17 replies to this topic

[Karlsson]

This engine would be awesome for a zombie-mod! I'm just saying kind of a "survival theme". Now, I know there ain't, nor will be, any modding tools released officially, but I just had to post it to get the thought out of my head xD

[mr31337]

This engine would be awesome for a zombie-mod! I'm just saying kind of a "survival theme". Now, I know there ain't, nor will be, any modding tools released officially, but I just had to post it to get the thought out of my head xD

If you build it they will come.

[Connor_MacManus]

You can give all the enemies knifes and axes and add 50 or of them to all locations. Than you have pretty much a zombie mod.

[Karlsson]

Yeah, I've thought about that, but I'd like more factors into it scarce weapons, scarce ammo... just a few edited survivors... (and yourself ofc if IMP ever come into realization), and also... you'd need to fill the map with enemies. all walking stance ofc ^^

[Karlsson]

I'm gonna play around a little with what we got... see what you guys think

[-=Striker=-]

This engine would be awesome for a zombie-mod!

Or just play this:

[luppolo]

You can give all the enemies knifes and axes and add 50 or of them to all locations. Than you have pretty much a zombie mod.

I just want it.

[Calippo]

Or just play this:

ah-ahn! we've finally found where JA:BiA came from: it's a prequel to the above game

[Karlsson]

I tried the Trapped Dead game, and I didn't really like it =/ I rather like the concept of cleansing Arulco from the living dead ordering weapons, mercs... dead hordes moving on locations. Feels more like a sandbox zombie-game ^^

[lucka99]

I made a similar idea in the mod ideas thread for a zombie mod.

It isn't that complicated in general.

Had a rough implementation idea for a Zombie mod that wouldn't take much to implement.

1. The army forces become the zombies.
2. Remove their weapons. Without weapons they should resort to some sort of charge and melee AI.
3. Give them all a set of modified clothing. If someone wanted to be really fancy, modify a pair of non-deliverable spectra pants and some sort of non-deliverable shirt so that it looks blood splattered. Increase the armor rating of their shirt/pants to some ridiculous number but they have no head gear (thus requiring head shots).
4. Increase the spawn rate and number of "zombies" on each screen.
5. Give them all the unfit and overweight trait and reduce their strength so they get tired easy and become slow shamblers.
6. Perhaps increase their perception so they are harder to avoid and will swarm better.

Just some thoughts but I don't have the time/patience to implement.

Lucka99

Regarding 2, you might need to add a knife for them to attack in melee, would have to test it out. But regardless, not a huge issue.

For 3, you could create an item pretty easily that was textured as some sort of bloody rags (or if you wanted to get fancy, you could make multiple textures for some variety) and up the damage threshold on the leg and torso portions. This would simulate requiring head shots.

4. Increasing spawn rates can be done by modifying main_sectors.txt and main_locations.txt like in the Mod Difficulty Settings mods.

6. Increasing perception to something like 270 apparently gives them 270 degree cone of visibility and increases their range by a couple times.


I'd like to play it if you work it out.

Lucka99

[FuzzyLogic]

oooooh come on... someone say it already:
"This one should be easy seeing that the AI is brain dead anyway!"
no!?

[Karlsson]

I'm definately going to experiment with this. Also if it was possible to remove their ability to climb ladders and such to make strategic use of rooftops. Hmm... I've already been tinkering and testing some stat tweaks on the enemy units. But I don't really know how to increase their numbers in each sector. I want to get the feeling that each area is literally swarmed and overrun, especially urban areas. Nice list of ideas! I'll make good use of it however, texturing ain't really my deal, so if someone feels keen to make that bit I'd be grateful

[Karlsson]

I'm definately going to experiment with this. Also if it was possible to remove their ability to climb ladders and such to make strategic use of rooftops. Hmm... I've already been tinkering and testing some stat tweaks on the enemy units. But I don't really know how to increase their numbers in each sector. I want to get the feeling that each area is literally swarmed and overrun, especially urban areas. Nice list of ideas! I'll make good use of it however, texturing ain't really my deal, so if someone feels keen to make that bit I'd be grateful

EDIT: Just saw you told me where to edit enemy numbers sorry about that miss.

[Karlsson]

Although reducing their strength would also reduve their HP... although you are going for 1-shot-1-kill headshots, so it just might work out anyway. But then I'd have to make them invulnerable versus body-harm. Explosions should work though. This will need some work xD

[lucka99]

Although reducing their strength would also reduve their HP... although you are going for 1-shot-1-kill headshots, so it just might work out anyway. But then I'd have to make them invulnerable versus body-harm. Explosions should work though. This will need some work xD

Yes, the idea was to up their resilience by giving them "cheat" zombie armor with torso and legs having ridiculous armor levels to stop everything short of being shredded (which zombies might live after being shredded, but they are much less scary with no arms and legs).

Also, I envisioned that this would be more survival themed, so you'd probably want to go into weapons.txt and clothing.txt and remove the term "deliverable" from just about everything. If you've got a zombie invasion, I don't imagine that FEDEX will be delivering weapons.

I'd also likely remove almost all weapons from the games. Hand guns would likely be prevalent with the exception of maybe the 5.7mm exotics. Maybe a few of the WW2 weapons, lots of 870 shotguns, and maybe one of the low end sniper options to represent a hunting rifle. Scopes would be rare with the lack of most long guns.

[Karlsson]

Yes, the idea was to up their resilience by giving them "cheat" zombie armor with torso and legs having ridiculous armor levels to stop everything short of being shredded (which zombies might live after being shredded, but they are much less scary with no arms and legs).

Also, I envisioned that this would be more survival themed, so you'd probably want to go into weapons.txt and clothing.txt and remove the term "deliverable" from just about everything. If you've got a zombie invasion, I don't imagine that FEDEX will be delivering weapons.

I'd also likely remove almost all weapons from the games. Hand guns would likely be prevalent with the exception of maybe the 5.7mm exotics. Maybe a few of the WW2 weapons, lots of 870 shotguns, and maybe one of the low end sniper options to represent a hunting rifle. Scopes would be rare with the lack of most long guns.

Deactivating deliveries is obvious also finding weapons with full durability should be lowered as well, making mechanics valuable in a sense. Maybe some small local "shops". Like safehouses of sorts. Selling more common weapons, maybe the S&W .38 and general tools. I can see this becoming pretty popular ^^ changing the animation for the enemy to that of wounded characters would be sweet, because they really shamble about then not doable as it is now, but still. Unless there's a way to give enemies the 'wounded' status. Lowering XP value as well, due to the increased amount of hostiles per map.

[lucka99]

Played around a bit with the concept today. Made the following changes to the Drassen Airport and the "zombies".

Modified two clothing objects in clothing.txt and added them as items to the "bandit" characters (level 1 bad guys that start in drassen airport).

// Down Vest 05 red ADDON
Clothing (4014, Vest 14)
{
Armor 200
Weight 20000
Price 150
Icon 1 224 720 56 40
Picture 6 5 9 1
}


// Spectra Pants - white
Clothing (3073, Legs 73)
{
Armor 200
Weight 6000
Price 2100
Icon 1 728 800 56 40
Picture 5 2 8 2

Deliverable
}

In main_locations.txt I added bunch of zombies, though it probably needs more to be truly survival. Upped total Defenders to 80 (how many total allowed) and the 60 is how many can spawn, I believe. You could likely double both fo those if you wanted to make it insane, but realize your starting mercs/survivors are low on ammo, so unless you populate ammo/weapons in the map, you'd quickly have problems. I suppose some of the zombies could be in uniforms of former police, so they'd drop some sort of weapons/ammo, if you could work out the dropping of firearms without being shot with them.

Location ("c8_drassen_airport", 52, 35)
{
Area 2030 440 2200 560
Function PlayerBase
Income 285
MilSlots 9
DefSlots 80
Defenders 60 0 0 0 0
//Defenders 0 0 0 0 20

Description 620
Picture 1 1 1

ConquestAchievement 28
}

Made changes to the bandits who are in the first mission and therefore the zombies for my test. With these stats, the zombies do the slow trudge and take 1-2 head shots with a pistol to kill. With body shots, pistols might take 10 to 20 depending on pistol. Shotguns are still about 6-8 body shots.

At 15 strength, or higher, the zombies can still run pretty decent distances and you get overwhelmed quickly and you have no chance once any of them get to you. Not far below 13 strength, they have too low HPs and even with ridiculous armor, you can 1-2 shot them in the torso. May require adding shoes and shirts to prevent that, but I didnt' get to it and might not go that far.

// AI Character 13 officer
Character ("Bandit1", 2)
{
Gender 0
SkinColor 1

Head 2000
Torso 5
Legs 1
Feet 63 //cowboy

Glasses 31

HP 600
Agility 2
Dexterity 2
Strength 13
Wisdom 69
Perception 450
Marksmanship 2
Mechanics 64
Explosives 66
Medical 62
Level 1
Sneak 67



AddItem 3073 //modified white spectra pants
AddItem 4014 //modified red vest
AddItem 7 //Knife


XPForKilling 50

VoiceType 221

}

A thing that would be larger in scope but probably easier to balance than the zombie stats would be to generally lower ammunition damage, and rather than mercenary stats, modify your mercenaries to be survivors, i.e. lower overall weapon skills. The exception would probably be melee weapons (not that shared with the zombies, though) to give you a fighting chance when they catch up to you.

You could have a general plot that you have to find clues from survivors to find your missing family, location of the cure, or the evacuation site to get off the island, any one of them requiring you to fight your way through and save survivors along the way. You'd likely want to remove all but a few starting mercs from the hiring lists (probably just comment them out in the characters.txt file easy enough) and then allow the recruitment of the other mercs in game as survivors.

For weapons, as discussed before, greatly limit the types of weapons allowed and you have a pretty decent game.

Every once in awhile you could encounter fast zombies to scare you a bit, or other survivors with the desire to use you for survival supplies.


Hope it helps anyone heading down the path of this one.

Lucka99

[Karlsson]

I'll look through your texts and see what can be done. I've been playtesting some edited files myself the last couple of days, and I've come to some interesting results ^^