But how does the zed know to pull the tab on them? That seems like an awfully specific thing to know how to do, and zombies still don’t know how to operate doors or, y’know, step to the left to avoid falling into the spike pit directly in front of them in plain view.
[quote=“i2amroy, post:40, topic:9483”]As has been pointed out before, literally all the zombie has to do is pull a single tab to launch it and the drone does all the rest. In the world of the future your weapons do your fighting for you, you just need to turn them on and feed them the IFF data (which the grenadier zed’s military stuff is assumed to still doing automatically, though we should probably eventually have an actual IFF item that once you “registered” to yourself you could use to give a 100% chance of success on setting up/launching military robots such as hacks or turrets). The other zombies don’t read as hostiles to the current zombie pulling the tab’s IFF reader, so the drone doesn’t target them, and realistically I wouldn’t think it would be too far fetched to have the grenade automatically deactivate and return if no available targets are found; you could save a fair bit of money in your military that way. The grenadier literally requires only a single piece of technology, one that identifies enemies/allies, and every other bit of AI processing power is housed in the hack itself.
And once again, this is not some crazy pipe dream. We are literally working on creating small robot drones that do this right now for our current militaries (though the current designs are mostly focused on drone-mounted guns rather than kamikaze drones). A notable example came up just a year or so back, where someone was working on a small drone for only a couple hundred bucks that when fed target location data would automatically fly to the desired location and fire on enemy targets there; it was to be used to allow soldiers to counter snipers without having to leave their current cover. And not a single bit of cyborg super-processing AI’s needed, this is all with small, soldier-carryable current technology.
Ideally I’d like to eventually have it so that the drones will indeed be used on other (non-military aligned) targets that the military zed deems “hostile”; right now it’s just being held back by a coding thing involving getting the current enemy the grenadier is angry at, not by it not wanting to be implemented.[/quote]
Yes, yes, all wonderful and happy, and I don’t disagree with your technological bits AT ALL (though if you’re going THAT route, everyone should already be dead, as the military capabilities at that point make unarmed targets go “poof” without any possibility of a game at all, so be careful how far you push that).
The problem is that it DOES NOT MATCH THE REST OF THE GAME. You have rules that your zombies “live” by. Too dumb to open unlocked doors is too dumb to use even a dead-stupid weapon like the one you are describing, much less use it at a reasonable time.
Weapons half as smart as the ones you are talking about would make skitterbots MUCH more intelligent and dangerous. Manhacks, too, really - their behaviour right now is pretty dumb.
You are being inconsistent with yourself and your game. THAT is the problem, not the technological aspects.
As I pointed out before, just because something violates the “you can deal with nearly every single enemy in a nearly identical fashion” rule isn’t a valid reason for non-inclusion. Once the change PR (which should hopefully go in tonight/tomorrow) is in it’ll be nerfed enough to provide a valid challenge that forces you to adapt your strategy without necessarily being unkillable.
Providing variance in a world without it isn’t called “inconsistency”, it’s called “improvements”. (And besides, the lore allows for smarter zombies already, such as in the case of the master/necro. The only problem is that right now we haven’t implemented that particular chunk of lore very well, since masters and necros still function basically identically to the other nearby zombies).
Heh, I worked with a guy that did missile guidance programming at my last job, he tells me modern antimissile missiles can in fact do midair 180s while maintaining a lock on their target 
As for the rest, I think it does make it fit the lore more smoothly to make the grenadier a cyborg, at least by implication, something like, “An unusually bulky manhack rises from the zombie grenadier’s backpack!”
I, for one, have really enjoyed playing with these guys in the game so far, minus the explosions on death that I found out about the hard way. Once the PR is merged to balance them a bit more I think they’ll be just about perfect. For me, the variety was much needed. Flavor-wise I think they do a good job of fitting into the game and its lore. I’d love to see more additions like this in the future.
I could see that. Could probably give them a rare chance of dropping a single burnt-out bionic, with the implication being that they only got like 1-2 small bionic implants to let them control the hacks or something similar while remaining mostly human.
Improvements are good. Breaking your own rules is bad.
Changing the rules is fine - improvements often do that… but then, the new rule needs to apply everywhere, not just this one spot, or it’s really just breaking the rules.
I could see that. Could probably give them a rare chance of dropping a single burnt-out bionic, with the implication being that they only got like 1-2 small bionic implants to let them control the hacks or something similar while remaining mostly human.[/quote]
See, something as simple as this makes it workable. The only zombie that currently has any implied intelligent behaviour is the bio-operator - explicitly cyborg.
Well, and the scientists. Sort of (they kill themselves with their own acid, for instance).
Having them drop a single low-grade bionic would be nice. They’re an elite enemy after all.
The PR makes it so that they fairly reliably drop at least a handful of the undamaged hacks for your own use, assuming you can clear out the explosive items beforehand. Elites regularly give drops of damaged versions of some of the best equipment in the game short of power armor, possibly the best basic backpack in the game, and something like 6 different explosive hacks of different sizes. Assuming you can clear off the exploding charges before they wipe out the dropped loot they are very profitable enemies, and the normal versions aren’t much worse in their drops (chestrig instead of MOLLE pack, and they drop a few less hacks for you to use).
FWIW I’m currently finishing up a PR that should make zombie masters and necros a fair bit more intelligent as well.
Cyborg-ness is actually not related to the intelligence of the zombie in any real way; and in fact the bio-operators are implied to be no smarter than the average zed, it’s just that they still have the CQC bionic up and running in their system to help them perform those sick takedown moves. Instead it has to do with what the blob chooses to invest in, in things like hulks they invest in muscle mass, but in things like necros, masters, or scientists (or the elite grenadiers) they invest more in brains (which is why despite being fairly powerful monsters they are only about the same as a normal human physically).
Also video of me taking down an elite grenadier (post nerfs) in 1v1 combat with nothing but two pairs of sunglasses, a crowbar, and 3 melee skill. I made a few too many mistakes in this one to quite get away safely at the end after killing the elite (and I’m sure the quality is horrible), but several previous other runs with a similar strategy worked out just fine with me taking out the elite with no problems. (And I’m sure if I had of been wearing any actual armor at all instead of just the basic winter jacket I would have been fine as well that time, albeit fairly badly wounded).
Cyborg-ness is actually not related to the intelligence of the zombie in any real way; and in fact the bio-operators are implied to be no smarter than the average zed, it’s just that they still have the CQC bionic up and running in their system to help them perform those sick takedown moves.[/quote]
That’s exactly what I was meaning - the cybernetics still work, even if the zombie is braindead.
For the grenadier, some kind of IFF system that can launch remaining ammo and then self-destruct after the soldier is dead would make the grenadier make sense. It should also make the grenadier REALLY REALLY rare, as the dead-man switch concept is generally shunned in individualistic western culture. The elites having it might make sense, while the regular might should not have it at all.
That would be make me VERY VERY happy. Thank you for that.
What I like about CataDDA is that it is very realistic in a lot of cases a lot of things are explaind well and they make sence. Except one thing the zombies don’t have clear rules. Things like their level of inteligence. Because of that a lot of the time I notice that a lot of the special zombies don’t have very good explanations, smokers for instace they are there everyone accpets that they produce smoke but no one knows why. They are there because they are cool.
As far as I can tell (I haven’t played with the grenadiers yet) the problem here is that the grenadier was designed to be a zombie first and than bending the lore around to fit it in. When in reality it used to be a soldier and than it was zombiefied. Don’t get me wrong I like the idea but It could use some rework. It’s should be designed as a soldier first and not a zombie. I mean in reality if your weapon is so easy to arm that a randomly flailing zombie can activate it I highly doubt that the military is going to use it. Guns have a safety on them for a reason. Also who would one to be in the same squad with a guy that if is shot blows everyone up around him?
Though I think this is part of a bigger problem. As I have mentioned already the problem is that the lore is not very clear in a lot of things that is crucial to designing mobs. There should be rules as to what a type of enemy is capable of and THAN figuring out interesting enemys. This way enemys would fit in with the lore perfectly. and no one could complain 
I seem to be making a habit of posting really large responses in this thread. 
I actually looked into making them a soldier first, then a zombie, when I was designing them (which is the only real reason they ended up being a zed instead of a robot). Assuming they have a good IFF detector (which I was originally assuming would be equipment, but could work just as well as a smaller bionic) then even if they activated their weapon accidentally then it wouldn’t actually detonate on anything nearby, since there wouldn’t be any registered hostiles. In addition the idea is that the device would also allow a more greater degree of manual control over the released grenade if needed, it’s just that the zombie isn’t utilizing that part of the equipment/implant anymore.
As for the zombie intelligence, it basically has to do with what the ooze decides to invest in (as I mentioned earlier), and how much power it currently has available to it for zombie use. This changes somewhat depending on what the person was prior to being zombified, what has happened to them since, and what other zombies are in the area (since their’s a total energy alotment for a given area as well). In general you should have a basically sliding scale of physical vs mental prowess, with zombies in one lacking in the other. You should also generally have all of the different traits improve somewhat over time (Which is what we’re starting to see with the new upgrade system). It’s a kinda rough guideline, but that’s because technically the ooze could go all of the way from investing no real energy at all (and making a decayed zed) all of the way up to making some sort of super-hulk with genius level IQ. It’s just there’s no reason for the blob to invest that much energy in any one given zombie when it has other, more useful uses for the same energy, be they here or on other dimensional planes.
And really the reason we don’t have enemy design rules is because ultimately the lore is flexible. There are no “hard and fast” lore rules, there is just a sliding scale ranging from “not really implemented, so you just need a semi-valid reason to change” to “implemented and basically canon for years, if you want to change this you better have a very good reason and explanation”. If you come up with a really cool idea that fits all of the lore but this tiny anecdote in one of the newspapers (which aren’t designed to be that reliably anyways) you are totally allowed to change the lore to let your creation fit. Similarly if you have both something really cool and a really good reason why some of the older lore should be modified somewhat you could probably get away with that as well. That’s part of the job of the mainline devs; to collectively decide what parts of the lore can be bent in any given case and what parts can’t.
Lastly smokers and at least a handful of the more esoteric things such as the darkness bionic are really only in because they got grandfathered from back in a time before we had stricter explanation limits. They’re things that don’t really have good realistic explanations (though we try to justify them occasionally if we can), but they’ve been in the game for so long now that we can’t exactly just remove them.
Oh lovely another monster I hate that I probably can’t disable on its own. Fun.
Creating your own blacklist mod involves creating a single, maybe 15 line text file. Seriously, removing the grenadiers would just be this:
[
{
"type": "MOD_INFO",
"mod-type": "SUPPLEMENTAL",
"ident": "MY_HATES",
"name": "My removals",
"author": "me",
"description": "Removes all the enemies that I hate.",
"path": "modinfo.json"
},{
"type": "MONSTER_BLACKLIST",
"monsters": [
"mon_grenadier",
"mon_grenadier_elite"
]
}
]
Boom! Stick that in a MY_HATES folder inside the mods folder and then make sure to enable it on any new worlds and you’re done. Whole thing would take about 1 minute to make, and then you can easily just add any new monsters or items you don’t like to it in seconds.
Then that should probably be in by default, because seriously, this completely breaks the game thematically as far as I’m concerned, and reading this thread, I’m not alone. Making them rare as hell is a good start, but yeah…
No offense, but your opinion != the opinions of the collective developers and mergers, and it’s their opinions that determine what the defaults in the game are. They have given you the tools to change their vision to match yours with a fairly trivial amount of work (and continue to attempt to add more individual customization options into the game), but they are the ones who get to decide if something fits the game thematically or not, not you.
And personally? I’ve seen at least a few posts of people enjoying the challenge of grenadiers, and the nerf PR hasn’t even been merged yet.
[quote=“i2amroy, post:52, topic:9483”]I seem to be making a habit of posting really large responses in this thread.
I actually looked into making them a soldier first, then a zombie, when I was designing them (which is the only real reason they ended up being a zed instead of a robot). Assuming they have a good IFF detector (which I was originally assuming would be equipment, but could work just as well as a smaller bionic) then even if they activated their weapon accidentally then it wouldn’t actually detonate on anything nearby, since there wouldn’t be any registered hostiles. In addition the idea is that the device would also allow a more greater degree of manual control over the released grenade if needed, it’s just that the zombie isn’t utilizing that part of the equipment/implant anymore.
As for the zombie intelligence, it basically has to do with what the ooze decides to invest in (as I mentioned earlier), and how much power it currently has available to it for zombie use. This changes somewhat depending on what the person was prior to being zombified, what has happened to them since, and what other zombies are in the area (since their’s a total energy alotment for a given area as well). In general you should have a basically sliding scale of physical vs mental prowess, with zombies in one lacking in the other. You should also generally have all of the different traits improve somewhat over time (Which is what we’re starting to see with the new upgrade system). It’s a kinda rough guideline, but that’s because technically the ooze could go all of the way from investing no real energy at all (and making a decayed zed) all of the way up to making some sort of super-hulk with genius level IQ. It’s just there’s no reason for the blob to invest that much energy in any one given zombie when it has other, more useful uses for the same energy, be they here or on other dimensional planes.
And really the reason we don’t have enemy design rules is because ultimately the lore is flexible. There are no “hard and fast” lore rules, there is just a sliding scale ranging from “not really implemented, so you just need a semi-valid reason to change” to “implemented and basically canon for years, if you want to change this you better have a very good reason and explanation”. If you come up with a really cool idea that fits all of the lore but this tiny anecdote in one of the newspapers (which aren’t designed to be that reliably anyways) you are totally allowed to change the lore to let your creation fit. Similarly if you have both something really cool and a really good reason why some of the older lore should be modified somewhat you could probably get away with that as well. That’s part of the job of the mainline devs; to collectively decide what parts of the lore can be bent in any given case and what parts can’t.
Lastly smokers and at least a handful of the more esoteric things such as the darkness bionic are really only in because they got grandfathered from back in a time before we had stricter explanation limits. They’re things that don’t really have good realistic explanations (though we try to justify them occasionally if we can), but they’ve been in the game for so long now that we can’t exactly just remove them.[/quote]
Ohh yeah this clears up a lot. Also damm… I fell into the mistake of assuming and you know what they say about assuming sorry for that.
DOn’t get me wrong I like the idea of grenadiers they seem interesting and they bring something new and neat to the good-old zombies
It’s just the first time i read about them they seemed like they don’t make sense realism wise.
Though one thing I would like to say is that I didn’t mean we need hard rules but there should be explanations like what you gave me about the grenadier so it’s easier to understand how they work what they are capable of, how they react to different stimuli. Like sometimes I forget that zombies are not the regular zombies but they are infected by a hive-mind thingy(?) so they are able to do things that regular zombies(like in the walking dead for example) can’t.
Actualy what I think is want is a text about the different things in the cata univers with maybe a 80-100 words explaining them. Like in the style of a scientific publication, that would be cool… Though that’s a lot of work I understand. Although that way when there is a problem about something lore wise people could seek it for guidlines, I guess…?
I could definitely see eventually creating a compiled “Cata compendium” that gives some more of the current lore ideas behind the various different monsters and factions in the game, taken from the very large number of different sources that we’ve put up.
(And with a big sign at the top saying “OUR CURRENT CATACLYSM: DARK DAYS AHEAD LORE FOR TODAY” :P)
For a slightly indepth discussion of the blob, and its effects on zombies:
http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=9461.0
On the intelligence of zombies, the blob is very intelligent, but in the macro scheme of things, you don’t really matter. But zombies could become more intelligent, as the blob learns more about the world. Fungaloids transform the world around them, Triffids conquer, and the Blob adapts.
It would be interesting to have a “pre” Grenadier Zombie, reflecting the blob learning how to use the manhacks, with like a 25% chance of releasing a manhack.
On a side note, what would be scarier would be a Mi-Go Grenadier, as shown in lore and in game, they have the ability to learn and use our tech.
alslo like pepole before me said, we need place where whole lore is compiled into easy to read because its scattered acros so many threads and random posts
and like so many pepole said it before: giving cbms to grenadier will make it more logical maybe a power storage and sometimes radio control cbm or just burned out bionics