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DayZ Console Modding Part 2

Helis, Zombies, Animals and more.

By L.RPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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(image source: https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/221100/)

In the previous article I covered the basics of how to adjust your servers loot economy, so that it spawns as much of the things you want, in the types of places you would like them to be spawned. Now in this article, I shall guide you through the process of adjusting the amount of Heli crashes, Police wrecks, zombies and animals that can be found on the map at any given time.

(The first event in file handles the amount of chicken spawns)

The file being worked on is events.xml so go ahead and open it up and you will be presented with code that looks similar to what you saw whilst working on types.xml but with some obvious differences. So first of all lets define the different parameters in use here:

<nominal> - The total amount of locations that can have a spawn of the event.

<min> - the lower bound, when theres this many spawns left on the map, the server will spawn more.

<max> - The upper bound, when theres this many the server will stop spawning more.

<lifetime> - Assuming no player interaction this is the amount of time each spawn of an event will stay on map before despawning.

<restock> - The amount of time inbetween individual spawns of an event up until nominal or max value is reached again.

<saferadius> - this is how close/far away from a player an instance of an event can spawn. 0 meaning it can spawn on top of a player.

<distanceradius> - The minimum distance that instances of an event can spawn from each other.

<cleanupradius> - How far away a player must get before the events despawn timer (lifetime) kicks in.

<flags deletable="0" init_random="0" remove_damaged="1" /> all three flags accept two values: 1=on and 0=off.

  • deletable - decides if spawns of event can be despawned when event lifetime reaches zero.
  • init_random - unknown, is set to 0 on all events.
  • remove_damaged - decides if ruined (car) or killed (animal/zombie) spawns are removed. (effects not well understood)

<position> - determines if spawn is relative to a "fixed" position or to "player" proximity.

<limit> - if set as "child" will spawn one of the objects from the "<child" lines at each usable location up until nominal value is on the map. If this is set to "mixed" then a combination of the child min/max values and the parent min/max values are used to detrmine the spawn ratios. "custom" is another valid value but its efects are not known.

<active> determines if the event is activly spawning on the map. 1=on 0=off.

<children> </children> - the opening and close tags for the "child" lines that go between them.

<child lootmax="0" lootmin="0" max="50" min="30" type="PileOfWoodenPlanks"/>

  • Each "<child" line tells the server what game object and how many of it the event handles.
  • lootmax and lootmin (when applicable) determine the minimum and maximum amount of loot that can spawn around an event.
  • min and max determine the amount of the game object the event can spawn.
  • type is the file name for the game object you wish to spawn.

Okay, so now you have a better idea of what each part of the event code does, lets look at how to raise the total amount of different things that can spawn. We'll start with the animal events as they are first in the file.

(annotated animal spawn event example)

To increase or decrease the amount of herds or packs of an animal that can spawn on the map; adjust the nominal, min and max values marked with a blue line in the picture above. To increase or decrease the size of each herd or pack, change the min and max values on the lines marked with a red line.

Next in the file come the zombie events. These are little more complex then animals to edit, you can use the nominal, min and max at the top of each event to increase or decrease the maximum amount of spawns they produce and how many models can be used overall. But due to how they are coded in the game engine the amount that spawn at any given location is taken from Zombie_territories.xml not here.

Once passed the zombie events I recomend skipping down to the heli crash and the police wreck events as the "loot", "woodenplanks" "fridgetest" and "christmastree" ones are best left at default settings. For both Heli crash and Police wreck events, the nominal, min and max at the top decide how many can spawn in total. the min/max on the child lines then determine how many of each model can be used by the events overall.

Finally we get to the car events. Much like the police wreck and heli events, the nominal min and max at the top control the total amount of spawns for each car model and the child min/max decide how many of each colour the events can use to spread across the total amount you would like to have on the map.

I realise that much of this is not so easy to understand so if you feel you need further support feel free to join my console modding community for DayZ: https://discord.gg/pp5JJDu

Just in case you missed part 1 here is a link for it: https://vocal.media/gamers/day-z-console-modding-part-1

Next time I will guide you through creating your own custom events, meaning you will be able to spawn a car, a chest, a water pup or any other in-game object at specific locations.

how to
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About the Creator

L.R

I mostly find myself here to release creative flair, but also like to pass on what knowledge I can, so the odd tutorial and/or guide worms it's way to the forefront of my mind along the way =)

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