Re: Zombies don't atack any survivor

Posted by zedhunter on Oct 25, 2012; 10:22am
URL: http://kodabar-dayz-daizy-single-player-forum.163.s1.nabble.com/Zombies-don-t-atack-any-survivor-tp404p608.html

TLDR: Too bad, I don't do executive summaries...

I wanted to chime in on this, as I have done a lot of work in seeing what the gameplay is like when you mess with the zed-as-civilian mechanic that was written into DayZ.

You can change the bases around, but zeds do not know how to attack non-players, searching for targets and the effects they have (damage, knockout, limb-breaking, panic, etc) are all applied on player logic, written into global variables. If you are going to use this approach, you need to rewrite all of the zombie effect spaghetti in the DayZ mod. Not appetizing, to say the least, nor is it in any way advisable. This is why you will likely not see zeds really attacking your teammates in any meaningful way. This is lamentable, because it really makes sense to have zeds chawin' on everybody around that is not a zed.

The other side of the equation is making AIs attack zeds. The zed classes are hard coded civilian units, and I would not recommend messing with this, as it may break some things, and modifying DayZ pbos with a mission is what I would consider a last resort. The approach I am using currently is a script that continuously adjusts the rating of zeds around the player or any unit that you want to be hostile toward them.

When a unit is rated (with addRating) lower than -2000, he is considered an enemy to all, regardless of side relations. You can scan for zeds in an area and rate them down so that they are attacked. The script I have going at the moment does its job well so far, but it alters the gameplay in some significant ways. There are times that you want zombies to be attacked, and times you don't. I am working on the following:

- Survivor Zed ROE: Specify whether you want zeds attacked indiscriminately, only when aggro, or ignored completely. This could be incorporated into the Engage command menu or someplace.

- Context: When should we make zeds enemies? Around whom? Marking all zeds just makes everyone (including bandits and such) fire on them, which may not necessarily be desired. It's very un-DayZ-like. Players don't run amok slaying zeds -- it's useless to waste ammo on ever-spawning critters carrying aluminum cans

- Performance, Bugs: What bugs and performance problems does doing this introduce? I have play-tested various schemes quite a bit, and making the behavior player-centric, subdued, and specific seems to have the best result. I am still looking for ill effects, and figuring out how much realism I can get away with. Will advise.

- Right to exist: Does it belong in DaiZy? I think so. Unknown wrote in the quick-and-dirty rater at bandit spawn time (which will not help with zeds spawned after bandits/survivors are created), so he seems to want the zeds to be engaged by the AI. Question is, what is the right way to do it, and what will we all enjoy the most? I am still trying to figure that out.

Feel free to chime in.

ZH