User:Swiers/scent fear buff
Swiers/scent fear buff
Swiers 19:57, 15 June 2008 (BST)
Suggestion type
skill improvement
Suggestion scope
zombies, scent fear
Suggestion description
Purpose:
Similar to how the "Scent Death" mapping ability makes it easier for a feral zombie to find a mass of zombies to join (even if those zombies are inside a building) this ability would allow zombies to figure out the locations of nearby survivors who are wounded or dying (as defined by Scent Fear). Such survivors are already shown (using a * next to thier name) on the minimp, and so can be smelled at range. This suggestion extends that range, and potentially allows such survivors to be detected if inside buildings. This would help feral zombies find food, as such survivors are most often either people stranded in / dragged into the streets, or inside buildings that were recently attacked by zombies and thus have weak barricades. It also encourages healing as part of the survivor defensive tactics, because there would be a double benefit to making sure none of the survivors in your safehouse were below 25 HPs.
Mechanics:
Zombies with the Scent Fear skill would have access to a "Scent Fear" action that works similarly to the "Scent Death" action. When used (for 1 AP), a small grid-map (3 block radius, for a total maximum size of 7x7 blocks if not near a city border) would be shown to them (along with a message along the lines of "You pause, sniffing the wind for the scent of fearful survivors"), similar to the scent death maps. However, instead of green / red / yellow color values, there would be only one color- blue. The brightness of the blue value in each block would be calculated as follows:
- Generate a random number from 0-25 by taking the square of a random number 0.00 - 5.00.
- Add 10 for each "wounded" survivor in that block, and 15 for each "dying" survivor. It makes no difference if they are inside our outside a building.
(note: the calculation above is designed to produce roughly 50% "false positives" if the user assumes any value over 10 shows a wounded survivor, and also roughly 50% "false negatives" if the user assumes any value under 10 means no wounded survivors. It also would produce occasional (roughly 1 in 10) false positives when zombies assumed a value as high as 20 was worth checking out. The exact numbers / procedure used would be up to Kevan- the goal is to produce an attractive (mostly dark) map that would both serve as a "tutorial" for zombies who eventually buy and use the more complex, longer-ranged Scent Death mapping ability, and has a moderate level of uncertainty / noise to the information it conveys, while still being generally reliable when there are multiple wounded / dying survivors in one location.)
