Have walls/pre-built fences be capable of being toppled by zombie hordes.

[LeoIvanov]

So, after play testing a bit my prison on new build 32, I've ran into the problem where huge numbers of zombies don't even care about the pre-built fence, and they "go around it" directly to my built log walls to break through it. They don't really pile up on fences for too long like in the picture 1 mondoid ago.

 

Here is how zombies behave. Note how they are walking directly towards the log walls instead of me.

 

My idea, however, should fix that. (And the relative safety of being behind big fences in the "isolated house).

 

What I propose : Have zombies be capable of, eventually, toppling the pre-built fences and walls given large enough number of them attempts to break through, like in the infamous TWD show The walking dead.

 

 

How will it work?

 

 

 

With the use of newly introduced "stability" percentage!

 

Each pre-existing, tall fence tile will have a "Stability percentage" assigned to it. The "stability" will be determined by the number of other, stable tall fences that are connected to it.

 

For example :

 

A single, tall fence/built wall will have a 0% stability. It means any push force applied to it from either side will make the fence/wall collapse instantly. However, if you have two other tall fences/walls surrounding it, the wall in the middle will receive a 20% stability bonus. Meaning the wall in the middle will have 20% stability, while walls on the sides will have 0% stability.

 

An additional 0% stability wall added to either side of this 3-tiled fence will add another 20% stability bonus to each fence except the latest one. A wall surrounded with fences of the same stability percent automatically makes the middle fence greater percent than them. So a wall surrounded with 40% stable walls will have a 60% stability assigned to it.

A fence surrounded with fences that have different stability percentages assigned to them will have a stability greater than the smallest stability fence, but smaller than the greatest stability fence. Fence connected to a fence with greater stability will have a 1 level smaller stability assigned to them. 

 

Visual representation, to make it easier on the brain :

 

80% stability - level 4

60% stabilty - level 3

40% stability - level 2

20% stability - level 1

0% stability - level 0

 

_____________

The fence built out of 5 tiles will look like this.

| | | | |

 

Fence built out of 6 tiles (Built from left to right) will look like this :

| | | | | |

 

Stability percentage never reaches 100% unless the fence is connected to an existing, pre-loaded wall (building). Fence connected to an existing wall will have a 100% stability assigned to it. Fence connected to a 100% stability fence will have a 80% stability assigned to it. Fence surrounded with 100% stable fences will also be 100% stable.

So, that way, a wall that was built to barricade an open garage door in West Point will never be toppled by big amount of zombies, however, it can still be broken given enough time.

 

Fences that have the L shape (corners) will have an automatically 80% stability assigned to them. Any fence added to 80% fence, as discussed above, will have 60% stability assigned to them. It means that building a fort that consists of walls shaped like Ш will work as you'd expect (all of them will have 80% stability).

 

The system will calculate itself automatically and assign the calculations to each pre-built fence, which will then be saved to the specific world files that are kept within the game savefiles.

 

How can zombies topple them?

 

 

This question is a new topic entirely. Right now, for example, zombies ignore the fences and decide to path-find around them to reach their target, unless the fence is transparent and their target (e.g - player), along with the zombie itself, is really close to the fence. What I propose is to make zombies "pathfind" through the fence and be stopped by it, just like already built walls do. Zombies will start thumping their heads/arms etc on the fence continuously, and each zombie in proximity will have an assigned "push force" to it.

 

PUSH FORCE.

 

What does push force do? It determines whether an active horde is capable of collapsing an existing fence or wall. It works quite simple - if the push force percentage is equal or greater than the stability percentage, the fence will start collapsing in an opposite side from where the zombies come. Each zombie has a random X push force assigned to it, which gradually add up to other zombies, if they are present. Meaning 5 zombies that have 0.5 push force will consist of total of 0.5 x 5 = 2.5% of push force. 

 

The number of tiles of walls/fences that are affected by the push force are determined by which of them stand in the pathfinding way of the annual group of zombies. So, for example, if a cluster of zombies are all trying to get in through a confined space of 4 tiles, then their overall push force are applied to each of those 4 tiles that stands in the way. Any zombie that wanders in the vicinity of a group that attempts to break in automatically adds a push point to the overall, while any zombie that walks away - subtracts from the overall push force.

 

So, when the zombies finally get their push force percentage higher than the fence's stability percentage, each assigned X number of hours, it will topple in the other direction by 10/20%. The hard job falls on the hands of those who draws the tiles - they'll have to draw each "toppling" percentage for each existing fence. When the toppling percentage reaches 100%, the fence "falls down" on the floor and has no collision anymore. Zombies can freely walk over it.

 

A fence cannot remain standing while the neighboring fence has any kind of topple percentage. That means from the area where the "toppling" has happened, other fences are assigned slightly smaller amount of damage to them, all the way until the top. So, if a single tile falls down on the floor completely, two surrounding fences will have fallen down 80%, then the surrounding fences around those three will have fallen down 60%, and etc until it reaches the fully standing ones. 

 

How can a player prevent it?

 

First of all - by getting rid of the zombies behind the fence. It's amazing how we already are capable of shooting zombies through the fence or killing them with a melee. You can do that to prevent them from toppling the fence as well! Just guard your perimeter once in a while and kill the zombies that, give them enough time, can gather up and topple your defenses.

 

Another thing that can prevent them from doing it - is setting up planks on the sides of the fence to give them a temporary immunity to the toppling!

 

You will be able to do this by right clicking on the fence and "setting up the support", that will give the fence a "fake" 100% stability. However :

 

Each number of hours that a clump of zombies with greater push force than the wall's annual stability push on the defenses will take away X amount of HP from the plank. Given enough time and lack of proper lookout, the plank will break and the fence will get toppled on it's belly. Does anyone remember that episode of The Walking Dead of season 4, where a huge horde breaks through during the night and Carl with Rick are forced to defend themselves against it? The support log breaks in half during it. Yeah, it can happen too.

 

In conclusion

 

This will take quite a big amount of work to implement, especially for those that are responsible for drawing the tiles, but in the end the effort will be worth it. Zombie hordes will truly become dangerous, and you won't be sleeping without worries behind the safety of pre-built fences that already exist within the game. Places like THIS will stop being 100% zombie proof fortresses. Log walls will prove more useful to maintain than to have them act as "super uber sturdy walls". You'll have to think in advance about setting up supports for your houses, and it will stop people from making impossible, unsupported 3 tile fences that are capable of withstanding a horde until they break. 

[AJ135]

While I agree that wire fences do need to be destructible, here is why pre-built walls will never be destructible.

 

 

Because gameplay/performance reasons

 

1) A zombie going for a wall with the same vigour as a door or player made wall would mean zombies would never get to you, they wouldn't walk down corridors or come through the windows, they would all just thump ineffectually on whatever bit of wall is directly in their path.

2) If all the walls had health, and were like player made walls, it would balloon the map size in memory and on the hard-drive. It would make pathfinding much more incredibly slow as well since player made tiles have extra considerations in pathfinding calculations.

 

[LeoIvanov]

I never implied that pre-built walls should be "destroyable", really. I never even wanted zombies to care about them at all. I was talking about pre-built, seen-through, or climbable (in future) tall fences. 

[Svarog]

I like the idea of the fences being an obstacle a horde can overcome but I think making them toppable would be too impractical to implement.

Instead, how about them just being damaged until they are broken. And not in the way it is right now where it's just *puff, gone* but have some new sprites that show more and more damage progressively.

Like 1, the fence is good, 2 the shows some dents and damage, 3 there are some tears and small holes, 4 there is a big visible hole that zombies can pass through like an open door.

They should be then repairable, for wire fences they could be repaired with Wire, giving it some use, for wooden ones they could be repaired with planks.

And there should be separate sprites for "repaired" versions unless the skill is high.

[LeoIvanov]

I like the idea of the fences being an obstacle a horde can overcome but I think making them toppable would be too impractical to implement.

Instead, how about them just being damaged until they are broken. And not in the way it is right now where it's just *puff, gone* but have some new sprites that show more and more damage progressively.

Like 1, the fence is good, 2 the shows some dents and damage, 3 there are some tears and small holes, 4 there is a big visible hole that zombies can pass through like an open door.

They should be then repairable, for wire fences they could be repaired with Wire, giving it some use, for wooden ones they could be repaired with planks.

And there should be separate sprites for "repaired" versions unless the skill is high.

 

The good thing about metal, chain fences is that even a horde of zombies is going to take three ages to break/damage one. Metal is a sturdier material compared to skin, muscles or bones. For example : No matter how hard you're going to hit a rock with a pillow, you're not going to break it. Unless zombie lore implies that zombies can get a skin/bone/anything else sturdier or equally as sturdy as metal, I don't think they'll be able to break through chain link fence at all.

 

But topple it over and walk over it, on the other hand...

[Svarog]

Oh, I do know that actually tearing a chain link fence apart would be quite a feat.

I just have a hard time imagining how toppling walls over would look\work in a 2D isometric perspective. It would be difficult to convey right and without falling into various issues. It could work great if what we had here was a 3D isometric game with controllable camera and 3D models instead of 2D sprite tiles.

That's why I suggested that they just be breakable, not easily, 1 zombie would do 0 damage to those walls but if there was a high concentration of zombies near it then they would start doing more and more damage, the fence would eventually show dents, tears, small holes and eventually just function as an open door.

That (sprites showing damage) could be extended to all player built stuff because right now there is no way to tell if the walls and barricades are getting compromised until they pop out of existence.

It's not as cool as it would be to recreate those prison scenes from TWD but it also removes the problem of certain places being 100% zombie proof and it would be a whole lot easier to implement both coding and art wise.

[EnigmaGrey]

Eh, sort of. When I was a kid, children would slowly destroy chainlink fences around the school by leaning up against them, pushing against them .etc to the point the rails bent and the mesh eventually parted from the frame, or sagged. Not impossible.

 

Though this still likely not doable for the same reasons Lemmy mentioned earlier. You could always try to mod it in, without making fences IsoThumpable: check nearby tiles for zombies, if enough are present, damage the fence/wall.etc.

[King jjwpenguin]

Eh, sort of. When I was a kid, children would slowly destroy chainlink fences around the school by leaning up against them, pushing against them .etc to the point the rails bent and the mesh eventually parted from the frame, or sagged. Not impossible.

 

Though this still likely not doable for the same reasons Lemmy mentioned earlier. You could always try to mod it in, without making fences IsoThumpable: check nearby tiles for zombies, if enough are present, damage the fence/wall.etc.

link to his post please? cant find it. Also i feel it would be a better in game feature but that isn't up to us.

[Gaffa Tape Warrior]

I think this is a capital idea! There are only three things I disagree with, and a few things I would like to add.
 
I disagree with everything on its own having 0% stability. This should vary depending on what it is. A wooden stake hammered only a foot into the ground is going to be pushed over by a single person, but a great timber cemented deeply into the earth is not going anywhere soon, be it alone or supported on two sides. A tree is a bit like that too.
 
I also disagree with leant planks being certain to snap. A support leant against a fence may break under enough force, or it may have something like toppling affect it, the strength of its attachent to the earth may be less than its resistance to snapping, and it may give way and slide. It may be strong enough not to take any noticable damage from the force and remain unsnapped until it rots.
 
You said this:

Visual representation, to make it easier on the brain :
 
80% stability - level 4
60% stabilty - level 3
40% stability - level 2
20% stability - level 1
0% stability - level 0
 
_____________
The fence built out of 5 tiles will look like this.
| | | | |
 
Fence built out of 6 tiles (Built from left to right) will look like this :
| | | | | |

 
But you also said this:

A single, tall fence/built wall will have a 0% stability. It means any push force applied to it from either side will make the fence/wall collapse instantly. However, if you have two other tall fences/walls surrounding it, the wall in the middle will receive a 20% stability bonus. Meaning the wall in the middle will have 20% stability, while walls on the sides will have 0% stability.

 
Which means it should look like this:

The fence built out of 5 tiles will look like this.
| | | | |
 
Fence built out of 6 tiles (Built from left to right) will look like this :
| | | | | |

... because you said that the ones on the ends should have 0% stability, although I think they should be supported by the ones next to them, so it should look a bit like this:

The fence built out of 5 tiles will look like this.
| | | | |
 
Fence built out of 6 tiles (Built from left to right) will look like this :
| | | | | |

 
 
LeoIvanov mentioned corners having 80% stability, which made me imagine a wall made entirely of corners. I think different fences and walls should have their own parameters for how they behave. Two of these could be their amount of pushing support, and pulling support. A wire fence may have something close to 100% pulling support, but no pushing support, unless they have horizontal beams like in those pictures from The Walking Dead. A stone wall would have great pushing support, but far less pulling support. A wooden wall with horizontal beams could have extended pushing support. Below are some examples with colour. I don't know what numbers to give them, so it's not fitting LeoIvanov's numbers. I am not great on the physics of these things and may have made some mistakes. The stone wall may well be stronger than a wooden wall (some can stop cannonballs), these colours are only relative within an example.

A wire fence with vertical beams in the ground, but no pushing support, only pulling support, against pushing forces ↓ (imperfect)
 
‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾|_|‾‾|_|‾‾|___|‾‾|___|‾‾|___|‾‾
 
A dry stone wall, against pushing forces. ↓ (is this right?)
 
‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾|_|‾‾|_|‾‾|___|‾‾|___|‾‾|___|‾‾
 
A wooden wall with good pushing support, and some pulling support, against pushing forces ↓ (actually wooden fences can vary so much that this diagram is not great)
 
‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾‾‾‾‾|_|‾‾|_|‾‾|_|‾‾|___|‾‾|___|‾‾|___|‾‾
 
Zombies may go past and push ← →, so this example is not perfect.
 
 
Two other parameters could be how strongly it is held in the ground, and how much pushing force is needed to start bending something metal or snapping something wooden. Whichever one of those is the least is likely the first to go. LeoIvanov said that if one fence section is pushed down the the ground then the adjacent ones should be partly toppled too. I agree, but think that how much the adjacent tiles should be toppled should depend on the magnitudes of their pushing support, and their pulling support, and their relative positions, and how firmly planted they are, and how easily they break. If one section of wire fence collapses, then yes, its adjacent ones should be pulled down a bit too. A wooden fence, though, may sooner break and collapse on its own than pull its surroundings down with it, depending on its design. If a wooden fence is sufficiently strongly attached laterally, and if the pushing force of the zombies is overcoming its firmly-plantedness, then the whole thing may collapse at once.
What EnigmaGrey was interesting. I think the chainlink fences would sooner go flat than have holes ripped in them. With this we might not need to use hitpoints as we've got now for everything, and I don't really like hitpoints used like that for everything because some things should be too strong to be pulled apart by a person's hands.