Zombie Evolution: Suggestions/Ideas thread

[The_Lone_Badger]

Tar zombie. Weak attack, but resistant to most ranged weapons and melee weapons have a high chance of getting stuck. Very vulnerable to energy weapons and fire.

[troll_from_behind]

Would it mostly be found at swamps?

[Noobtuber]

I have an unusual idea for a zombie, but if it’s a little too “out there” it can also be made into a more realistic, but not as creepy robot. This would be a searchlight zombie (or spotter drone if made into robot) they would work a little like shriekers, but less offensive and more supportive. They would be mostly passive and won’t “directly” harm you. They would have 2 large, unblinking, luminescent eyes, a bit like car headlights. Upon seeing you, it will lock it’s soul-piercing gaze unto you (with a chance of temporarily blinding you, making your shots about as accurate as a feather-catapult) and making loud whooping noises, alerting all zombies within a square mile radius to your exact location. These guy would be very rare (I mean, if they weren’t, they would be THE WORST!) often appearing in rural areas, but may also appear in large cities (if made into a robot, these locations should be switched) what ever you do, avoid their cold gaze!

PS, sorry for all the parentheses, some stuff needed extra description and I didn’t know how else to do so

[vache]

Some suggestions of ideas to incorporate, some of them may not necessarily be enough for an enemy on their own, but they’re a starting point at least:

Paralyzer zombie - when hit or get hit in melee, has a small chance to lock you in place for a few turns. You can still attack, but no moving.

Decomposed zombie - sustained morale debuff while nearby, increased if the player has some enhanced sense of smell (through mutation or otherwise), nausea effects, with a small chance to vomit.

Drainer zombie - your stats or skills are drained while nearby.

Commander zombie - all nearby zombies have their dodge and melee skills increased.

Magnetized zombie - bullets fired at this zombie will deflect away from it, occasionally hitting other zombies or the player (I realize most bullets are not magnetic, so maybe some other justification for how this works?). Metal melee weapons either have an extra chance to stick or extra chance to be dodged. Probably makes the most sense as a CBM effect.

Conglomerating zombie - sort of like the corpse combining idea from before, a zombie that absorbs nearby unpulped/unbutchered corpses. It could have many different effects. Absorbed zombies could provide their powers to the host. Or absorbing corpses speeds or direct the upgrade process in the host. So a butchered or pulped corpse could provide just the blob to the host, making it more likely to become a master/necro, and a regular corpse could provide mass and blob, making it more likely to become a hulk.

[Azrad]

A shocker hulk. Big light radius, every few turns or so it’ll discharge an electrical field around them, which can damage and increase its light radius for a single turn. When it dies, it also creates a big electrical discharge. Very dangerous if player has no protection against electricity. Also, it’s a hulk so it can smush you to death.

Zombie behemoth. Next step after hulk, perhaps? Loses speed but becomes as tough as a shoggoth and hits even harder than a hulk. Big enough that it’s steps generate a lot of noise. Maybe a grab attack where it tries to squeeze you to death.

Some sort of evolution to the boomer. Explodes into a very sticky mass. Aside from the loud noise it generates getting caught in the goo makes it harder to breathe. It has a spit shot that can temporarily increase mouth encumbrance, and it’s death boom can possibly cut off air for a while, akin to losing oxygen when you swim too long.

A long crawler. A crawler zombie who has developed long and powerful arms to cope with the loss of leg.

Fanged zombie. Zombie which has developed a very strong jaw. Only as tough as a tough zombie maybe, but has a very sharp bite attack, can tear through armor.

Maybe a diseased zombie. Like a step up from decayed. Explodes in a cloud of gas, which could create some sort of debilitating disease for a long while. If it can do a bite infection, instead of blue it already reaches the green stage of infection.

Speeder zombie. Fast attacks, pretty much it. Attack is like the quick attacks of krav maga, and it can hit you multiple times in one turn if you’re badly slowed down.

A playing dead zombie. Looks like a corpse, but if you go too near it leaps up and does a powerful attack… like, I dunno, it like lands on you or something. Only way to avoid the attack is to hit it from a distance to get them to wake up and attack you like a normal zombie.

Regenerator zombie. Has the regenerative properties of the shoggoth, with the added trait of generating blobs upon hit.

[saltmummy626]

The blob is already inside most everyone; there is no need for it to “spread” via bites. The only thing keeping you from becoming a zombie is the fact you are alive (the blob can only take over a body after it is dead).

The human mouth is a filthy, toxic place even before they died and were infested with strange lifeforms. Like a kamodo dragon of the primate world.

I like murphy’s idea with the shreakers. I imagine some kind of howling abomination that simply follows you about screaming. At first I kind of imagined something like the blindfolded telepaths from the akira manga, except zombies.

[Cat09]

I’d like to add a note of caution here: this game is meant to be about a cataclysm, not the zombieclysm!!!moarzombies!
a lot of good ideas here, but a lot of things suggested here would make just as much or more sense as robots, simply mutated things, or subprime lifeforms of varying sorts. Having a zombie version of whatever can be conceived starts sounding stale, so it may be wise to plan an incremental growth of abilities, an explanation perhaps of how it makes sense, and progressive naming (smoking, smoking hot; dog, wolf, alpha wolf; loud, Shreiker, Screamer; etc) I would like to see animal zombies take certain roles instead of human ones, dogs could have the fast runner type category for the most part, and large cats the leaper type. (hmmm hulking bear?)
also: please remember the realism factor, master and necro are already on the fringes, a spotlight zombie might be better as an alarm bot, or cyborg zombie w/cranial flashlight (which could have many different types of bionics to add some more sensibleness to zombie abilities)

[Belteshazzar]

[quote=“Murphy, post:20, topic:9544”]The blob is already inside most everyone; there is no need for it to “spread” via bites. The only thing keeping you from becoming a zombie is the fact you are alive (the blob can only take over a body after it is dead).

The human mouth is a filthy, toxic place even before they died and were infested with strange lifeforms. Like a kamodo dragon of the primate world.[/quote]

Might I suggest that the ‘injector zed’ exists as a branched evolution of the Spitter or Boomer, it attempts to directly insert a heavy load of highly mutagenic and vilely toxic concoction directly into your flesh to cripple or overwhelm. Perhaps it’s an even weirder evolutionary result, the blob has realized the current host is breaking down or irrecoverably crippled and is going to make a direct leap into a more viable body, remoulding whatever flesh it can into an extremely efficient one-shot injector. In keeping with a crippled and careful nature it crawls about on the floor, mangled parts trailing behind it keeping a low profile before it can snag and grasp a new host. Once it has succeeded or failed, the violent expulsion of its liquid content kills this Z form.

Tangler- The mutation of one of the bulkier Z-types (such as the Boomer, Hulk, ect) a staggering butcher’s shop of distended, ropey muscle and organs. When within three tiles of a foe it attempts to clumsily fling out ropes of intestine and other, specialized ropes of flesh as ad-hoc tentrals to entangle and pull prey into a gaping, toothy ribcage.
Concept’s pictured below:

I’d like to add a note of caution here: this game is meant to be about a cataclysm, not the zombieclysm!!!moarzombies!

I’ll second this and consider some bot/beast reskins of some of the ideas previously listed. At the very least there’s a point where one would stop considering something a ‘zombie’ after significant mutation (Jabberwok for instance.)

[Murphy]

Speaking of injectors, there could be an injector robot. Something like big scary thing wandering the hospital looking for stray patients. It would then try to tranq them and bring them into a room with padded walls. Or it could be broken and tranq you until your heart stops. Bonus points for screaming “Do not be alarmed. This is a kindness.”

[Coolthulhu]

Speaking of injectors, there could be an injector robot. Something like big scary thing wandering the hospital looking for stray patients. It would then try to tranq them and bring them into a room with padded walls. Or it could be broken and tranq you until your heart stops. Bonus points for screaming “Do not be alarmed. This is a kindness.”

Would need to be able to handle zeds too, somehow. Otherwise it would get bashed down before the player reaches it.

[Belteshazzar]

[quote=“Murphy, post:29, topic:9544”]Speaking of injectors, there could be an injector robot. Something like big scary thing wandering the hospital looking for stray patients. It would then try to tranq them and bring them into a room with padded walls. Or it could be broken and tranq you until your heart stops. Bonus points for screaming “Do not be alarmed. This is a kindness.”

Would need to be able to handle zeds too, somehow. Otherwise it would get bashed down before the player reaches it.[/quote]
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury.

"The mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.

Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the fire house areaway. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentle paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine."

Logically something one might find in a lab, prison, or medical facility for drug administration. Could even prove a handy pet if you somehow managed to make it use more helpfully dosed medical injections. However, the minor chance of sitting in the back room of a firestation guarding a flamethrower would prove a lovely joke.

[Wally-kun]

Something that marks you would probably be a good upgrade for the Shrieker. If you’re nearby when it screams, it permeates you with some sort of chemical that enhances your natural scent for a time and alerts hordes to you more readily. And also probably being louder. Continuous shrieking wouldn’t be that unreasonable either. Trip the alarm, wails like a maniac and either catches you in the newly formed horde or denies an area due to the sheer mass of bodies it just assembled. Come proper hordes, it’d be important to put this thing like, pronto.

Boomers, too, could use a proper marking ability. Currently they’re kinda…pathetic. They’re an inconvenience at worst and don’t actually do all that much harm to you, and your limited sight doesn’t make you incapable of fighting, or even all that less effective at it. You should probably have a couple more reasons to not get covered in bile other than it’s gross.

Seeing as the only real goal of the zombies is to create more hosts for dormant blobs, it makes sense that over time they start to become more and more hunter-oriented and start to seek out infected hosts to put down. Packs of special hunter-killer zeds that actively hunt you down while the other hordes just sort of drift around and lock down certain areas.

Alternatively, you could activate mutations in zombies like the survivor has. Regular zombies growing sharp teeth, enhanced hearing, maybe turning into another type completely depending on how far they get down a specific tree. Perhaps certain traits in their neighbors trigger specific kinds of changes? The blob IS all about adaptation, so responding to their environment is definitely on par with their character.

Defensive lines wouldn’t be that out of the question, either. Seeing as the zombies loiter about populated areas, perhaps keeping that area secure to prevent anyone from passing through and clearing the area, or preventing a convenient escape, would also benefit the zombies collectively. There’s lots of niches to fill.

[Coolthulhu]

Boomers, too, could use a proper marking ability. Currently they’re kinda…pathetic. They’re an inconvenience at worst and don’t actually do all that much harm to you, and your limited sight doesn’t make you incapable of fighting, or even all that less effective at it. You should probably have a couple more reasons to not get covered in bile other than it’s gross.

Upgraded boomers make you glow even when they don’t blind you.

[troll_from_behind]

The next tier from shrieker (Banshee!) could paralyze the player with a failed Int-test, but player should gain slowly resistance to the scream the more he hears it.
Also a end of days-level cyborghulk with handcannon and random (working) combat oriented cbms.

[Wally-kun]

[quote=“Wally-kun, post:32, topic:9544”]Boomers, too, could use a proper marking ability. Currently they’re kinda…pathetic. They’re an inconvenience at worst and don’t actually do all that much harm to you, and your limited sight doesn’t make you incapable of fighting, or even all that less effective at it. You should probably have a couple more reasons to not get covered in bile other than it’s gross.

Upgraded boomers make you glow even when they don’t blind you.[/quote]
Well…that’s interesting and all, but only really useful at night. And even then, you have to be within a range where you would be visible anyways. Or so I assume; sometimes I can see illuminated objects outside of my visual range.

Does this work for zombies as well? Or other creatures in general.

[Coolthulhu]

[quote=“Wally-kun, post:35, topic:9544”]Well…that’s interesting and all, but only really useful at night. And even then, you have to be within a range where you would be visible anyways. Or so I assume; sometimes I can see illuminated objects outside of my visual range.

Does this work for zombies as well? Or other creatures in general.[/quote]

Having all nightly stealth negated at once can be dangerous.

Currently glowing is hardcoded for players and (I think) NPCs.

Without pathfinding zombies, sound and vision is pretty much the only real way to make them charge the player properly. Smell is nice close up, but it would be very costly to process at range, unless was abstracted into some sort of a clever hack instead.

[vache]

Boomers could branch into a few types, the glowing bile one, the bloated zombie, one that reduces your vision radius to 0 when biled (and maybe knocks you down at the same time), or one that coats you in nasty bile that both harms your vision and makes you vomit repeatedly while you’re covered in it.

[Sgtanarchy]

I wonder if there could be a upgraded boomer that has a chance to cause you to mutate when he covers you in his bile. Would definitely be a Zombie worth avoiding unless one has some purifiers or some ranged weaponry. I personally find all types of current boomers very harmless.

[Valpo]

the problem with mutation sources is that they destroy the mutation build you made for you survivor. And as there is no current way to remember the trait setup of your char to purify yourself back to like you would if not mutated at all it turns into a real hazard and annoyance for all mutated chars.

[Sgtanarchy]

the problem with mutation sources is that they destroy the mutation build you made for you survivor. And as there is no current way to remember the trait setup of your char to purify yourself back to like you would if not mutated at all it turns into a real hazard and annoyance for all mutated chars.

That’s a good point. I completely understand where you’re coming from. Maybe a boomer has a chance to give you the flu or common cold then? I doubt very much their bile is hygienic.