Any light source that doesn't draw screamers?

[behemoth227]

Those little skanks are more then moderately annoying, have to clear out 5-6 of them and all their buddies every day.

[Mardoin69]

any electric light doesn't.. but, then you need a batter bank. Till then.. candles are pretty low heat but, don't give off much light. Best to try an make your miners helmet as soon as you can.. then just use it till you get Electric lights setup.

[Reeva!]

you can make electrical lights instead of placing torches, but you can also set your gamma to max, helps out enough

[Acarin]

It is more likely that your forge(s) is/are adding enough to the Heat Map to attract the Screamers. They _love_ forges. Switch them off for a couple of days, or move them, and see whether it makes a difference?

[M@LL0WPUFF]

you can turn candles into table candles that give off far less heat. dont use torches and dont put torches outside (learnt my lesson!)

[behemoth227]

Thanks for the replies. Is there somewhere I can see this "heat map" of a given area? Does the biome effect it? Is there a height limitation? I have my forge on top of the large hosptial in navesgane, but I guess its just not quite high enough. Is there some list of actual numbers of what puts out how much heat, or is it just a general forge>torches>candles>table candles?

[YamaKami]

Heat not as in temperature. As such biome and elevation have no factor in it. Workstations,your camp fire, torches, and candles, as well as any activities you do generater "heat". Heat as in if you are robbing a bank and attract poilce presence. So when you fire a gun (it is loud), or chop down a tree, or upgrade/build, or any of the aformentioned methods of gainig heat, it adds said heat to that "chunk" that you are in at the time. After a specific amount (I am not sure the actual figures) you generate a screamer spawn. Then your heat goes down some. And no there is no way to see where chuncks start and stop, short of noticing a change in the heat map (which I belive can be seen in the dev menu by pressing F1, and enter DM then press esc to access it)

[Hanzo]

They should really change it from "heat" map to "activity" map, would be less confusing.

[MyProfile]

Some observations.

Firstly, I can't find any other definitive use of the word heat that doesn't in some form or the other relate to temperature.

All activity in life creates heat and raises temperature.

In relation to this game, all player activity raises a counter that the developer calls heat.

Some of these activities do not require fire however most do require fuel and fire.

For example, torches, campfires, forges and even chemistry stations in game burn wood.
All of these activities raise the temperature of the area they happen to take place in.

Any other activity that does not require fuel or fire theoretically would still require activity by the player which would raise the temperature of the player by simulating the burning of calories and in turn raise the temperature of the area and the counter known as heat.
Calories are fuel.

In conclusion,I personally think the developers understand the definition of the word heat and have used it as such. It certainly seems so to me.


Candles are your best bet until you reach a more advanced stage.

[behemoth227]

Well, this was...entertaining, at least. Also at least a wee bit informative. One last question. I've heard talk of people digging beyond a certain point to forge, so that they are beyond the lure distance of the assorted critters. Does that same distance work building higher? So, if I pass X blocks in height, then do my forging and what not up there, will it not draw as much attention?

[MyProfile]

Originally posted by behemoth227:

Well, this was...entertaining, at least. Also at least a wee bit informative. One last question. I've heard talk of people digging beyond a certain point to forge, so that they are beyond the lure distance of the assorted critters. Does that same distance work building higher? So, if I pass X blocks in height, then do my forging and what not up there, will it not draw as much attention?

There is really little difference but what differences you might face from AI behavior can be huge.

If you build high you expend materials.
If you dig, you gain materials.

Zombies will attack base structures if they are aware of your presence or if those structures get in their way.
Zombies do not dig in alpha 16. That is not to say they will not damage the ground and eventually make their way into the ground. A screamer will flail about and damage the ground. There are reports of being seen through the ground. If you dig for a base then deeper is better.

You won't escape the counter of the heat map either away.

Escaping the sight of the Screamer is the bottom line really if that is the tactic you wish to employ. She is of little threat unless she sees you and screams a horde onto your position.

[KellyR]

If you can have your base at least 100 blocks away from the surface (In either direction, up or down, doesn't matter) then you're 100% safe because you're exploiting the fact that the spawner will give up if it can't find a valid spawn position within 100m of you.

So screamers will simply fail to spawn at all. So will all other zombies, including blood moon hordes.

[krzosu18]

Originally posted by Acarin:

It is more likely that your forge(s) is/are adding enough to the Heat Map to attract the Screamers. They _love_ forges. Switch them off for a couple of days, or move them, and see whether it makes a difference?

While forges do add to this problem they arent the only heat source -> from game files you can clearly see that burning barels torches and candles do add to heat map -> so now take into account how many of those are usually placed to lit your place ? usually quite a lot -> so yes while forges do speed up screamer spawn but now the primitive lights do so too :/ for eg i had about 20 burning barels + some candles and when forges were off i usually had about 6 screamers per day - with 2 forges on i had usually about 10 per day -> which can be a problem :D

[KellyR]

Candles produce so little heat that unless you have like 10 of them in a single 16x16 chunk (Massive overkill), the heat will dissipate faster than they create it.

I place candles 5-6 blocks apart in a grid. At that spacing, even torches won't pull screamers.