I am a bit torn on it only because I fear it might become too “meta” of a strong hold, it has only one real way to get inside and it has strong loot (though I can remove the loot).
I could keep the lab, but make it ‘ground zero’ for where I spawn player zombies later in the round. Maybe it can be a high risk location to loot for supplies before the player zombies spawn in, but I don’t know if I want to do that since I feel the game will be better if its focused on players scavenging the city and trying to set up their strong holds, rather than everyone bum rushing the labs.
Maybe we can spawn a few researchers and guards in the lab, but again I fear this might detract from the main goal of the round, and the lab is so huge that I’d need to spawn a lot of people to fill it in I fear.
You could make the lab a starting isolated area, with scientists and guards and whatnot. Hell, you could even give them a bunch of cures. But then you leak this to all the survivors, have fuel tanks outside the gates, and have it be breachable. The already infected will have to rush for it for a chance for a cure, and those who want the supplies and guns will want to go with.
And if they do breach, give them like a 5-7 minute timer of “The explosions alerted a horde of zombies” and then watch as the survivors and the WY staff scramble their gear while fighting eachother, all the while doom awaits for those who wait in there too long.
All just being an option. With the explosives maybe given by the USCM to said survivors to fuck over WY, or similar with a CLF terrorist cell seeing an opertunity, just so people don’t instantly blow it up.
All the while giving some “calm” RP to the guys inside, which live under the constant threat of “This could all be over soon”.
You’d have to hard isolate it for a period of time, or the survivors will just rush open it at the beginning of the round (or go there just because the possibility of it spawning exists)
Thats why i suggested explosvies given by 3rd faction or similar. Making it so you cannot break in round start, but at any point later shall a thrid party want to give them the oppertunity.
Just a quality of life thing. For the NPC zombies have them gib when they die. The slow fade away just looks wrong.
One change that might be needed.
The marine’s that dropped to evac the survs need to be a bit stronger. They just got whipped by the horde. To be fair their was like 30 zombies by that point.
But these are zombies so that should be expected. When I saw they were just normal marines I knew they were done. I have seen zombie horde rip apart entire xeno hives.
I think a good change could be turning the marines from evacing surv to being an extermination squad. Sure they will save survs but their main job is to wipeout the infection. It’s the end of the round so why not go all out. Give them incen rounds and c4 to blow up bodies. Maybe some CBRN flame throwers.
This could also give us an excuse to give them some better gear. It also removes the incentive to just hold the alamo and wait for survs. Maybe say that the lab has a fail safe system that can purify the city. So they must fight into the lab that is filled with NPC’s zombies not to mention all the player zombies.
You must hit the button and defend it from the horde for maybe 5 minutes.
I see 2 ways this could end.
The good ending- The fail safe is a stronger version of cure. When turned a white gas is shot out of the lab. A cloud of gas covers the entire map and cures every humans and kills every zombie. The NPC’s stop spawning and all zombie players drop dead.
To make it simpler to code jsut use a kill all command or something.
I like this ending cause if you manged to do all this you deserve a victory. It’s also total soul to have them leave the lab. Surrounded by piles of dead zombies that just seconds ago were tearing at the cades. The marines fire their guns into the air and make emotes “put’s mouth up to vent and inhails cure gas.”
The other ending- Just put a nuke in the lab. Turn it on and if the zombie SL touchs it the thing turns off. Only change is it does not need comm towers to go off. Obviously a last ditch hold to stop the infection is cinamatic and it ends with a big boom. However everyone dies so you know it’s only a bitter sweet victory.
One minor thing that hadn’t been mentioned: It would be nice if player could tell the job of the available survivor spawns. That way you can fight over the good ones instead of just hoping you don’t roll cook or something useless like that. Also it’d probably be frustrating for a new player who rolls a doctor or engi by accident and has no idea how to put his vital skills to use.
I would like to investigate a way for people to roll for survivor jobs only at the start of the game in the lobby, it’d allow you to bring your own characters in to the game and give you more control on what role you play. Though that being a code issue is likely beyond my abilities to create.
The current spawning system I use, spawning free-mobs of hybrisa survivors, is the best strategy I believe currently for several reasons.
It gives me very explicit control on how many survivors are being spawned in.
I can dictate exactly how many of a certain role is being spawned in, having half the survivors spawn as Security personnel or Corporate Liaisons would be suboptimal.
Its a very fast system, I just spawn the mobs, people pick it, and we can get the game going faster.
If I were to spawn the survivors as a ERT, for example, it’d likely extend the game prep phase by a big amount of time, plus I’d have to spam dozens of ‘ERT’ calls in dead chat.
I’m not against laboratory roleplay. My only real concern is just time, specifically my time. I spend most of the event frantically jumping around like a monkey on crack, I may not be able to really do much with anyone in the lab.
I am also more partial to the idea of spawning a squad of PMCs or Freelancers and giving them objectives on the main map such as restoring power. The benefit is that its much easier for me to track them and they are going to be naturally involved in the events of the main map, instead of a sequestered off lab roleplay event.
Event was GLORIOUS. Much love and thanks to @steelpoint and the admins and moderators who take time out for these. Additionally the music was fantastic. And a final thank you to the people in the round, I had some very memorable moments. My best zombie round yet!
I was a doctor, ended up doing a few surgeries. Died tragically when we got overrun, and I ran away, but got lost. Outstanding.