Rounds

Rounds separate each wave of zombies and acts as the difficulty progression for each game of Project Lazarus.

Once a round starts, zombies will begin spawning and attacking the map. The round ends once a certain number of zombies, depending on the round, have been spawned in and killed. Once completed, the players are given a short respite of 10 to 15 seconds, where transition music is played and the round number slowly increments by one, before the next round starts.

At the start of each round, any dead players are spawned back onto the map.

The game becomes more difficult as the round increases. Zombies come in faster, in greater numbers and with more health. As the rounds progress, survival becomes more and more challenging.

Zombie Spawning[]

There is a maximum zombie cap of 24 zombies that can be on the map at any given time. When the server reaches this maximum, spawning will be paused until room is made when a existing zombie is removed, usually by dying to a player.

Zombies stop spawning once the required number of zombies of current round has been spawned in. The round completes when the remaining zombies on the map are killed off.

Zombie Count[]

The number of zombies in each round depends on the round number and the number of players in game at the start of the round. The zombie count per round does not increase at or past round 30. Subsequent rounds will not have an increased number of zombies.

Zombie Count Formula[]

The zombie counts are coded to simulate the numbers seen in early Call of Duty: Zombies games, specifically those of the first two Black Ops games.

To account for the larger player size in Project Lazarus, zombie count values for 3 player games and 4 player games are mapped onto rounds with 3 to 4 and 5 to 6 players, respectively.

However, the actual zombie count formula of the original zombie games are not known. For rounds up to 19, Project Lazarus uses hard coded values for the zombie counts as seen in the original games.

For rounds 20 and onwards, the zombie count is determined using estimated best fit curves derived using known values from the original games. Given the mathematically derived nature of formulas, the values are messy but forms a curve that roughly follows the values seen in the source games.

In addition, a maximum cap for the zombie count per round is introduced in Project Lazarus, stopping the zombie counts from increasing after round 30.

Zombie counts for rounds 20 and above can be represented by the following formula:

${\displaystyle \text{Zombie count} = \begin{cases} \min(\left\lceil{0.09000 \times \text{Round}^2 - 0.0029 \times \text{Round} + 23.9580}\right\rceil, 100) & \text{if Players} \in \left \{ 1 \right \} \\ \min(\left\lceil{0.18820 \times \text{Round}^2 - 0.4313 \times \text{Round} + 29.2120}\right\rceil, 175) & \text{if Players} \in \left \{ 2 \right \} \\ \min(\left\lceil{0.26370 \times \text{Round}^2 + 0.1802 \times \text{Round} + 35.0150}\right\rceil, 265) & \text{if Players} \in \left \{ 3, 4 \right \} \\ \min(\left\lceil{0.35714 \times \text{Round}^2 - 0.0714 \times \text{Round} + 50.4286}\right\rceil, 350) & \text{if Players} \in \left \{ 5, 6 \right \} \\ \end{cases}}$

Zombie Count per Round[]

The following table shows the number of zombies within each round.

Round		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30+
Zombie Count	1 Player	6	8	13	18	24	27	28	28	29	33	34	36	39	41	44	47	50	53	56	60	64	68	72	76	81	85	90	95	100	100
	2 Players	7	9	15	21	27	31	32	33	34	42	45	49	54	59	64	70	76	82	89	96	104	111	119	128	137	146	155	165	175	175
	3⁠–⁠4 Players	11	14	23	32	41	47	48	50	51	62	68	74	81	89	97	105	114	123	133	145	156	167	179	192	205	218	233	247	263	265
	5⁠–⁠6 Players	14	18	30	42	54	62	64	66	68	83	91	99	108	118	129	140	152	164	178	192	207	222	238	255	272	290	309	329	349	350

Spawn Rate[]

Zombies spawn at an increasing rate as rounds progress.

The zombie spawn rate is controlled by a short spawn delay timer between each attempt to spawn in a zombie. Spawn attempts can fail due to the maximum zombie cap that can occupy the map at any one time or other reasons, such as spawning spaces being too cramped. Regardless of success, the game will wait the spawn delay time before attempting to spawn in a zombie again.

At the start of the game, the spawn delay is set at 2 seconds. This spawn delay decreases as rounds progress, down to a minimum 0.1 second delay by round 60.

The spawn delay of each round is represented by the following formula:

${\displaystyle \text{Spawn delay} = \max(2 \times 0.95^\text{Round - 1}, 0.1) }$

Spawn Delay by Round[]

The following table shows the spawn delay of each round.

Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	40	50	60+
Spawn Delay (s)	2.00	1.90	1.81	1.71	1.63	1.55	1.47	1.40	1.33	1.26	1.20	1.14	1.08	1.03	0.98	0.93	0.88	0.84	0.79	0.75	0.72	0.68	0.65	0.61	0.58	0.55	0.53	0.50	0.48	0.45	0.27	0.16	0.10

Scaling[]

For more detail on zombie stats by round, see Zombie#Scaling.

As rounds progress, the zombies themselves become more dangerous as well, gaining increased stats that scale with the game.

Most obvious, the zombies will have larger health pool depending on round, requiring more and more damage to kill. The health of zombies scales exponentially and will take a lot of damage before dying as the game progresses.

Zombies in the earlier rounds are also much slower. Their movement speed gradually works up over the earlier rounds, reaching full speed on round 10.