Zombie

Zombies

Zombies are the game's biggest threat, the once human citizens of Muldraugh roam Knox County in the thousands. They have an insatiable hunger for human flesh and will not hesitate to kill.

The Zombies are inspired by the Max Brooks (author of "World War Z"; "Zombie Survival Guide"). Many of the game's mechanics are inspired by such books.

Zombie Mechanics

Spawning

In the beginning of the game, Zombies heavily populate the west side of Muldraugh and thin out from there throughout the town as the meta-game plays its role to spread the zombie population around. However, the west side will usually have a considerable amount of more zombies than the east side. Around the outskirts of town (farms, lumber mills, tiny pocket of , only a small pockets of zombies will spawn naturally.

The vast wilderness around Muldraugh is more or less considered a "safe zone" from zombies, because zombies never spawn in this part of the map and they will rarely move here because not much happens in the meta-game around these parts. However, the player will find much less in terms of supplies and housing, forcing the player to live a "camping lifestyle".

This is to simulate where most citizens would have died/would have been at the time of turning and that most citizens will attempt to seek safety in the most loot-rich areas of Muldraugh.

Movement and Horde Behavior

Horde Movement

The zombies in the game are traditional and shamble, but newly-turned zombies shamble a lot faster, almost at about an alive human's walking speed (about 1.5m/s). Zombies are attracted to noise, bright light (particularly from a flashlight or fire), and the sight of humans.

Zombies will prioritize their pathfinding needs. The sight of human flesh will always be first priority- both the flesh of the player or a NPC. Then, they will prioritize any noise they may hear, regardless of whether that noise is man-made or not.

With the introduction of wandering mechanic in 0.2.0r RC2.9.9.11, zombies will occasionally move around without hearing anything. Where as before hordes were idle, now they will wander more breaking windows and doors along the way to react to sound. They tend to wander around a lot more when it is raining, where new sources of noise are created by the second.

At times, helicopters flying overhead, or gunshots fired in the distance will attract and move hordes of zombies. This is zombies reacting to the metagame, so that the zombies will migrate around the map. The metagame is in charge of creating zombie movement patterns around the map, to properly distribute them and make a balanced gameplay.

Combat and Damage

Zombies fight by coming up close to the player and then extends its arms. Damages from zombies can result in three ways: bites, scratches, and "punches". Bites are the rarest, but have a 96% chance to infect you, so you obviously want to be careful so you can avoid getting a festering bite. Scratches are quite frequent, but they only have 25% chance to infect you, but they are still very dangerous even so. "Punches" are just wounds that do not break through skin, and having the thick skinned perk can help you turn the more dangerous bites and scratches into less dangerous "punches". Punches do not have a chance of infection, and when you hover over the status bar of the body part, it will only say "slight damage", without anything underneath. Unlike bites and scratches, "punches" do not require bandaging or first aid of any kind, just some time to heal and some minor pain that can be dealt with by utilizing pain killers.

Zombies are also able to deal "door damage". Although they deal relatively little damage, they can deal a good amount of damage if left alone for a long time or if in larger groups. Zombies banging on doors will attract other zombies, and it will convince them to bang on doors/windows or just mill around until something happens (if there are already too many zombies banging). Fortunately, there is a small chance NPCs and players can dissuade the zombies by staying absolutely silent for a good amount of time, but that is not reliable. A single zombie can destroy an un-barricaded window in seconds.

Zombies have very quiet footsteps. Therefore, a survivor always has to be on guard for zombies. However, they tend to moan and alert their prey of their presence. Furthermore, they tend to make a lot of noise while moving, because they carelessly reveal their positions by doing noisy things such as brushing against trees or thumping on doors and windows. These noises are good to look out for.

Crawlers

Occasionally, zombies may be turned upside, on its stomach, and may approach a survivor or a source of noise- by crawling. Sometimes, after a zombie is knocked down, instead of getting up, it can decide to crawl around.

This type of zombie moves extremely slowly, at about a fifth of the speed the standing zombie may move at. However, because it moves slowly, it makes little noise. Although it may moan every now and then, its method of movement makes little noise and its slow speed makes it harder to hear- even if it were to make a lot of noise to reach its target. Furthermore, this type of zombie can be submerged by tall objects such as crops. Therefore, a lot of caution must be taken.

However, it is unknown if a crawler is able to get up and walk around like a regular zombie again.

Infection

Humans (the player and the NPCs) who get too close to zombies may be bitten, scratched, or otherwise injured. Bites have a 96% change of infection, and scratches have 25%, but both are very dangerous. When a character is infected sick moodle appears to verify it, and the moodle's intensity will slowly increase, until the character has a full blown fever. However, the sick moodle can also happen because the character ate raw or rotten foods or out of the blue. When this happens, there will be no zombification, and the moodle will usually go away by itself with rest and by being well fed, and won't be of much harm to the character except decreased abilities for a small amount of time.