Hordes

[KA101]

[quote=“Weyrling, post:103, topic:5444”][quote=“Reaper, post:99, topic:5444”]OKay…
0-20 - x heads
20-40 Pack
40-80 Few packs
80 - 160 Lots
160 - 280 Throng
280+ Swarm

Right?[/quote]
I’d probably go with this instead, but just my personal thoughts:
[size=6pt]Few 1-4
Several 5-9
Pack 10-19[/size]
Pack/Actual Count 0-20 (Pack of X Zombies/blobs/fungaloids/ants/people/whatever_eventually_roams might be a good syntax)
Lots 21-49
Horde 50-99
Throng 100-249
Swarm 250+

Quick syntax gripe, you put 20-40 then 40-80, the reason for putting down 20-39 and 40-79 (or 21-40 and 41-70) would be to clarify edge cases in advance to streamline the implementation process.

Having the player count things in 20s seems a bit odd to me, people aren’t generally that great at narrowing things down when they see a large number of anything, much less things that are moving.
Up to 20 I can see a valid count for, 20 to 50 and 50 to 100 seem to be good crowd guesstimates to me, 100 to 250 and 250+ I’m not too sure on.[/quote]

I’m gonna redirect you back to my original problem: adjectives are too imprecise. I’ve played HoMM3 and never internalized how many each adjective represented.

So while I’d love to have a Legion roaming the area, I still think imprecise counts are good up through 200 or so. After 200, that should be enough that GTFO is the first response and guesstimating just how thoroughly swarmed you’re gonna be is secondary.

[Murphy]

Don’t need to make it “Horde size: horde”. Instead, can display as:
“X zombies”
“Lots of zombies (20+)”
“A horde of zombies (50+)”
“A throng of zombies (100+)”
“A swarm of zombies (250+)”

Sounds like legit ascending order semantically, plus numbers in parentheses even though most people would likely get the reference anyway.

[kevin.granade]

numbers’rbad mmmmkaaayy
It’s possible that your precision would be adjusted by something, meaning that 50+ is actually wrong. The goal is to be imprecise without lying. One way to do this while supplying some numbers would be to let them overlap:

1-9 actual number
10 - 14 pack
12 - 24 group
18 - 36 mob
27 - 56 multitude
40 - 80 horde
60 - 120 sea

As for the description, “you see a pack of zombies” is preferable to refering to them as a horde in the game.

[KA101]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:107, topic:5444”]numbers’rbad mmmmkaaayy
It’s possible that your precision would be adjusted by something, meaning that 50+ is actually wrong. The goal is to be imprecise without lying. One way to do this while supplying some numbers would be to let them overlap:

1-9 actual number
10 - 14 pack
12 - 24 group
18 - 36 mob
27 - 56 multitude
40 - 80 horde
60 - 120 sea

As for the description, “you see a pack of zombies” is preferable to refering to them as a horde in the game.[/quote]

I’m not at all sold on the idea that providing an imprecise number is bad. Throwing adjectives around doesn’t help me tell how many zeds are about; I’ve been in a fair few protest marches and such, so maybe I’ve got more-than-average experience estimating crowd sizes, but getting it to the nearest fifty or hundred doesn’t seem like it’d be too difficult.

Further, overlap takes the problem of “how many more adjectives do I have to go through before the horde’s finished?” and compounds it by having the terms shift unpredictably. I’m thinking it’ll generate confusion at best, with “feature” bug reports being likely.

So I’m still in favor of letting the player know that it’s an estimate, but giving some sort of figure so we don’t have to guess whether a horde or a multitude is larger.

[Reaper]

[quote=“Murphy, post:106, topic:5444”]Don’t need to make it “Horde size: horde”. Instead, can display as:
“X zombies”
“Lots of zombies (20+)”
“A horde of zombies (50+)”
“A throng of zombies (100+)”
"A swarm of zombies (250+)"
Sounds like legit ascending order semantically, plus numbers in parentheses even though most people would likely get the reference anyway.[/quote]
I like this variant. I may guess, that multitude is 40 and 80 and 120

[Reaper]

We need a good cynologist to determine how much in any weather keeps track.
Now in sunny/clear - removing 5% track every 20 minutes, in rain - 50%, cloudy/drizzle - 1%.

[KA101]

Something that just came up on the IRC: max zombie speed is 50% greater than player’s. (Most zeds probably shouldn’t be that fast.)

How does that fit horde-movement speed? I’d suggest that hordes should move no faster than the average/generic zombie, since they currently don’t differentiate between members and can’t be “pulled” into the “fast” and “slow” types.

[Reaper]

[quote=“KA101, post:111, topic:5444”]Something that just came up on the IRC: max zombie speed is 50% greater than player’s. (Most zeds probably shouldn’t be that fast.)

How does that fit horde-movement speed? I’d suggest that hordes should move no faster than the average/generic zombie, since they currently don’t differentiate between members and can’t be “pulled” into the “fast” and “slow” types.[/quote]
Max horde movement speed - 1/2 overmap tile per 5 minutes.
Player can walk 2 overmap tile per 5 minutes.

[Reaper]

http://www.missingpetpartnership.org/lost-pet-help/find-a-pet-detective/how-long-can-scent-survive/
I want some thing about it in russian translation.

[Belteshazzar]

I fear I cannot speak Russian but, summarized the article says:

2 weeks is the oldest known tracked scent trail.

Cool wet conditions (overcast, perhaps fog, definitely underground) are best for preserving scents.

Heavy rain does not destroy scent, but distorts trails, mixes and puts holes in them.

Sunlight, heat, and dust will destroy scents faster.

As a biologist I’ll add that even our Cataclysm’s lightest acid rains would almost certainly alter or destroy scents chemically in some way. Oh and thank you for your grand contribution to making the game tougher. It is a good goal, and a difficult one, especially working in a second language.

[Anxiety]

A note about maximum horde sizes: You (Reaper) suggested earlier a maximum intended size around ~280 or so. I assume the size depends on the size of cities and spawn rate scaling factor game options. In my current game (build 1718 from the past few days), with city size 8 and spawn/item rates at 3.0, I’ve been tangoing with a nasty horde. Debug had it pegged a little over 2200 zeds. I flee whenever it wanders my way, which it only seems to do randomly. It’s 46 map tiles wide, so I must be too far from the center for it to track.

There’s an even larger one visible to the west with the debug view, but I can’t check the zed count since it hasn’t wandered into explored territory yet. It’s 95 tiles wide.

These things are scary… I started in the middle of one a few times and couldn’t escape. House starts are now challenge mode.

[Reaper]

(build 1718 from the past few days)

You build my branch or you just download main night build?
Now (in my branch ‘hordes’ - link in top post) max horde size up to 360 heads. But for city with size 8 up to 8 hordes (80 heads/horde) or 4 horde (160 heads/horde) etc.
City has 80*city size total Z-heads in (all) horde(s) and up to hordes.

[Reaper]

acid rains would almost certainly alter or destroy scents chemically in some way

Thanks for explanation. I thought so too, about acid.

Oh and thank you for your grand contribution to making the game tougher. It is a good goal, and a difficult one, especially working in a second language.

Thank you too for moral support.

[Anxiety]

Downloaded the main nightly build. I can’t get an environment set up to compile it myself because either the step-by-step guides are no longer valid or I took a level in Clueless.

Anyway, is there a difference between the two?

[KA101]

[quote=“Anxiety, post:118, topic:5444”]Downloaded the main nightly build. I can’t get an environment set up to compile it myself because either the step-by-step guides are no longer valid or I took a level in Clueless.

Anyway, is there a difference between the two?[/quote]

Needs more information. What OS are you running, and are you looking for Reaper’s PR or DDA’s mainline?

[Reaper]

Downloaded the main nightly build. I can’t get an environment set up to compile it myself because either the step-by-step guides are no longer valid or I took a level in Clueless.

Install debian/ubuntu on virtual machine or use cygwin.

Anyway, is there a difference between the two?

Yes.

[Anxiety]

Needs more information. What OS are you running, and are you looking for Reaper’s PR or DDA’s mainline?

Preferably MinGW. Code::Blocks is acceptable. I’d really rather not have to install Cygwin on this machine. IIRC it took damned long to download when I installed it on my previous one. I have used it before, though.

Install debian/ubuntu on virtual machine or use cygwin.

I’d rather not try debian/ubuntu. Sounds beyond my ken.

[quote=“Reaper, post:120, topic:5444”]

Anyway, is there a difference between the two?

Yes.[/quote]

I was not aware.

Needs more information. What OS are you running, and are you looking for Reaper’s PR or DDA’s mainline?

Mainline, though it’s probably no different to set up Reapers. Just a different repository, yes? I assume y’all merge with the main often enough that I’ll get to play with Reaper’s handiwork soon enough anyway. Quick aside: This thread did give me the impression the horde feature was mostly Reaper’s. Seems I was wrong.

In any case, I don’t mean to hijack this thread with my build woes, so please post advice in my thread here.

[Reaper]

I'd rather not try debian/ubuntu. Sounds beyond my ken. :/

Compiling and cross compiling in linux in easier that try to compile it MinGW on Windows, i think.

Just a different repository, yes? I assume y'all merge with the main often enough that I'll get to play with Reaper's handiwork soon enough anyway.

Who knows? The last time the code was not included in mainline for ideological reasons. Better learn git and cross compiling. You can tweak code in this case.

[Weyrling]

[quote=“Reaper, post:122, topic:5444”]

I’d rather not try debian/ubuntu. Sounds beyond my ken.

Compiling and cross compiling in linux in easier that try to compile it MinGW on Windows, i think.

Just a different repository, yes? I assume y'all merge with the main often enough that I'll get to play with Reaper's handiwork soon enough anyway.

Who knows? The last time the code was not included in mainline for ideological reasons. Better learn git and cross compiling. You can tweak code in this case.[/quote] In windows the vast majority of things people do is through clicking icons and navigating menus, in linux you generally type things into a terminal, these two interfaces are quite different. Linux is excellent if you already use linux, learning linux as a prerequisite to another task is much harder than just setting up windows to do a single project. It's similar to how automating something is only useful if you are going to be doing it a lot.

If you plan to work on tons of different projects, or cross-platform compatibility, or several programming languages and compilers, linux is great. However, if you plan to work on a single project like CDDA for personal use, it’s easier to do it on whatever you/'re already using, depending of course on the project’s cross-compatibility.

[Reaper]

Cross building from linux:
I can build and run only text version for windows.
I try to build version with tiles for windows and get executable, but it crash after run. (because i forgot puts DLLs)

Last text version for windows in top post.

---

Ho ho. I put DLLs in folder with exe and it work with wine. (I think should work in windows too)
Last tiles version in top post too.