Do you play with wander zombies on?
If so…
Whats the recommended approach for vehicle design?
Is it enough if you use a muffler or should I go electric?
Does the different engines emit different levels of sound?
Unfortunately wander spawn isn’t as sound-dependent as it should be.
The biggest danger to your car comes zombies organizing mosh pits in cars (they get really mad at cars due to the way sound attraction currently works). You can avoid it happening by sleeping underground or far from your car to keep it despawned.
Going fully electric can leave you stranded more easily than combustion engines, due to lower fuel capacity and slower refueling.
Muffler is good on any combustion engine, because it is essentially free. Don’t expect it to be enough to go stealthy, though.
Yes, different engines produce different levels of sound. It depends on engine’s current used power and in case of combustion engines also maximum power.
A V12 just idling with a muffler will produce more sound than a large electric going at full force.
A V12 without a muffler can hurt your ears (in earlier versions this would make you deaf).
Is there likely to be any way in the near future to modify the density and tenacity of wander spawns. I’d like playing with wander spawn because it actually rewards base defense measures and preparation, but the spawns are so insane and difficult to evade that I generally don’t play with them currently.
An adjustment factor for the number of spawn points and the amount of zombies that can be spawned in a given time interval would be nice, as would a grace period of X amount of days so you don’t get swarmed at the very beginning of the game and die to RNG.
I play with wander spawns, it can make getting settled down and dug in kind of difficult though. Cleanup can be a bit of a bitch as well after the fact.
All I can really recommend with your vehicle setup is move your wheels away from the edges of your vehicle and into the interior, the same goes for solar panels, batteries, fuel tanks, and engines. the outer edge of your vehicle should be nothing but frame, quarter panel, and armor. this way you have a sturdy shell wrapped around your vehicles delicate bits, not to mention your own delicate bits. Just make sure you can see where you are going though. Get rid of seats you don’t need and replace them with larger storage compartments. personally, I never bother with spiked plating. its practically tissue paper and cant really stand up to the kind of abuse I put it through. steel plates are fine as armor until you can strip down a military vehicle. mounted guns are optional, but if you are playing with wander spawns, they might be a good thing to have around. just be careful around your own flamethrower turrets. Ive had the damn things (probably because of improper setup) fill the interior of my vehicle with hot fury in the past when some undead bastard manages to tunnel through the armor.