Zombie Dispersal

[Jarzzen]

Ok, my sandbox has zombie count set to insane, migration off, respawn off, redistribute off, everything I could find to disable along those lines. I then took my toon gathered up a massive amount of zombies and like the pied piper led them out of town along the railway track outside to the south of West Point. When I finally let them eat me, some stayed but a large portion of them dispersed north, and low and behold when I took my next lemming along the same path that southern portion of town was repopulated and the mass I took to the tracks was minimal.
With migration/respawn/redistribution disabled, why are the zombies leaving my corpse?

[The early worm deserves the bird]

Why did you let them eat you?

[Jarzzen]

Originally posted by The early worm deserves the bird:

Why did you let them eat you?

It was a test to see if the zeds would stay at my corpse, as I'm trying to make a sandbox where they behave a certain way.

[Legion Reaver]

You may have gotten out of range for a number of them as you pulled them out of town. The hearing, sight and all that kinda stuff needs to be taken into account. There's also a setting that controls how long they will follow the player as well that you might need to adjust.

[Jarzzen]

Originally posted by Legion Reaver:

You may have gotten out of range for a number of them as you pulled them out of town. The hearing, sight and all that kinda stuff needs to be taken into account. There's also a setting that controls how long they will follow the player as well that you might need to adjust.

I couldn't have been OOR, they came to my corpse and dispersed once I died. I have their sight set to poor, but left hearing alone. They had no problems following me when I was mashing my 'Hey You!' button.

[CharmQuark]

I'm only guessing here but I think they might have dispersed due to the rally group size limit (which can be changed) and the extra zombies in the town could be the zombies that had to break through doors to get outside. You generally need to make at least three runs to pull all zombies out of an area.

[Jarzzen]

Originally posted by CharmQuark:

I'm only guessing here but I think they might have dispersed due to the rally group size limit (which can be changed) and the extra zombies in the town could be the zombies that had to break through doors to get outside. You generally need to make at least three runs to pull all zombies out of an area.

Yeah, that's what I was attempting to do, so I could loot houses, then eventually light the forest around the zombies on fire; or run them through with a train (if one exists). I'm trying to recall what I set the rally size to. I think I left it at 20, but set the distance from the leader to 2. If that's what the issue is, should I set the group size to max, and distance to 0? I litterally want the zombies to stay at my corpse when I die, as I'm just using them as lemmings atm to clear out West Point and the area up to the fence. I'm doing this as I want to 'start' in Lousiville, and not have to re clear large sections if I die, just to get back up there.

[CharmQuark]

Originally posted by Jarzzen:

Originally posted by CharmQuark:

I'm only guessing here but I think they might have dispersed due to the rally group size limit (which can be changed) and the extra zombies in the town could be the zombies that had to break through doors to get outside. You generally need to make at least three runs to pull all zombies out of an area.

Yeah, that's what I was attempting to do, so I could loot houses, then eventually light the forest around the zombies on fire; or run them through with a train (if one exists). I'm trying to recall what I set the rally size to. I think I left it at 20, but set the distance from the leader to 2. If that's what the issue is, should I set the group size to max, and distance to 0? I litterally want the zombies to stay at my corpse when I die, as I'm just using them as lemmings atm to clear out West Point and the area up to the fence. I'm doing this as I want to 'start' in Lousiville, and not have to re clear large sections if I die, just to get back up there.

I don't think the distance from leader wouldn't make much difference in this situation. In the past when I've played with very high rally group sizes they did seem to stick together if I drew them all to one place but keep in mind that zombies don't form rally groups when in forest zones so you might want to keep them on the road as the train tracks might still count as forest. Also, don't forget that all zombies in a group will follow their leader around so large groups can cause any area's population to fluctuate rapidly.

If you want you could also just activate debug mode since there is an option to remove all zombies that are loaded in around the player. You can do this by going to Project Zomboid's properties and type "-debug" in the launch options box. Go to the main menu and press F11 and untick the "Break On Error" box (this is especially important if you use any mods) then load into the save. Once in-game you can right click to open the standard context menu and there will be a "Zombies" option that will expand into a "Remove All" option. You can also open a zombie population map by clicking on the new icon on the left side of the screen to open the debug menu, go to the "Dev" section then click on zombie population.

[ProtecTron]

Nice discussion, keep it comming...

I'm dealing with zombie settings myself and I can't seem to find the middle ground. They're either too good hearing or too deaf. I've almost deactivated rally groups (made max to 5 and only if they are really close to each other).

Hearing Good means they hear your Q "Hey you!" from three blocks away. And if you fight a few zeds on the street, all the neighborhood comes to get some. With hearing Normal they behave like your neighbours and only attack if you step on their property grass.

Memory: set to "long" and "Persue distance to last seen/heard event" of about 400.

Testing migration, up to about 48 hours to have a place clean for a while once cleared.

Population from 0.75 at start to 2.25 peaking on day 30-50

I've witnessed hordes of loose zombies, looking pretty "realistic" roaming towards my base, being a small house near the road on a rural area... Not only one horde but two, a few days before, I did bother all the zombies in the road with my looting travels (with loud cars). ¿Could that be the result of the "400 persue distance" setting and long lasting memory?

[Jarzzen]

Originally posted by CharmQuark:

Originally posted by Jarzzen:

Yeah, that's what I was attempting to do, so I could loot houses, then eventually light the forest around the zombies on fire; or run them through with a train (if one exists). I'm trying to recall what I set the rally size to. I think I left it at 20, but set the distance from the leader to 2. If that's what the issue is, should I set the group size to max, and distance to 0? I litterally want the zombies to stay at my corpse when I die, as I'm just using them as lemmings atm to clear out West Point and the area up to the fence. I'm doing this as I want to 'start' in Lousiville, and not have to re clear large sections if I die, just to get back up there.

I don't think the distance from leader wouldn't make much difference in this situation. In the past when I've played with very high rally group sizes they did seem to stick together if I drew them all to one place but keep in mind that zombies don't form rally groups when in forest zones so you might want to keep them on the road as the train tracks might still count as forest. Also, don't forget that all zombies in a group will follow their leader around so large groups can cause any area's population to fluctuate rapidly.

If you want you could also just activate debug mode since there is an option to remove all zombies that are loaded in around the player. You can do this by going to Project Zomboid's properties and type "-debug" in the launch options box. Go to the main menu and press F11 and untick the "Break On Error" box (this is especially important if you use any mods) then load into the save. Once in-game you can right click to open the standard context menu and there will be a "Zombies" option that will expand into a "Remove All" option. You can also open a zombie population map by clicking on the new icon on the left side of the screen to open the debug menu, go to the "Dev" section then click on zombie population.

Thank you for this. I created a new sandbox and played with the rally settings. I'm still able to gather up a few thousand zeds, then I let them eat me, and I still see them disperse off my corpse with only 50 or so left hanging around. I also noted that they always tend to go north, the direction I acquired them from.

[Jarzzen]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2862344877

[Jarzzen]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2862345131

[Jarzzen]

The settings for the above: Population Multiplier 4.0, Respawn Hours 0.0, Peak Multiplier 1.0, Respawn Unseen 8760.0, Respawn Multiplier 0.0, Redistribution 0.0, Rally Group Size 1000, Rally Travel Distance 50, Rally Group Separation 25, Rally Group Radius 1.
I have tried Rally Group Size 0, Rally Travel Distance, 5, and Rally Group Separation 5, with the other settings as above, and I'm not seeing any difference. They keep dispersing when I die. It's like rubber banding back to whence they came, only they're actually shambling back.

[CharmQuark]

Originally posted by Jarzzen:

The settings for the above: Population Multiplier 4.0, Respawn Hours 0.0, Peak Multiplier 1.0, Respawn Unseen 8760.0, Respawn Multiplier 0.0, Redistribution 0.0, Rally Group Size 1000, Rally Travel Distance 50, Rally Group Separation 25, Rally Group Radius 1.
I have tried Rally Group Size 0, Rally Travel Distance, 5, and Rally Group Separation 5, with the other settings as above, and I'm not seeing any difference. They keep dispersing when I die. It's like rubber banding back to whence they came, only they're actually shambling back.

When you say "Redistribution" do you mean the Redistribute Hours setting? If so to effectively turn that off you should put a very high value rather than zero. You're telling the zombies to redistribute instantly.

[Jarzzen]

Originally posted by CharmQuark:

Originally posted by Jarzzen:

The settings for the above: Population Multiplier 4.0, Respawn Hours 0.0, Peak Multiplier 1.0, Respawn Unseen 8760.0, Respawn Multiplier 0.0, Redistribution 0.0, Rally Group Size 1000, Rally Travel Distance 50, Rally Group Separation 25, Rally Group Radius 1.
I have tried Rally Group Size 0, Rally Travel Distance, 5, and Rally Group Separation 5, with the other settings as above, and I'm not seeing any difference. They keep dispersing when I die. It's like rubber banding back to whence they came, only they're actually shambling back.

When you say "Redistribution" do you mean the Redistribute Hours setting? If so to effectively turn that off you should put a very high value rather than zero. You're telling the zombies to redistribute instantly.

It states in the hover over that setting the value to zero disables redistribution. I'll try setting it to max then.

[CharmQuark]

Originally posted by Jarzzen:

Originally posted by CharmQuark:

When you say "Redistribution" do you mean the Redistribute Hours setting? If so to effectively turn that off you should put a very high value rather than zero. You're telling the zombies to redistribute instantly.

It states in the hover over that setting the value to zero disables redistribution. I'll try setting it to max then.

Ah, I missed that. It is still worth trying I guess but if that doesn't work I would recommend you just try out debug mode as I'm out of ideas.