What Does "Follow Sound Distance" in Project Zomboid Do?

today we'll be investigating this setting follow sound distance is actually exactly what it says but also doesn't function how you'd expect i'll also be talking about the player chunk a lot so let me give you a quick crash course on what the player chunk is the chunk is a 200 by 200 tile zone centered on the player objects within this zone are actively rendered and interactable it's essentially the play zone of project zomboid now this play zone also has a 10 by 10 tile dead spot centered on the player now pz only renders active sounds within this area and because of that dead zone the loudest possible sounds you can generate from the player will theoretically have a sound range of 95 to 105 tiles depending on where you are within that dead zone next let's start with squashing some preconceptions you might have when you first look at it it isn't how loud something is how far away you'll attract zeds or how loud meta events are it really is just how far a zed will follow sound well specifically one type of sound buckle up because to better understand everything we need to learn a little bit about general sound mechanics now to elaborate there's two categories i'd place sound in one being active sounds generated within the player's trunk these are sounds made by your tvs your radios player gunshots shouts zed smacking against walls doors and windows etc etc the other being overworld sounds these are the distant gunshots the screams uh thunder and so on so forth these sounds are controlled by the sadistic ai director and fall under meta events these are typically used to shift large amounts of zeds around the overworld outside of the player's chunk these two categories don't really have much overlap it does seem that zeds within the chunk will attempt to shoot paths towards meta sounds outside of the chunk but it cancels for some reason zed's moved by an overworld sound will not pass through a chunk to reach the source they will however enter the outskirts of the chunk if drawn into it and then they'll start their activated mechanics they're grouping following other rendered sounds and just actively looking for players the only exception seems to be the heli event but i kind of think this deserves a separate video and more testing it's the same idea that sounds within the player trunk won't attract zeds from outside the chunk anything outside the chunk simply isn't rendered and exists with a different rule set we can see this with an ambulance i've turned on the sirens i've marked out 200 tiles just to be safe and have spawned in a zed at the 100th tile 100 towels takes you to the very edge of the player chunk so as i teleport to the 100th tile you'll notice that the zed isn't being attracted by the ambulance as i move below the hundredths tile you'll now see the ambulance sound render and the zombie path towards the sound this is probably also why the js2000 has a max sound range of 100 tiles so that begs the question if an unrendered tree falls in an unrendered forest doesn't make a sound probably depends on whether it's a meta event or not all right now that our cups runneth over with the knowledge of noises what is follow sound distance actually doing well it's doing exactly what it says simply it adjusts the distance over world zombies or unrendered zombies will follow a meta event noise let me show you with some moving pictures on the left we have a follow sound distance of 100 on the right we have a setting of 1000 we are using equal zombie distribution because this paints the best picture as to the full effect of a meta event as you can see with a setting of 1000 those zeds get real nice and tight like heading towards the center of that meta event compared to the setting of 100 yeah that's all this is doing i've also went ahead and verified that this setting doesn't affect anything in the player's chunk a setting of 10 will not see zeds in the chunk only traveling 10 tiles towards a player generated sound alright so how can we use all this information to enhance our project zombot experience first of all this is the single most effective way to move zombies around the map my initial loose idea is pseudo super hordes maybe this even plays into a the walking dead scenario this setting when getting close to max can pack thousands of zombies into a cell let me display this for you the meta event affects this many cells on a stock population setting in urban environments you'll typically see 500 give or take 100 zeds per cell now the perceived limitations here are that meta events only seem to happen within proximity to the player so if you're in muldraw you won't see anything taking event up in louisville so if you travel a long distance quickly you probably won't see this happening in further to reach locations at least initially the next limitation is that it can take a couple days for the groups to pack in tight once a meta event is triggered maybe it's not too much of a limitation though as stumbling across wandering zombies can mimic that wandering horde feel hopefully this gives you a rough idea of how to play with this setting alright well that's been my ted talk if you think i'm wrong or have missed anything let me know in the comments below really want me to cover another sandbox setting let me know which one and if you like somebody else's idea give it a thumbs up if a bunch of people want one setting covered i'll go ahead and change course and focus on that setting to get it out to you guys stick around more guides and future scenarios on the way [Music]

Channel: Jiffydude

Views: 33,069

Keywords: Follow sound distance, Indie Game Channel, Jiffydude, Project zomboid, Project zomboid explained, Project zomboid follow sound distance, Project zomboid sandbox settings, Project zomboid tips, Sandbox settings explained, best indie games, project zomboid, project zomboid beginners guide, project zomboid build 41, project zomboid build 41 tips, project zomboid for beginners, project zomboid guide, project zomboid tips and tricks, project zomboid tutorial, tips and tricks, zomboid

Id: EtGM-jf8jLM

Length: 6min 5sec (365 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 06 2022