[A14d] Rimworld Zombie Apocalypse (v. 1.5 - July 26)

[Justin C]

I'm not sure it's a huge deal that zombies can be damaged by extreme temperatures. They already have more tolerance to extreme temperatures than living humans do.

[Kaballah]

In the really cold maps (-70C and lower) entire invasions always freeze before reaching the colony, almost without any exceptions.  I dunno I think some of the best undead/horror I can remember is stuff like The Thing and 40 Days of Night, where the monsters are allied with the cold and both are trying their best to kill you.

[Dragoon]

The Thing and 40 Days of Night

I like those movies . However I must point out a very important thing that vampires (which are said to be cold to the touch in most lore) and aliens which are resistant to cold for some reason does not mean that zombies should be.

[Ninefinger]

In the really cold maps (-70C and lower) entire invasions always freeze before reaching the colony, almost without any exceptions.  I dunno I think some of the best undead/horror I can remember is stuff like The Thing and 40 Days of Night, where the monsters are allied with the cold and both are trying their best to kill you.

I actually agree with this a lot, the zombies are much more of a threat if they can survive the elements that you can not, so i have went ahead and made it so that zombies have a min -100 comfort temperature as well as leaving the default max 100 comfort temperature alone. In the Ultimate Overhaul Modpack.

Anyone who wants to make the zombies more of a threat on the ice sheet biome can easily make this adjustment by navigating to the zombie apocalypse mod and locating Defs\ThingDefs\Races_Zombie.xml and using Notepad++

Go to this line: Make sure you are looking at the "BaseZombie" Section.

<ThingDef ParentName="BaseZombie">
    <defName>Zombie</defName>
    <label>zombie</label>
    <description>All they want to do is eat your brains.</description>
    <uiIconPath>Things/Pawn/Humanlike/UI/IconHuman</uiIconPath>
    <statBases>
      <MarketValue>0</MarketValue>
      <MoveSpeed>2.3</MoveSpeed>
      <Flammability>0.5</Flammability>
      <ComfyTemperatureMin>-100</ComfyTemperatureMin>    <------------------
      <ComfyTemperatureMax>100</ComfyTemperatureMax>

And this adjustment does not affect the zombies on the other biomes simply because temperature is not really an issue on those biomes.

Anyways hope this helps, Cheers!

[Kaballah]

Thanks, I will do this.

Also, zombies probably should give no shits at all about the toxic fallout event (not sure if they do or not).

e: Oh something else, I don't know if this is actually a bug but when a zombie is downed and not killed, an exception is logged.  I'm fairly sure this is just because JustinC has it coded to just kill the zombie in the event of it being downed and is not a big deal at all, but heads up anyhow.

[Justin C]

Thanks, I will do this.

Also, zombies probably should give no shits at all about the toxic fallout event (not sure if they do or not).

Looks like zombies do randomly start dropping dead during the fallout. I think we're going to call that one a feature for now.

e: Oh something else, I don't know if this is actually a bug but when a zombie is downed and not killed, an exception is logged.  I'm fairly sure this is just because JustinC has it coded to just kill the zombie in the event of it being downed and is not a big deal at all, but heads up anyhow.

I had that happen once during testing and could never recreate it. It should be a rare occurrence.

[Ninefinger]

Thanks, I will do this.

Also, zombies probably should give no shits at all about the toxic fallout event (not sure if they do or not).

Looks like zombies do randomly start dropping dead during the fallout. I think we're going to call that one a feature for now.

My idea contains two options and is to create fall out resistant:

A: Synthetic type skin/organs/body parts/ and have the zombies forced to  automatically spawn with said natural body parts (this solution is if you want to keep the change "invisible"). I think this is possible.

B: Suit or armor that offers no blunt or sharp protections beyond that of normal clothing just the toxic fallout protection. However colonists may be able to utilize said equipment.

If i think of anything else or even find a way to create a workaround for now i will let you know.

EDIT: After taking a closer look, these ideas are not going to work. 

[picollo]

I'm playing this mod, and I really love fun factor it adds to the game. However I don't like how often zombies with personal shields appear. Usually it is around 1/5 zombies in my game which has personal shield. I'm not talking that there should be no zombies with personal shield (ok, maybe it is option), but for me  zombie power should lie in number. Just like tribals. Instead of that, yesterday I had two zombies roaming on map, one with shield, one without. Then tribals decided to raid me only to meet those two zombies. zombies killed all of them. both of them survived. Killing more than ten tribals. I know it was probably big amount of luck, but most of tribals focused shielded zombie. And bows and pilas (or what the name of other ranged weapon for tribals is) weren't able to kill break shield when zombies attacked.

My suggestion is to reduce chances for zombies to have personal shield. Maybe instead increase zombies resistance overall.

I can handle zombies, in fact I guess they are really good balanced against my colony. But other groups have huge problems with zombies. I feel like they should struggle against zombies, but not that much as they do now.

[Kaballah]

I don't really have a big problem with how often personal shields appear (and I think that's pretty hard to tweak anyway) but they always seem to come in at near perfect item health unlike all the other torn up shit zombies wear. This is probably really a problem with the core game I guess.

[Kaballah]

Found a small bug: if you have a person get infected in a finger or toe, and you amputate the finger/toe (the only amputate option given is the infected part, so you can't take the whole arm or leg) they die anyway and come back as a zombie.

[picollo]

As I mentioned earlier. I can defend against personal shield zombies.
But other groups suffer from zombies way harder.If I keep 3 zombies outside and one of them has personal shield, I can forget that tribals even exist. Pirates can't do too much as well.

[Justin C]

As I mentioned earlier. I can defend against personal shield zombies.
But other groups suffer from zombies way harder.If I keep 3 zombies outside and one of them has personal shield, I can forget that tribals even exist. Pirates can't do too much as well.

When I was testing I was frequently having issues with one single raider with a personal shield and a knife killing like 30 zombies solo. So now the melee damage bonus towards zombies only applies to your colonists. I probably forgot that in the patch notes.

I want groups of zombies to be able to wipe out groups of raiders/travelers to add to their zombie horde. If it seems like they are a bit overpowered this way I will reintroduce the damage bonus and just scale it back a bit.

[Kaballah]

I don't see any problem with that AT ALL, that sounds like a good result.

[Daman453]

I feel like the damage i deal should be bigger, i stood in a door and keep shooting a zombie over and over again

[oakshaft]

Im going to have to agree with Daman453, I had 4 colonists with charge rifles shooting them and they took two bursts from all for to take just one down.

Maybe my colonists were just having a bad day since their shooting skills were pretty high, but it seemed like they were a little "too" tough and I feel as though the zombies should focus more on numbers rather than hp.