New Monster: Leech Pod/Leech Stalk/Leech Bloom/Root Drones --- Area: Power Plant

[GlyphGryph]

After a bit of a demoralizing and exhaustion defense of the concept in chat, I honestly don’t think I’m up for actually adding this to the game. All I wanted to know was if radiation used fields, damn it.

But I still think it’s a good idea, if anyone else is willing to buckle down and give it a go.

[FunsizeNinja123]

Wha- IT WAS A GREAT IDEA COME ON

Here. Have a funny video.

[StopSignal]

After a bit of a demoralizing and exhaustion defense of the concept in chat

How stressing.
The concept is still really good, heads up!

[Mcrone]

I would enjoy something like this, its a great idea because currently their is no downsides to electronics at all, something to counterbalance bionics would be very good

[John_Candlebury]

After a bit of a demoralizing and exhaustion defense of the concept in chat, I honestly don’t think I’m up for actually adding this to the game. All I wanted to know was if radiation used fields, damn it.

The concept was great, they were a well thought family of monsters, they seemed like they could provide a decent challenge to the survivor even during the mid game, they were mechanically different from every other monster ingame. What was so flawed about them?

[Coyote]

THANK GOD these didn’t get added in.

I wouldn’t mind if they were outright limited to places that continued to power electricity but having them spawn in the wild would be fucking infuriating.

Here’s a tip: It really doesn’t make me any likelier to die if my electric car gets zapped. It just makes me likelier to have to take five or ten trips by foot to slog the shit that was in it to a fallback point.

[Lorknis]

I believe they were outright limited to places with power. I think these monsters were a step in the right direction when it came to difficulty since bionics are badass and we need something just as badass to counter it.

[kevin.granade]

The main point of contention was someone being unhappy with the “because it’s magic” explanation for how they work.

These are definitely happening as outlined by Glyphgryph, they’re on MY list now, just a matter of time.

[Ice-o-metric]

If you want an example for how the physics of this creature’s ability might work, how’s this:

Electricity and magnetism are inextricably linked, all electrical circuits generate a magnetic field and movement in a magnetic field generates an electrical charge. These creatures exhibit a kind of reverse electromagnetism, containing a type of particle with a complex relationship with magnetism that causes them to absorb magnetism and convert it to electricity. The conversion rate is small, but the effect is exponential in expansion… Which is to say, in a sufficiently powerful field the more magnetism it absorbs the more agitated the particles become, further increasing the rate of absorption. This can result in magnetic levels DRAMATICALLY lower than background, (technically approaching 0, but from a functional standpoint might as well be negative) meaning maintaining an electrical flow burns far more energy as it takes exponentially more power to generate the same level of magnetic field that facilitates the passage of electrons

To state it in a much simpler but technically inaccurate way (on several levels): “They generate an anti-magnetic field that draws power from nearby electrical devices”

[i2amroy]

[quote=“Ice-o-metric, post:35, topic:5982”]If you want an example for how the physics of this creature’s ability might work, how’s this:

Electricity and magnetism are inextricably linked, all electrical circuits generate a magnetic field and movement in a magnetic field generates an electrical charge. These creatures exhibit a kind of reverse electromagnetism, containing a type of particle with a complex relationship with magnetism that causes them to absorb magnetism and convert it to electricity. The conversion rate is small, but the effect is exponential in expansion… Which is to say, in a sufficiently powerful field the more magnetism it absorbs the more agitated the particles become, further increasing the rate of absorption. This can result in magnetic levels DRAMATICALLY lower than background, (technically approaching 0, but from a functional standpoint might as well be negative) meaning maintaining an electrical flow burns far more energy as it takes exponentially more power to generate the same level of magnetic field that facilitates the passage of electrons

To state it in a much simpler but technically inaccurate way (on several levels): “They generate an anti-magnetic field that draws power from nearby electrical devices”[/quote]
Pretty much what I was thinking.

That said I’d probably vote against them just spawning rapidly, but instead have them only spawn around places where electricity would still exists, so things like labs (though the main spot would still be the power plant, of course). IMO it would be rather strange to find something that feeds on electricity just randomly out in the middle of a field somewhere. Once we have powerlines that could definitely change though.

[kevin.granade]

Definitely limited to places that have a power supply, in fact, somehow shutting down the power should either kill or incapacitate them rapidly.
The action at a distance could be explained by hyper efficient inductive coupling, but the issue there is it wouldn’t drain passive power stores, such as batteries. I’m actually fine with that though, it makes both the gameplay and the implementation easier if it only acts on currently-active items.

[i2amroy]

And removes the “oops, walked too close to that and now I just lost 10K batteries” problem.

[Belteshazzar]

I would love these, maybe I wouldn’t have gone with a ‘plant’ naming theme (due to the obvious desire of some people to combine them with the triffids or fungals.)

However, species that preys on and senses electrical sources is definitely something lacking, a reason to think twice before going full cybernetic laser-god (or to keep a backup fossil fuel engine in your vehicle.)

As for them magically drawing electrical power from their surroundings, I would agree with an explanation utilizing some of the more arcane properties of magnetic flux and induction in a manner similar to some aspects of an electrical transformer. Such a creature probably originated in an environment with very active magnetic fields but little in the way of thermal variability, or radiation.

[GlyphGryph]

The action at a distance could be explained by hyper efficient inductive coupling, but the issue there is it wouldn’t drain passive power stores, such as batteries. I’m actually fine with that though, it makes both the gameplay and the implementation easier if it only acts on currently-active items.

I would much prefer they reinforce the already existing but underutilized nether ability for adjacency through dimensional manipulation: The same thing that allows for teleportation devices to work and for floating eyes to effect you and for necromancers and masters to use their abilities.

KA101’s problem seems based around the fact that currently that justification is rare enough that it doesn’t feel genuine - the best solution to that, in my opinion, would be to introduce more creatures that make use of it, allowing for more vectors to deliver rationalizations and lore regarding it (these things would definitely be easier to study than the eyes and the super zombies, making good lab notes describing the result a lot easier to write and come by) and opens up a lot of possibility for future monster powers expansion in the future. We could even tie this in to a justification for the result of shocker zombies, something I know still annoys some people - they collapse the distance between them and their targets, which is how they guide the lightning to hit what they want. They use the same “nether touch” effect (though to a far less significant extreme) to simply make the path to the player the path of least resistance.

I definitely see these creatures as a Nether critter rather than a triffid or fungal, and I think expanding on this ability (specifically, as a rare nether ability, not something possessed by the more mundane things in the game, of which the fungals and triffids and more common zombies are) would be a boon for future innovation.

[therealskitz0]

just my opinion but it seems a bit odd to me if they were nether creatures, granted we don’t know everything about the the nether on the player side of things (yet). But as Kevin said that they would be limited to places with power and the nether just doesn’t seem like it would have as much as they need to survive.

Though now thinking about it the nether portals could generate a positive energy feedback field like a black hole does so theoretically if the nether’s universal barrier is thinner than other places in the multiverse than they could be jumping from rift to rift feeding off the energy like a watering hole till one colony sensed a higher power concentration through the portal and decided to go through.

So i suppose it could go either way, regardless i would love to see these in the game

[kevin.granade]

A theme that has developed with nether creatures is, “appear, then adapt to the surroundings at great speed”.
In this case, they appear in an area with a high flux of electromagnetic energy, and adapt to feed off of it. Once established they can survive based on proximity to either a portal or sufficient electrical power.

[KA101]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:37, topic:5982”]The action at a distance could be explained by hyper efficient inductive coupling, but the issue there is it wouldn’t drain passive power stores, such as batteries. I’m actually fine with that though, it makes both the gameplay and the implementation easier if it only acts on currently-active items.

I would much prefer they reinforce the already existing but underutilized nether ability for adjacency through dimensional manipulation: The same thing that allows for teleportation devices to work and for floating eyes to effect you and for necromancers and masters to use their abilities.

KA101’s problem seems based around the fact that currently that justification is rare enough that it doesn’t feel genuine - the best solution to that, in my opinion, would be to introduce more creatures that make use of it, allowing for more vectors to deliver rationalizations and lore regarding it (these things would definitely be easier to study than the eyes and the super zombies, making good lab notes describing the result a lot easier to write and come by) and opens up a lot of possibility for future monster powers expansion in the future. We could even tie this in to a justification for the result of shocker zombies, something I know still annoys some people - they collapse the distance between them and their targets, which is how they guide the lightning to hit what they want. They use the same “nether touch” effect (though to a far less significant extreme) to simply make the path to the player the path of least resistance.

I definitely see these creatures as a Nether critter rather than a triffid or fungal, and I think expanding on this ability (specifically, as a rare nether ability, not something possessed by the more mundane things in the game, of which the fungals and triffids and more common zombies are) would be a boon for future innovation.[/quote]

Since I was named…

The “Nether Touch” as it might be called, really isn’t well-lore’d in-game, nor (so far) had I heard information on how it functions and what can/can’t use it. I objected to its further expansion w/o lore-work, because absent a clearly defined rationale for how the system works, the ability is indistinguishable from Magic, which we don’t permit people to have in DDA. Design Doc and all that.

Lovecraft!Physics gets pretty close to Magic and we’re pretty much doing that with the subprime stuff already, so lore-work can salvage Nether Touch and make it a useful part of DDA.

The general comparison is to XE037 reanimating/mutating critters. That isn’t at all IRL-realistic, either. BUT we have lab notes and other such lore indicating that it’s part of the DDA-world. The scientists are aware of that, and were working on getting it sorted out before the Blob hit critical mass. Knowledge is incomplete but definitely there. Mutant zombie ex-humans are a thing in DDA.

Last I checked (just pulled from master about half an hour before writing this), the lore on subprime planes/teleporting only has lab folks being able to transpose subjects via the subprime via high-energy, low-stability portals; range can’t exceed 30m, and they can’t aim well. Somehow got prehistoric fauna to show up once, though; at one point a subject got telefragged, but replacements are expensive; and apparently if you teleport enough you start weakening the barriers between the planes.

It’s OK to change reality. DDA already does. But you’ve gotta lay a foundation first. So the PR is gonna need some lore included, as well as the drain mechanics and all the rest of that good stuff.

[GlyphGryph]

I objected to its further expansion w/o lore-work, because absent a clearly defined rationale for how the system works, the ability is indistinguishable from Magic, which we don’t permit people to have in DDA. Design Doc and all that.

I was under the impression the design doc was pretty explicitly against both traditional magic and magic powers controlled by the player, but that “weird science”, especially when out of the players control, was to be expected. Personally, I like the weird stuff, the stuff that leaves a slight sense of unease because the player doesn’t have any obvious explanation for it - not that a scientific explanation doesn’t exist, but just that’s well beyond the player’s experience and difficult for them to fully understand. Quantum physics for the 19th century observer sort of stuff. While I think adding lore is incredibly valuable here, I also think it’s important we don’t take the mystery out of it - we want to make it seem possible in the cataclysm world, in my opinion, without making it seem mundane.

What I would really like is two or three possible “scientific” explanations (in terms of weird science) of the effect, and to have the lab notes cut off by the Cataclysm before they were able to decide for sure between them which might actually be true.

Essentially, establish it as at least potentially scientific, without making it seem like a mystery that’s been done solved already. Let the players speculate and decide what they like best - people don’t need everything spelled out for them, and I think it’s important to reinforce the idea that the scientists involved were messing with things they really for serious did not understand, something that is undermined if we try to fully explain everything in-lore instead of just suggesting at possibilities.

Obviously this is just my opinion - the decision, ultimately, isn’t mine - but I think we want to use any lore to focus on building existing themes rather than on trying to cater to uberrationalists, and sometimes that means things happen which the player can’t find any easy answers for, or where the answers they do find can’t be fully trusted.

Personally, I have long been a big proponent of multi-tiered lore that reinforces the theme that “things are weirder than they appear” - where nothing is what it seems at first glance, and the deeper you dig and the more questions are answered, the more you begin to doubt you’ve really yet arrived at the truth. It’s what we were aiming for, at least for a while, on many levels - it’s the same way there is no definitive answer, in game, for the exact details of the foreign conflict the US was involved in. To reinforce the feeling that intentional secrets are being kept. I feel like, to a certain extent (from my point of view at least), that’s being lost in the lore recently… but it might just be my exposure levels. It just seems too easy for people to get what they feel is the “real” story - extradimensional slime infests corpses, makes zombie mutants, US blames attempts to control it on outsiders, etc. and so on.

So, to summarize:
Even better than a good explanation would be multiple conflicting explanations, and let the player choose which one to believe.

[Slax]

Lore may be set in stone but there will always be more stones.
More variation, more fun, more play play.

Mmmmmmooooorrrreeee.

[Ice-o-metric]

GlyphGryph, that explanation was brilliant. It just gave me a whole bunch of inspiration for a ‘Drawing-board’ idea I’ve had up and been working on

If I can be forgiven for being Punny…

…You might say it brought me to Lore-gasm