.

Can you change one line in your Snufkin quests.xml file please?

Change:

            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestMelee,groupQuestRanged" ischosen="true" value="6"/>

to:

            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestWeapons" ischosen="true" value="6"/>

This will make the rewards for the Juggernaut the same as any other quest and match the format.

I can join you in testing this if you give me your server IP address. I believe it will work because it is the standard format but it is good to test it first. After that we can release an update. I shall await your feedback.

 
Change:

            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestMelee,groupQuestRanged" ischosen="true" value="6"/>

to:

            <reward type="LootItem" id="groupQuestWeapons" ischosen="true" value="6"/>
Just to add to the testing group, I made this change and tested the quest 10 times as a level 300 player, maxed out quest reward skill, and gamestage set to 1500 (just to cover all the bases). I'm now getting no errors. We hadn't seen this error before on our end, but as I've noted before we have a currently unkilled Juggernaut due to crazy buffs so that's no surprise. However doing some private admin testing this fix seems to have corrected the issue on our end.

 
Just to add to the testing group, I made this change and tested the quest 10 times as a level 300 player, maxed out quest reward skill, and gamestage set to 1500 (just to cover all the bases). I'm now getting no errors. We hadn't seen this error before on our end, but as I've noted before we have a currently unkilled Juggernaut due to crazy buffs so that's no surprise. However doing some private admin testing this fix seems to have corrected the issue on our end.
@Sunbursts A small update to the quests.xml to bring it up to date with current quest reward groups and developer comments. To keep with Snufkin's original wish for the Juggernaut completion rewards, the order has been left the same with only one edit for compatibility.

https://github.com/arramus/Snufkin-CustomZombies-A19-Stable-2020Oct28

Thank you to Sunbursts for noticing this. You often share issues on the mods/tools you run and it keeps them working well and functional.

Thank you to BubbaJoe for further testing. If this hasn't fixed it, I don't know what will.

 
As a small update, here is an A19 Stable version of the Custom Zombies Research Camera ADD ON.

This requires the base mod to function.

https://github.com/arramus/Snufkin-Custom-Zombies-Research-Camera-A19-Stable-2020Oct28

The changes were practically identical to the changes needed in the base mod although Snufkin made a small edit to tone down the aggressive nature of the Juggernaut to allow you to get a photograph of him from a distance.

As there are some external links for images within the code for locations that only Snufkin has access to, some of the images may no longer be valid.

It is always possible for you to add your own images by amending the code. As such, support is limited to the internal aspects of the code.

 
As a small update, here is an A19 Stable version of the Custom Zombies Research Camera ADD ON.

This requires the base mod to function.

https://github.com/arramus/Snufkin-Custom-Zombies-Research-Camera-A19-Stable-2020Oct28

The changes were practically identical to the changes needed in the base mod although Snufkin made a small edit to tone down the aggressive nature of the Juggernaut to allow you to get a photograph of him from a distance.

As there are some external links for images within the code for locations that only Snufkin has access to, some of the images may no longer be valid.

It is always possible for you to add your own images by amending the code. As such, support is limited to the internal aspects of the code.
entityclasses.xml line 187

<property name="HandItem" value="meleeHandGeits"/>

I'm not sure if it's intentional but this seems to be a typo, comparing to base mod naming it should be meleeHandGeist

[edit]

A typo without a doubt. Spawning geist throws an error loop, changing this line fixes it.

 
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