Irradiated Wanderers. Spawn density in the vault in particular

[Tamior]

Finally decided to check out the vault in my 0.C-6513 game (with 0.01 item spawning rate and 2.00 Z’s spawn rate).

By now I’m somewhere at level 2 of the actual vault, and the kill counter of Irradiated Wanderers is 1200++

I mean, sure, with a combination of tesla cannon (powered via UPS CMB via internal furnace) and lvl 9 in archery (lvl 10 by now, was lvl 9 when I entered) I can probably take 1000’s more, but this is getting absurd.

My problem is, to explore the vault that is effectively EMPTY (as compared to a lab, for example) you need to take down 1000’s of IW’s, and they don’t even have a CHANCE to drop anything interesting.
Most corridors in there are just completely red with blood at this point, and the only good drops are from the few odd robots in the robotics bay.

Anyone else feels that either the spawn density for Irradiated Wanderers should be WAY lower, or they need to have a chance to drop at least books (if not some rare stuff directly)?

P.S. Maybe I am missing something here? Vaults have some guaranteed grand finale that makes it worthwhile?

[Alec_White]

Issue: Too Many Vault Irradiated Wanderers

That was a fun issue to read.

[Tamior]

Yea, the absurd part is, with tesla cannon (or chain lighting CBM) and reasonable power levels (3000+ ) you can take those mobs pretty easy. But it’s just MOB after MOB after MOB.
I mean, on this pic there are, what, 50 of them? And we are talking 1000’s per vault even at 1.00 spawn rate.

Again, the sheer NUMBERS are fine by me. It actually makes the vault different from most other places, for one.
The problems is, there is no incentive to fight them. If they actually had a chance to drop some rare books, now that would be different. Or if they guarded something unique and usefull.

[Azrad]

Why, yes, I do agree that there’s too many of them.

(posted this on Reddit, and seems like it was mentioned on that Github page). All those irridated wanderers are in the area of just one vault. With only .5 item spawn, all I got there that wasn’t a drop from one of the wanderers is a chain lightning bionic and some food items. And a flyer for a vault.

Anyway, as you can see, there’s around 12,000+ irridated wanderers on 5x spawn.

[Tamior]

Ok, so the question is, what would be preferable:

• tune down the spawn rate (10 times or even more)
  OR
• give them a more diverse drop table (akin to a zombie scientist in terms of books, for example) ?

[Fris0uman]

I haven’t even found a vault yet, but last time I tried to search the sewer for an entry it just crashed the game, twice…
Just exploring the city above the vault is made extremly annoying by the constante noise.

By the way should sound be that loud at the surface ? It’s weird that you can hear zombies knocking down furniture 2(?) levels below you.

[Tamior]

[quote=“Fris0uman, post:6, topic:13949”]I haven’t even found a vault yet, but last time I tried to search the sewer for an entry it just crashed the game, twice…
Just exploring the city above the vault is made extremly annoying by the constante noise.

By the way should sound be that loud at the surface ? It’s weird that you can hear zombies knocking down furniture 2(?) levels below you.[/quote]
I’m pretty sure that only happens if you use experimental Z-levels.

[deoxy]

Besides the utterly ridiculous IW count (where did they all come from?!?), there’s also the general issue with the way stuff is generated vs what happens to them the moment you show up.

In the vault, there should be nothing left for them to destroy (either able or able to get to) long before you get there. Generate the area, let it run for several days, then go look at what’s there, and make THAT be what’s generated to start with the in future.

The current system work fine for the area you start in, but when it’s been a year, that new area you go to shouldn’t look like the area you started in when you started in it, it should look a lot like the area you started in does NOW - the zombies should have beaten most vehicles to death, and there definitely should be any cars with their engines running (those left running would have plenty of battery and no gas at this point).

[Lesseps]

Why, yes, I do agree that there's too many of them.

Azrad, what the heck man, 999 sheep??

[Azrad]

Er, that’s for shady zombies. Killed only 4 sheep. Well, at the time, at least. Pretty sure my survivor killed a lot more.

Gotta get them wool staples. For hoarding!

[Tamior]

Added a poll to see what would be the preferred solution.

[zombiechow]

I kind of like the excessive amounts of enemies. It’s a unique situation you don’t get anywhere else in the game. I say keep the spawn rate the same, but like it was suggested in the opening post add better loot guaranteed at the end… something to make actually fighting past all those zeds worthwhile.

[Tamior]

I kind of like the excessive amounts of enemies. It’s a unique situation you don’t get anywhere else in the game. I say keep the spawn rate the same, but like it was suggested in the opening post add better loot guaranteed at the end… something to make actually fighting past all those zeds worthwhile.

Well, the problem here is: it’s MUCH more labor-intensive. One would need to actually create and implement the “finale” to the vault, think of appropriate loot generation rules to make it reasonable, but desirable, then make sure it’s actually generated properly and is reachable (say hello to “all down staircases blocked” and “lava rift replaced your finale”).
Pretty much anyone can tune down the spawn rate or copy/paste better loot table for the IW’s. Proper finale with loot, however, it much less straight forward.

[Azrad]

I kind of like the excessive amounts of enemies. It’s a unique situation you don’t get anywhere else in the game. I say keep the spawn rate the same, but like it was suggested in the opening post add better loot guaranteed at the end… something to make actually fighting past all those zeds worthwhile.

Main problem is that it’s just plain tedious and not really hard at all… well, the latter depends on what you got on your survivor. Like, had encountered a horde of around 100-200 zombies once. All the varied enemies create some level of difficulty compared to 1000 irridated wanderers crammed into a corridor. The roaming robots in the deepest level of the vault isn’t even an issue, since by the time I reach them they’re either out of bullets or flat out destroyed.

Even getting surrounded by irridated wanderers isn’t a problem (again, rather subjective), mainly because they only have one notable move - their lunge attack. They don’t grab survivors to slow them down.

Plus, ten-thousand plus irridated wanderers lag the game something fierce.

[Tamior]

What’s the current status of the vault production in general?
From what I can tell, it’s FIXED layout dungeon (rotation is possible) that never spawns level 3 and below (all stairs down on second level are always blocked).
And the loot tables for the rooms that do spawn on the level 1-2 are “meh” at best.

[latogato]

Necroing!

Really, it is still a serious issue. This is the first time i entered the vault, i was excited to see a “new” part of the game. Now, more than 600 irradiated wanderers later, i get bored. They can’t hurt my toon, but they are everywhere. If they could hurt my toon, much less of them would be enough. But because they can’t, they are just annoying, real-life time consuming and utterly boring obstacles.

This makes the vault a very disappointing place and i (almost) sure it would be easy to fix.

[plazma_rush]

I actually like the vault’s extremely high spawn rate. As it is now, the vault isn’t a place where you go for rare, end-game loot - it’s a place to go when you’re at the mid-game and want to get ready for the endgame.
Tons of vehicle parts to build a deathmobile, a library section to read up on things, decent stocks of food to keep you fed while you read them, tons of crafting materials, and hordes of weak zombies that essentially can’t harm you at all if you’re properly armored to safely train combat skills on.
The high spawn rates fit in with the rest of the content, IMO.

[psyxypher]

I’d at least like it if they didn’t decide to smash everything in sight. I actually want to see what the vault looks like…

[vivat]

balance in what vaults in game not so many. and - if you not use more then one character per world - chanses for find another vault is minimal.
let it be as it is.
with one small edit - soldiers of the old guard mission need to be in more safe place in the vault. or as minimum questgiver. without cheats (teleport myself and teleport these soldiers) is almost impossible to get missions.

and what about killcounter - if you play so long - killcount of zeds will be more or less but equal with wanderers. or beat the wanderers killcount. you need only the time for it.