HOW TO WIN (Getting more Zombies in your Game)

[Roland]

Some say that this game cannot be won because it is never ending. That is pure nonsense. This game can be won and it is all about making it even more fun and challenging than it currently is.

 

The developers have their standards they must meet to be responsible to their mass market but as consumers we don't have to abide by their standards. We can modify the game and if you modify the game to add more zombies to your biomes you win. I promise.

 

There has been a lot of talk about this in various threads but I wanted to give a nice clear step by step set of instructions so that ANYONE who reads this can win. I want us all to be winners after all.

 

Okay, now different computers will have different configurations but the following steps if followed is guaranteed to work on anyone's computer. Often I read threads on modding where the modder says, "just open such and such and edit the files". Well let me help you unerringly get to those files:

 

Step 1: Open Steam and go to your library

Step 2: Start the game like always

Step 3: Choose to show game launcher instead of playing.

Step 4: Once the game launcher window opens select the tools tab.

Step 5: Select Open Game Folder

Step 6: Double Click on the folder named Data

Step 7: Double Click on the folder named Config

Step 8: Scroll down the list of files until you get to the one named Spawning

Step 9: Right click on Spawning and select Open with notepad or wordpad or notepad+ (whatever you have)

 

Now you are in one of the most glorious option menus this game has to offer. Here is what you do next:

Edited March 14, 2020 by Roland (see edit history)

[Roland]

OUTDOOR SPAWNS

 

As you scroll down the spawning document you will see lists of biomes followed by code that controls the spawn max count, the respawn delay, the time, and the group of entities it applies to.

This is an example from the pine forest biome:

 

<biome name="pine_forest">

 

<spawn maxcount="1" respawndelay="3" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

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

<spawn maxcount="1" respawndelay="14" time="Any" entitygroup="EnemyAnimalsForest" spawnDeadChance="0" />

<spawn maxcount="1" respawndelay="21" time="Any" entitygroup="FriendlyAnimalsForest" spawnDeadChance="0" />

 

</biome>

 

To change your game significantly all you need to do is increase the mumbers for maxcount and for respawndelay. That's it. You don't need to change anything else. For respawndelay you can use decimals to make them reappear sooner than a whole day. So...

 

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

 

This will give you four times the number of zombies during the day and they will regenerate each day.

 

<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay=".5" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

 

This will give you twice the number of zombies during the day and they will regenerate twice a day.

 

<spawn maxcount="6" respawndelay="0" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

 

This will give you six times the number of zombies during the day continuously. Slap a Ghostlight name tag on yourself and get to killing.

 

All you need to do is go down through all the listed biomes and change the numbers as you please. Some of the biomes aren't used any longer but don't worry about it. Changing those numbers won't hurt anything. Once you are done save the file and close it. Exit the game launcher and then restart and this time go and play and win.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Roland (see edit history)

[Roland]

WANDERING HORDES

 

To increase your wandering hordes you do everything listed in the first post except that in step 7 instead of opening the spawning file you will want to find the file named gamestages and right click on it and open it using notepad or comparable program.

 

Once you open gamestages you will scroll down past a bunch of notes and other stuff until you get to about line 216 which starts the wandering horde section. Here is what it looks like:

 

<spawner name="WanderingHorde"> <!-- These will wrap around at 50. -->

<!-- Will probably have to undo that later. Rev 19924 /19944 -->

<gamestage stage="01"><spawn group="wanderingHordeStageGS1" num="05" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

<gamestage stage="02"><spawn group="wanderingHordeStageGS2" num="10" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

<gamestage stage="03"><spawn group="wanderingHordeStageGS5" num="06" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

<gamestage stage="04"><spawn group="ZombieDogGroup" num="04" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

 

It continues on through 50 different gamestage stages. All you have to do is increase the numbers I colored red. In vanilla the easiest horde is only 5 zombies which is hardly noticeable. Up it to whatever number you feel would be a fun horde size at that stage of the game. Make sure to read the spawn group name before the number to be sure you want to adjust that one-- such as the last one listed in the example. Changing an early game zombie dog horde from 4 dogs to 15 dogs might be a bad idea but it is your funeral.

 

So just to illustrate, if I change that first gamestage stage 01 horde from its default setting it would look like this:

 

<gamestage stage="01"><spawn group="wanderingHordeStageGS1" num="15" maxAlive="30" duration="09"/></gamestage>

 

This change would make the horde be comprised of 15 zombies.

 

Now I know that you've been eyeing that maxAlive="30" value and wondering why not just up that to 64 for some truly epic hordes. I'm almost certain that number is hardcoded in elsewhere in the code and changing it here won't matter but I could be wrong and someone will be along shortly to correct me if I am and then I'll change this part. But by all means give it a go and type 64 in there and then change the number to 64 and see what happens. That is the fun with experimenting with these settings.

 

Just like with the spawning file, when you are finished changing the numbers for all fifty hordes makes sure to save and then close your files and game launcher and then start up your game. You will surely notice when a horde wanders by after this.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Roland (see edit history)

[Roland]

reserved

[Roland]

The instructions above are for directly changing your files to create these options. There is another way and that is to download a modlet that makes these changes for you. The advantage of using a modlet is that if the game updates, you won't lose your changes. I'll outline some easy steps to download and use a modlet soon. You can change the values in a modlet you download in order to make it do what you want it to do just as easily as the above direct changes.

[Roland]

reserved!

[Roland]

Okay I have the room I want. Please feel free to post examples of how you like to change the numbers. For myself, I tripled all the day numbers and quadrupled all the night numbers because I think more should come out at night. I like the feeling of clearing an area and having it be relatively safe for a few days so I left the respawn delays alone.

[4sheetzngeegles]

Roland

Good post. I have always liked the sweep and clear, way of playing. What I would ask as a subtle change is in code

can public int respawnDelayInWorldTime; be changed from integer to float. The reason I ask is because I tested before

and found I could lower the overall count of entity load per scene. If i manually adjusted the int to float, and mathematically

had a sort of spawn cascade time wise. I equated it to my own efficiency to dispatch entities. in real time to game time.

Example: I play 120min days, would like it to be 240, even if resource gather is slower but that i will mod later if possible

that combined with your 0xp mod makes a simple sweep clear play till im tired rinse repeat.

 

Example 2: I, on average can dispatch say 6 per minute using melee and spears, average 4 loaded on belt. this is liberal

guesstimate. so I had figured out an equation for realtime minutes vs ingame minutes. This allowed me to have a minimum

amount of zombie entities on screen at once, but the overlapping cascade of added spawn times allowed for what felt like

a temporary battle royale, depending on where I was at the time. After fight is over , there was a lull for a period before respawn.

Overall if the float availability is added it would allow for more active interaction, but at the same time have less assets on screen.

Old personal mod I called it the Flood. looking for the settings I had now.

[Roland]

That sounds amazing but what are you asking me exactly? To suggest that change to like Gazz or something?

[4sheetzngeegles]

Yes, when I did it from my side i had to jump through hoops to get it to work. Pretty much I had to do a lot of ugly hacks to get it to work.

Programming is not my forte. In general conversation, i was hoping you could ask if it were possible or feasible. As I read the forum,

posts of TFP desires, player likes dislikes, I thought of not optimization but flexibility for spawn situations. Literally it should allow for a

customized flow of entities dependent upon each persons play style. A similar idea to learning AI in some games. So without a slider

each player gets their own custom fight experience. But using minimal resources. Even minimal prereq: computers can provide a full

action experience. The more powerful the computer the more assets can be incorporated. The only necessity to regulate it was, entity

deaths per minute real time equation, posted in spawning.xml.

 

Literal picture, If I was in a town, and I had set , I had to physically clear an area before I could go into a POI. And with it set like this It

never overran the sleeper volume count. So both existed simultaneously.

 

<biome name="desert">

<spawn maxcount="7" respawndelay=".00016" time="Any" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

<spawn maxcount="7" respawndelay=".0028" time="Any" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

<spawn maxcount="7" respawndelay=".066" time="Any" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

<spawn maxcount="7" respawndelay=".20" time="Any" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

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

</biome>

 

These numbers are not actuals, just an example to show the cascade effect. But also back then I used maxalive. maxalive would be set to 16.

Its not perfect, but it made for a constant, battle if you wanted to enter a POI. and this was before pathing, the new spawndistance, and spawn angle

were adjusted.

Edited March 14, 2020 by 4sheetzngeegles (see edit history)

[Boidster]

What I would ask as a subtle change is in code

can public int respawnDelayInWorldTime; be changed from integer to float.

 

respawnDelay already allows float values, as shown in Roland's examples above. What is it that you think needs to be changed?

 

[Roland]

 

respawnDelay already allows float values, as shown in Roland's examples above. What is it that you think needs to be changed?

 

He seemed specfic about something (a Cvar?) called respawnDelayInWorldTime which would be a different variable than the respawndelay variable in that part of the xml. I'm not good enough to fully understand Cvars but I think Sheetz was talking about a more global Cvar. Can't be sure though as I'm only about ankle deep into all of this. It looks like he may want to do a trickle respawn effect with zombies respawning into the same chunk in a cascading fashion instead of all at once essentially having a lot of zombies to clear but then they reappear a few at a time over time so as to not overwhelm the maxalive count and make it so that POI's are empty of sleepers. Seems like the examples he posted would work but maybe there is another Cvar that could make it happen easier if it was float instead of integer....but I can't be sure.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Roland (see edit history)

[Laz Man]

Roland, this is your chance to make your own Increased spawning modlet. Thank you for the detailed explanation. I am sure many will find some enjoyment in changing some of these values.

[Roland]

Roland, this is your chance to make your own Increased spawning modlet. Thank you for the detailed explanation. I am sure many will find some enjoyment in changing some of these values.

 

I already have made one. Its been part of my 0XP Rolmod for awhile now. What I want though is to make it super simple for people just get that modlet and not my entire pack. With schools closed I should have time this week to post it up in a way that is easy for people to get and add to their mod folder.

[4sheetzngeegles]

 

respawnDelay already allows float values, as shown in Roland's examples above. What is it that you think needs to be changed?

 

In code if you read the method in the class. It is Int32 implicit, if you just change it to a decimal, it rounds it back to 1 or 0. In dev diary a19, Gronk verified it. I use the 0xp mod, because it's similar to the play style I personally like. If a CVar can override it then, I'm golden. If not then I asked regarding the code, because it would make it easier to adjust precisely in xml. I did in A16 using Ilspy when first starting to adjust parameters. I had to change a lot of references and cross references to get it to work. I cant find the dll i edited. Basically I think 0XPMod is a good addition to any of the other mods I use. Because of the way Roland did his mod I knew he would get the idea, and may point me in the direction necessary to redo it.

Edited March 17, 2020 by 4sheetzngeegles (see edit history)

[Boidster]

Okay, so in Roland's example above:

 

<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay=".5" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

 

This will give you twice the number of zombies during the day and they will regenerate twice a day.

 

You are saying that this will not work as intended, and that respawns will happen once per day (assuming .5 is rounded up to 1.0)? I swear I read a thread several weeks ago about someone who had set theirs to 0.25 or something like that and they were flooded with zombie respawns throughout the day. That should have just rounded down to 0, though, right? Meaning no respawns ever?

[Roland]

Zero is constant respawns. He might be right. I haven’t messed with respawn times because I like the idea of being able to clear an area and have a couple day’s peace before they return. I was posting examples I also saw elsewhere.

[Roland]

One thing I am trying tomorrow is a huge amount of zombies but a respawn time of 300 days. I wonder if this will allow you to “reclaim the land” so to speak. Initially there will be many but if you kill them that area will be cleared for good. Could be fun or it might get boring.

[Kubikus]

While I kinda swore myself not to mod again before the game's going gold (too much work gone down the toilet), I actually did some modding yet again. Here's a neat concept I'm currently using in my arcade mod:

 

One group of radiated zombies that have a long respawn delay, so you can clear them out and then they're gone (for a while).

One group of feral zombies that have a short delay, so you can clear them out for a day.

One group of easy zombies that have none and will spawn constantly (delay set to zero).

 

Might be neat to make it so that you can clear out particularly dangerous zombies for good (delay set to 300) but keep easy zombies around (never-runners for example).

[Kyonshi]

Thank you very much Roland for that great post. I was getting a bit bored in my main game after 90 days lol. I will definitely pump up the numbers to get some more action going on.

[Aesir]

Quick question concerning the maxcount of outdoor spawns. Do decimals work as well? If raising the amount to 2 gives you twice as many zeds would raising it to 1.5 just give you 50% more?

[Roland]

Max count values are not multipliers they are the actual number of zombies that will spawn in each area. The reason why a two was twice as many in that example is that the default version was a one. If it had been say a three then I would have had to replace it with a six in order to double. Decimals won’t work for that value.

Edited March 21, 2020 by Roland (see edit history)

[Aesir]

Okay. Thanks Roland. That would explain why after I made the changes the console would pop up when I entered my game. It had a red error message saying something about an invalid number or something to that effect in the spawning. I switched them to whole numbers from the 1.5 I put in and it's okay now.

Edited March 21, 2020 by Aesir (see edit history)

[Jarod_Silverstar]

One thing I am trying tomorrow is a huge amount of zombies but a respawn time of 300 days. I wonder if this will allow you to “reclaim the land” so to speak. Initially there will be many but if you kill them that area will be cleared for good. Could be fun or it might get boring.

 

Actually what I would like to see is a more graduated spawning system. Have an area marked around a town or city with a special spawn process. one based on the number of other zombies in the area. Kind of like a growth pattern, the more zombies in an area the faster they will respawn to fill the area back up. If you go into a town and only kill a few zombies, say 10%, then it will fill back up quickly but if you killed 90% of the zombies then it would take several days to completely respawn.

 

Of course, as I was thinking it through there might be a simple way of doing it, if we can convince the Pimps to add a variable for Max Number of Spawns in a Day. Set the MaxAlive to 50 and the DailyRespawn to 3 and you would have a case where you can 'clean out' a town of zombies for a few days but if you leave it for a couple weeks, when you come back it is full of zombies again.

[erlgrey]

 <biome name="pine_forest">
<spawn maxcount="3" respawndelay="2" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />
<spawn maxcount="5" respawndelay="1" time="Night" entitygroup="ZombiesNight" />
<spawn maxcount="3" respawndelay="10" time="Any" entitygroup="EnemyAnimalsForest" spawnDeadChance="0" />
<spawn maxcount="3" respawndelay="14" time="Any" entitygroup="FriendlyAnimalsForest" spawnDeadChance="0" />
</biome>

<biome name="desert">
<spawn maxcount="3" respawndelay="2" time="Any" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />
<spawn maxcount="4" respawndelay="1" time="Night" entitygroup="ZombiesNight" />
<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay="10" time="Any" entitygroup="EnemyAnimalsDesert" spawnDeadChance="0" />
<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay="14" time="Any" entitygroup="FriendlyAnimalsDesert" spawnDeadChance="0" />
</biome>

<biome name="wasteland">
<spawn maxcount="4" respawndelay="1" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />
<spawn maxcount="6" respawndelay="1" time="Night" entitygroup="ZombiesWastelandNight" />
<spawn maxcount="1" respawndelay="1" time="Any" entitygroup="EnemyAnimalsWasteland" spawnDeadChance="0" />
</biome>

<biome name="burnt_forest">
<spawn maxcount="5" respawndelay="1" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesBurntForest" />
<spawn maxcount="6" respawndelay="1" time="Night" entitygroup="ZombiesNight" />
<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay="10" time="Any" entitygroup="EnemyAnimalsBurntForest" spawnDeadChance="0" />
<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay="14" time="Any" entitygroup="FriendlyAnimalsBurntForest" spawnDeadChance="0" />
</biome>

<biome name="snow">
<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay="2" time="Any" entitygroup="SnowZombies" />
<spawn maxcount="4" respawndelay="2" time="Night" entitygroup="ZombiesNight" />
<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay="10" time="Any" entitygroup="EnemyAnimalsSnow" spawnDeadChance="0" />
<spawn maxcount="2" respawndelay="14" time="Any" entitygroup="FriendlyAnimalsSnow" spawnDeadChance="0" />
</biome>

 

 

this are the settings i used in my last save (was mp with 3 people).

not bad but i think i will up the respawndelay quite a bit, i kind of like the ability to clear an area which is then zed free for a while, otherwise you just start to ignore and not fight them..

over all it is a shame that you can't make a difference between city and poi vs. open land, i would prefer more zed in citys and around pois and only a few roaming ones in open area. not sure yet how i should balance that, without having open areas too crowded or citys and poi surroundings too empty.

Edited April 16, 2020 by erlgrey (see edit history)