too many screamers

[Fajuto13]

I like to play in the warrior difficulty, but when I play with it 5 screamers or more appear, and sometimes even when I'm not using the forge or anything like that it appears. They could better balance the appearance of screamers, to appear only at night or 1 or 3 at most per day, I am in a reasonably high game stage, day 116 more so when I switch to normal difficulty I have to kill 5 screamers a day , could put the option to control the maximum appearance of screamers per day

[Geck0]

Screamers shouldn't appear if your base isn't doing much on the heatmap

[Fajuto13]

yes, but even if I'm working with the forge or the drill, killing 5 screamers a day is too much, sometimes I kill a screamer and within 15 seconds another one appears

[Fajuto13]

this is just a suggestion i can still kill 5 or 7 screamers a day, for me this game is perfect, just need to optimize better and save the selected resolution so i don't have to change the native resolution of my monitor just to play

[DthBlayde]

Originally posted by Jotav13:

yes, but even if I'm working with the forge or the drill, killing 5 screamers a day is too much, sometimes I kill a screamer and within 15 seconds another one appears

Also it's more than just the drill or forge. Heavy amounts of activity, noise, construction, excessive use of torches, generators running etc. And the Screamers only summon hordes if you're actually spotted. They have two different screams: One is more a sound-off that it's in the area, The other is the actual horde summon. Best to let them off themselves on passive defenses in the area, or take them out sight-unseen in a single shot.

That said, it's entirely possible that screamers will summon other screamers, summon more screamers ad nausem. It can get out of control real quick, so I do agree some sort of limiting control might be a benefit.

[castitatis]

Screamers come because of the heat map. If you're getting that many screamers, it means you're doing very heat heavy work in your base. If you've got 3 forges(1.5), 1 chem lab(1.5) 1 workstation(0.5), 2 cement mixers(0.5) You're looking at at increase of 7.5 heat map per 15 min~
Spawning a screamer at the 100 mark
Each TORCH also gives you 4.05 heat every 15 min
Each DOOR/hatch also passively generates about 0.5 every 15 min, as well as generating 0.5 everytime you open and close it
Firing your gun ups your heat map as well, at roughly 0.3 heat PER bullet(from high damage guns)

And the only way to stop the spawning, is to litterally stop everything for roughly 30~ minutes


If you're very active inside your base, digging under it with an auger while multiple workstations are all active on top of your head and you keep going in and out to kill the screamers that are spawned, opening and closing every door and hatch on the way in and out, and then shooting them. All you'll do is spawn even more of them continuously.


A good trick is to have your base surrounded by spikes with a way in underground outside the spike area and mine in a different area then your base. That way you lessen the amount of heat generated and screamers will go die on your spikes over and over again.


Fun fact, 25 campfires will make you reach 100% heat every single reset, allowing you to farm insane amount of zombies.

[Fajuto13]

for my game level, until the screamers are not very dangerous anymore anyway they scare me and force me to stop whatever I'm doing, I watched a lot of alpha 15 videos and even in insane mode there weren't as many screamers as now , I like the difficulty but being interrupted every time is boring. The way is to get infinite gasoline and leave my blade traps on all the time, because iron spikes are very expensive and for me it's not very effective because of the zombie demolition

[castitatis]

Unfortunately basing yourself off videos made from A15 isin't the best way to judge such a complex in-game mechanic. Often, they are made either by very experienced players that know what they are doing and although are doing VERY well, are limiting their issues manually without saying so, by say not having forges running 24/7 at the beginning, using campfires as minimally as possible and not putting 15 torches everywhere. And if they're from a newer player, then they don't have the know how generally to early game boost to where it can become a problem. Heck most of them don't even make torches because they don't know how.
Having played since A14 I can tell you its always been a bit wacky if you've got too much running at once, especially early. There was a few bugs here and there, but mostly from players having a save from say....18.1, game updating to 18.2, and them not making a new map.

Upgrading to iron spike is 4 forged iron, basically 40 iron. 100 iron spike which should be plenty enough for a single row of spiked traps will cover just any base, unless you're making one of insane size, which you shouldn't early anyways

[Fajuto13]

my beautiful house is a little big, 100 spikes is not enough to surround it, however I just wanted to ask for a future option in the game, this is not the biggest problem now. I'll try to exchange torches for lamps to see if it helps a little, thanks for the tips

[castitatis]

You definitely want to switch to candles instead of torches, or if you can, directly to electricity based lighting. Candles generate 25% of the heat torches do, while electric lights generate none, bar the base heat generated by the generator. In fact, you can have your base light up like a christmas tree with 300 spot lights and it won't generate anymore heat then if it was completely dark.
This page has quite a bit of info regarding all this:
https://7daystodie.gamepedia.com/Heatmap

[Trooper Bri]

Yeah, screamers are easier to spawn in higher game stages for whatever reason. My crafting base usually only has a couple forges running at any given time, and early game I don't get screamers from it.

Hence my favorite crafting base design. Elevated using 4 vertical supports in a 9x9 square. 4 squares for a 17x17 platform, with the first floor usually being 7 blocks up. I run electric fences all around the outside of the supports, then a field of spikes under the base, and 2 or 3 blocks out from the electric fence posts. 1'st floor gets 4 shotgun turrets, one on each side. That 1'st floor is just a killing floor. All the flooring there is iron bars (minus the horizontal supports) so I can shoot from anywhere.

That's usually all built by day 30 or so, and it's pretty bulletproof. I don't have to deal with screamers, and it soaks up wandering hordes real easy too. I don't fight hordes there, but it would do fine until the Demolishers showed up.

[Geck0]

Originally posted by castitatis:

You definitely want to switch to candles instead of torches, or if you can, directly to electricity based lighting. Candles generate 25% of the heat torches do, while electric lights generate none, bar the base heat generated by the generator. In fact, you can have your base light up like a christmas tree with 300 spot lights and it won't generate anymore heat then if it was completely dark.
This page has quite a bit of info regarding all this:
https://7daystodie.gamepedia.com/Heatmap

According to the wiki, generator banks don't produce heat on the heatmap, at least no more than solar and battery banks, even while they're running.

[castitatis]

Generator, Battery, and Solar Bank will increase heat passively (even if it's not being used) at a rather low frequency

Part of the passive area, its slight, but negligible.

[Zourin]

99% of screamer problems can usually be attributed to excessive use of torches/candles. Each torch is roughly worth 2-4% 'heat' by themselves. Having 10-20 of the things will probably cause a screamer to pop every 10 minutes or so, or more often if you have actual crafting going on.

[Fajuto13]

I was finding my base too dark, relying on the torch inside the house, I put it even more on the outside, I will remove them now

[Fajuto13]

Thank you all for your help,I never use a torch again