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

[Crimsonknight3]

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.

That is a really good idea and I think it REALLY will improve this mod a lot,  it will add a whole new dimension... Not just defending but actively hunting!

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.

Again I think this would really also add to the whole feel of the mod.. Though may I suggest add an option in the config.xml for a "hard mode" which is disabled by default which allows people to use the original version where one it happens it's permanent?

- 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.

I think the idea of only reanimated colonists reanimating as bosses is a GREAT idea but I think there should be an EXTREMELY EXTREMELY EXTREMELY rare spawn chance... Like a spawn happening sometime in a range of 30-50 raids of 5-20 boss zombies + regular ones

- 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.

I think I said this a while back but I do think it's a good idea though I think a base of 25% is pretty low considering the low numbers of colonists involved in the average rimworld game... I think a base of 40% being raised by max doctoring skill to 75% "sounds" better... Would have to mess around and see though.

I do think this mod could use a few extra items to help with hordes though... Maybe expensive researchable zombie defence things, a floor that will create a fire when powered, an electric fence similar to another mods charged barbed wire, consuming a lot more power though... and maybe your own version of cremation + a time delay between death + Reanimation that allows a limited window to dispose of the bodies?

Just a few thoughts

[Justin C]

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.

Again I think this would really also add to the whole feel of the mod.. Though may I suggest add an option in the config.xml for a "hard mode" which is disabled by default which allows people to use the original version where one it happens it's permanent?

I can make it so you can set how many temporary waves there are before it becomes permanent in the XML for the incident.

- 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.

I think the idea of only reanimated colonists reanimating as bosses is a GREAT idea but I think there should be an EXTREMELY EXTREMELY EXTREMELY rare spawn chance... Like a spawn happening sometime in a range of 30-50 raids of 5-20 boss zombies + regular ones

I want a single boss Zombie spawn to be the rare event that happens. If it's strong enough to be called a "Boss", then 5-20 of them should spell instant game over for almost any base. I don't really want that.

- 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.

I think I said this a while back but I do think it's a good idea though I think a base of 25% is pretty low considering the low numbers of colonists involved in the average rimworld game... I think a base of 40% being raised by max doctoring skill to 75% "sounds" better... Would have to mess around and see though.

My whole issue with making it high is that in most Zombie lore, a Zombie bite is fatal. Period. If you get bit, say goodbye to your friends and family and let them shoot you in the head before you start trying to eat them.

The Walking Dead was the first place I've ever seen a Zombie bite cured, and it was cured by sawing the victim's leg off in time before the infection spread past the leg. Amputation seems to be the one way of surviving a bite, and there are just so many things that can go wrong there. If you are bitten on the body, you're dead. If you are bitten on a limb but don't get treated in time, you're dead. If you get treated before the infection spreads but your "doctor" doesn't know how to perform an amputation without you bleeding out, you're dead. If your amputation is successful but the wound becomes infected, you're dead. And if everything happens to go right and you manage to survive, you are permanently crippled in the middle of a Zombie apocalypse. There are no happy endings when you are bitten by a Zombie. It's bad news all around.

The only sure way of dealing with a Zombie bite is to not get bit, and I'd like to keep it that way.

I do think this mod could use a few extra items to help with hordes though... Maybe expensive researchable zombie defence things, a floor that will create a fire when powered, an electric fence similar to another mods charged barbed wire, consuming a lot more power though... and maybe your own version of cremation + a time delay between death + Reanimation that allows a limited window to dispose of the bodies?

There are at least two separate cremation mods that should work with my mod. There are also plenty of weapon mods that should work with it.

My mod is strictly zombies and things that are zombie-related. Any weapon packs would be separate from the Zombie Apocalypse mod, and I really have no interest in creating weapon packs right now.

There is a time delay from when corpses that haven't been bitten spawn if the virus is airborne. It might be a bit short right now, so I can make it last a bit longer later. As for corpses that have been bitten, the amount of time they spend living after the bite is the delay. For bitten colonists I want players to focus on detaining them and preparing for them to die and turn, instead of just having them dispose of the corpse.

[keylocke]

i just logged in to say you're awesome. bro fist ftw!

[Rex705]

You keep saying you have never heard of a cure for zombie bites so I guess you have never played any Resident Evil games because they have an anti-virus that stops the infection. It would really help out if you had a chance to save some of your colonists.

[spatula]

cool man!

maybe the "cure tradeoff" could be that it has a 33/33/33 chance of either curing, killing or making a boss zombie via genetic mutation and doctor skill just reduces the boss chance to mitigate risk.

OR, maybe the "cure" only has a 5% chance to "cure" (and 2% chance to mutate to boss, 6% chance to just die and turn) but medpacks will simply restore your health to max, so you can delay the inevitable as long as you have them on hand... meaning after being bitten, you'd have to routinely use medpacks to prevent death/turning. You could have an entire colony of bitten people manufacturing medpacks in a desperate race to stay alive... making agave the most important plant of the zombie apocalypse.... (maybe agave + zombie meat is the recipe?). Maybe the bite reduced your max health by 10 per day, so with 100 health, you have 10 days of medpacks before your max health hits zero and you die? (ie. medpacks would cure 90 hlth day 1, 80 health day 2, 70 day 3, etc. with a 5% chance to cure).

I also like the idea of the "end-game" being that you have a working cure via medpacks, but zombie raids start happening at quicker and quicker intervals, meaning less and less medpacks until you're overwhelmed.

---

i'd say that you'd want to focus on gameplay over staying true to "lore" as there's no real canon for "zombies"... are there infected, viral, mutation, gamma-ray induced, spiritual, possessed by demons, bacteria, genetic zombies?

There's so many takes on the genre. Might as well make a "new type of zombie" specific to Rimworld and focus on gameplay. Maybe the "cure" is really just a "phew, turns out it was a cactus scratch, not zombie bite",  or however you want to make it work, but it would be nice if there was a REMOTE chance of reversing the bite... even if just to give a false sense of hope before saying bye-bye.

My take on it is that the colonists landed on a world where there's an indigenous bacteria that enters corpses and instead of eating the material, reads the genes and re-animates the animal them to extend it's lifespan. Normally people avoid this planet, but there's a few outlaw colonies and raiders living on the planet because the zombie meat has magical healing properties- if eaten by a live creature, the bacteria will heal anything dead (ie. missing a kidney, not anymore after eating Zombiesnakz(tm))... the bacteria can be killed by a living host if they have a decent immune system, but anything dead they restore and take over... it's obviously banned in the galaxy because of the whole zombie outbreak potential, so everybody is  here risking their lives for the ultimate black market trade- the lucrative zombie corpse market.

That explanation would make sense with zombies + rimworld + the game mechanics i suggested above.

Now, anyone seen the zombie film "Fido"? It's basically Lassie, but with zombies. Zombie pets. mmmm

[keylocke]

-(i haven't installed this mod yet) but are there zombie spawns just idling around like squirrels or muffalos until colonists get close enough to attack? i want colonists going out on supply runs through zombie infested areas to be actually very dangerous.

-is there a way to fiddle around with the map generator and tile sets to create an urban environment? (ie: remove the mountains, increase abandoned structures, replace tilesets to make it look like urban/suburban/rural, etc) (increase spawn rate of metal to cope with the lack of mining areas, which would force colonists to go on supply runs)

-remove hydrophonics table and lower the generation of farmable areas. (again to force colonists to go on supply runs)

[spatula]

-(i haven't installed this mod yet) but are there zombie spawns just idling around like squirrels or muffalos until colonists get close enough to attack? i want colonists going out on supply runs through zombie infested areas to be actually very dangerous.

he just added this factor in the game. when zombie raids appear, some will drift around dangerously.

-is there a way to fiddle around with the map generator and tile sets to create an urban environment? (ie: remove the mountains, increase abandoned structures, replace tilesets to make it look like urban/suburban/rural, etc) (increase spawn rate of metal to cope with the lack of mining areas, which would force colonists to go on supply runs)

Look at this mod for different landscapes (snow/plains/mountains): http://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=2910.0

I'm sure someone will come up with urban/ruins mapsets eventually... that would fit with the zombie theme... i like this idea.

-remove hydrophonics table and lower the generation of farmable areas. (again to force colonists to go on supply runs)

I dunno about this. I'd rather just see a random event (like "a turret misfires and the echo of the shot is heard all around") that would cause map-wandering zombies to all attack your base... that way you'd have a good motivation to go out hunting down the roving hordes (instead of on supply runs) and it wouldn't change the core game-play too much. 

[Justin C]

You keep saying you have never heard of a cure for zombie bites so I guess you have never played any Resident Evil games because they have an anti-virus that stops the infection. It would really help out if you had a chance to save some of your colonists.

I didn't really think of the Resident Evil games. That's a man-made zombie virus scenario, and I am going for a more "traditional" Walking Dead/Dawn of the Dead style zombie apocalypse feel. Having a cure just makes zombies less dangerous or scary.

I'm willing to give players a chance at healing to cut them a little slack (which has been on my to-do list for a while now), but I think their ultimate goal should be to avoid being bitten. I want there to be a feeling of dread when you get the "Colonist Bitten" alert. I want players to go through the 5 stages of grief as they accept that their colonist is probably doomed. I want my mod to be hard mode, because I am a sadistic bastard.

-(i haven't installed this mod yet) but are there zombie spawns just idling around like squirrels or muffalos until colonists get close enough to attack? i want colonists going out on supply runs through zombie infested areas to be actually very dangerous.

The next release will have some zombies that stay behind during hoards and just hang out near the edge of the map until someone wanders too close.

-is there a way to fiddle around with the map generator and tile sets to create an urban environment? (ie: remove the mountains, increase abandoned structures, replace tilesets to make it look like urban/suburban/rural, etc) (increase spawn rate of metal to cope with the lack of mining areas, which would force colonists to go on supply runs)

-remove hydrophonics table and lower the generation of farmable areas. (again to force colonists to go on supply runs)

I haven't taken a look at the map generation stuff at all so I don't know what would be involved in a complete overhaul on the map generator. But that is certainly an interesting idea, and if anyone else is up for the challenge of making an urban environment map generator, I would definitely be interested in making a version of my mod that takes advantage of it.

maybe the "cure tradeoff" could be that it has a 33/33/33 chance of either curing, killing or making a boss zombie via genetic mutation and doctor skill just reduces the boss chance to mitigate risk.

That's basically what I was thinking, except it would be more like 25% chance of curing, 63% chance of no effect (or just health reduction without death), 10% chance of killing (and instant reanimation), 2% chance of killing and boss spawn.

I am also considering just having even simpler rules that work independently and letting the chance of each result work themselves out from those independent mechanics. Like for example, have a flat 2-5% chance of a colonist reanimation turning into a boss zombie. Then each attempt at curing can have a 20% chance of curing, and an 80% chance of dealing damage to the bitten, ranging from a small amount to a huge amount. When the heal attempt fails it deals a random amount of damage (probably like 5%-50%), if the damage is enough to kill them, they die. Then they have that 5% chance of turning into a boss zombie applied.

i'd say that you'd want to focus on gameplay over staying true to "lore" as there's no real canon for "zombies"... are there infected, viral, mutation, gamma-ray induced, spiritual, possessed by demons, bacteria, genetic zombies?

Yes, there are multiple different versions of the zombie story, but there are popular ones and unpopular ones. I find the "Walking Dead" version much more appealing and more intimidating than any of the others, and it's also the most popular lore at the moment since the show basically revived the whole Zombie genre. A huge part of what makes zombies scary is the fact that you don't know what they are, how the infection started, or if it can be cured. People fear what they don't understand. Once you have an explanation for any of those questions, the zombies instantly become less scary.

My goal with this mod was to make zombies that genuinely feel like traditional zombies, and because of that the lore is one thing I am not flexible on.

[steveuk]

Hi Justin, loving the mod. This and the Tech tree minami one, make Rimworld fantastically gruesome and difficult.

I have slowed my zombies down a bit (Romero style), but as I am not too familiar with XML, was wondering the best way to produce much more zombies? I tried messing with the count range, but after a quick test I noticed no difference Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction.

Keep up the great work

[Justin C]

Hi Justin, loving the mod. This and the Tech tree minami one, make Rimworld fantastically gruesome and difficult.

I have slowed my zombies down a bit (Romero style), but as I am not too familiar with XML, was wondering the best way to produce much more zombies? I tried messing with the count range, but after a quick test I noticed no difference Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction.

Keep up the great work

For the current release you can lower the cost of the zombies in the FactionDef. But be careful with that. The hoards start out small in the beginning, but they get much bigger as time goes on and as you gain more colonists.

[steveuk]

Hi Justin, loving the mod. This and the Tech tree minami one, make Rimworld fantastically gruesome and difficult.

I have slowed my zombies down a bit (Romero style), but as I am not too familiar with XML, was wondering the best way to produce much more zombies? I tried messing with the count range, but after a quick test I noticed no difference Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction.

Keep up the great work

For the current release you can lower the cost of the zombies in the FactionDef. But be careful with that. The hoards start out small in the beginning, but they get much bigger as time goes on and as you gain more colonists.

Thanks Justin, just realised the value I was altering relates to what they carry lol I will play around with some values. Do you know the multiplier x time + colonists that the zombie horde grows?

[Justin C]

Hi Justin, loving the mod. This and the Tech tree minami one, make Rimworld fantastically gruesome and difficult.

I have slowed my zombies down a bit (Romero style), but as I am not too familiar with XML, was wondering the best way to produce much more zombies? I tried messing with the count range, but after a quick test I noticed no difference Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction.

Keep up the great work

For the current release you can lower the cost of the zombies in the FactionDef. But be careful with that. The hoards start out small in the beginning, but they get much bigger as time goes on and as you gain more colonists.

Thanks Justin, just realised the value I was altering relates to what they carry lol I will play around with some values. Do you know the multiplier x time + colonists that the zombie horde grows?

Here is what I am doing now (what I explain below assumes a cost of 20 per zombie. If you change the cost you will have to do the math yourself ):

- The starting maximum spawn size is 3.
- Every 3 days 1 zombie is added to the maximum number of zombies that can spawn. (this is ignored for the first 10 days, so if you get a zombie hoard before day 10 they will usually only have one or two spawn, but on day 11 the maximum spawn size will go up by 3)
- For every extra colonist you have (past 3) it adds 2 to the maximum number of zombies that can spawn.

The actual spawn size is a random number between the maximum size and 40% of the maximum size.

[steveuk]

Hi Justin, loving the mod. This and the Tech tree minami one, make Rimworld fantastically gruesome and difficult.

I have slowed my zombies down a bit (Romero style), but as I am not too familiar with XML, was wondering the best way to produce much more zombies? I tried messing with the count range, but after a quick test I noticed no difference Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction.

Keep up the great work

For the current release you can lower the cost of the zombies in the FactionDef. But be careful with that. The hoards start out small in the beginning, but they get much bigger as time goes on and as you gain more colonists.

Thanks Justin, just realised the value I was altering relates to what they carry lol I will play around with some values. Do you know the multiplier x time + colonists that the zombie horde grows?

Here is what I am doing now (what I explain below assumes a cost of 20 per zombie. If you change the cost you will have to do the math yourself ):

- The starting maximum spawn size is 3.
- Every 3 days 1 zombie is added to the maximum number of zombies that can spawn. (this is ignored for the first 10 days, so if you get a zombie hoard before day 10 they will usually only have one or two spawn, but on day 11 the maximum spawn size will go up by 3)
- For every extra colonist you have (past 3) it adds 2 to the maximum number of zombies that can spawn.

The actual spawn size is a random number between the maximum size and 40% of the maximum size.

Thanks so much for your help. I'm experimenting with cost 10 at the moment and just got attacked by around 24 zombies (I have 5 colonists). I survived but the zombies broke into the prison and turned the 4 prisoners inside.

I have read some of your intentions for the future of the mod and would like to make a couple of suggestions.

I personally prefer the system you have now re: Airborne and Death by bite. Maybe you could make that optional if you do  implement changes. A Romero style mod and 28 Days later etc. Research options into the virus would be good though and could prolong the inevitable turning for the hapless victims? Amputations would be cool but I suppose it all depends on how far your going to take the mod.

I also like the idea of roaming zombies. No more sending out colonist with gay abandon to collect resources.

I'm not too keen on the boss zombie idea unless a buff was added to the heavier set zombies. Again, perhaps a traditional and more modern choice would be good. A mod was created for State of Decay which catered for nearly all tastes. I of course chose Romero

Anyway, thanks again.

[a89a89]

DO I need a new save to make this work?

[spatula]

hmmm, i just had a thought.

what about a common event: "a group of survivors is joining your colony"?

it fits more with the zombie genres of small groups of humans travelling together, solves the "depopulation via bites" issues by adding more colonists, more frequently... aaaaannnddd....

alternate event: a group of survivors is joining the colony... one looks a bit off...
(ie. one of them is already bitten- it doesn't say who though!)

imagine, you get a group of three joining the colony, but one is losing health over time and stealing medpacks. You decide to arrest him and schedule an execution, but this upsets the whole colony as a result and one of your best farmers decides to leave... only to be greeted by an onslaught of zombies at the gates... muhahaha. the drama.