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

[spatula]

This mod is great- really adds a spicy element to the gameplay.

Some suggestions that would make this tight:
- instead of permanent airborne, just a timed event like a solar flare for days (ie. radioactive space dust clouds)
- zombie sound fx!
- cure bites with medpacks and high doctor skill, or hack limb and loose a skill
- fire wall (zombie defense)
- "tame zombie".. your very own zombie pets for target practice and scaring raiders/visitors

Love this mod, keep it up!

[Justin C]

- instead of permanent airborne, just a timed event like a solar flare for days (ie. radioactive space dust clouds)

It wouldn't be much of a zombie apocalypse if it only lasted a few days.

I might separate the Zombies from the Airborne event so that people can disable the event if they don't want it. That was originally my plan, but it went out the window when I decided that the Airborne event was the most interesting thing about the mod.

- zombie sound fx!

This is on the list, but it is very low priority.

- cure bites with medpacks and high doctor skill, or hack limb and loose a skill

I hadn't thought about using medpacks. That's a pretty good idea.

- fire wall (zombie defense)

A fire wall would be a good idea for a weapon mod, but that would have to be separate from this mod. I don't want to clutter this mod with features that aren't specifically related to the zombies.

- "tame zombie".. your very own zombie pets for target practice and scaring raiders/visitors

An interesting idea, but to be honest it's not one that I would spend time on. It wouldn't really add much to the game for the amount of effort required.


Tomorrow afternoon I should be releasing version 0.5.3, which fixes the pawn naming bug and adds one more tweak to the sizes of early-game zombie hoards. This will probably be my last update to the mod before Alpha 4 comes out.

I'd like to thank everyone who has downloaded and played the mod so far, and thanks for all of the feedback/suggestions/bug reports. Keep them coming!

Also, let me know where you think the mod stands balance-wise. I'm trying to keep it challenging and interesting without making the players hate their life, but I think right now it's leaning more towards the "hating life" side of the spectrum. What do you guys think?

[Justin C]

The newest version is up on both ModDB and NexusMods.

Code Select Expand

v 0.5.3 - 5/23/2014 -----------------------------------------------
- Tweaked the way points are calculated for zombie raids again to guarantee that any zombie hoards that show up before 10 days into the game will only consist of one or two zombies.
- Fixed a bug that was causing odd names to be generated for pawns.
- Lowered the Zombie's health to 100 again. Zombie hoards are tough enough with standard HP.
- Fixed some issues with pathing to unreachable targets.

I confirmed that the naming bug is fixed. it was an issue with modifying references which are later reused as I had initially assumed. Thanks to those of you who gave me the information needed to narrow it down.

[spatula]

awesome dude. good points as well.

it still gives the apocalypse feel to have the airborne be recurring - it would happen as often as solar flares/eclipses and last for days... but it would allow corpses to pile up in between making the onset of the event more "uh oh". Even if it was recurring for a long time and then the world is overrun and it become a permanent event after a certain condition was met (ie. number of days), that would be logical so you can build towards it. Or if permanent was a separate event that has an extremely low % (or maybe goes up in % based on your number of colonists? I don't know how the coding limitations are on this).

I've been playing this mod a lot for the past few days and the best moments were usually pre-airborne, when I desperately try to avoid getting bitten during zombie raids, or immediately when the airborne event occurs and the bodies all come up and wreak havoc. After that it's usually a matter of one or two raids before there's no more colony.

things that might balance it:
- slower zombies, or slow/fast zombies? (ie. Night of the VS 28days zombies)
- environmental zombies like packs of muffalos or solo zeds, with really small fields of vision/detection that roam around (more permanent zombie threat, but avoidable)
- some zombie raids come out of the ground, like a reverse raider drop
- zombies eat the dead/incapped
- zombies should leave the map after running out of food, so you can hide and cower
- chainsaw?
- a "boss" zombie would be cool every once in a while

But ultimately this is one of my favorite mods so far. I loved one called "Horrorworld" but the mutants are so goddamn unforgiving (I play with that and zombies on if I want a really quick game). This is much more balanced and interesting with it's effect on the gameplay. I think I'll have a tough time not playing with this on.

[SpiritedCanine]

awesome dude. good points as well.


things that might balance it:
- slower zombies, or slow/fast zombies? (ie. Night of the VS 28days zombies)
- environmental zombies like packs of muffalos or solo zeds, with really small fields of vision/detection that roam around (more permanent zombie threat, but avoidable)
- some zombie raids come out of the ground, like a reverse raider drop
- zombies eat the dead/incapped
- zombies should leave the map after running out of food, so you can hide and cower
- chainsaw?
- a "boss" zombie would be cool every once in a while

The roaming zombie idea and zombies popping up from the ground sounds cool, I wouldn't care for a "boss" tho...

[Jagginlaz0rz]

Wonder why Tynan hasnt commented on this glorious mod? I mean if you lose your colony and leave the game running in the background you end up with a horde of zombies in your city, its amazing how metagame this is. It's like this game has this and yet Project Zomboid cant even get it right and its been years....

I hope he hires you on



theres more than that on the map... used to be only one. But someone GOT BIT!!!

witness:





metagame, from one of my overrun colonies.... scary stuff!

[Rex705]

Tynan is on vacation until the 28th. I'm sure once he gets back he will be loving this mod. Scary stuff ^

[Justin C]

awesome dude. good points as well.

it still gives the apocalypse feel to have the airborne be recurring - it would happen as often as solar flares/eclipses and last for days... but it would allow corpses to pile up in between making the onset of the event more "uh oh". Even if it was recurring for a long time and then the world is overrun and it become a permanent event after a certain condition was met (ie. number of days), that would be logical so you can build towards it. Or if permanent was a separate event that has an extremely low % (or maybe goes up in % based on your number of colonists? I don't know how the coding limitations are on this).

I've been playing this mod a lot for the past few days and the best moments were usually pre-airborne, when I desperately try to avoid getting bitten during zombie raids, or immediately when the airborne event occurs and the bodies all come up and wreak havoc. After that it's usually a matter of one or two raids before there's no more colony.

Hmm, you make some pretty fair points. And I do really like your idea of airborne "waves" which slowly build up to a permanent zombie apocalypse. It's a good compromise between the two, and from the sound of it, it should extend your game length by a bit.

I would like other people to weigh in on this issue, if possible.

things that might balance it:
- slower zombies, or slow/fast zombies? (ie. Night of the VS 28days zombies)

I might have mentioned this in this thread before, but in the beginning one of my goals was to make zombies really fast in the beginning (like 2x the speed of humans) and then have them slow down to about 25% speed as they absorb damage. While we are alive our brains place limits on the amount we are allowed to use our muscles to avoid damage due to overexertion. I liked The Zombie Survival Guide's suggestion that "fresh" zombies could potentially be much stronger and faster than they were while they were alive due to the removal of those limiters.

- environmental zombies like packs of muffalos or solo zeds, with really small fields of vision/detection that roam around (more permanent zombie threat, but avoidable)

I considered zombified animals, but really it's not worth the trouble of getting this working. I compromise by making "turned" zombies have a smaller search radius than zombie raiders, so if a zombie reanimates at the outskirts of the map they will just wander around because they won't see any targets. I might randomize the search radius a bit so that I can allow for ones with really short ranges who can wander off and do their own thing.

- some zombie raids come out of the ground, like a reverse raider drop

I think this would be a bit OP with zombie bites. Zombies have the potential to mark a colonist for death with one strike, so it wouldn't be fair to have them just popping up out of the ground. Also, it really doesn't make much sense, to be honest.

- zombies eat the dead/incapped

I tried to make zombies finish off incapped pawns in the beginning. Deep in the attack code, where I can't reach, there is another check that prevents attacks on incapped pawns. My zombies were running right up to the incapped targets and then just looking at them funny.

- zombies should leave the map after running out of food, so you can hide and cower

Zombies do not attack walls, so they really would just stop being a threat if you could wall yourself off until they got bored and left. Besides, I went out of my way to make it so zombies don't get bored and stop fighting . Also, zombies don't need food to survive, they are just driven to eat.

- chainsaw?

I'm not looking to do a weapons mod anytime soon, and I imagine a melee weapons mod would be fairly difficult to implement.

- a "boss" zombie would be cool every once in a while

I was thinking of making it so zombies who are reanimated in your game have a small chance of reanimating as super powerful ones. Maybe they could have different behavior, like being smart enough to attack your walls or something.

But ultimately this is one of my favorite mods so far. I loved one called "Horrorworld" but the mutants are so goddamn unforgiving (I play with that and zombies on if I want a really quick game). This is much more balanced and interesting with it's effect on the gameplay. I think I'll have a tough time not playing with this on.

I'm very glad to hear that. There is nothing I like more than hearing that people are actually enjoying my mod.

EDIT:
Nice screenies Jagginlaz0rz! For you or anyone else who has some good screencaps(or videos), I am pretty sure the ModDB page is set up to allow anyone to submit them. So if you want to support the mod submitting media is a great way to do it. Or you can leave me a rating or a comment. I will greatly appreciate any of the above.

[Jagginlaz0rz]

Tynan is on vacation until the 28th. I'm sure once he gets back he will be loving this mod. Scary stuff ^

yeah just read it on his changelog, LOL.

[mrofa]

I agree with airborn is kinda annoying to have it all the time.
You could consider it like the events but with 2 stages, first one is you get a airborn and all human bodies and lets say 1/4 of zombie bodies are ressurectedas zombies, and the next stage will be that there will be a zombie raid event after a day or two  that airborn did started.

[spatula]

i'll try and post some screenshots after playing tonight. gave it a rating on mod db.

love the idea of fresher = faster for zombies... also special infected reminds me of L4D and would be awesome.

i didn't mean animal-zombies, i meant zombies that roam like animals... but that could be some wanderers from a raid like you mentioned... just would be interesting to see zombies at play in the environment.

And yes, after my colony dies, it's much more fun to wait "after the end" and watch as your infected colonist begin to grow an army of undead followers... muahhahaa

[Jdalt40]

Are the zombies counted as a faction. If they are not a faction will they work on older saves.
If it does work will turrets function normally against zombies?

[Justin C]

Are the zombies counted as a faction. If they are not a faction will they work on older saves.
If it does work will turrets function normally against zombies?

They are a hidden faction. The Zombies that spawn will all be a part of the "Zombie" faction which will always be hostile to you, but that faction will never show up in the Factions window.

Turrets work normally against zombies.

It most likely will not work on previous save games because I replace the Pawn class that human races use.

i'll try and post some screenshots after playing tonight. gave it a rating on mod db.

Thanks, I really appreciate it!

i didn't mean animal-zombies, i meant zombies that roam like animals... but that could be some wanderers from a raid like you mentioned... just would be interesting to see zombies at play in the environment.

Yeah, I think I am definitely going to add a variable search radius for zombies that are turned or spawned as raiders.

[spatula]

i decided to cheat a bit with dev mode to make it a truly massive horde to finish off my game tonight, but while building up my base got the event "ALL the zombies are attacking you" and quasi pooped myself. One raider shot my guy to death, it put a zed behind my lines and pretty soon it was over.

Anyway here's some pics:
http://imgur.com/XvALgeD
http://imgur.com/yXugzMv
http://imgur.com/POUTF9w
http://imgur.com/kFZH6I3
http://imgur.com/O1JlaDF
http://imgur.com/QHHJ0oh
http://imgur.com/HBzt1a4

[Justin C]

i decided to cheat a bit with dev mode to make it a truly massive horde to finish off my game tonight, but while building up my base got the event "ALL the zombies are attacking you" and quasi pooped myself. One raider shot my guy to death, it put a zed behind my lines and pretty soon it was over.

Anyway here's some pics:
http://imgur.com/XvALgeD
http://imgur.com/yXugzMv
http://imgur.com/POUTF9w
http://imgur.com/kFZH6I3
http://imgur.com/O1JlaDF
http://imgur.com/QHHJ0oh
http://imgur.com/HBzt1a4

Nice.

One thing that will be coming with the next release, which I'm sure you will like, is that during raids any zombies spawned will have a 25% chance of being given a target search radius between 15-150 (250 is the size of the standard map), instead of the normal raiding zombies who can find targets anywhere on the map.

So what this means is that you will have those occasional zombies with a small search radius who just wander around at the edge of the map doing their own thing, like you wanted.

This adds even more to the meta of dealing with zombies. Now even after you deal with the initial hoard who rushes your base to be slaughtered by your turrets, there will be a few stragglers that you will need to actually leave the safety of your base to deal with. If you leave them or forget about them, they could wind up biting a colonist who strays too close, or they could turn a friendly group of travelers who are passing through into a big zombie hoard. This change will reduce the initial danger of zombie hoards by cutting the forces rushing your base by 15-25%, but should increase the overall danger of zombies. I played several games with this new change in place and I am really liking how it changes how things play out.

Here are some changes that aren't going to be in the next release, but I will be working on soon(tm):
- Changes to the way the airborne incident works. I think I am going to make the incident a temporary thing for the first 2 or 3 times it happens, and then have it be permanent after that.
- Zombie bosses. They will be bigger, stronger, faster, and they will take more hits when they die. I don't think they will spawn with zombie hoards. I think I am going to make them appear very rarely when a corpse is reanimated on the map, and they will only spawn late-game. I might make them only spawn when an actual colonist is reanimated. I'm not 100% sure yet. Feel free to weigh in on this one.
- Make a cure for zombie bites. The cure will not work 100% of the time and there will likely be some tradeoffs. I'm thinking it should only be successful 25% of the time as a base, with doctor skills maybe bringing it up to 50%. Then there will be a good chance that the cure just does nothing at all, with a small chance of it killing them immediately, making them reanimate with the doctor right next to them. I might add a tiny chance of them reanimating as zombie bosses. I'm not sure yet. Once again, feel free to give your opinion here.

Let me know what you guys think. If you have any other ideas for future changes, please post them in this thread.