Unexpected zombie migrations or is it repopulation?

[Axiomatic]

I've finally gotten a character to survive 6 weeks and things seem to be going well w/ my base, skills, and supply runs. But something strange happened today and I'm not sure what's going on.

 

I'm based out of Rosewood construction site, and a week ago (gametime) I started clearing out the fire station, police station, county court, and the small downtown area. In about 4 days I had cleared most everything up to the church in the main intersection of town so that when I drove or ran thru, I would only see the occasional single zombie wandering about. I took a day and a half off from this due to rainstorm and doing some base work and farming.

 

Then today, about 6 or 7 gamedays after I started this effort, I hop in my car and start driving to my next area to clear when I see dozens of zombies in groups up to 5-6 littered thru the area that the day before had been essentially clear. This is a bit disconcerting so I pull over to a safe spot to have a look around, and that's when I see something really strange to me. Zoomed out as much as possible and with my field of view moved as far out as it goes, I see a line of 2-3 zombies shambling towards town. And then this line just continues, with some space (maybe 4-5 tiles) in between each zombie, that line becomes 9 to 10 zombies, all taking a straight line from the fields into town. Nothing particularly to attract them, they just seem on a mission to repopulate the town. And the distance they travel to do this is vast, it goes from the farthest west my view allowed almost to the farthest east my view allowed.

 

So....is this how the game repopulates certain areas over time? The zombies essentially hoard their way back in from some unknown starting point? Without barriers is it even possible to keep an area clear of zombies over time? Does staying away from an area long enough cause a repopulation?

[trombonaught]

31 minutes ago, Axiomatic said:

The zombies essentially hoard their way back in from some unknown starting point? Without barriers is it even possible to keep an area clear of zombies over time? Does staying away from an area long enough cause a repopulation?

Basically this! They migrate in from other areas. I've seen people make massive safe zones by connecting houses and buildings together with fences, but that's about all you can do. Otherwise, zeds can migrate from higher population zones into lower.

 

You don't have to build a giant fence though. Keep clearing zeds out of areas beyond your own and that'll help too. A good purge with fire every week or so helps speed this up the clearing process if things are dense, just make sure you do that away from your base and don't burn yourself.

 

Edit: oh and yeah, if you look at the sandbox settings I think you'll see there is a "respawn unseen" value. Zeds will start slowly respawning into an area that hasn't been visited for 24 hours or something like that, so keep up a regular border patrol if only to make sure the area has been seen/respawn blocked.

[Axiomatic]

Ahh ok, good to know. So for the respawning mechanic, do the zombies just get popped back into final location like magic, or do they always travel to their final location? If the former, then not sure if walls/barriers serve much purpose since they could just respawn into some random room somewhere within walls. If the latter, then walls/barriers would help and just require maintenance as damaged.

[BentNose]

7 hours ago, Axiomatic said:

Ahh ok, good to know. So for the respawning mechanic, do the zombies just get popped back into final location like magic, or do they always travel to their final location? If the former, then not sure if walls/barriers serve much purpose since they could just respawn into some random room somewhere within walls. If the latter, then walls/barriers would help and just require maintenance as damaged.

It's both actually.

 

[Axiomatic]

4 minutes ago, BentNose said:

It's both actually.

 

Hah damn, well it'll keep me on my toes then as I continue to explore and scavenge.

[BentNose]

1 minute ago, Axiomatic said:

Hah damn, well it'll keep me on my toes then as I continue to explore and scavenge.

I pretty much always play on sandbox. One of the settings I like to change is extending the amount of time before zombies respawn. If I do fiddle with the migration numbers, it isn't much.

I've seen it theorized that there's a hidden 'stock' of zombies to be spawned if the player goes and starts making a racket though. Situations like driving around honking your horn or pulling out a very loud weapon like the shotgun and going to town.

[trombonaught]

23 hours ago, Axiomatic said:

Ahh ok, good to know. So for the respawning mechanic, do the zombies just get popped back into final location like magic, or do they always travel to their final location? If the former, then not sure if walls/barriers serve much purpose since they could just respawn into some random room somewhere within walls. If the latter, then walls/barriers would help and just require maintenance as damaged.

They "travel" (as data I believe) into thei map chunk from the edge of the map. I believe if there is no legal pathway available (perhaps because you encircled an area in fencing) they will not respawn. 

 

So if you 100% block off an area, you can block it's respawn.