Hydra Defense

What is the Hydra Defense?

The Hydra Defense is a way of counteracting PKers by threatening to switch your zombie alt to a pro-survivor character for a brief period of time as retribution for the death of your survivor. If a PKer's goal is to aid the zombie side by killing survivors this makes your character's murder counterproductive. By killing your survivor they do not aid the zombie cause - instead they hurt it. Your survivor is soon revived, and somewhere else in the game a character that would otherwise be a zombie is instead reviving people and shooting the undead!

How to Do It

First have two characters, one pro-survivor and the other pro-zombie, or two characters that play both sides.

Second, place a message in your survivor's profile saying that you're using the Hydra Defense (and perhaps a link to this page as explanation).

Third, if your survivor is ever PKd have your zombie character wait at a revive point and get brought back to life. Spend a few days (3 days to a week) assisting survivors however possible. This includes barricading buildings (without blocking entry points), healing the wounded, killing zombies that have broken indoors, installing generators, and reviving the dead. After doing this for a while then allow your character to die or jump from a building to become a zombie once more. You should revive at least one person before doing so to make up for the syringe used to bring your zombie character back from the dead.

Ixnay on the Ergingzay

Zerging should not be used as part of the Hydra Defense. At no point should your two characters ever come in contact with each other or aid each other directly. The two should be at distant points in Malton, not fighting the same battle. Since your two characters do not even operate in the same region this cannot violate zerging rules in any way. The official Urban Dead policy as stated by Kevan is:

Am I allowed to play multiple characters?

You are, provided that they lead completely separate existences within the game - your characters should not collaborate, nor share (or stand outside) the same building. Multiple characters found to be working together in a suspicious fashion will be automatically flagged, penalised or even banned permanently by the system. If you're running a few characters, it's best to make sure that they stay in separate suburbs.

Keep your characters in different suburbs (preferably several suburbs apart) and you are fine by the rules. Yes, this is metagaming, but so were other successful demonstrations such as On Strike.

Why Call It Hydra?

The Hydra is a mythical immortal beast that upon being beheaded sprouts two new heads from the severed stump. Like the Hydra if a PKer kills someone using the Hydra Defense the offended player will soon have two characters rise from the dead to aid the survivor side.

A PKer with the goal of aiding zombies will leave anyone using the Hydra defense alone because doing so will actually rob the zombie side of one person and reinforce the survivor side for a while. PKers may change their tactics if by killing a survivor they actually AID the survivor cause! This puts PKing in the same camp as combat revives, a tactically unsound move that on the surface seems like a victory. Combat revives often turn a zombie into a PKer. Well, with the Hydra Defense a PK will often turn a zombie into a survivor.

Will PKers Care?

Not likely, they'll probably attack even if it doesn't make tactical sense. Many PKers kill for sport, or for roleplaying reasons rather than to actually aid zombies. 90% of the time the Hydra Defense will not actually prevent anyone from killing you. But 100% of the time it will balance out that PK, and then some. This isn't about trying to reason with PKers but adjusting your own tactics in response. Malton will always have PKing. This doesn't harm PKers, nor directly deter them. This is the Hydra Defense, not the Hydra Offense. It it isn't designed to make them quake in fear. It doesn't matter whether the PKer cares. You are negating the PK, not the PKer.