Most Realistic Zombie Settings

[PintLasher]

Just trying to find the right settings to make zombies behave more like they did before the insane difficulty patch of Build 30+

Trying to find the most realistic settings

 

Advanced Zombie Settings                                                                                  Zombie Lore

 

Population X                                   2.0                                                                Speed                    Fast Shambler

Population Start X                          1.0                                                                 Strength                 Normal

Population Peak X                          2.0                                                                 Toughness            Weak

Population Peak Day                      7                                                                    Transmission         Blood + Saliva

                                                                                                                             Mortality                 2-3 Days

Respawn Hours                              0                                                                    Reanimate             0-12 hours

Respawn Unseen Hours                 0                                                                    Cognition               Basic Navigation

Respawn X                                     0                                                                     Memory                 Short

Redistribute Hours                         24                                                                   Decomposition       Slows + weakens

                                                                                                                              Sight                      Normal

Follow Sound Distance                 100                                                                   Hearing                  Normal

Rally Group Size                           100                                                                   Smell                     Normal

Rally Travel Distance                    10

Rally Group Separation                 15

Rally Group Radius                       10

 

 

 

 

 

With these settings I find the zombies group and behave a little bit more like they used to. You'll still get hordes but because of the shortened Rally Travel Distance you won't get as many. Zombies will mostly be wandering about, in groups of 3-10 rather than there being massive groups of 100+ zombies at every single house.

 

Weaker toughness brings zombies back to how they were a few patches ago too, zombies got really really tanky a few builds back.

 

Basic Navigation - Zombie pathfinding skills are still a bit OP compared to how they used to be but this is a lot better.

 

Memory Short - A little bit more realistic

 

 

 

Any changes you guys can think of making?? The main thing that needs work is the Rally settings, looking to find optimum settings for bunching up and spreading out. Also does anyone know if Population Peak settings even do anything with respawn turned off?

[Domoro]

Em... I would say that most realistic settings is no zombies at all.

And without respawn game will be really easy and not really realistic.

Some zombies could travel from other bigger cities etc.

Tho, i think that this mechanic needs some heavy balancing because this sucks when after 2 days your base is filled with zombies.

I think zombies should respawn ONLY on edges of map, not in the centre of city.

[Hydromancerx]

I have been messing around with ...

 

Population X             

Population Start X  

Population Peak X        

Population Peak Day

 

I have made it so the population peak day is much later but at the peak it is like maxed out. Likewise the starting population I have set to very low. This simulates for me the initial small population of the small towns and then over time zombies from the neighboring big cities come in and flood the region.

 

It gives you more time to prepare but sooner or later its going to be hell.

[Zorak]

my favorite sandbox setting is:

start population 0,5

max population 3.0

peak at 30 days

respawn time 100 hrs

respawn% - 0.1

migration time 72 hrs

 

with those settings i have nice start to set up base get some loot enjoy the ratio and tv and after a 2 weeks its getting hard. with migration set up at 3 days i dont have to clean my base every day but they still come from time to time. long respawn time is not that bad, they just respawn far away and then migrate to my cells.

[Okamikurainya]

And without respawn game will be really easy and not really realistic.

 

 

I've never found lacking a respawn to be any easier, though I'm one player and I'm not sure if you're talking in terms of multiplayer.

 

I think zombies should respawn ONLY on edges of map, not in the centre of city.

 

 

I agree with this 100%. I always found it weird, but then again I usually just RP it as "I don't have eyes everywhere, dang thing must have crawled in while I wasn't paying attention." I'm guessing that in multiplayer it might be a bit more jarring, especially if you fortify a very large area only to find no breaches but a hoarde within. :/

[Domoro]

It's easier becasue if you'll clean one are it will stay cleaned almost forever.

I know about what i'm talking about because i played in 2X builds without that respawn thing. Game was so boring that i needed to make adventures only to kill some zombies.

[Way2sp00ky]

I've been using this setup recently:

 

 

Advanced Zombie Settings                                                                                  Zombie Lore

 

Population X                                   1.0                                                                 Speed                    Fast Shambler

Population Start X                          0.5                                                                  Strength                 Normal

Population Peak X                          2.0                                                                 Toughness            Weak

Population Peak Day                      20                                                                  Transmission         Blood + Saliva

                                                                                                                             Mortality                 2-3 Days

Respawn Hours                              72                                                                   Reanimate             0-12 hours

Respawn Unseen Hours                 72                                                                   Cognition               Basic Navigation

Respawn X                                     0.75                                                                Memory                 Short

Redistribute Hours                         24                                                                   Decomposition       Slows

                                                                                                                              Sight                      Poor

Follow Sound Distance                 100                                                                   Hearing                  Normal

Rally Group Size                           10                                                                    Smell                     Poor

Rally Travel Distance                    20

Rally Group Separation                 25

Rally Group Radius                       3

[Svarog]

I'm mobile so I don't have my preset around but I typically go for low start pop going insane in 2-3 months.

 

Recently I've been messing around trying to find a preset where I could play good without respawns, I'll post stuff up if i find any good ones.

[Zyklon-M]

I am trying to create a setting one year into the apocalypse, where most zombies are dead and where the remaining zombies are weak and rotting away. I have always found it very unrealistic that zombies would survive for years and years in abundant amount. For realism, they should probably fall apart in a matter of months, but one year sounds a bit more like fun to my ears.  This is for those of you out there that would like to focus on the rebuilding aspect of the apocalypse rather than on the chaos and…zombies. Below is the setting I am currently trying out. Someday, I would like to test a setting where zombies rot away and disappear almost altogether, but I will likely wait for the implementation of NPCs before I try that or the world will seem rather empty and pointless. Anyway, my settings:

Zombie count: Low
Distribution Uniform (they should be more spread out after a year)

Advanced:
Population multiplier 0.35 (This will be lowered even more when NPCs are added)
Start multiplier 0.35 (Still quite a lot of them, don't worry)
Peak 0.35
Peak day 1 (they will not increase in number, only decrease)
Respawn hours 72.0 (Will lower this number when vehicles are added and long trips are made faster)
Respawn unseen 16.0
Respawn multiplier 0.1
Redistribute hours 12.0
Follow sounds distance 100 (Might lower this, not really happy about their still amazing navigation)
Rally group size 20
Rally travel distance 20
Rally group separation 15
Rally group radius 3

Water, electricity shutoff instant
Alarms: Never
Locked doors: Rare
Food, weapon: Extremely rare
Other: Rare (otherwise I guess a sledgehammer will be impossible to find)

Zombie lore:
Speed: Shamblers
Strenght: Weak
Toughness. Fragile
Cognition: Basic navigation
(Next time, I might also change their senses from normal to poor)

I have noticed a few problems of realism with this setting. The first one is that the zombies tend to navigate a bit too skillful when you have a safe house with an indestructible net fence around it. Right now, whenever they hear a sound, they immediately head straight for the entrance located on the other side of my compund, and then proceed back to the place where they heard the sound. I would like them to stand by the fence rather than navigating like a pro. Also, random happenings are making me frustrated with this setting. There should be a setting where you could decrease the amount of helicopters, gunshots and all kinds of happening decrease. If the amount of survivors is lower, random sounds should happen a lot less frequently.

Lastly, instant water shutoffs still lets me use water taps.