Can anyone explain zombie ai pathing

[Denguin]

Seriously. Im held up in a red fire station. They come in through the big broken garage doors as planned but after that instead of taking the very clear path to the office area with no traps or anything they would rather break through 20k points of blocks. I get that the game would be to easy if you could guide their decisions but there zombies. Cmon

[Lady MacBeth]

They usually just take the path of least resistence. Unless they don't think there is a path too you, or its too far. In which case they will try to break through to you.

[Denguin]

So if i build a sweet skyscraper shelter will the actually go up the stairs to me or just hit walls? I love this game but after playing for awhile the pathing is really bugging me

[De Espirit]

It sounds like they haven't seen you yet. Zombies usually break walls if they don't know exactly where you are. If you make a noise but they can't see you, they will focus only on where they heard the noise and punch their way straight to it. Happens all the time when you're looting a house and a wandering zombie outside hears you. They tend not to notice doors and paths unless it's in the same general direction, so they won't go around a wall unless you distract their attention to the side of the wall.

Once they see you, then they have more cues about where you are, where you're going, and where sounds are coming from, so they can use that info to path to you better. I've had it happen at night where a zombie heard me at the barricaded front door, saw me through a one-block kill gap, immediately turn right, go around the house, and come in through the garage to attack me from behind.

And yeah, building huge labyrinths and 3D maze skyscrapers won't work that well. If the pathing gets too complicated they'll resort to smashing everything.

[Frosty]

You thought you can rig the game
But the game rig you

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by Denguin:

So if i build a sweet skyscraper shelter will the actually go up the stairs to me or just hit walls? I love this game but after playing for awhile the pathing is really bugging me

Well I made the mistake of assuming you were talking about the blood moon zombies. If its regular wandering zombies that heard you, or a screamer horde they don't have the "feral sense" that blood moons zombies do that lets them know exactly where you are, and what the path of least resistance is. So they will just hit on things till they either deaggro, (screamer horde won't stop till dead) or you come out and kill them.

[Jonnson]

I have seen them on many occasions attack my base structures. They even attack it when I'm not there. I have watched them attack a gun tower that is not attached to my base, it is built outside of the base, from a mine on a hill using my sniper rifle from maybe 300 ft away. During blood moon, I have seen a wave spawn, attack an outer wall, making a hole in it. Then turn and march along a second wall, ontop of wood spikes, destroying them, while dying on them, until they make it to an electric fence post, and then attack the post, dropping the fence. Then another wave spawns, moves through the hole in the first wall and attacks the next wall. I have video of them spawning inside my land claim, just outside the 30 block range of my bedroll, ontop of wire relays and electric fence posts, destroying them, or trying to, right at the beginning of a blood moon.

There is more code involved than simply taking the path of least resistance. They will attack your base. I have come home from doing a mission, with no heat on in my base, no noise, no light, nothing...and found towers made out of concrete have holes in them, or entire lines of spikes down, 60 spikes long, or multiple holes in the outer most wall. Which I have now left as wood intentionally since it is nonstop attacked throughout the day, with or w/o me in it. Screamer hordes, sometimes, relentlessly attack my fort when I am home, creating heat. Upwards of a dozen screamers, with 10-20 zeds each. One after the other. At higher game stages, we have zeds called demolishers, who have bombs strapped to their chests. They will explode and destroy large segments of your base. Zombie suicide bombers....

To me it is obvious that the devs plan to have your base attacked by something intelligent, using the zombies as a weapon. Possibly, "the Duke." There is more to this than simple pathing, and I think alot of people are just regurgitating a commonly known line of code, whereas the devs are adding codes in updates they are not aware of. Many of these people just take over a poi, hide in a hole, or at the top of a skyscraper, and don't really have line of sight to what is happening all around, at all times.

On aside, today for the first time, I had a zombie attack a car I was using the ratchet on, and it exploded on me, the car exploded, like in fallout 3. Almost killed me, would have killed someone with less hp and armor. I then shot another car (shotgun/point blank on a zombie in front of the car), and it exploded. This may be something that I just never ran into, but it was a serious surprise to me. I have played this game since it came out.

[Thalyn]

Assuming the Zs know where you are...

Basically every space between them and you is given a value. I don't know exactly what that value is (it could be based on hit points, it could be hard coded for certain block types, or it may even be configurable in the XMLs) but the basic gist is that empty blocks have the lowest value, and reinforced concrete is the highest (unless that steel-plated thing is still in there above it). Then the game tries to determine what the lowest total is to get from where the Z is to where you are.

Of course this does mean that some walls are going to be considered as "easier" than just walking an open path. A Z might choose to break through a cobblestone wall instead of walking 25 squares, for example (not exact values 'cause I don't know what they are). There's no way they'll complete that journey faster with the wall in the way, but that's the path they'll take.

If they don't know where you are, of course, then all bets are off. They're just wandering, and hitting things because it's in the way of where they want to wander.