I know you are trying for a speedrun and don't want anything interrupt your efforts; but the current system is how it is supposed to be. if you played moon either in bo1 or bo3, the logic was also the same. excavators would block the ways of tunnel 6 or 11 and if both were blocked and weren't stopped in time, there was no way to pass other section of the map. (except some ways as using teleporter, throwing gersh and jumping onto it or letting astronaut teleport you). moon's biodome excavator could only decompress oxygen in the area but not block the movement, same as leviathan. excavators should be on high priority if you don't want the area to be breached once announcement is heard, unless there's any other life or death situation.

I presume you haven't played moon yet and aren't experienced about how to deal with excavators. the first announcement is at start of a random round after power is turned on and tells how much time left for breaching the specified area. you can either grab hacker instantly and rush to spawn room to stop it; or save last few zombies of that round so you can stop it without being disturbed. another tactic for co-op games is one player can train a very big horde without killing any zombies until the player with hacker stops the excavator while no (or very few) zombies near hacker carrier. there's a zombie limit of 24 which can be present on the map at once, additonal zombies only spawn as the current ones are killed. if your friend trains all 24 zombies, no zombies will be near you.

Originally posted by lewosch:

I know you are trying for a speedrun and don't want anything interrupt your efforts; but the current system is how it is supposed to be. if you played moon either in bo1 or bo3, the logic was also the same. excavators would block the ways of tunnel 6 or 11 and if both were blocked and weren't stopped in time, there was no way to pass other section of the map. (except some ways as using teleporter, throwing gersh and jumping onto it or letting astronaut teleport you). moon's biodome excavator could only decompress oxygen in the area but not block the movement, same as leviathan. excavators should be on high priority if you don't want the area to be breached once announcement is heard, unless there's any other life or death situation.

I presume you haven't played moon yet and aren't experienced about how to deal with excavators. the first announcement is at start of a random round after power is turned on and tells how much time left for breaching the specified area. you can either grab hacker instantly and rush to spawn room to stop it; or save last few zombies of that round so you can stop it without being disturbed. another tactic for co-op games is one player can train a very big horde without killing any zombies until the player with hacker stops the excavator while no (or very few) zombies near hacker carrier. there's a zombie limit of 24 which can be present on the map at once, additonal zombies only spawn as the current ones are killed. if your friend trains all 24 zombies, no zombies will be near you.

As a veteran zombies player, I appreciate the way the excavators work for the most part. I am fine with them blocking areas off. What I am not fine with however, is this: Picture this: It is round 4, the power was just turned on and you don't even have the observatory opened yet. Suddenly the PA Announcers proclaims that an excavator is about to decompress an area. There is nothing you can do to counter that because the hacker is simply too far and you dont have the points required to open up to it. That game was ruined because I already had a decompressed area before I could do anything about it. Moon didn't have this issue because the powerswitch was one room before the hacker. It would be insanely easy to get the hacker if an excavator activated instantly. Now I just dont turn on the power until I have the hacker so I can avoid that, but it is quite annoying to do that. I just wish the excavators couldn't activate until you are only like 1-2 doors away from the hacker.'

Originally posted by Zombieslayer:

As a veteran zombies player, I appreciate the way the excavators work for the most part. I am fine with them blocking areas off. What I am not fine with however, is this: Picture this: It is round 4, the power was just turned on and you don't even have the observatory opened yet. Suddenly the PA Announcers proclaims that an excavator is about to decompress an area. There is nothing you can do to counter that because the hacker is simply too far and you dont have the points required to open up to it. That game was ruined because I already had a decompressed area before I could do anything about it. Moon didn't have this issue because the powerswitch was one room before the hacker. It would be insanely easy to get the hacker if an excavator activated instantly. Now I just dont turn on the power until I have the hacker so I can avoid that, but it is quite annoying to do that. I just wish the excavators couldn't activate until you are only like 1-2 doors away from the hacker.'

I see the point but map creators tried to keep excavator's logic the same as moon (just as many other gameplay elements), so they probably won't want to change the general rule that "excavators can start getting active in any random round when the power is turned on". they can still reduce the prices of some doors to indirectly help about this frequently experienced issue you've mentioned (poverty in early rounds because of spending for doors).

Originally posted by lewosch:

I know you are trying for a speedrun and don't want anything interrupt your efforts; but the current system is how it is supposed to be. if you played moon either in bo1 or bo3, the logic was also the same. excavators would block the ways of tunnel 6 or 11 and if both were blocked and weren't stopped in time, there was no way to pass other section of the map. (except some ways as using teleporter, throwing gersh and jumping onto it or letting astronaut teleport you). moon's biodome excavator could only decompress oxygen in the area but not block the movement, same as leviathan. excavators should be on high priority if you don't want the area to be breached once announcement is heard, unless there's any other life or death situation.

I presume you haven't played moon yet and aren't experienced about how to deal with excavators. the first announcement is at start of a random round after power is turned on and tells how much time left for breaching the specified area. you can either grab hacker instantly and rush to spawn room to stop it; or save last few zombies of that round so you can stop it without being disturbed. another tactic for co-op games is one player can train a very big horde without killing any zombies until the player with hacker stops the excavator while no (or very few) zombies near hacker carrier. there's a zombie limit of 24 which can be present on the map at once, additonal zombies only spawn as the current ones are killed. if your friend trains all 24 zombies, no zombies will be near you.

I personally have played very little of Moon as I didn't play it until I had Chronicles for the XBox, of which I do not have anymore. I had watched videos on how they have worked and I sort of understand the gist of their function. It's just on a map with so much to do, they seem to be an obstacle that can be too much of a problem if you can't open the bypass areas in time. Which as you pointed out, the early game poverty is an issue. You have three options you can try and do from my personal experience so far: Buy open all the doors early game, Buy good Weapons early game, or Perk up early game. There is no real way to do any of it all in one shot unless you just save and train in the starting areas. Most of the Treyarch maps that are made, you can usually at the least have a box weapon early into the buying all doors phase, but in this the box tends to spawn far away from spawn near the biodome and it can make trying to get a good weapon hard. Maybe a way to help accommodate for this would be a challenge reward that gives a point drop rather (about 1500-2500) than max ammo?

how long does it take for the excavators to stop drilling after they are already down

I can't go to another area of the map. All of the excavators are on i can't get to spawn