Zombie Apocalypse-ZA

Zombie Apocalypse 0.9.2 — AI, Horde & Performance Update

 

Version 0.9.2 focuses heavily on infected AI, sound detection, horde behavior, navigation, large-group performance, and overall gameplay polish.

 

Infected AI Improvements

 

- Improved infected pathfinding and navigation behavior.

- Infected now remember the player's last confirmed visible position.

- After losing sight of the player, infected will investigate the last known area instead of tracking the player through walls.

- Added short search patterns after losing a target.

- Different infected may search different nearby positions, making groups feel less synchronized and more natural.

- Search behavior now ends properly if the player is not found.

- High-priority sounds can interrupt an ongoing search.

- Weak sounds such as footsteps are less likely to override an important active target.

 

New Sound Investigation System

 

The sound system has been significantly redesigned.

 

Infected no longer automatically know the exact block where every sound originated.

 

Sound localization accuracy now depends on distance:

 

- Nearby infected can identify the source of loud sounds very accurately.

- Medium-distance infected receive a less precise estimated location.

- Distant infected investigate a wider approximate region.

- Each infected may receive a slightly different investigation point within that region.

 

This greatly reduces the previous behavior where entire hordes would move toward exactly the same block.

 

Sound Priority

 

Different actions now produce different levels of acoustic importance.

 

Examples include:

 

- Explosions

- Gunshots

- Suppressed gunshots

- Screams

- Melee combat

- Breaking blocks

- Placing blocks

- Jumping

- Running

- Walking

 

Louder and more important sounds can override weaker nearby noises.

 

For example, an infected may ignore nearby footsteps and investigate a distant gunshot instead.

 

Crouched movement remains significantly quieter.

 

Horde Navigation Improvements

 

- Reduced infected stacking at a single destination.

- Horde members now spread around investigation areas.

- Improved behavior around doors, narrow corridors, stairs, and small interior spaces.

- Stuck infected can attempt alternate local routes.

- Added lateral path recovery to reduce congestion.

- Added vertical recovery for small height differences such as stairs and ledges.

- Individual infected tend to maintain more consistent movement lanes instead of constantly switching directions.

- Horde regrouping now targets a small area around the leader instead of the leader's exact block.

 

Large Horde Performance

 

Several systems were optimized specifically for scenarios involving large numbers of infected.

 

Pathfinding Budget

 

A global pathfinding budget has been introduced for non-combat AI.

 

By default, only a limited number of new investigation, migration, and search paths can be requested per dimension each tick.

 

Additional requests are delayed slightly instead of being processed simultaneously.

 

Direct combat pathfinding remains responsive and is not restricted by this system.

 

Pathfinding LOD

 

Distant infected now perform expensive navigation updates less frequently.

 

Nearby infected remain highly responsive, while infected farther from the player use less frequent recalculation intervals.

 

This reduces unnecessary CPU usage during large hordes.

 

Staggered AI Updates

 

Expensive AI operations are distributed between infected instead of occurring on the same game tick.

 

This includes:

 

- Visibility checks

- Investigation repathing

- Search updates

- Horde migration updates

 

Sound Event Optimization

 

Repeated nearby sounds can now be grouped before performing infected detection scans.

 

For example, rapid footsteps or automatic gunfire no longer need to trigger identical world scans for every individual sound event.

 

The original sounds can still contribute to local threat and activity systems while redundant infected searches are reduced.

 

Shared Aggro Optimization

 

Shared aggro behavior has been optimized for large groups.

 

When many infected detect the same player in the same area, duplicate nearby-entity scans are reduced.

 

This helps prevent large groups from repeatedly performing nearly identical calculations.

 

Horde Director Optimization

 

- Reduced repeated entity lookups during horde updates.

- Loaded horde members are resolved once and reused during the same Director update.

- Improved regrouping behavior for separated horde members.

- Reduced unnecessary repeated calculations during large horde processing.

 

Infected Variety

 

Existing infected variants now have additional behavioral differences.

 

Variants may differ slightly in areas such as:

 

- Aggression

- Sound sensitivity

- Movement

- Durability

- Investigation behavior

 

The goal is to make hordes feel less uniform without introducing exaggerated boss-style enemies.

 

Horde & Night Events

 

- Improved progressive horde intensity.

- Expanded configurable horde intervals.

- Improved support for special night events.

- Improved horde population and group processing.

- Better distribution of infected during large events.

 

Loot & Survival Balance

 

Loot behavior has received additional balancing.

 

Existing survival resources such as medical supplies remain integrated into infected loot and exploration systems while avoiding excessive reward rates.

 

Configuration Expansion

 

Version 0.9.2 now includes approximately 170 configurable options covering systems such as:

 

- Infected health

- Infected damage

- Movement speed

- Spawn frequency

- Horde size

- Horde timing

- Sound detection

- Sound localization accuracy

- Search behavior

- Pathfinding intervals

- Pathfinding budget

- Horde behavior

- Infected variants

- Difficulty scaling

- Event intensity

 

These settings allow players to heavily customize the apocalypse experience.

 

Debugging & Testing Tools

 

Additional debugging information has been added to "/apocalypse debug" and AI inspection commands.

 

Debug information can now include data such as:

 

- Current sound type

- Sound priority

- Real sound origin

- Estimated investigation position

- Sound localization uncertainty

- Search state

- Path requests granted

- Path requests delayed

- Active pathfinding budget

- Grouped sound events

 

Additional test noise commands are also available for actions such as footsteps, jumping, block breaking, and block placement.

 

Technical Improvements

 

- Reduced redundant spatial entity searches.

- Reduced unnecessary path recalculations.

- Improved AI scheduling for large infected populations.

- Improved stuck detection.

- Improved investigation memory.

- Improved sound priority handling.

- Improved path recovery in confined spaces.

- Improved horde member caching.

- Reduced repeated shared-aggro scans.

- Improved scalability for large infected groups.