[2023] Are zombies supposed to know about tunnels and the shortest distance to you?

Originally posted by Dreadstone: There were a few stealth additions over the years:

1) All Zombies now have echo-location and can determine (even though they don't have a functioning brain) best-path and shortest-path. (*)

2) All Zombies automatically recognize spike traps

3) All Zombies are now equipped with a portable backhoe which requires no fuel to operate

(*) Think of them as a router trying to determine packet flow.

Zombies actually don't recognize spike traps in the slightest. As far as the AI is concerned, spikes are just blocks. Everything is just blocks. They don't make any change to their pathing decisions because there are or aren't spikes; Or any other trap for that matter.

But alot of the time, the fact that they treat them like any other block is exactly what trips people who try to use them up.

People who aren't aware zombies treat them like blocks will often do one of two things:
One: They'll stack their spike pile 2-3 spikes high over walking level trying to make their spikes last a lot longer through the horde- But that actually just makes the zombies see an unbroken wall. And they'll tunnel through in whichever spot breaks first and barely touch the rest of the spikes
Or Two: Make it 2-3 tall as before for longevity, but leave some obvious path for the zombies to follow, like up a staircase into a killing corridor; Which, because the spikes are piled 2-3 high, they treat it like a wall and just path through the 'maze' of walls to reach that obvious path up into the corridor without really getting hurt by any of the spikes.


Instead, what you need to do is never raise the spikes over 1 block tall from walking level. This will make them try to jump on top of, and ultimately land in it. Or better, recess it into the ground by a layer(or two, for longevity- just make sure the far side from where they're coming from has a staircase out for them.), and they'll treat it like a floor and just try to walk right onto it to their own demise.



Not having a functioning brain though... That's not necessarily true. In fact, There's definitely some kind of overarching hivemind thing going on that hits in full force on the blood moon. During the week the connection is too weak to act on mostly, zombies are constantly passively acquiring information on sights, sounds, smells- At best you might get a few screamers sent your way as a scout to summon more zombies.. Then the blood moon rises and it's like a switch is flipped- All that passively collected information is collated by a super-computer like intelligence to pinpoint survivor locations and send waves and waves of zombies after them to try and kill them off.

Even if you take a step back from that, Just the fact they can move about as walking corpses do and have a need to pursue prey is proof enough they have brains, however distorted they might be. they certainly have functioning brains on SOME level, Superintelligent hive mind or not.


The backhoe thing is funny. Arguably true though.