wtf spawns?

[Blueparrot1966]

Uncompromising survival, I get it.  I'm enjoying that the game is a lot deeper than minecraft, that you have to work for everything.  Fine.  But wtf us up with the SPAWNS in this game?  Light the place.  They'll spawn outside the light and flock towards you. Build walls.  They climb them.  Fight them. There's always more.  They'll wear you down with sheer numbers through the long, dark night. And I'm just on the surface, during the first few nights of a new game. This isn't 'uncompromising survival', this is a Night of the Living Dead game where everyone dies in the end.

How are you supposed to create a secure base to craft and experiment at night with constant monsters spawning up your @#! ?  I'm trying to figure it out with minimal help, but this is just absurd.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Blueparrot1966

[Streetwind]

Monsters that climb your walls? That is highly unusual. Only locusts do that, and they are only supposed to spawn underground. I've literally never seen one on the surface, and I have nearly 300 hours in this game.

Have you settled underground, or near a cave entrance?

[Blueparrot1966]

1 hour ago, Streetwind said:

Monsters that climb your walls? That is highly unusual. Only locusts do that, and they are only supposed to spawn underground. I've literally never seen one on the surface, and I have nearly 300 hours in this game.

Have you settled underground, or near a cave entrance?

I kid you not.  I built an earth wall three blocks high, rectangular.  Torches and fires inside.  They'd already killed me once, so once I got back inside, I went to a corner to see if I could figure out where they were coming from.  I heard them but didn't see them, figured they were behind me, outside my little wall.  Next thing I know, two of them dropped on me from above.  Either they walked along the top of the wall out of my sight line, they climbed the wall, or they spawned right up my butt.  It's ridiculous.

[junawood]

? Do you use mods? Cause, like Streetwind already explained, drifters can't climb walls.

So, you just need walls that are 2 blocks high and some light and you're safe. Or simply a 2 block high pillar to stand on, 3 blocks high if you also want to prevent wolves biting you up there.

2 hours ago, Blueparrot1966 said:

How are you supposed to create a secure base to craft and experiment at night with constant monsters spawning up your @#! ?

There are a lot of options, but my favorite is a platform that's 3 blocks high, with some ladders on the sides of the third layer. Drifters can climb ladders, but not if they have to jump to reach them. But make sure the space around the platform is free from anything they or wolves could use to climb/jump or spawn on. And of course you should have enough light sources to light up the platform, and maybe an area around it if you want to prevent drifters from spawning there as well.

[Blueparrot1966]

11 minutes ago, junawood said:

? Do you use mods? Cause, like Streetwind already explained, drifters can't climb walls.

So, you just need walls that are 2 blocks high and some light and you're safe. Or simply a 2 block high pillar to stand on, 3 blocks high if you also want to prevent wolves biting you up there.

There are a lot of options, but my favorite is a platform that's 3 blocks high, with some ladders on the sides of the third layer. Drifters can climb ladders, but not if they have to jump to reach them. But make sure the space around the platform is free from anything they or wolves could use to climb/jump or spawn on. And of course you should have enough light sources to light up the platform, and maybe an area around it if you want to prevent drifters from spawning there as well.

I used a natural ridge as a back stop, and built a wall 2 tiles high on three sides.  They came swarming in over the ridge the first night.  They can obviously zero in on you without a line of sight.  Then I made the wall three blocks high, and dug out the ridge to make sure the exterior height was three all around.  And still got killed.  Didn't see them spawn in, but they were there.  Two, then a third, and a fourth, etc.  Finally, after getting killed again, I stayed in an interior corner to see how this was happening, and two of them dropped on me from above.  I don't know if they spawned that way or how they got over or across the wall, but I'm telling ya, they came from above and dropped down on me from the top of my own wall.

The effort to keep them off of you at night is just bloody ridiculous.

[junawood]

Like I explained above, it's really easy to build a safe space and it takes just a couple of seconds. Whenever I'm on a longer trip and can't make it back home for the night (in a world with creature hostility turned on, cause otherwise you don't need that at all), I normally just quickly build a 3 block high pillar with soil (if you have soil gravity turned on it has to be something else), add some blocks to the sides for a bigger platform (usually 4x3 for a bed in the middle and space around it), and add some ladders to the sides of the third layer if I want to be able to leave the platform and climb back on it. That's it. You don't need more to be safe.

So you either left a route for them to walk onto the wall even after you removed the ridge (maybe branchy leaves blocks or whatever, or there was something higher they could still walk/spawn on and then just drop from there, like a tree) or it was too dark on the wall and they could spawn right there. So try to avoid those things and you should be safe.

[Streetwind]

4 hours ago, Blueparrot1966 said:

I used a natural ridge as a back stop, and built a wall 2 tiles high on three sides.

They walked up the natural ridge in order to bypass your walls. That's how they got to you, at least initially.

Or, they spawned right nearby or even on top of you, which can specifically happen during a temporal storm, or if your character's temporal stability rating is extremely low. What was the state of the cyan gear in the middle of your hotbar while this was happening? Did you get odd music? Did the world look warped?

 

7 hours ago, Blueparrot1966 said:

How are you supposed to create a secure base to craft and experiment at night with constant monsters spawning up your @#! ?

By building a roof, doors, and windows filled either with glass or something like fences. You had no roof, therefore you did not have a 'secure base'.

Under default settings, dirt has no gravity, and you can simply build a dirt hovel as your first shelter, just like you would in Minecraft. If you do play with dirt affected by gravity, there's always wooden logs, or other earlygame blocks like cob, packed dirt, or mudbricks you can use to get something that'll stay up. Even haybales, layers of sticks, and primitive fences will work.

Mind you, even the most well-constructed base ill not protect you from the effects of low temporal stability, or temporal storms. Drifters ignore almost all spawn restrictions then, and can in fact appear in midair. Only if you managed to hide inside less than two full block spaces, you'd be safe.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Streetwind

[Blueparrot1966]

I haven't even played long enough to experience temporal instability, though I've read about it.  I'm just talking about the first 2-3 nights.  I'm right on the surface, literally in view of the spot where I started the game.  I'll keep trying, but gee, I can't wait to get to the 'dangerous' parts of the game.  The spawn rules are bloody ridiculous imho. I've obviously got to rethink how to handle night time.

[Ari]

There's clearly some kind of misunderstanding here. It is very easy to be safe. So somehow you have inadvertently missed a way they can get to you. If you post some screenshots of your setup, I bet we can clear it up easily, and then you can start enjoying the game as intended.

[Silent Shadow]

Drifters can spawn on top of walls and roofs so that may be how they are getting in, so light them too or cover them with blocks that cannot be spawned on such as slabs.

Honestly it is usually best to skip the night with a bed when you are just starting out. You can do this too with temporal storms, just wait until it says "Temporal Storm Imminent" and then go straight to bed. If you use the bed at the right time, you will not have any drifters spawn above ground and defences will not really matter. Just be aware that you are losing time before winter that you could be using for other vital tasks (I don't consider panning as "vital", but you can). Once you get a little more established then working at night becomes more important, but I would say it is more important that making sure that your home and smithy are considered "enclosed rooms" per https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php?title=Temperature#Enclosed_Rooms so winter doesn't destroy you.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Silent Shadow