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Interesting ideas...
I dunno about distress beacons - if you're cornered, you need every key-press dedicated to holding off the zombies, but if we extend this to "trapped at the top of a tower with a zillion zombies", that could be cool...I'd have to remake one of my Unsticker systems and disable Unstick Me for it to really work, but still. :-D
The zombies taking over an outpost is actually really interesting - I hadn't thought about it but yeah, all the survivors who made their desperate last stand will be joining the hordes of undead in trying to take down the remaining outposts. I was already planning on, until the outposts are reset, the players get to play as zombies (kinda like Baddy Skins), but since basically every player has an NPC, there would be an abundance of NPC Mobs too; and if we apply the standard Descrated Depot rules to the Outpost, if the surviving Outposts don't somehow clear out the infestation in 24 hours, it becomes a Zombie Mob Spawn Point, hastening the apocalypse. That changes the victory conditions to "Zombies: Desecrate every depot and outpost. Humans: Survive as long as possible." It also raises the possibility that the humans Don't win; while the final 24 hour clock was ticking down they could all die.
As for generators, I think Terazel and I went over that one once. Don't exactly recall what the resolution was though. I know I want to have player-managed automated defenses, so even at 3 in the morning a base isn't Defenseless; they just pull directly from the Treasury, and if the leader hasn't been taxing properly there's a risk the autoguns run dry, the sentries run out of ammo and the generators keel over. I do like the idea of having numerous places out in the map where an Engineer would be useful In The Field; back at the base they're essential for setting up defenses (barbed wire, etc), but on a raid it's nice to have one around to squeeze another few minutes out of the surveillance system, get power to a door so you don't have to take the long way, etc.
Now day/night/lighting effects/fog/etc; I'm not 100% on it. I mean, if we cut down Zombies to static graphics we can have really a lot of Zombies on the screen at once, but they'll all look the same...and one of the things I really like about them is that they're as custom as the players are (though each mob has to share body# and colors)...I Might be able to redo the ganis as static body graphics and free up some VRam that way, or I could just go crazy demanding everyone have a better-than-average video card and enforcing day/night, or I guess I could get off my butt and apply the Lowres edition of zombies (when your graphics card starts lagging, they stop animating->become static images->become one big polygon with "ZOMBIES" written on it?) |