How does initial item spawning work?

[XratedSippyCup]

Does it generate on initial load of the new save or when you cross into the "chunk"

[Leader of the Zakonistians]

What is the "chunk"?

[dustbiter]

Your save gets bigger as you uncover more of the map so the game generates stuff as you move into new areas.

[XratedSippyCup]

Originally posted by Leader of the Zakonistians:

What is the "chunk"?

honestly i still don't know. its the terminology they use when setting up sandbox settings.
I just meant that as you reveal more of the map does it spawn then or just all spawned initially.

Originally posted by dustbiter:

Your save gets bigger as you uncover more of the map so the game generates stuff as you move into new areas.

ok thanks! this means the mods i downloaded "should" spawn their materials as i uncover new areas.

[KillerKommando]

Originally posted by XratedSippyCup:

Originally posted by Leader of the Zakonistians:

What is the "chunk"?

honestly i still don't know. its the terminology they use when setting up sandbox settings.
I just meant that as you reveal more of the map does it spawn then or just all spawned initially.

"Chunks" are bits of the map that load up at any given instance. If you laid out the in-game map of Kentucky like a chess board, the chunks would represent one of the squares on the board. I'd wager a guess this is to balance load on your system versus what the game is actually using. For example, do you really need to have real-time data generation on all the zombies in Louisville when you're in Rosewood? By sticking to only generating real-time data for one chunk, it lessens the overall hardware processing required by the game. When you leave a chunk, it becomes "inactive" and will essentially "save" it as it existed when you left. Any items you leave on the ground should stay as will any vehicles moved or structures broken (like windows and doors). Zombies should be in the same area too, IIRC.

Originally posted by XratedSippyCup:

Originally posted by dustbiter:

Your save gets bigger as you uncover more of the map so the game generates stuff as you move into new areas.

ok thanks! this means the mods i downloaded "should" spawn their materials as i uncover new areas.

Yes, for the most part mods added after world generation that affect items should appear when you enter new areas. When looking for loot inside of containers, I believe those are generated when you look at the container and not when you walk into the chunk where the container is.

If you add vehicles after world generation, you need to entire a new chunk to get them to appear (assuming the mod doesn't need new world generation to work).

[Shurenai]

A cell is 300x300, A chunk is 10x10. Objects in loot containers iirc are generated when you first enter the specific chunk it resides in or when you first look at the container.

Things such as vehicles will only appear in places you haven't explored before- If the area is on your map, it's explored; if it's not, it's unexplored.

And Map addons function like vehicles; Unlike vehicles this can cause partial spawning. So, If you've fully explored the place it's supposed to go, nothing will appear. If you've never been there it will appear in full. But if you partially explored it, it'll be a mix of the two and a hot mess.

[KillerKommando]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

A cell is 300x300, A chunk is 10x10. Objects in loot containers iirc are generated when you first enter the specific chunk it resides in or when you first look at the container.

Things such as vehicles will only appear in places you haven't explored before- If the area is on your map, it's explored; if it's not, it's unexplored.

And Map addons function like vehicles; Unlike vehicles this can cause partial spawning. So, If you've fully explored the place it's supposed to go, nothing will appear. If you've never been there it will appear in full. But if you partially explored it, it'll be a mix of the two and a hot mess.

I'm curious where you got a chunk is 10x10.

According to someone's testing on TIS' forums, a chunk is 175x175: https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/26228-of-chunks-and-cells-or-how-i-stopped-survivor-and-learned-to-love-the-custom-sandbox/

Cell (300*300 tiles): the larger square with the numbers in the top left that indicate actual zombies (445), desired amount of zombies for the Cell (889) and the respawn timer for the Cell (72.0) respectively.



Chunk (175*175 tiles): the brighter white smaller square; you're always centered in it and thus it moves with you across the map. Now technically this could be your potential max vision cone and chunks are actually smaller pieces of the map (I've read someone saying Chunks are 10*10 tiles), but since it doesn't matter if you actually see the chunks for the system to determine whether or not to spawn zombies (which I'll illustrate in a moment) you might as well consider this 'your' Chunk.


Respawn Hours: This sets the timer of the Cells that are eligible to spawn zombies (as far as I could tell it always starts running when the Cell has about 10 more desired amount of zombies than actual zombies). Now in the image above the Respawn Hours timer is frozen at 72.0 even though there's only about half of the desired amount of zombies; I suspect this is due to zombies being drawn away to other cells by meta-events or player activity but they still belong to this Cell.



Respawn Unseen Hours: Everything your chunk has touched won't respawn zombies until this amount of in-game hours has passed outside of your chunk. Remember that the Respawn Hours timer for the Cell also has to fire to spawn zombies. For example: in the images below I have Respawn Unseen Hours at 3 and Respawn Hours at 1; in the left picture the Respawn Hours timer is about to fire, to the right is a fragment later when it did. No zombies spawned, because I did a quick lap where my Chunk covered the entire cell.


Edit: this is to say that I have no idea either, lol. It seems like a 'chunk' isn't really defined.

[Shurenai]

One of the devs; I'd swear I'd seen him say it more recently but this is the only one I found from the post history.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/108600/discussions/0/1738882531968983253/#c1738882531970566004

Originally posted by EnigmaGrey:

Should be chunk-based (10x10 tiles), not cell-based (300 x 300 tiles). So basically any visible area around you will have its timer reset, as you walk through.

But even before that, A chunk is 10x10; Every loaded chunk is an actual game file in your save file directory that you can delete to refresh a 10x10 area of the map, if you're so inclined.

What the user from that post you found is saying is that for the purposes of their testing it's easier to just call it 175x175, which is the approximate loaded game area at any given time, since you can't ever really load one single chunk.

[KillerKommando]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

One of the devs; I'd swear I'd seen him say it more recently but this is the only one I found from the post history.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/108600/discussions/0/1738882531968983253/#c1738882531970566004

Originally posted by EnigmaGrey:

Should be chunk-based (10x10 tiles), not cell-based (300 x 300 tiles). So basically any visible area around you will have its timer reset, as you walk through.

But even before that, A chunk is 10x10; Every loaded chunk is an actual game file in your save file directory that you can delete to refresh a 10x10 area of the map, if you're so inclined.

What the user from that post you found is saying is that for the purposes of their testing it's easier to just call it 175x175, which is the approximate loaded game area at any given time, since you can't ever really load one single chunk.

Cheers! I've seen people say 10x10 before, but it never seemed to match up with what the messages were in-game when you load up a world (e.g. 0/579 chunks).