PC Zombie aggro range and poor AI

D

deadite

New member
Is there anyway to increase aggro range for zombies? All they do is spawn and wander, but I want them to instantly target me when they spawn. Also they are terrible at pathfinding. When I get to a high place they don't even try to knock down blocks they just walk underneath me in circles, please at least make it challenging. It's too easy to run and hide and they forget I'm even there :/|

I've modified spawning.xml so they spawn constantly but in fewer numbers as there was about 60 zombies spawning every second, which was fun but made it unplayable to gather resources, crafting etc.

 
Also they are terrible at pathfinding. When I get to a high place they don't even try to knock down blocks they just walk underneath me in circles, please at least make it challenging.
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Stop playing A16 :)

I kid, but I actually experience the opposite. I've also increased biome spawning and for me as soon as I enter a POI all the surrounding zombies instantly know where I am and come to interrupt my looting.

 
I've also increased biome spawning and for me as soon as I enter a POI all the surrounding zombies instantly know where I am and come to interrupt my looting.
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Not a fan of stealth builds, are ya? :p

 
I haven’t perked into stealth. I’ll give it a go but honestly it always seems like psychic powers more than hearing me do anything. But I’ll spend some points there and see if there is a difference.

 
What's the secret to getting 60 zombies spawning every second? Even one per second is already constantly.
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The secret is: hyperbole ;-)

But in seriousness...the respawn delay value is in days I believe. Can you use a decimal for that value or does it have to be an integer?

 
(Unless they changed it) you used to just need to manually edit the:

"sight range" property in the entityclasses.xml of the zombie entities.

Just change it from the default of "30" to like "60" or "90" etc.,

*"30" represented in meters/blocks.*

You can also adjust the:

"SightLightThreshold" value so they can see you better in the dark.

'If' it still works like it used to ofc*.

I haven't tested it in A17 nor A18 to see if those properties still work.

'If' those properties still do work:

Be careful adjusting the "SightLightThreshold" as that will probably affect stealth related perk skills and what not (if you use those).

 
But in seriousness...the respawn delay value is in days I believe. Can you use a decimal for that value or does it have to be an integer?
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I'm pretty sure it's just integer.

I wonder if you did something like this:

<spawn maxcount="4" respawndelay="1" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

<spawn maxcount="4" respawndelay="1" time="Night" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

in place of something like this:

<spawn maxcount="4" respawndelay="1" time="Any" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

you could at least double the frequency?

 
Find --> 7DaysToDie\data\config\entityclasses.xml

<entity_class name="zombieTemplateMale">

<property name="SightRange" value="30"/> <!-- distance in m -->

there is only two listings in the xml file for said value, zombieTemplateMale and animalTemplateTimid




All the different zeds can probably have this setting applied individually, then tweaked to be more 'realistic'.

Animals as well, 'cause like how does a snake see 30 yards from 3 inches off the ground ?

I have not yet gone through them all and tried, due to any conflicts that MAY arise from the

extends="zombieWhicheverZed" setting

But one day I wanna personalize all of their sight ranges to be more based on Who they were in their previous life... age, appearance, fortitute, size, brutality... stuff like that.

I set mine globally to 50. It's fun, to say the least, but... you do have to keep "On your toes".

I've also modded the &!@% outta most of the files that handle zeds attributes, spawning and grouping.

So its pretty much "bring your brown pants" right away. Every zed, everywhere, any time, all the time.

edit: except for zombieSteveCrawler. May he finally rest in peace.

Put it this way, I wouldn't wanna try ["SightRange" value=100] any time soon.

 
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After testing I have concluded that respawndelay has a minimum value of 1 even if you try 0.1 or even 0

I also found that making 64 separate entitygroups with a single zombie in it behaves the same as a single group used in biome spawn with maxcount of 64. I wanted to see if maybe a biome randomly selected from its listed spawns, but no... it just spawns all of them.

I also tested some things with probability in the entitygroups. I tried to see if I put a single zombie in a group with a prob of 0.01, would there maybe be a single dice roll and then maybe if that single zombie was not selected to spawn, then perhaps the biome would try again later... resulting in a way to trickle in spawns for a biome area throughout the day. What happens is the zombie spawns no matter what anyway. It must keep rolling the dice until maxcount is reached or the game code normalizes the probabilities of all zombies listed in a group. Hopefully the latter because the former is wasteful.

 
Its has been like that for a long, long, time.

That's why they used "invisibleAnimal" entity like they did for the animals. As far as the game was concerned the invisible animal was still an entity, and used up the maxcount if it was rolled to be spawned.

Zombies weren't really an issue in that regard, but you can do the same with them as well.

Another thing you will find, is even if you put 'All' zombies groups to only spawn at "Night", it would still spawn them on the initial loading of the game as well. It wasn't till the next game day, that they would all only spawn at night.

Their spawning mechanic needs some love.

Maybe with what MM talked about awhile back, in regards to their spawning, it will getting just that.

 
Its has been like that for a long, long, time.That's why they used "invisibleAnimal" entity like they did for the animals. As far as the game was concerned the invisible animal was still an entity, and used up the maxcount if it was rolled to be spawned.

Zombies weren't really an issue in that regard, but you can do the same with them as well.

Another thing you will find, is even if you put 'All' zombies groups to only spawn at "Night", it would still spawn them on the initial loading of the game as well. It wasn't till the next game day, that they would all only spawn at night.

Their spawning mechanic needs some love.

Maybe with what MM talked about awhile back, in regards to their spawning, it will getting just that.
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Thanks for the info, Tin.

I suppose all of this is mentioned in various places somewhere in the forum... but, finding everything out for yourself or getting first-hand information is much better. Some information becomes outdated too, so I guess it never hurts to look into stuff like this every once in a while.

When you look at this, and then look at how the sleeper spawns work, that system is much more intuitive, but unfortunately not very useful outside of prefabs.

 
Oh my gosh thanks for that. Now zombies walk towards me when they spawn this is the challenge that I like. I can't even harvest resources I have to keep moving and kiting them to different areas how am I going to build a base now????

So hard

 
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