Mutation and Zombie questions

[Loendal]

I constantly read about people getting various mutations all over the board. Being an sandbox type game, I’m more looking for a way to settle in somewhere and stay alive. I’m aware that this isn’t everyone’s plans, and that’s what being a sandbox type game means. I don’t really want to be forced to become a giant mechanized bionic mutated mushroom just to survive. In my mind, the longer my character lives, the more successful I feel. Living to see Autumn, for example, would to me be more of a success then not making it past Spring.

However, a couple questions come to mind:

Does the zombie threat increase as time goes on? Aside from non-butchered corpses reanimating, I mean. As in, if I leave a given town alone for a while and come back later, will the zombies have changed into tougher, and meaner zombies? Will some bizarre boss-type stuff show up for any given reason? Will there be fresh zombies spawning in and around the town?

Associated question: I have never seen mutagen or made it or anything like that, anywhere. Admittedly, I tend to not survive ransacking the first town I spawn next to most of the time (Town size 4? Whatever the default is). Am I really going to be FORCED to mutate into something non-human just to live longer than a few seasons?

[FunsizeNinja123]

I constantly read about people getting various mutations all over the board. Being an sandbox type game, I’m more looking for a way to settle in somewhere and stay alive. I’m aware that this isn’t everyone’s plans, and that’s what being a sandbox type game means. I don’t really want to be forced to become a giant mechanized bionic mutated mushroom just to survive. In my mind, the longer my character lives, the more successful I feel. Living to see Autumn, for example, would to me be more of a success then not making it past Spring.

A man after my own heart, Loendal.

Does the zombie threat increase as time goes on? Aside from non-butchered corpses reanimating, I mean. As in, if I leave a given town alone for a while and come back later, will the zombies have changed into tougher, and meaner zombies? Will some bizarre boss-type stuff show up for any given reason? Will there be fresh zombies spawning in and around the town?

Nope. Not at all. There is no zombie evolution… yet.

Associated question: I have never seen mutagen or made it or anything like that, anywhere. Admittedly, I tend to not survive ransacking the first town I spawn next to most of the time (Town size 4? Whatever the default is). Am I really going to be FORCED to mutate into something non-human just to live longer than a few seasons?

The default city size is 6 I think. And no, you’re not forced to gain mutations or become a cyborg. Though, I think you’re the first to go for a “genetically and physically untouched” playthrough.

But bionics are hella useful…

[John_Candlebury]

Does the zombie threat increase as time goes on? Aside from non-butchered corpses reanimating, I mean. As in, if I leave a given town alone for a while and come back later, will the zombies have changed into tougher, and meaner zombies? Will some bizarre boss-type stuff show up for any given reason? Will there be fresh zombies spawning in and around the town?

Not for now, perhaps this will happen, but in any case there doesnt seem to be built plans on what will exactly change. Only hordes can spawn fresh zombies. Some bizzare boss stuff can appear randomly, but you are as likely to encounter it on your first day as you are on your 107th.

Associated question: I have never seen mutagen or made it or anything like that, anywhere. Admittedly, I tend to not survive ransacking the first town I spawn next to most of the time (Town size 4? Whatever the default is). Am I really going to be FORCED to mutate into something non-human just to live longer than a few seasons?

Mutagen and its recipes mostly spawn inside labs, if you have never looted one its likely you have never stumbled across it.

Most of the time I play with completely baseline humans (aka no bionics, no mutations) and well you can do very well playing that way for now. Perhaps playing as a normal human will become slightly harder in the future, but its probably not going to become impossible.

[Tineen]

Default city size is 4, not 6. Though I use 6 myself seems a nice balance, as for mutagen why not Alpha, keeps you Human but makes you um well a better one, at stuff.

[Loendal]

So I suppose it IS possible to eventually make my own Woodbury someday… Wall off the town and keep it safe. I’ll skip the whole chaining-my-zombie-daughter-in-a-cupboard and collection of zombie heads in fish tanks thing, though.

Only hordes can spawn fresh zombies. Some bizzare boss stuff can appear randomly, but you are as likely to encounter it on your first day as you are on your 107th.

This poses another question… Without Hordes turned on, if I clear out a city of all zombies and build a wall around it, there’s not going to be any real threat to keep it safe from, is there? Since the deadheads don’t respawn after that initial revivication, if I understand that right. I suppose that’s an argument in favor of hordes.

[TheFlame52]

Being an unaugmented human is living, but being a Mycal bionic god is LIVING. There are no downsides to installing bionics, except for Fusion Blaster.

[John_Candlebury]

This poses another question… Without Hordes turned on, if I clear out a city of all zombies and build a wall around it, there’s not going to be any real threat to keep it safe from, is there? Since the deadheads don’t respawn after that initial revivication, if I understand that right. I suppose that’s an argument in favor of hordes.

Well if you disable the hordes, no more zombies will spawn in the city, however animals and their more annoying zombie counterparts can and will spawn all around your town. The existence of a wall surrounding the city plays no part in averting this, or at preventing hordes from spawning next to you.

Being an unaugmented human is living, but being a Mycal bionic god is LIVING. There are no downsides to installing bionics, except for Fusion Blaster.

You fillthy traitor

Nah, but we do need an enclave like super xenophobic faction, I would join it almost every time.

[Loendal]

Being an unaugmented human is living, but being a Mycal bionic god is LIVING. There are no downsides to installing bionics, except for Fusion Blaster.

From a roleplay perspective:
Being human is the ultimate goal… The wold has gone and shifted humans down a few steps on the food chain and we’re robbing and killing one another for scraps of food and little bottles of water. If we’re lucky, an abandoned house to board up the windows in and try to start a farm. We’ve lost the war, but that doesn’t mean we’ve lost ourselves. Humanity MUST be brought back on top, or humanity will go extinct. To tweak out our humanity with mutated and bionic supplements destroys the very essence of being a human. I just don’t like the idea of sticking mechanical doofloppies into my body when the machines are already against us anyway, nor do I like the idea of my body becoming more akin to a giant frog than a human being.

From a more OOC perspective:
No downsides, perhaps. But the extra time it’s going to take me to find the books, then read them and/or the points I must burn to get the stats/skills I need to install and use them seems counter-intuitive to keeping myself alive. I hate “grinding”; if I need to use a skill and it’s going to gain me levels in that skill, great… But I don’t like to sit there and make a hoodie, (fit) it, reinforce it then cut it up for rags and do it again over and over. I admit to having had to do that on occasion to replace / reinforce doors in my base by building dressers then *-Disassembling them a few times, but I find that kind of gameplay incredibly annoying. The skills I need to keep myself fed, watered and protected defensively and aggressively will go up as I use them to keep going. Throwing knifes at a floorboard? Making an article of clothing only to cut it up again? Building furniture to just tear it back down again? Blegh… Not if I don’t have to. I want an adventure, not a repeated series of key-presses.

[TheWumpus]

The reward to surviving is being able to better survive. Want to remain a pure human? Go for it. The accumulation of resources and skills will serve you well, as will the “knowledge” (ooc ofc) you retain about how to thrive in this brave new world.

Bionics only make things easier. Why lug around a welder, wrench, screwdriver, etc when you can implant everything you need into a simple, always handy, weightless/volumeless module? Why not expand upon the constraints of your physical form to become a being more suited to beating the shambling hordes?

You must let go your outmoded fleshy self and embrace the perfection of the machine. Mutation is heresy, down that path lies only madness and a slow death. Only in the pure logic and utility of the machine is the true path to salvation. Humanity has failed. Upgrade, or be deleted.

[Loendal]

Because lugging around a welder, wrench, screwdriver, etc is what we have always done. Necessity is the mother of invention, if we had always had bionics to do the work our hands have done, we never would have made the incredible things we have made before the cataclysm. Who invented the welder? A machine? No… Who figured out the screwdriver? Not a machine. There is no spirit in a machine; it is a programmed, artificial, nonliving cycle of if/then statements or sensor readings. There is no LIFE in a machine, no matter how advanced our machines became, it was still a human who made it in the first place to do what the human wanted it to do. Machines are a byproduct of human ingenuity, and to throw away the spirit that made the machine only to become the machine is a step down.

[SiegeLion]

Well shit, this thread just got into some deep philosophy there

[quote=“Loendal, post:10, topic:8049”]There is no spirit in a machine
There is no LIFE in a machine[/quote]
The Adeptus Mechanicus would call that [size=24pt]HERESY[/size]

Burn the Heretic. Kill the Mutant. Purge the Unclean

[size=4pt]I’m hoping the 40k reference is understood so I don’t seem like a bloodthirsty lunatic[/size]

[EkarusRyndren]

[quote=“TheFlame52, post:6, topic:8049”]Being an unaugmented human is living, but being a Mycal bionic god is LIVING. There are no downsides to installing bionics, except for Fusion Blaster.

From a roleplay perspective:
Being human is the ultimate goal… The wold has gone and shifted humans down a few steps on the food chain and we’re robbing and killing one another for scraps of food and little bottles of water. If we’re lucky, an abandoned house to board up the windows in and try to start a farm. We’ve lost the war, but that doesn’t mean we’ve lost ourselves. Humanity MUST be brought back on top, or humanity will go extinct. To tweak out our humanity with mutated and bionic supplements destroys the very essence of being a human. I just don’t like the idea of sticking mechanical doofloppies into my body when the machines are already against us anyway, nor do I like the idea of my body becoming more akin to a giant frog than a human being.

From a more OOC perspective:
No downsides, perhaps. But the extra time it’s going to take me to find the books, then read them and/or the points I must burn to get the stats/skills I need to install and use them seems counter-intuitive to keeping myself alive. I hate “grinding”; if I need to use a skill and it’s going to gain me levels in that skill, great… But I don’t like to sit there and make a hoodie, (fit) it, reinforce it then cut it up for rags and do it again over and over. I admit to having had to do that on occasion to replace / reinforce doors in my base by building dressers then *-Disassembling them a few times, but I find that kind of gameplay incredibly annoying. The skills I need to keep myself fed, watered and protected defensively and aggressively will go up as I use them to keep going. Throwing knifes at a floorboard? Making an article of clothing only to cut it up again? Building furniture to just tear it back down again? Blegh… Not if I don’t have to. I want an adventure, not a repeated series of key-presses.[/quote]

…I’m not gonna deny that my perspective is more than a little biased on my opinion of how important my, or anyone else’s “humanity” is but I gotta say… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a purist argument before that didn’t just sound like prosophobia.

and then you went and completely blew that away with the

Because lugging around a welder, wrench, screwdriver, etc is what we have always done. Necessity is the mother of invention, if we had always had bionics to do the work our hands have done, we never would have made the incredible things we have made before the cataclysm. Who invented the welder? A machine? No… Who figured out the screwdriver? Not a machine. There is no spirit in a machine; it is a programmed, artificial, nonliving cycle of if/then statements or sensor readings. There is no LIFE in a machine, no matter how advanced our machines became, it was still a human who made it in the first place to do what the human wanted it to do. Machines are a byproduct of human ingenuity, and to throw away the spirit that made the machine only to become the machine is a step down.

I guess my view on the situation of bionics and the moral implications are… …well quite simple.

I have very few. A tool is a tool, regardless if that tool is an integrated toolset, a digital storage medium integrated into your biological one, or a sword that flies out of your wrist. What you seem to fear, and I apologize if I’m wrong, is losing free will not your “humanity” Losing your ability to decide what you want to do with your life, and I don’t see how an Integrated Toolset, A mini-flamethrower, enhanced memory banks, etc, etc effects that free will. At the end of the day, your still in charge.

There are no bionics that replace the thought process completely, some enhance it (the dodge bionic I believe? definitely the targeting bionic) but none take it completely away. You’re simply replacing the abilities of the flesh with those of the machine.

[Lorknis]

As a transhumanist, I deemed this to be important to put my two cents in.

Human augmentation is something humanity will have to answer within our own lifetime and I feel like we should discuss this topic throughly. I believe humans should be allowed to augment themselves since it is their body and they can do what they want. Hell, I know I’ll be getting some augs when the 2045 Project is finally done.

Anyways back on topic, I noticed OP that you’re saying that you wouldn’t support augmentation because they cannot create things on its own(?). I have to ask though, have you considered that augmentation is simply the tools when can use to achieve the next step in invention. If this doesn’t make sense, allow me to explain more: Humans may have invented to the screwdriver but they needed the technology before that to make it. If you deny augmentation, you are saying that you would rather humanity stayed where they were at than progressed forward because perhaps you are afraid of embracing new ideas. To be honest, that would be pretty shitty.

[Purplewisp]

Alot of you are disagreeing with the OP’s view that augmentation can strip you of your humanity, and while I agree with most of the pro bionics ideas, I can understand the OP’s view point. You could end up being controlled by the very technology that we enjoy so much. There are a multitude of books and movies that explore the idea. The first that comes to mind is Continuum. Without spoiling too much of the show (or much at all), the future is a really bad place.

Corruption and abusing power are common place, and anyone that would want to change things is labeled as a terrorist. Cops have bionics that augment some mental capabilities, and are connected to information mainframes and record everything you see and do. So if things continued its pretty likely that everyone would end up with those bionics and have every moment of their lives recorded. Those are just the events leading up to the main story, so it shouldn’t ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the show. It is a shame that it isn’t technically set in the circumstances that I just described though… its complicated without spoilers.

Of course none of that applies to a post apocalyptic setting where the government is crumbling and you’re probably an expert on the functions of the bionic you’re installing by the time you can safely install them.

[Wanderer]

Of course none of that applies to a post apocalyptic setting where the government is crumbling and you’re probably an expert on the functions of the bionic you’re installing by the time you can safely install them.

Yeah, survivors are safe. OR MAYBE NOT dundunduuuun

I don’t have a defined and detailed point of view about bionics, but before thinking about control, i’m more worried about security. Not against government, but about people trying to hack in your bionics.

The “Internet of things” looks like a good idea, but the main problem of it is that security is NOT a must, and that means someone who know the weakness of let’s say, your living room camera that you access using your cellphone, that is a hard-coded login for tech guys of the company who sold you the camera, could see your house when it wanted and you would never know.

And considering how crappy work tech people did with the robots(“YEAH, LET’S PUT AGRESSION IN THE MAXIMUM, surely it will work!”), i wouldn’t be surprised if some of the bionics in-game could be hacked and jammed. “Hacking” and “jamming” mutations could be a possibility, but i think bionics would suffer first, mutations later with military research against what makes zombies zombies.

[Valpo]

Using bionics is for the weak .

[SiegeLion]

The idea of hacking bionics is interesting actually, from a gameplay point of view.
Those pesky Bio-Operators would be far less threatening, Shockers and their Brute cousins, disabled or more likely, made slightly less dangerous, by an emp/hacking device. While the possibility exists of there being enemies out there able to hack into and disable, or turn against you, your own bionics. Which really would help balance out how powerful bionics can be.
The bionics in the Cata world are probably protected against tampering but as people have proven over and over again, absolutely nothing is impervious to human curiosity and stupidity, something survivors in Cata are full of.

[Belteshazzar]

I dislike transhumanists as starry-eyed futurists eagerly awaiting the ‘nerd rapture’ but I’d still probably resort to some bionics in the case of a complete collapse as in the case of Cataclysm.

Argument: Your character’s survival alone does not constitute humanity, merely the vessel of propagating it into whatever future may exist.

The cybernetic supersolider who still retains that 10% of flesh left necessary to transmit their still entirely human genome into the next generation will do more for humanity than the ‘pure’ spearchucker who gets overwhelmed by the mutant xenotheric hordes.

Even an irretrievably mutated individual could take it upon themselves to propagate human ideals and memes into whatever generation comes next (perhaps even go so far as to make repeated experiments in recreating pure humans using whatever biomedical tech is available to them.)

[Closet_Pankin]

I’m a twisted, cybernetic mix of man, velociraptor and machine but I’m trying to and successfully settling down. I recommend, especially with wander spawns on, fortifying a small power substation. They’re small and homey. Make a moat with spikey pointy bits at the bottom surrounding your fence. This will absolutely take a while, but it’s worth it.

You can use a pickaxe or somethnig to dig out the concrete, get a lot of rocks, and you can then make a farm within its secure fence and moat. I’m getting a farm going because as I’ve learned, wildlife tends to… stop being that common when you’ve been in an area for a while. I hardly see any animals anymore.

Luckliy I can eat humans and I don’t feel bad about killing the ones that provoke me first, so there’s that. Cooked creep 4 dayz

[Valpo]

i want my own protected resort where i protect earths criters till the end of time. ( i like to think of my survivor of not aging because of magic blob from another dimension … we don t age anyway so why not make something up for it in my mind)