What determines unlimited zombies?

[guartz 0]

I'm not sure I understand what determines whether zombies keep spawning instantly due to gun shots.

Because I've had different experiences with shooting down zombies.

What my expectations were;

If I hole up in a small town and start shooting zombies, they will just keep coming without end.

If I shoot down a few stragglers on the outskirts of, say, a barn, I don't see anymore zombies again until I leave the area.

What happens in the game;

I shoot zombie, regardless of position, more will either come or not, seems completely random.

-confused noob

[guidez 180]

Other then it being alpha and realizing that everything is not perfect yet, I would say that you need to think of your shooting sound making a very large circle.

If you shoot a zed, say, STRAIGHT ahead of you, and there are is a zed slightly behind him to the left, you might not attract the zed farther behind him. Why? Because the other zombie JUST fell out of the sound range for your gun.

Also, this depends on the gun you are shooting. If you shoot a Lee Enfield from Balota, you'll probably attract Zeds from the NW airfield. I am exaggerating, but the loudness of the guns differ, even if they sound the same loudness to you. You can see gun audio levels here:

http://dayzwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Weapon_Comparison_Table

[rickenbacker 190]

Depends on how many zombies can hear you shooting. If you shoot in the middle of a city, 30 or more can hear you, and will come looking for you. If you shoot at one zombie on the outskirts, only a few zombies can hear it. Shooting a loud rifle in the middle of a town can, with respawns, result in a literally endless train of zombies until you run out of ammo, or at least it could before the crazy spawn rates from 1.7.1 were toned down.

So it's not random, it's just every zombie in the audible radius of your weapon coming to investigate. Louder weapons and/or more zombies around you, results in more action :).

[clodan 0]

well, just for you to fell better, today i was in a big barn with a friend and we started shooting zombies... i ended up killing arround 25 and my friend killed 30... so... that might help you take a smart decition (dont shoot in cities)

[rickenbacker 190]

I once shot 54 zombies in a house in Elektro. They kept on spawning and running to me (this was before spawn rates were toned down), and only stopped when I switched from my AKM to the revolver, which is quieter.

[guartz 0]

Right, zombies that hear you run over. I'm talking about zombies just spawning out of thin air and running over though. There has to be some kind of a trigger for that. Because sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't.

[schmotto 32]

zombies will respawn, but usually takes a few minutes.

If someone had been there before you and killed some/lured some away you might have stareted shooting just before they were due to respawn in that area due to your presence.

Zombies spawn is triggered by player presence.

Server can go a bit wonky after time and the respawn of Zombies/items can get a bit haphazard at times, so you could have also encountered a bit of that.

[guartz 0]

I dont think so, I can recreate it pretty regularly for it to be just wonky respawns.

So just a moment ago I happened upon a deer with a total of 3 zombies milling around it.

I was using a Makarov pistol, and shot one zombie dead without more coming.

When I shot the second zombie and it charged me, 3 more showed up out of nowhere also charging me, for a grand total of 4 charging zombies and 1 dead zombie.

I actually saw them pop out of nowhere as soon as my bullet connected "aggroed".

Question is, why didn't more zombies spawn in the first shot?

[stryker211 10]

As a general rule if you are in a city use your pistol only to shoot zombies coming for you. This will draw less attention to the zombies around you and you will not be flooded by waves of zombies.

Also diffrent guns have diffrent noise levels. The worst gun you can use is the Lee Enfield. You should only use this gun to kill other players or in emergency situations like you ran out of pistol ammo, in which you should run away and only use the rifle when needed, far from town so you don't draw in more zombies.