The Lab

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Hey hey hey, I am the guy that shows up every once in a while and moans about the Lab Challenge not being challenging enough. Well ladies, gentlemen and non-gender specific genderfluid non-binary things, I finally managed to generate a lab, which was pretty intense.

Settings:

Zombies 2.00 (instead of the normal 1.00)
Mutation Speed 0.01 (instead of the normal 4.00) - Ditto, good times.
Season Length: 90 (instead of the normal 14) - I do like the idea of having to spend few weeks securing food sources before hunkering down for a rough winter.

Started the lab, everything was as usual, but then I started running into Nightstalkers, Grapplers, Hulks and others. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised as I needed to duck and weave through the complex in order to avoid getting pummeled. Luckily I found a Mining Helmet early on, thus being able to lure a few pesky Nightstalkers into teleportation traps and watching them blow up was fun. I did make a few mistakes and it cost me my life at the hand of the Hulk (took a wrong turn and ran into a room with one exit while suffering massive pain), but it was worth it.

The question is, if the lab challenge lab or all the labs could have a different setting from the normal - filling it up with all sorts of rarities and advanced mutations to be a real challenge. Talking about Shocker Brutes and Hulks in the Prison Containment Facilities, Nightstalkers and others lurking around (this will give a player a real incentive to pick a Survivior and starting with a flashlight instead of the currently superior choice - the Almighty Lab Technician).

PS! Love the game, its going towards the right direction.

E: Bloated and other cloud based zombies provide a real challenge in tight non-ventilated rooms as the protagonist will be poisoned left and right, while the clouds seem to disperse at a slower-than-usual pace, which is fuggen awesome.

E2: Automapping terminals (Prison Containment, Barracks, etc) that have been interacted with would be nice feature as well.

List of suggestions for the lab:

  • Lab computers - 1st failed attempt locks the console for 24 hours, 2nd failed attempt locks the console for 24 hours, blast loud alarm for 24 hours (arousing the entire level if possible - causing Hulks, if any, to break out of their containment and head towards the sound) and spawning few manhacks, 3rd failed attempt locks the computer and either shocks the user or spawns a secubot or even both. That removes some of the pointless randomness and is much more appropriate.

  • More hardcore Zeds on any difficulty setting - especially the ones that can hide in the shadows, move unnaturally or re-arrange the level at their leisure - Hulks, Nightstalkers, Predators, Shade Zombies come from the top of my head.

  • Automapping the computers for Prison and Barracks as mentioned before.

Other suggestions:

  • Military zombies using their weapons such as batons and guns. Grenadiers already do so, thus I hope it is considered.

  • Kamikaze zombies - fast movement, running as close as possible and then blowing themselves up.

2

How about keeping the current Lab Challenge as its own thing, reducing the points given (I’d say to 5 or 6, starting with mutations and a guaranteed lab is pretty dang helpful, and the most challenging part is just learning the strats), and then making your “Lab Challenge+” into its own challenge? Call it “Challenge-Ground Zero”; the premise is that the lab you’re in was one of the first to go when things spiraled out of control. Make the finale for the lab guaranteed to be an activated resonance cascade, and mix in some more Nether creatures.

Please don’t put in gunner and kamikaze zeds though. I played a couple games with the Jury-Rigged Robots mod, and immediately had to stop when a new enemy with a gun popped out of the darkness in a lab and one-shot my character. So darkness + guns outside of high-level access areas is a big no-no. And kamikaze zombies - what, they’re just grenade hacks but with a (hopefully) weaker explosion and more health? So basically guaranteed damage to all your body parts? Hail naw. Suicidal bloated zombies suck and explode-upon-death robots suck, proper kamikaze zombies would suck more.

3

I feel you, but I am glutton for punishment and am looking for interesting ways to be challenged. A completely new megacomplex as a starting lab challenge sounds good, while the “less points” doesn’t. Grinding skills is boring (assuming we are using Multiple Pools, otherwise Lab characters are gods among men with their 10 points - 7 because there is no reason to pick anything else but the lab technician for uber boost in skills).

Getting the ID card at the moment is not a challenge, unless there is only “sheer drop to the final floor”, which means you need to grind for or find the rope.
That leaves:

  • the denziens (no challenge in kiting the normal zombies and occasional manhack/skeeterbot)
  • the top level turret (goo canisters, zombie pheromone, teleporter, weapons/explosive, draining it via running back and forth with protective gear etc - take your pick).

Try the slightly amped settings, you will love it fam. :slight_smile:

I do wonder how you got Jury Rigged mod to work, it doesn’t even let me get to character generation screen (using the latest build).

Throws me to main menu after: https://imgur.com/a/9D9iq

E: Doesn’t matter the settings at the moment - lab tech is out of the lab by the nightfall of the first day. One way to circumvent it would be adding extra stuff in such as “timed lockdown for the final level”, “cycled purges to radiate the whole complex in small to moderate doses” etc