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

[Blackopsman9999]

[quote=“GrizzlyAdamz, post:20, topic:5982”]Hmm, what else does one use a UPS for?
There’d need to be a heads-up alert, otherwise players’ll get drained from inside buildings & around corners, and some poor sap that leaves their metabolic interchange on will go to sleep in a cleared house only to wake up at 3 in the morning starving to death, a pod hanging out on the other side of a wall.

Perhaps implement the idea as a subtype of triffid or fungaloid instead of an entirely new bloom?[/quote]
facepalm
He said it would be unique to nuclear power plants…

[GrizzlyAdamz]

[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:1, topic:5982”]snip
They can form anywhere, but are only truly common in the new area known as the Power Plant.
snip
Leech Blossoms only appear near regular power sources, where electricity continues to be generated. Power Plants and Automated Centers (Police bot centers, for example), and more rarely private generators.
snip
Power Plants are a new area that are inhabited by these creatures, and the main place you are likely to encounter Root Drones.[/quote]

[GlyphGryph]

I do agree, there should be some sort of alert when it first happens… perhaps based on Perception to determine how much you lose before you notice and something pops up? Maybe instead of a popup, some sort of message to the log instead - “A strange hum fills the air.”

Or the range could just be small enough that the player should at a really good chance of seeing the thing itself.

[FunsizeNinja123]

“You feel your armor moving”

“Your skin itches”

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Those are too subtle.

Make the bio power indicator blink, or ‘Your subdermal charge indicator signals a heavy load- something’s draining your batteries!’.

[KA101]

[quote=“GrizzlyAdamz, post:25, topic:5982”]Those are too subtle.

Make the bio power indicator blink, or ‘Your subdermal charge indicator signals a heavy load- something’s draining your batteries!’.[/quote]

Have the POWER label change color, same idea as when you get Wounds/Bleeding/Infection.

[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.