Shinjitsu noDeshi

You sound bitter. Would you like a hug? Shin

I've lost count of the number of vehicles I've flipped on their sides; but it's always been due to running zombies over... Shin

There's a mod which does what you are thinking of - I *just* noticed it in the steam workshop. Shin

They'll go rotten in a freezer too. The fridge slows down the decay rate, and the freezer almost stops it, but neither will completely stop nature. How long it takes depends on the food, and even if it's been cut up or not (e.g. watermelon slices.) Shin

In the U.S., commercial vans and delivery trucks have a "back up alarm" to alert people behind the vehicle that it's moving backwards. Shin

Shortly after I started playing (a couple of years ago), I got it in my head to make Kentucky a zombie-free state. Adding vehicles has been a welcome addition to this end - I no longer have to spend days running across the map to find my prey! Shin

I appreciate you checking these out! 4) I'll double check my sandbox settings; most likely they got messed up at some point. 6) I agree with this sentiment; I just think it's tuned a bit too low. I don't know the numbers, but my gut would say a car traveling at 10mph would knock down a normal person, so it should definitely bowl over a corpse that really can't control itself. Currently, even at higher speeds, they almost always just pinwheel backwards (like a failed push) 8) Just to clarify - the vehicles don't rock and then roll over. They BOUNCE, like wheels coming off the ground to stomach height bounce. Literally, like a low rider does; and it only happens when the wheels go over the zombies. Again, I think this just needs a bit of tuning; a bunch of meatsacks shouldn't make a 3000lb vehicle jump up and down, especially if the vehicle is moving slowly. Shin

The only suggestion I have for you is to try different sandbox settings in order to see if you can narrow down what is causing the problem. My first inclination would be there are too many zombies trying to spawn in at the same time... Shin

Here's what I was doing on this last build and the new one: Custom sandbox, zombie count insane, distribution urban focused. 1) Grab a Franklin Valuline or Chevalier Step Van 2) Drive up alongside a building, so the driver side door is flush against the wall. 3) Honk your horn to draw all the zombies in the neighborhood to your vehicle (should be about 1500+/) 4) Realize that horn ranges are broken, so restart on a new map setup with vehicle sounds cranked up to 10 or 20. Repeat 2 & 3. 5) When a large horde of zombies is behind or in front of the vehicle, slowly drive towards them, trying to knock them down under the vehicle. 6) Realize that this is very difficult because vehicles really only push zombies and don't knock them down. Wait for more zombies to come and sandwich those closest to the vehicle, so you can knock them down. 7) If lucky, you should be able to run over the zombies with the wheels, since the car base doesn't injure them. 8) Make sure you have your seatbelt on, and have grabbed hold of your "OhJESUS handles", because once you start getting the zombies under your wheels, the vehicle will bounce and buck like a mexican lowrider in a dance-off competition. Chances are high that you will be thrown from the vehicle, or you will tip the vehicle on it's side. Hope this helps! - (and maybe if you get a chance, you can look into 4, 6, and 8 while you are at it? ) Shin

Apparently crawlers can attack through (closed) vehicle doors. Shin

Not to add any more suggestions to the already long list of ... suggestions, *but* It'd be nice to have a reefer truck - perhaps take the step van chassy and make the cargo area smaller size and consume more gas to compensate for the freezer capability. I think it might add a neat gameplay dynamic by enabling some deep woods living for an extended period of time. Shin

The cooking show is the only one I've "watched" so far, so I'm not sure how the others work. But, it basically walked you through the steps for making chicken soup, and each time it told you what to do ("cook the chicken") it gave you a small exp boost. On the screen it briefly flashed a "+5 Cooking" above my toons head. IMO it's pretty easy to miss when it's happening, but you could definitely see the xp in the cooking skill after the show was done. For a couple of games I was like "where did I get that cooking skill from?!" Now when I start a new game, the first thing I do is turn the tv to the skills channel and listen while I loot the house Shin

I got cooking experience from watching a cooking show in single player. I haven't checked boredom. Shin

I normally play on survival level (well the equivalent of that with a custom setup.) All my previous reports on the issue were based on that, and my thinking was there were too many zombies being overloaded with method calls. So I thought I'd give it a whirl with significantly fewer zombies around. Same results. But to be thorough, I'll give your suggestion a try. Shin

I am still getting random game pauses - but otherwise great job on the performance. Initial play testing shows the UI and game are running very smooth! The horn range on cars is continues to also be an issue. I still can't get zombies more than 7-8 squares away to respond to honking. I tried this on a SP, "The First Week, Normal" game with the same results - so it doesn't *seem* to be related to the number of zombies around. I just realized, the current horn range is about the same as the shout range. Is is possible the horn is actually using the shout logic? Shin

Out of curiousity - is there a benefit to burying bodies? I just stack them 20+ high and burn them... Shin

I hope they never finish PZ, but rather, keep enhancing and fixing it forever. Selfish of me, I know... Shin

I asked awhile back what the different reaction symbols meant, and never got a straight answer. I've always thought they were a way of showing "like" or "dislike" for someones post - it'd be great if someone from the forum/dev staff could post a prominent sticky for what they mean, so we are all on the same page? Shin

Single Player

I think I may have spoken a bit too soon in my last post. The game play is smooth as silk, most of the time, but now I'm getting what you are describing here. The only difference is I'm not going anywhere, just doing odd jobs around my safe house. There don't seem to be a ton of zombies in the immediate area, but I *did* pull the majority of Muldraugh's business strip (300?) to the north end of town. (Apparently setting vehicle noise to "20" is... loud.) It's acting like it's accessing the disk temp file or GCing... maybe I've been running the game too long (memory leak?) or there are too many active zombies for the engine to process smoothly? Shin

Hi Pandorea - SP, Muldraugh Custom Sandbox - based on "First Week" settings with the following changes: Population: Count = Insane Nature: Erosion Speed = Fast (50 days) Sadistic AI Director: Helicopter = Sometimes Vehicle: Zombie Attraction Multiplier = 1.0 (default) Locked Frequency = Sometimes Car Alarms Frequency = Never Zombie Lore: Cognition = Navigate (default) Hearing = Poor (default) Zombie House Alarm Triggering = checked Advanced Zombie Options: Population Mult = 4.0 Respawn Hours = 0.0 Cognition under zombie lore looks new since I last checked? What does that setting do? (Tooltips on the dropdown boxes would be a great addition!) Note - I've been using these settings since the vehicle patch came out (except of course those settings added since that point.) And of further note - house alarms seem to work quite well. On some other playthroughs after my post above, I've had zombies dragged from far off right screen to far off left screen due to an alarm. Is there a way I could attach my game setup? Shin

After playing for awhile now, the performance seems to have really improved. The game feels really smooth to play - I haven't run into any stuttering with this build. Nicely done! Shin

I did some further testing on this, and firearms still work wonders for attracting hordes. A shotgun blast will bring everything to your locale that's on the screen, and even some stuff that's off the edge. It seems to be something related specifically to vehicle noises and horns (and possibly house/car alarms.) Shin

I thought that might have something to do with it too - and it certainly might - but I was parked in that same position for the entire honk test, and had actually been there longer, just idling, before starting the test. I've had zombies come up to where I just was and stop entirely, and another couple further off (which were idling) begin to move towards me. Even though the first group was just within arms length of my vehicle, they wouldn't move any closer until the group further away got "closer". It's almost like there are too many actions queued up for the game to process at the same time. Before the zombie pathing was changed, the car horn used to bring everything on screen and a good chunk of off screen straight to my vehicle. Edit - This is with insane hordes on the older versions and in the recent screenshot. Shin

Horns and alarms seem to have too short of an activation range on the zombies. In the attached screenshot, I had been honking the white station wagon's horn for a minute (alternating between short and long bursts) and the zombies to the top and left of the screen hadn't moved at all. Somewhere off screen towards the bottom right, a house alarm went off, with no effect on them either. Shin