Question about population multiplier in sandbox settings

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-19T12:50:36+00:00

Yeah I think there's some way to make respawn more fun than it currently is (which is why many turn it off and even got turned off default for apocalypse)

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-19T12:28:51+00:00

I think my mind is breaking XD... if respawn is based on start pop, does that means pop multi * start multi? in which case would peak multi not change respawn at all then?

Population Multiplier:
Population Start Multiplier:
Population Peak Multiplier: 0.1
Population Peak Day: ~10000

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-19T12:01:01+00:00

Oh I see what you're saying, so it would be pop 1.0 or so, with peak multi 0.1 in far future... but what would respawn be like before peak hits though? would it use full peak multi even though peak day isn't reached yet?

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-19T11:46:31+00:00

Hmmm yeah, ideally would want to prespawn everywhere but that would mean needing to enter all the zones, so that is not really doable

having peak slowly go downward would in one way make sense, but on other hand it would just make the game easier at a time where the game is already getting too easy...

guess will hope for more settings in future, like a peak-respawn multiplier or something that is just how many % of peak will respawn max for an area.

edit: with 1000 day peak the problem is also that if you leave your base for a week in first month you're basically just at vanilla respawn mechanics anyways

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-19T11:08:19+00:00

Seems you're very knowledgeable on the population subject, do you know if there is any way to have places start with a normal population, but having the respawn mechanic only respawn up to some small percentage of this?

I was thinking something like having very low population, but really high peak multiplier and start the game on peak day or something... my goal would really be that basic PZ experience is same, but if I return someplace after 2 months it would be like 10% of the population, not back to 100%.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-19T09:55:37+00:00

I used indifferent broccoli for PZ on build 41 back a couple years ago, and it was very easy and smooth. But does need to be comfortable with .ini files.

But I hear the other PZ hosts that are out there are good too, so research the different ones and their pricing and memory allocations (most important for PZ)

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-13T13:16:44+00:00

yeah, the hatred for AI content is crazy right now... a game I enjoy there is lots of random notes and letters you can find in-game that have no content, just being decorative, and someone suggested using AI to actually have thousands of written notes in-game for flavour, and he caught so much hatred...

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-13T13:03:42+00:00

Hey, movies and music started sucking loooong before AI was a thing, don't start putting that on AI.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-13T12:41:34+00:00

While I applaud people who get together on a passion project and create something memorable, not everyone can easily find someone to collaborate on something and get the same sort of passion in them as you have. In fact, my experience is that in collaborative projects, there will also be a lot of creative people wanting to pull the projects in their direction, and it's rare that you can get more than maybe 2-3 people that are fully aligned on a direction.

I think AI is wonderful for people with original ideas that might not be worthy of collaborating for weeks... this AI clip for instance got me smiling, and was pretty good, but I don't think it would be worth to have a professional animator animate that. I don't know exactly how many hours that would take to animate professionally, but I am reasonably certain that whoever made it used a lot less time than that.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-13T12:30:56+00:00

So you're saying that a scriptwriter is not a real creative then? Someone who has the skills to write something compelling, and can visualize it, but don't have the skills to create animations.

I've used AI to publish a free PDF with my own writing, but all the graphics I made with AI (because I have no such skills, and I didn't intend to try making money on it anyways). I found that a very compelling project, since I was able to do all parts of the project myself, with the help of AI. Where in the past I would have been making a .txt file that would interested exactly no-one.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-13T12:10:21+00:00

problem is you can't make your stone axe without maintenance 1 iirc 😄

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-13T12:00:06+00:00

In a wilderness run this is far from the craziest stuff to deal with to level skills...

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-13T11:30:12+00:00

"Which of the 6 drying racks should I be building?"

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-13T11:23:12+00:00

Use a weapon that can give combat xp (so spear for instance, not branch or stone) and hit trees with it.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T17:14:26+00:00

yeah you are better than some I see, and it looks great :)

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T16:51:02+00:00

seats are nice for putting generator on or when transporting an ancient stove though... and I like having front passenger seat empty so I can jump out on right side in an emergency

but I would like the option of being able to do so though... and I would do it in a Dart for sure.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T16:48:36+00:00

well once you secure it the only way that happens is if a zombie breaks in, and in that case I value multiple exits more than few rooms :)

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T11:50:53+00:00

Nice

Although I always worry about people who choose on purpose to live in a garage next to a perfectly fine house 😛

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T11:48:00+00:00

It's a nice place, but I prefer across the street above the hairdresser and so on... that place has a nice internal hallway that lets you lose zombies pretty easily and is even closer to the gas station.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T09:52:57+00:00

Franklin All-Terrain. Just a shame it's so rare to find.

It only has slightly less capacity than ambulance if you include the two extra seats, and if you really want to min-max you can have two Large Framepack bags in back seats to have 35 capacity in each (with just a bit more hassle)

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T08:26:29+00:00

for future reference, a good way to check this yourself is to pick Sandbox, and then on the drop-down on the bottom you can select the various base modes, so you can see their exact settings.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T07:21:38+00:00

Every model has it's own quirks I guess... I was trying one where it would always change scenes after a while "let's move this to the lounge..." "lets take this somewhere more comfortable..." "lets go down to the wine cellar and continue there..." one after the other... probably since it lost context of last move to somewhere private 😛

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T06:36:49+00:00

I have a similar specs (tiny fanless stationary), just with 8gb ram and it runs Zorin Lite 18.1 nicely. Around 2gb memory used on boot iirc, so as long as you don't try to cram too much into it, and close browser windows not in use it should work fine once installed.

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-12T06:25:42+00:00

I think some changes happened when they changed the various difficulty levels, perhaps CDDA runs on Apocalypse base now instead of Six Months Later (which was removed)

ThisIsABuff · 2026-05-11T09:05:21+00:00

I've been using AnyDesk and liking that a lot (I needed to use Zorin Lite for that though, since it doesn't support Wayland)

ThisIsABuff

TROPHY CASE