Zombies: More Than Dead (Mutating, resurrecting, and variation)

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

So we’ve been discussing this a good bit in chat, and we’d like to do a bit more with zombies. First, there’s all the spawning changes - tile-based pop counts, roaming mobs, etc.

But there’s also the types of zombies and the lore behind them and the breakdown.

Our conversation right now splits it into 2 different types - population-based and situation-based.

Population-based zeds: These zeds appear everywhere there’s enough zombies, because the slime has decided it needs them.
Necro zombies: Appear every 60 zeds. The mass of zombies results in a zombie who feeds off their connection to the subprime plane.
Shriekers: Appear every 30 zeds. With this many zombies, specialized types are worth the energy investment.
Hunters: With a keen increase in planning, these zombies are meant to deal with enemies that have proved to wily for the normal type. Will follow at a distance until success is guaranteed, alerting other zombies to your presence.
Leapers: An increase in mobility allows for access to those who might otherwise have escaped.

Situation-based zeds: These zeds may appear simply based on group size, but also respond to their environment.
Brutes: When corpses resurrect near a source of biomass (such as other corpses or even chunks), they can merge together into a kind of monstrosity called a brute, as the biomass allows for an increase in options.
Hulk: Like brutes, but with more biomass.
Abomination: When enough corpses are next to each other, they will merge into this insane tangle of limbs and faces and legs, which is slow moving but deadly and nearly impossible to kill.
Spitter: Zombies raised in water turn the water in their lungs and gut into a powerful acid. Beware the riverside!
Boomers: Bloated zombies raised from the corpses of the morbidly obese.
Shockers: Zombies raised from beings with cybernetic enhancements or who had electronics absorbed into their body when raised.
Toxic: These zombies were raised with high levels of toxin in their body, likely from beestings. They have weaponized this opportunity.
Partial People: These zombies are missing limbs or chunks, and are less effective than normal.

In addition, with this change zombies would get a bit more… hardy. All zombies that are killed (but not butchered or burned) will eventually get back up, and depending on their conditions, may end up a bit worse than when you first killed them. Even removing their head isn’t enough to stop the zombies for good, as they will eventually repair or work around the damage as the slime within them is given time.

Enough damage, as in the case of butchering or burning, will be enough to truly “kill” the slime holding them together, though, meaning they can’t be brought back to life… though they may be absorbed into a hulk, brute, or abomination.

2

Love it all ! Here are my two cents.

  • If meat chunks are still possibly going to be absorbed by nearby raised zombies, how about a way to deal with them permanently ? Such as burying them in pits and/or pouring bleach over them ? Or being dissolved by the occasional acid rain ?

-Zombies near craters could turn into glowing zombies (with a small radius), effectively acting as a beacon attracting other zombies at night. (Credit goes to kev and Killebrew)

3

Acid grenades, burning, moving away.

I think zombies should avoid areas with large amounts of dead zombies, so they stay alive for a Zerg rush.

4

Population based - do you mean one Necro per 60 currently spawned Zs, per 60 that have been spawned, etc?

I don’t know if lots of different types spawning normally is necessarily a good thing. I find when i’ve got a full horde after me, it’s pretty hard to keep track of what is what, and the multiple different ranged attacks coming in just gets annoying.

Abomination - Love the idea. I’d say regular zombie speed, break through walls like a hulk, give it decent armour and regeneration and health. Something to justify using a mini-nuke on.

Shockers being previous cybers - Love the idea, explains it perfectly.

5

Basically, there are plans to add tile-based and roaming zombie mods. Each mob that has over 60 zombies will also have a necromancer.

Alternatively, we could make them adaptive and put necromancers on squares where you killed many zombies but failed to destroy their corpses in the past.

6

I think we need intelligent Zs, called the same but it stays away from areas with large amounts of dead undead. They would assault your base in a wave.

7

[quote=“gtaguy, post:6, topic:110”]I think we need intelligent Zs, called the same but it stays away from areas with large amounts of dead undead. They would assault your base in a wave.[/quote]Maybe rogue groups of NPCs with shotguns and mininukes.