Infection Suggestions

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In the pathogenesis theory of zombies, being a zombie is merely a symptom of a disease that's caught by infection. Infection in a zombie game could take many specific forms. Urban Dead currently has only one form of infection; see the Infection page for further information. This page exists to discuss new and further kinds of infections. Everything listed on this page is a suggestion.

To be very clear, the Infectious Bite skill is the only form of infection currently in the Urban Dead game.

Mode of Transmission

These need not be only one way of catching the disease.

  • Infected Saliva - Successful bite attacks by zombies transmit the infection.
  • Blood-borne Illness - A successful punch attack by a survivor against a zombie has some percentage of leaving the survivor infected.
  • Airborne Spores - The weaponized bioterror version of zombie transmission.
  • Contagious - Infected survivors are contagious and can pass along the infection while still human.
  • Environmental Contamination - Careless humans could come in contact with infectious residues in the environment; blood spatter from zombies in combat, dead zombie bodies, zombie habitats, etc.

Symptoms

Different kinds of infections exhibit different clusters of symptoms.

  • Zombification - This is sort of the point, but is it the only one?
  • Half-zombification - An entirely new and temporary state; player gets 75% XP from all attacks on anyone, cannot buy any skills, can speak in the manner of a zombie with the "Death Rattle" skill and possibly a few more letters added, can use some but not all items, and loses HP at an increased rate compared to mere infection. Death causes full zombification.
  • Incremental Damage - Periodic loss of HP.
  • Lethargy - Slower AP recharge. (Only if there is a zombie equivelent)

Detection

How easily can the infection be detected?

  • Obvious and Immediate - An infected character realizes immediately.
  • Hidden During Incubation - There is an incubation period during which the infection is not detectable, or not easily detectable.
  • Skill Required - Some sort of Science skill is required to diagnose the infection.
  • Surprise, Surprise, Surprise - An infected survivor can turn without prior warning.

Incubation Time

How long the virus takes to work has a big effect on game balance. Is incubation time measured in real time or in AP expended?

  • Instant - This is the equivalent of an instant-kill weapon. Likely not a good idea, but fits the example of 28 Days Later.
  • Rapid - A fraction of a day, say, 10 AP or its recharge equivalent, five hours.
  • Upon Death - Nothing new here, except that infection may cause damage leading to death.

Intervention

Other than not getting infected, there are other ways of dealing with the possibility.

  • Prevention - Infections that would ordinarily be effective are thwarted.
  • Remediation - However the infection progresses, it progresses more slowly.
  • Cure - The infection is completely removed and the risk is gone.

Ideas

  • In line with the incubation period, there should be a way to wash the wound before the infection sets in and starts doing damage, thusly preventing it. Perhaps this could be only done in places where there would be naturally running water (like a monument/park with a stream).
  • Presently, large groups of humans grouped together are unthreatened by any number of zombies (take a group in a mall, for instance). There should be some sort of force / mechanic in place intended to keep group sizes or encampments down. I suggest that there could be a possiblility of infection from a zombie attack such that a wounded person could - if left unattended - potentially turn and automatically go berzerk, creating an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust among survivors. Alternatively, you could have camped areas become stagnant, and - if the population was greater than a particular tunable constant - have players start to lose health.
    • If there is too large a group of survivors in a building, then a survivor infected with Infectious Bite would have some probabily of transmitting it to other survivors for every hour spent in the building (i.e. for each 1 person over 25 people in a building, an infected survivor has a .01% chance/hour of transmitting the infection to any other person in the building). This would be calculated independantly for each infected survivor, so an infection could potentially spread very quickly once it got a foothold.
    • It might be easier to simulate this if infection caused a greater loss of HP per AP, like 5 HP? I sugested a subskill of Infectuous Bite under the Combat Skills Suggestions page.
  • Should first aid kits do anything different with respect to infection?
  • There could be one, two, or three new kinds of NecroTech syringes, corresponding to prevention, remediation, and cure, or some combination of them.
  • An infection could only be cured by the use of both a NecroTech syringe and a medkit. This would work well with the idea of transmittable infections--it would prevent a group from camping a hospital, for example, as the supply of either syringes or medkits would be limited.
  • Curing an infection should only be possible in NecroTech facilities by an employee with sufficient skill, and may require supplies. I think infection should be a Big Deal that instantly changes your immediate game goals. --mortimer shank 04:51, 24 Sep 2005 (BST)
  • To combat/counter/balance the lethargy symptom, an item like stimulants could be added to hospitals that would have the opposite effect - speed up AP recharge for a certain amount of time. � ceejayoz .com 05:09, 24 Sep 2005 (BST)
  • It occurs to me that now that we have some form of status effect, we have an excellent opportunity to add at least one or two new skills to the Science Skill Tree. I note this because, AFAICT, the Science Tree seems to be primarily a recovery and healing tree. Unfortunately, after having a go at thinking up a few skills, I'm not sure how to best include this. I had considered the possibility of having a skill that detected infection, until I realised that Diagnosis effectively does the job as you can only get infected if you get injured. One possibility is a skill that allows those who have it to detect Zombies with Infectious Bite, but that's not really in the realms of healing and recovery... -- Odd Starter 01:43, 26 Sep 2005 (BST)
    Status Effect Medical Skills
    Here's some ideas off the top of my head, since this sounds great (note that this is merely brainstorming, certainly not trying hard to balance these; also, Science could really use some more skills, though zombies are probably in more dire need): --John 03:52, 26 Sep 2005 (BST)
    • Diagnoses subskill: Illness: You can detect any infectious diseases or toxic poisons that a zombie or human may be carrying or afflicted with. (Curing an illness is mostly related to properly identifying it. Especially useful if there's ever an incubation period where even the carrier doesn't know they are ill...)
    • First-Aid subskill: Injury: You can stop severe bleeding and splint broken bones. (whee, nothing like pie in the sky)
    • Enhancement drugs:
      • Such drugs might be found in stores, or created in labs (i.e. the skill allows you to make these). Or extracted from zombies. (Yes, could lead to interface complication...)
      • Adrenaline Syringe: Character becomes extra strong for their next twenty actions, and deals +1 damage with all melee attacks. After the enhancement period, character loses ten hit points from physical extertion. May inject self, the living, or the undead.
      • Diazepam: Muscle relaxant. Gain +5% to hit with guns for next ten actions. After that, lose 5 AP from lethargy. May only affect survivors.
      • Antibiotics and vitamin cocktail: Affected character heals one hit point for every action they take, for their next twenty actions.
    • Medical weapons:
      • Tranquilizer Darts. (Syringe? Dart gun, with chance to miss?) Affected character requires +1 APs to move around the city for next twenty actions. (Maybe should be next ten steps, or something?)
One possibility that doesn't introduce too much radical changes is to allow for players to "Innoculate" other players. A skill, probably under either First Aid or Necrotech Employment, simply called "Innoculate", allows the player to use an "innoculation syringe", which, when used on any player, bestows the innoculation status effect. This innoculation protects against a single instance of Infectious Bite (The Zombie retains the notice, but the survivor notes that the bite did not infect him). Once the Innoculation is used up, the status is cleared, and another Zombie is clear to bite him. When used on other players, the innoculation syringe gives the user 2XP.
Depending on which skill the new skill falls under, innoculation syringes will be findable either in Drug Stores/Hospitals (at a reasonably low frequency, perhaps half that of First Aid Kits), or in Necrotech Buildings (at probably slightly higher probability than a revivification syringe.
Just a thought. -- Odd Starter 01:24, 27 Sep 2005 (BST)
  • Probably a bit late to this here, but anyways. How about after you become infected you become immune to the infection for a period of time (say, maybe a month or so) as your immune system would recognise the pathogen that causes this infection. However, after the month, the pathogen would have mutated enough to prevent the immune system from recognising the infection, and the player would be susceptible to infection again.--Quinntan 15:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
  • One Suggestion from me is that there should be a higher point of mutation that only occurs to 10 percent of the infected of the city, i.e. a hideous mutant that seems humanoid but gains scythe-like arms.--User:The Lone Marine Hicks
  • Every so often (like every hour), a survivor that is infected sneezes, loses 1 HP, and there is a 20% chance an survivor in the same block or in the samebuilding or building corner, will become infected.--BenjoDeath