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The Zombie Flight


Hrodrik

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Hello everyone. This is going to a long post but if the devs pay attention it will make PZ a more enjoyable experience for everyone, so bear with me.

 

I am probably not the only one that is annoyed by how zombies destroy all objects in their path, but this is not about that. This is about something else that annoys me because it isn't realistic. This is about horde movement.

 

Have you noticed how when you clear an area it doesn't take long for zombies to overwhelm it again? How annoying it is to see small clumps of zombies neatly interspersed, almost equidistantly from each other, when just a day before there was nothing there? I think this is because of the algorithm that is currently used to populate areas that have a certain ideal zombie density. 

 

It saddens me to see that movement of zombie groups to areas with lower-than-ideal population is so directed and certain (or maybe they are even just spawning in low-pop cells?). That's not how groups of barely-thinking zombies would act. Right now it seems that zombie movement is either a limited random walk or completely directed movement into zones that are low on ideal population. But I have an idea that should make it slightly less frustrating to make an area more clear of zombies, and at the same time make supposedly safer areas become more dangerous.

 


 

The Levy flight more closely resembles how animals and even brainless single-celled organisms like amoebae look for food. They randomly browse an area foraging for food (let's call it roaming) and if they don't find anything they travel in a random direction for a while (let's call it a flight) and then start browsing around again.

 

The ideal behaviour would be something like this:

 

When all zones are populated with the ideal population of zombies, each group (following the leader) would randomly roam around an area inside, for example, a 50 square radius (about the size of a West Point city center block). Each group would do this for a random amount of time (between 5-30 minutes of real time) and then engage in flight mode and go randomly in one of the 8 possible directions. The distance traveled would be a random number between 50 and 100 squares, for example. The group would then start browsing in that 50 square-radius circle again (including banging on random stuff once in a while).

 

But at the same time we want zombies to roam around urban areas more and we want lower-than-ideal areas to be properly repopulated. And there is a very elegant way to make it happen based on the ideal population settings for individual cells by biasing their "flights" in between random movement. All we have to do is to change flight behaviour in groups of adjacent cells (not the whole map).

 

When zombies are randomly choosing one of the 8 directions for a flight, the chance of going in the direction of a low-pop cell would be exactly the same (1/8), *but* when they did choose the right direction, instead of travelling for the base 50-100 squares, they would travel 100-200 squares (this would vary according to ideal cell pop) before roaming again. The lower-than ideal area gets repopulated and the movement still seems natural. Above all, the movements would still be mostly random and the area you cleared could take just one day to be packed again or maybe it would take a week. You would also see more lost zombie groups trampling your crops in your secluded forest farm.

 

Of course, some stragglers would still be required. While it's easy to see that a previously cleared store may be dangerous to enter because of the horde nearby, if a zombie got into that store by itself, you would be caught off-guard.

 

What do you think?

 


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Hey welcome to the forums, glad to have you here. I would strongly recommend you check out the rules and confirmed no's on the link below. but once again welcome to the forums and we are glad to have you here.

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/192-commonly-suggested-suggestions-read-before-posting/

Did you read through his suggestion?

If so, could you point out (to us both) why you suggest he read the Commonly Suggested Suggestions, and linked it?

I see no confirmed No's regarding population densities and migrations, and in fact think it is a very well thought out and unique concept and suggestion.

 

A great idea, and deep suggestion. Welcome to the forums, Hrodrik.

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I support, i already post a suggestion à long Time before about hordes moves in town, based on Max Brooks books.

I like your idea but i would like to add a "mother" horde, roaming through the city and scatter little hordes in its path. That's a way to repopulate area without spawning Z from nowhere, and make also a really big horde you couldnt fight alone. This horde will rarely stop somewhere, and never for more than one day.

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Hey welcome to the forums, glad to have you here. I would strongly recommend you check out the rules and confirmed no's on the link below. but once again welcome to the forums and we are glad to have you here.

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/192-commonly-suggested-suggestions-read-before-posting/

Did you read through his suggestion?

If so, could you point out (to us both) why you suggest he read the Commonly Suggested Suggestions, and linked it?

I see no confirmed No's regarding population densities and migrations, and in fact think it is a very well thought out and unique concept and suggestion.

 

A great idea, and deep suggestion. Welcome to the forums, Hrodrik.

 

oh it wasn't because of anything wrong, i always say it because it seems it may be handy for the future. i also didn't comment because i had to leave mid comment so i didn't get to comment. anyway i might as well now. its a very detailed idea and i do have to say i like it. late game the game seems to mellow out but with this it would be great to get some difficulty going.

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I'm glad someone likes the idea but how do I know the devs have seen it?

 

I posted this on reddit before posting here so I may as well include the link to an addition I made to the reddit post, where I explained it further with the help of a graphical representation of these ideal zombie migration patterns.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/projectzomboid/comments/3fp62h/the_zombie_flight/ctqvw7q

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