Make midround zombie outbreaks much rarer

[Blackern5000]

About the PR

Midround zombie outbreaks now only have a 1/651 chance to occur every event tick, nearly 4x less likely than before.

Why / Balance

Zombies happen way too often for what they are. Zombies are a midround antagonist that is not just snowballing, but guaranteed round-ending. Whether or not the crew wins against them, the shuttle needs to come regardless because chances are half the crew was round removed from the infection and there's no way to undo it. As well as the fact that zombies convert all otherwise interesting antagonists into the same exact shambling corpses, the only exception being the space dragon which just becomes outright overpowered when infected.
Currently, almost every single survival round ends in zombies. Playing an enjoyably chaotic shift or a story caused by some antagonist and then having it almost always entirely cut off by a consistently unfun midround event SUCKS, and 9/10 survival rounds end with zombies so as soon as you realize it's survival you're just waiting for the moment you hear "eeuurrghh" and biting sounds in the medbay.

Changelog

🆑

• tweak: Zombie outbreaks are now SIGNIFICANTLY rarer

[DieselMohawk]

I agree that it's pretty bullshit.

[vorkathbruh]

maybe survival will actually be fucking bearable

[JIPDawg]

Mid round Zombies have multiple IIs right? Maybe a middle ground of just one II would make it less evac ending imo. I do agree that on extended zombies always end the round.

[Blackern5000]

Mid round Zombies have multiple IIs right? Maybe a middle ground of just one II would make it less evac ending imo. I do agree that on extended zombies always end the round.

That wouldn't solve the problem. Three IIs, one II, seven IIs, it's all the same. Everyone turns into the same exact zombie when they're infected, and it only takes the one II infecting two or three corpses in med to get it going to unstoppable levels.

[deltanedas]

major cargo skill issue just buy 50 guns

[deepdarkdepths]

I don't like this. Zombies are already irrelevant enough as is. Roundstart II is incredibly easy to shut down most of the time and this just gives less chances for takeovers to happen
Chaos is inevitable.

[slarticodefast]

Maybe it would be fine if it was just much rarer? Like 10% of the current chance? For me midround IIs happening was always the game telling me "this round has been long enough, time to end it". I totally agree this should not be the inevitable outcome of survival mode, each round should feel unique and different.

[a-person5660]

Zombies need to be reworked or rebalanced, right now it's "oh the entire station is infected, time to /ghost and wait for 1t minutes for the round to end"
They should be removed from mid round until they get that rebalancing. I'm usually against removing stuff but this is truly the only thing that really needs to go.

[Blackern5000]

Zombies need to be reworked or rebalanced, right now it's "oh the entire station is infected, time to /ghost and wait for 1t minutes for the round to end" They should be removed from mid round until they get that rebalancing. I'm usually against removing stuff but this is truly the only thing that really needs to go.

I definitely think if they get reworked they could be re-added, but in the current state they just overtake everything and replace it with zombie gamemode. Any syndies, nukies, whatever. They all become the same zombies with the same goals with the only variation being what they're wearing when they turn.

[Blackern5000]

Roundstart II is incredibly easy to shut down most of the time

This could not be more wrong.
Roundstart II basically GUARANTEES a full outbreak. If one II fails, there are still 6-7 more to handle it. The only case where zombies die out is when the zombies all join in the same horde and all die, and by that point most of the station is already dead and the shuttle is called.

[Blackern5000]

major cargo skill issue just buy 50 guns

That's fun for what, 6 people? 8? The cargo techs, salvagers, the QM, the captain maybe if they made it. The rest of the station just has to keep getting their rounds ruined by the gray goo of antagonists that for some reason was made a midround event? Is being a syndie about to greentext, then getting eaten by a horde so large it's unavoidable and just sitting on evac doing nothing fun for you??

[deltanedas]

cargo buying 50 guns means the entire crew is armed not 6 people

[Ilya246]

i would suggest to instead just make them even rarer than they are now, maybe additionally also make them only potentially happen even later into the round
and maybe give cargo better zombie countermeasures they can purchase so if cargo has money they can basically just buy zombies away, would make roundstart zombies still a threat while midround would be counterable

[deltanedas]

the actual solution isnt make it rarer its make dynamic so how a round ends is actually considered and not just a completely random event

[Ilya246]

the actual solution isnt make it rarer its make dynamic so how a round ends is actually considered and not just a completely random event

there was dynamic events pr but author vanish

[Blackern5000]

cargo buying 50 guns means the entire crew is armed not 6 people

By the time cargo is aware of zombies it's already too late, they would have to have the guns before the outbreak to contain it. In the time it takes for cargo to have the zombies confirmed, buy guns, drive to the ATS, load the shuttle, drive back, and either break open the crates or get hos/warden/captain to do it, 70% of the station is already converted, 20% is hiding, and the last 10% is cargo itself plus maybe the captain. There's no way cargo can bring guns to sec to fight the zombies when zombies just overtake everything in the way they do.
And cargo successfully brining guns STILL wouldn't solve the problem of zombies being all-consuming in a round not centered around them, they STILL turn every antagonist, non-antagonist, and command member into an unrevivable shambling corpse that when killed is an automatic round removal for the person who was turned. It's not fun to fight, win, or lose as or against midround zombies.

[Blackern5000]

the actual solution isnt make it rarer its make dynamic so how a round ends is actually considered and not just a completely random event

Oh yeah sure let's just keep this extremely unfun feature in the game for god knows how long until someone steps up to code a doc for an entirely new gamemode that was merged to docs 9 months ago that will just replace the YML being removed here anyway.

[Radezolid]

the actual solution isnt make it rarer its make dynamic so how a round ends is actually considered and not just a completely random event

Oh yeah sure let's just keep this extremely unfun feature in the game for god knows how long until someone steps up to code a doc for an entirely new gamemode that was merged to docs 9 months ago that will just replace the YML being removed here anyway.

It's unfun for you maybe, I think zombies outbreaks are fun.

If cargo can't get guns fast enough that sounds like a skill issue. They got common radio, the QM can even work with command (Like he should do) to coordinate to contain this.
I dont see how removing this event would help, remember that space station 14 includes chaos, removing zombies because they cause it would be against the idea of this game in my opinion.

[Froffy025]

radezolid, this pr just removes zombies from midround events. zombie rounds will still be zombie rounds -- this PR just changes it so that survival/traitor rounds are always about surviving events/surviving traitors, instead of ever being about surviving the inevitable midround zombies.

[IProduceWidgets]

maybe survival will actually be fucking bearable

I do agree that on extended zombies always end the round.

Maybe it would be fine if it was just much rarer? Like 10% of the current chance?

I would suggest to instead just make them even rarer than they are now

There might be a solution to this particular case without this, but it sure would be easier to handle with #29320

[Emisse]

cant you just lower the weighting

[BuggsWorth]

In my almost 600 hours playtime majority being on wizards den, ive seen mid round Zombies almost as often as ive seen Rev's, even on Survival.

Theyre designed to be round ending like nukies, but if the crew can work together it can be easily quelled. If theyre spawned at the end of a survival round where people cannot properly coordinate, thats just part of the chaos the game creates that we love so much.

I wouldnt remove them completely, maybe tweak the weighting if you want to change anything. Not to cause any offense but this seems like something made out of spite.

[Ilya246]

yes i already suggested this just make them happen at minimum an hour in and rarer than they do now

[BuggsWorth]

yes i already suggested this just make them happen at minimum an hour in and rarer than they do now

Its an amazing idea having a minimum amount of time required to roll midround zombies so the crew has enough time to have their fun and roleplay, an hour in is right on time for the shift to start becoming stale.

[IProduceWidgets]

You can set the minimum time for the event in yml.
Just change earliest start to an hour or whatever

earliestStart: 3600

[TheDoctor1977]

My personal issue with midround zombies is that it’s just a big middle finger to almost every other midround antag. Sleeper Agents, Lone Ops, Space Dragons, they all get turned into zombies with the exact same goal.

[Blackern5000]

My personal issue with midround zombies is that it’s just a big middle finger to almost every other midround antag. Sleeper Agents, Lone Ops, Space Dragons, they all get turned into zombies with the exact same goal.

Exactly as I said, they're the gray goo of antagonists. They take everything and turn it into more of the exact same zombies.

[metalgearsloth]

Talked with maints and consensus was just make it a round 1 hour earliest start + reduce the weighting a bit.

[UbaserB]

After further internal discussion, please change the earliestStart to be 90 minutes in and the weight to be 1.

[UbaserB]

I just ended up doing it myself, will merge after tests finish

its done!!