A long time ago, in a ga- wait no, this is SS13. Okay! So, about two years ago an zombie game mode was suggested by block1, I believe the name was. As of currently, we're listed, and have a lot more players now, so we have options for more team antag related events. I'm no coder, nor maintainer, not even a spriter, so I wouldn't personally be offering anything, simply bringing the idea back into light see if anyone would really want to see this as a game mode, I think it'd be neat to see if people were willing to give it a try. Input and suggestions are grand, as an important factor of this will be balance.
Overview:
Code-Z is a zombie game mode focusing a lot around virology. This would of course give virology an important role should this event ever pop up. The game mode is basically a team based antag, in which a few players start out as 'infected' at round start, and eventually end up turning into the undead. Once undead they'd seek to attack the uninfect, mostly with the intent to kill, but should the survivor escape, they could have the chance of being infected.
Sprites:
The previous time this was brought up, mentions of the 'zombie' sprite were brought up. This would be a problem for, obvious reasons, one, the zombie sprite is mostly made for the human race, and human race alone. There's a lot of races that Paradise has that we'd need to take into account for. So, instead of trying to make a sprite for every single race, we can repurpose ones we already have. Just leave the sprite as it is, change it to the same sprite the race has for when the body begins to rot heavily, make it look like it's been beaten up a good bit. This way, still looks like a walking corpse, but, you can still easily tell who that player was.
The Zombies:
The question becomes how to handle the infected after they've died, specifically mechanic wise. Instead of changing them into a mob of some kind, it'd be nice to keep them as a humanoid. Still have them wearing the same stuff they died with. To prevent a zombie from changing into a space suit or armor, make it act like they can't use their hands, almost like they're handcuffed. They can still be stripped be survivors for their gear with way if need be. Now the question becomes how to spread the infection. Previously it was mentioned to have it have a chance of spreading simply by attacking, this would be easiest if we did go with the idea of having the zombies incapable of using their hands to pick things up and the like. Or could give them a spell they'd have to use if they got close to an infected, almost like how mindswap checks for whoever is closest. Then just having the spell have a chance of infecting. Having it's percentage of working change based on what the uninfected is wearing would also be nice.
Speed and health wise, the zombies are faced with a huge disadvantage, they lack ranged weaponry. Speed wise, there's two main options. Either have them consistently at the speed their race was when on a full hunger bar, or, have their speed scale based on injuries/hunger. (For the later, giving zombies a spell to feed on nearby dead bodies.) Due to their weakness of not having ranged weaponry, to counteract this, they'd become dangerous for melee combat. (Namely their ability to spread the infection.) Making them a bit more robust in order to take more hits would be nice to make up for it, as, they don't get to choose what armor they're wearing, and the only smart way to engage them would be ranged combat, so think of combat shotguns. However! If, we do have their speed scale based on injury, we'd likely want to take into account the loss of limbs/broken bones. We don't want a zombie to loose it's limbs and basically become a beartrap biting machine and nothing more. This would be a crummy situation for the player of said zombie. Few options to counteract this. Giving the zombies another spell that lets them 'succumb' (Basically, ghosts them until the body dies, so they don't have to be trapped there, it could even replace the player with an NPC mind. That way crippled zombies are still dangerous.) Or, the other option is making it so zombies can't loose their legs and adding in a crawl mechanic for them. (Again, I know the problem with the crawl mechanic, the flaps that they can crawl under. This would give survivors reason to barricade things like that. Also, it's just one of two suggestions, and can be ignored completely.)
How to properly kill them is the next question. Previously it was suggested to attack the brain. That could work, after a certain stage of brain damage the body dies properly. That method would be best if we did give zombies the spell to leave their body until it dies. (Not allowing them to return until it dies, to prevent a zombie from ghosting, looking for survivors, and then returning to it's body.) Another way to kill them would come down to the cure. The cure would cure infected, but could be used to kill the undead. Once and undead is killed by the cure, it can then be taken for revival. (Unless the infect spell is used on it once more.) Once an infected body dies, it'll have some left over marks from it's time as an infected. First off, it's stage of body rot will already be to the point where it starts to smell, secondly, each area of the body would likely be infected with the base infected traits. So at this point it'd be best to clone the body, instead of trying to make the corpse you just stopped from moving, move once more.
The Infected:
These are crew members who either started out with the virus, or got infected as the round progressed. The infection virus would work a lot like the vampires grave touch, as in, it'd be a spell that the zombies can use to spread the infection. It'd be a virus that advances like usual, speed of it's progression would have to be discussed. It'd be noncontagious, so there's no proper fear of the infected, just what they can become when the virus reaches stage five. The cure, would of course stop the virus, they could still become infected with it again, but would not have to worry about suddenly trying to eat their friends for a bit. I'll go into more detail on 'the cure' in it's own section.
The Crew:
The crew's biggest weapon from the start will be to avoid infected individuals. During the time in which a cure is not present, it'd be best to simply kill zombies. Once the cure is created, distribution of it will be the best weapon. If the zombie outbreak becomes too much for the crew, they can call upon an ERT for assistance. Being as the infection does not spread outside of the undead's touch, there's no huge fear about suddenly becoming infected. No shuttle can be called due to NT's Quarantine laws.
The Cure:
Virology will be the biggest hero this station needs. The crew will most certainly want to ensure virology is safe. As opposed to most viruses, this one will require the blood of one of the undead, a beaker of said blood will be loaded into the virologist pathologist machine where it'll take a good bit of processing to manufacture a cure. A chemical like Spacacillin (Or however that crap is spelled) should be added in with the beaker, as the blood alone should not be able to create a cure. The machine should take a good long time to actually process this blood, and should only have a rare chance of working when it does. This is to prevent the cure just being made within the first ten minutes because one body was killed. Virology will certainly be a was zone. Giving zombies the ability to sloooowly pull down walls/windows/airlocks would be a good idea to prevent people from rushing into virology and bolting it down to work.
End Game Details:
Much like xenos, I haven't really thought of a proper way for the game mode to be considered, 'completed'. So this area would of course need input or admin intervention. As of right now there's two ideas. The crew creates a cure, and kills/cures enough of the zombies to show it's not an active threat, at which point CC will send a shuttle. Or, the infection spreads out of control, a DS is called in for the destruction of the station much like in xenos.
Conclusion:
This suggestion is simply to bring this idea back into light, get people thinking on it, putting input, all that stuff. If it wasn't obvious I did not put a ton of effort into thinking of all the traits of the game mode. I did this for a few reasons, I think it'd be neat to try a zombie game mode where I'm forced to shoot the corpses of my friends! And, right now, the server is ded and I didn't have much else to do. Go wild with this, ignore it, whatever you want, it ate up a bit of time for me at least!
