Shocker brutes spawning outside of substations

Hey guys, just a minor flaw I saw in the way shocker brutes are spawned. I was playing around the outskirts of a town when one of them came up and killed me with a single melee hit. I know that it was not attracted by sound, meaning [glow=red,2,300]shocker brutes are spawning way too for outside of the city.[/glow] I’m looking how to resolve this mess, but this is my first time doing an open source project, especially with c++ and…well yeah.

Regardless, lets not let this issue turn into something like the Jabberwock spawn rate error that made .7(?) a nightmare.

[quote=“SKiPPY, post:1, topic:7342”]Hey guys, just a minor flaw I saw in the way shocker brutes are spawned. I was playing around the outskirts of a town when one of them came up and killed me with a single melee hit. I know that it was not attracted by sound, meaning [glow=red,2,300]shocker brutes are spawning way too for outside of the city.[/glow] I’m looking how to resolve this mess, but this is my first time doing an open source project, especially with c++ and…well yeah.

Regardless, lets not let this issue turn into something like the Jabberwock spawn rate error that made .7(?) a nightmare.[/quote]

Shocker brutes are primarily a Large Substation critter, but they were spread a little more (too?) broadly in one commit. I’m open to an audit of 'em if you like.

I added the shocker brutes to a few more spawn lists other than the substations, though the are slightly more rare to spawn than a regular brute. I haven’t played enough recently after the addition so I don’t really know if they are spawning that badly.

From what I see, they have just as much health as zombie hulks. They spawn about as regularly/more often than shocker zombies. I’ve killed about 15 shocker brutes and only ran into 1 zombie hulk.

290-320 HP from what I can tell. AFAIR, hulks had something like 400. Found them in a number of areas - actually more often than at power stations - the rates might use some tuning …but on the other hand, who’s to say that a shocker can’t wander off into the wild ?

Also: Shocker hulks ? Pretty please. I want a hulk that can gun me down with lightning from a distance and run me into the ground at close distance !

300HP with slightly less stats than a normal brute, with a less frequent usage of the shocker attack. I have some time to goof around with the game a bit the next few days so I’ll see about tweaking the spawn rates a bit more?

Either shocker brutes need a (spawn or stat) nerf or hulks need a major (stat or spawn) buff.
Hulks are rare and just SO WIMPY compared to shocker brutes. Shockers during the day are guaranteed damage (unless you’ve got the CBM), while hulks become like more resistant dogs before midgame seriously starts, just with an annoying gimmick of being able to destroy your house.

Also, shocker brutes are a big melee nerf. If forced into melee with them, I end up shooting them with a bow at point blank just to avoid the zapback. All serious non-metal weapons are big. Maybe some conductivity rework could be helpful? At this point I think a weapon is conductive if it contains metal, even if most of it isn’t conductive - like a wooden pole with a knife on the end.
They make night assassinations much more fun, though. Regular shockers die very quickly, before gun noise/player scent manages to attract stuff.

We’ve nerfed their spawns somewhat. Try 'em and let us know.