PC Vultures need to be removed from horde night

Ghostlight

Ghostlight

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I guess everyone has noticed that a blood moon horde, even a late-game one (I am currently at GS 350 day 63 horde) tends to trickle out as the night goes on. Initially there are huge numbers of zombies assaulting your walls but by the end they are appearing 2 to 3 at a time, or even less. The problem I believe is vultures. I am not sure about everyone else, but my bases typically have roofs and are built in such a way that vultures are harmless. They fly harmlessly above the base seemingly unable to find a way in. Don't blame me, blame the AI.

The thing is we have this setting called maxAlive which is the maximum number of enemies per player that exist in the world at any one time. Amazingly, this setting defaults to 8!! I presume this is for performance. The trouble is that once a vulture has spawned on horde night and you do not kill it - you probably don't even see it! - it uses up one of those maxAlive slots thus reducing the actual number of zombies that can attack by 1. This compounds as the night goes on and I think this is why the zombie count trickles down to a pathetic level as horde night passes. Even with the maxAlive at 24 and 2-player co-op (hence 48 concurrent enemies) we are having the problem of the greatly dwindling horde, and a massive flock of vultures overhead that we just clear up in the morning.

It's making horde night really boring after the first hour.

 
I'd say that the issue isn't that they appear, the issue is that they won't join the fight when they can't see a clear path to you. As in, when they can't just dive-bomb you, they take off to a high holding pattern, taking the zombie spots with them.

Couple "easy" solutions;

- have a separate max alive for vultures. Dependant on your settings, maybe not, but just spawn max N (along the lines of 4)

- have the ones that end up in a holding pattern just die off after 30-60 secs.

- have them dive a wall, land and peck on your roof/hatch-if-any, or just join the fight on foot with a dog-like AI.. (when the flight mode doesn't work for 30 secs)

 
- have the ones that end up in a holding pattern just die off after 30-60 secs.
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I think I like that answer the best. Their corpses would need to be flagged to expire quickly like zombie corpses do, not like vultures, dogs, etc. do normally.

-Morloc

 
I think I like that answer the best. Their corpses would need to be flagged to expire quickly like zombie corpses do, not like vultures, dogs, etc. do normally.

-Morloc
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Better yet. If they cant get to you after 30 seconds have them dive bomb your roof for big damage.

 
I kinda feel the same bout Crawler Steve being part of bloodmoon gamestaged zombiepacks.

So slow that when he reaches you finally, bloodnight is half done allready. And he is adorably helpless for the rest, so yeh, give that spot to a zombie that has bloodmoon value. Luckely editting them out is allready an easy option.

Cheers

 
I’ve modified my base to have an iron bar roof directly over my head, for this very reason. It’s only a 6-8 block section, but if I stand there, they will still dive bomb me, but it makes it easy to kill them.

Depending on your base design, I actually set my junk turrets on the roof by those bars. Then, when the vultures dive, the turrets kill them without me even noticing.

 
On one of my recent HN, testing the underground tunnel with an escape ladder up a little above the surface (concrete box with a hatch above) i heard from above A LOT of vultures, but i had never came out to check them out (too much of a hassle underground to bother with them). To my surprise, after the night i came out to find only 1 flying around... It's not like i had a dribble of Zs at the end, so can't confirm or deny...

 
The dive-bombing/roof-pecking idea sounds good to me. It's on par with digging zombies.

I always thought that zombies should damage themselves as they tear through things or dig, so I feel the same with the vultures.

If it were implemented, most players would design accordingly to take them out even faster.

I don't like the idea of timed dying... seems like the laziest way possible to deal with the problem. No wait... I also don't like the idea of removing them completely from the BM because that's even lazier.

 
Better yet. If they cant get to you after 30 seconds have them dive bomb your roof for big damage.
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Faatal already acknowledge the issue and I wouldnt be surprised if something is in the works. At least maybe they start pecking away until they can get to you lol...

...I take it he didn't like it how they would get hung up by wooden/iron bar blocks without attacking.

 
I think the problem is overstated.

I did some digging in the XML files and the vultures are less common in the horde than demolisher zombies. The vultures are specified with a probability of 0.3 and the demolishers with 0.4.

Personally I like it when I get some breathing room during the horde. But if someone wants to have a horde without vultures then I can make a modlet that replaces the vultures with other zombies.

 
I think the problem is overstated.
I did some digging in the XML files and the vultures are less common in the horde than demolisher zombies. The vultures are specified with a probability of 0.3 and the demolishers with 0.4.

Personally I like it when I get some breathing room during the horde. But if someone wants to have a horde without vultures then I can make a modlet that replaces the vultures with other zombies.
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On that thinking ...... is there a mod to remove Irradiated Z's?

 
Vultures are currently ignorant and add nothing to the game but annoyance. Until, try not to laugh, TFP can come up with a way to make them an actual thing they should just go the way of the zip line.

 
Vultures are currently ignorant and add nothing to the game but annoyance. Until, try not to laugh, TFP can come up with a way to make them an actual thing they should just go the way of the zip line.
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Wasn't the argument that the vultures should make it more difficult to fly around with the gyrocopter during the horde night ?

I also think that they add something to the game. You have to build a roof or a defense against the vultures.

Also if you stand on a tower and throw your contact grenades down there is always the risk that a vulture will attack at that moment and you will blow yourself up. It actually happened to me once.

 
Wasn't the argument that the vultures should make it more difficult to fly around with the gyrocopter during the horde night ?
I also think that they add something to the game. You have to build a roof or a defense against the vultures.

Also if you stand on a tower and throw your contact grenades down there is always the risk that a vulture will attack at that moment and you will blow yourself up. It actually happened to me once.
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One shotgun turret aimed decently and vultures are mute anyway. If its early game and you cant do that yes you just need a few wood bars and they are mute. All they do is take away from the actual horde. They are nothing but annoying and need to be removed.

 
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