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Can someone explain population multiplier and peak multiplier to me


Geras

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Hey

 

I don't quite understand what's the difference between population multiplier and peak multiplier in advanced zombie options.

 

When I choose 8 months after... population multiplier is set at 4 which stands for insane zombie count. But peak multiplier is set at 1.5...

 

Also: start population is set to 1 and time to peak population is set to 28

 

Sooo... what does that mean?

 

I start with population at 1.0 and after 28 days it gets bigger to 1.5. Where does the population multiplier apply?

 

Thanks.

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population multiplier: old "zombie intensity" - how many zombies you want to begin with.

start multiplier: how much of the "population mutliplier" you want at game start (it will slowly increase)

peak multiplier: how many zombies you want at X days (and forever after)

 

k?

 

What I like to do is set a very high pop multiplier, a low start multiplier, and a very very low peak multiplier after 3mo, with about 10%/day refill. This means you start off a bit easy, then by day 10 you're totally swarmed, which slowly dies off over the next months (which I make winter) until you're left with just a few stragglers. It's sort of the opposite of how the system is supposed to work (peak should be highest amount), but I don't care, I still do have a peak, just by using the pop multiplier creatively instead.

 

I guess that's more confusing. Just pay attention to the first few lines.

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It's like this. I think. Because we haven't gotten a clear explanation, and as far as I know nobody not on the dev team has dug into the code to give us the exact equation. Maybe I missed it, though, or forgot it. Whatever, here's my best attempt:

 

You set pop multiplier to 1 (ie you don't touch it). You have "normal zombies" now, just the standard amount. If you set start multiplier to 0.5, then you start with 50% that many. If you set the respawn rate to 10%/day, then after 5 days you'll have the 100% normal amount of zombies. Good up till this point?

 

If you set pop multiplier to 0.2 (you reduce it), then you have "low zombies". If you set start multiplier to 1, then you start with 20% of normal zombies, and it stays that way (since you started with 100% of your total pop desired). Good?

 

Now comes in the peak multiplier. This has a date attached to it, when you want the peak to be reached. If you set it to 1 day, then the game will start to try reaching peak on the second day. It will do this based on your respawn settings. So let's say you had normal zombies AND a 1.0 start multiplier. Then you set peak to 4.0 after 15 days (with 10%/day respawn). That means that the game would see the "total pop desired" each day as:

 

day 0: 100% of normal

day 5: 200% of normal

day 10: 300% of normal

day 15: 400% of normal

day 20: 400% of normal

day 5000: 400% of normal

 

k? So each day the game wasn't at 400%, it would spawn 10% more (as per settings).

 

Now let's say you start with pop multiplier at 2.0, start at 0.5, and peak at 5.0 after 30 days.

 

Desired Pop...

initiation: 100% of normal (2.0 x 0.5)

day 0: 200% of normal (2.0, the start is just to set the starting amount in each cell)

day 5: 367% of normal ((we start with 200%, then add (5.0x2.0-1.0)/30 each day, which is 33%/day here)

day 15: 700% of normal

day 30: 1000% of normal (5.0 x 2.0 = 10.0, or 1000%)

day 300: 1000% (you're at peak, it stays here forever)

 

Now, for the actual zombie count, it depends on whether a cell has reached its desired pop and how fast you're respawning if it hasn't (and how many you've killed or have migrated, but we'll ignore that for simplicity). So, if we set 100%/day, then each day the full amount will be respawned. However, if we set 10%/day, then it's going to be playing catch up in our above example. For that, we would get:

 

Actual Zombie Count:

initiation: 100% (2.0 x 1.0 start)

day 5: 250% (100% start + 10% day 1 x 233 + 10% day 2 x 267% + 10% day 3 x 300% + 10% day 4 x 333% + 10% day 5 x 367%)

...And I'm not doing any more math! But you hopefully get the point now.

 

Anyway, that's how *I* understand the math to work. Let a dev strike me down with his furious actual-equation-lightning-bolt should I be wrong.

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-snip-

 

Thank you for your elaborate answer! I understand all that - the part that gets me confused is when peak multiplier is a lower number than population multiplier. Makes little sense to me to start off with a billion of zombies everywhere just to see the population get less numerous over time.

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Well, that's how I do it, it doesn't mean that's how the system was intended to be used. Most players want ever increasing zombie hordes.

 

You can always do something like:

start = 0.25

pop = 1.0

peak = 50 / 365 days

respawn = 10%/day

 

It'd just keep getting more and more insane and be unsurvivable after a while without a skyfort.

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