This does sound interesting, but I think a couple of game mechanics need to be tweaked to make it work. The two biggest things that come to mind are:
meat, and food in general, should spoil much more slowly in the cold. Not sure how to implement this. Ideally the “spoiling” counter would be separated from just “bday” and instead count up depending on the weather. Alternatively, we could make a new item “frozen meat”, but I think coding the game mechanic of freezing the meat would be a bit messy. Would be pretty funny if your canteen of water froze.
snow! I would love to see this in game, as described above. Cars can’t drive well, movement is harder, etc. But that means a whole new mechanic for piling up snow, melting it down, etc. The player should be able to use snow as a water source, too.
I think I would find a nice science lab and spend winter exploring and crafting. Plenty of water there, though food is scarce. Mutated arm soup, anyone?
Oh, and skiis as a snow vehicle would be insanely cool.
Building your own snowcastle and defend it with snowballs against slow-moving horde of zombies until they reach the gates - time to ignite TNT and sled away!
Poor KA101, more and more people are turning to the cold, dark “fun” side >:3
I am working on cold content to furnish my ice labs with. Part of this is new tiles: an ice tile, a frost tile, and a snow tile. I also added iced mist, but that’s not really naturally occuring. These things melt faster in warm temperatures. Once it’s in, there’s no reason snow couldn’t pile up during a storm. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone will code a wind model strong enough to cause snow drifts to form. That would be silly.
So moving slower in snow? Check. Make the player “move” snow around, so he can backtrack? Yup, I can do that. Have a weather pattern that drops a ton of snow and causes a crazy dip in cold weather? No plans yet, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be done.
Gathering snow to melt for water would be something interesting too… I will have to think about how to do that the most “correct” way.
(btw, I have coded a freeze gun that freezes monsters in a block of ice :3 now I have to apply a huge bash bonus and a huge cut/pierce penalty to frozen monsters…)
I think the biggest challenge to making winter more difficult is putting live ammo into the weather system. Temperature alone should be horrendous- forget ‘normal’ winter temps, where you can don a winter jacket and call it a day. Even a fur coat shouldn’t be enough- 8 encumbrance should just barely keep you ‘chilly’. And that’s before rain & wind.
You know, if snow is ever implemented, people are going to want snowmobiles.
+1 to significantly decreased wildlife spawns.
Possible alternative to just slowing zombies down: new enemy types. Preferably something that builds on the empty feeling of the world- off the top of my head, give 'em some kinda camo, (graboid dig mechanic?), and/or only spawn them inside buildings/caves/etc.
Nah, I was thinking more along the lines of ‘you know they’re out there, you just don’t know where they are’. Plus a tough new form or two of monster can shake up a long-term survivor’s gameplan. A zed mine would be easy to spot irl, so it kinda loses credibility. Also scaryness.
Let’s see-
Some kinda ambusher for buildings- they’re not snow-themed, but they’re fast, hard to spot, show up in groups and I’d suggest giving them a high-probability disarm attack. They shouldn’t aggro until the PC’s taken a couple steps inside the building, (preferably they’d be able to attack from all sides).
Something like a snow-worm; moves quickly under the snow, vicious attack, perhaps a strong poison. Would be nifty if it just barely showed up while it moves under the surface- (white , instead of a white .)
A straight-up Wendigo. Zombie-hulk version of a player who’s coked up on meth, sporting CBMs and decked out in platemail. Bigger, tougher, faster, stronger version of a hulk. Camo until the pc’s somewhat close (8 or so tiles) would also be nice.
The lore for the ambusher would be a late arrival of the portals, for the snow-worm it’d be the graboid’s new offspring, (aren’t they known for mutations in the sequel or something?), Wendigo can be something of a mystery- possibly a mutated hulk, possibly a mythological creature. The resemblance to the latter should cause the confusion.
–Hehe, you could vastly increase the wendigo’s spawn rate during storms. But those would need work anyway, (blizzards and visibility for instance).
I’m in favor of having normal zombies & specials go dormant during winter. Turn 'em into items or something. But drastically reduce the number of enemies one encounters- doing so is ok if the enemies one does meet are stronger.
-hehe,
'Frozen zombie: This zombie has frozen stiff for the winter, but will become active once more after the spring thaw.'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You try to hack the Frozen zombie apart, but chopping at their icy form doesn't seem to do much!'
'You successfully butcher the Frozen zombie!'
I really like the idea of winter introducing new threats, along with the ever-present cold.
Maybe the player would need to dig out snow to get into houses if it’s extreme enough? Perhaps with signs of something else entering at one point, or maybe not. Either by the creature(s) covering their entrance or being there all along. Closing doors or windows behind them, maybe not much they can do for snow trails, but who knows who could’ve left those? Or maybe there are open windows and doors, but noone inside.
The paranoia of not knowing what, if anything, is stalking or waiting for you is delicious.
…Suddenly I have the mental image of trying to use a flamethrower to clear snow to keep my vehicle going… (…That is assuming Treads don’t get added… Treads are nice…)
Uh, hello! Fucking nuclear winter people! Where is my -50 Celsius 9th circle of Hell? Where are the clouds of sun obscuring radioactive snow ash? Where are the packs of mutated snow wolves coming down from the dead North in search of warm meat? I mean, at least for one season…
Nukes were not used en-mass, likely only as last resort measures by ‘secure labs’ to prevent a catastrophic breach, or strategically in an attempt to clear out one or more of the larger zombie masses. Hell the rest of the world, even the United Stares outside of NEw England may be fine, if still reeling due to a vast swath of coastline becoming a mutated undying hell.
If anything the ‘apocalyptic nature’ of C:DDA is closer to Half Life’s ‘Resonance Cascade’, ‘Project Arrowhead’ in Steven King’s ‘The Mist’, or even ‘The Zone’ from the Stalker series.
With that out of the way, I think drifting snow, ice and whiteout snowstorms would do a lot to make winter threatening, though, I feel that due to the aforementioned ‘extra-dimensional leakage’ the environment, and even the seasons may be breaking down locally after a time, especially near thin spots, stable portals, or tears from which may extend local spheres of influence. Just to make things ‘interesting.’
A certain area might always be a bit chilly, or even frigid due to some borealic blast through a hole in the sky where the frigid gases of a distant world mingle with local water vapor and create an eternal winter of strangely colored snows. Some places may find the opposite, where a traveler finds themself beset by the mirage of a binary solar sky, wherein impossibly tall crystalline cities shimmer briefly on the horizon only to be swallowed up in choking clouds of salt dusts and ashes.
The weather could definitely stand to be a bit colder, dropping it by 5F or so seems about right. The other thing IS in fact blizzards, dealing with -10F and clear is quite manageable, -10F and driving heavy snow is another thing entirely, that stuff sucks the heat right out of you. Alternately I could pull the official locale over here to Wisconsin, where -25F in the heart of Winter is unremarkable
Regardless, when we HAVE the cold content, we’ll definitely make that a part of the game you can tweak, probably in both directions, anybody see that movie Hell?
I like the semi-dormant zombies (triffids/fungus would just be dead/dormant, in fact, great time to go take out that nearby heart eh?). Just imagine, creeping through a empty, white city, something grabs your leg, then erupts from the snow. You smash the mostly frozen zombie without even breaking a sweat, but as your breathing settles after the brief scuffle, you hear dozens/hundreds/thousands of frozen zombies slowly standing all around you. And yea, probably want some other enemy type to focus on a bit in the winter.
On the implementation side, we’d ideally want to set things up such that a typical day of sleep/eat/read/practice stuff/craft/repeat would only take a few minutes to play through, things would be tedious for your character, but they shouldn’t be for YOU. Super-ideally we’d have things set up such that you could pass a whole day of static activities with a single command, so if you do get into a situation where you’re literally waiting for months at a time, you can do so as fast as possible.
The only thing I wish could be done faster was reading the “Just for fun” books, but other than that most of the tedious tasks I encounter mainly require repairing my vehicle… Or just crafting assorted bulk items; Jerky, Batteries, Bandages, Ammo, Mutigen, that kinda stuff.
I’m still trying to figure out how to ‘survive’ in a -96°C (-140.8°F) science lab. Even with “CBM:Internal Climate Control” it’s close to impossible without getting ‘freezing’ tags.
Hmm, that might actually be a bit broken now, hmm. We reigned in the “no stacking penalty” thing for fitted + 0 enc clothing to be “very low stacking penalty”, and I haven’t looked at how survivable deep ice labs are after that.
Basically you need to wear everything you possibly can, which means layering and warmth/enc is more important than total warmth. Also yea, you’re going to end up being heavily encumbered. Also you might even have to descend for short jaunts into the lowest level, and head back up to warm back up. Another option is fire.
[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:38, topic:3372”]Hmm, that might actually be a bit broken now, hmm. We reigned in the “no stacking penalty” thing for fitted + 0 enc clothing to be “very low stacking penalty”, and I haven’t looked at how survivable deep ice labs are after that.
Basically you need to wear everything you possibly can, which means layering and warmth/enc is more important than total warmth. Also yea, you’re going to end up being heavily encumbered. Also you might even have to descend for short jaunts into the lowest level, and head back up to warm back up. Another option is fire.[/quote]
Fire does nothing XD I’ve tried. At least on the lower levels fire does not help keep you warm.
[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:38, topic:3372”]Hmm, that might actually be a bit broken now, hmm. We reigned in the “no stacking penalty” thing for fitted + 0 enc clothing to be “very low stacking penalty”, and I haven’t looked at how survivable deep ice labs are after that.
Basically you need to wear everything you possibly can, which means layering and warmth/enc is more important than total warmth. Also yea, you’re going to end up being heavily encumbered. Also you might even have to descend for short jaunts into the lowest level, and head back up to warm back up. Another option is fire.[/quote]
Yeah, I know. But torso/arm/leg encumberment of 10+ = evil. Even if it’s only a Zombie or Zombie scientist. It’s not always the coldness that kills you so deep, it’s the encumberment. Main issues so far for me are hands and mouth. Dexterity penalties are evil.
And not all labs are freezers. Some got nice temps even 8 stories down.
Next part is: running up from -96°C ‘comfortable’ to +30°C summer weather = !FUN!.
In the end it’s all about organisation. But tbh, not really much worth down so far.
All in all, you should not change it so that you can easily wander around in such cold environments. Keep it so that you can make short runs and all is fine. Risk vs. reward may be off all the time, but that doesn’t matter.
