What to do with Zombies?

[HelmetHair]

I've found that the Biological side of the X-Com Files is a touch under developed.

Zombies are one of the things that I feel should be a serious resource that we should be striving and excited about collecting instead of a hassle that I kill for points and corpse money. Blood plasma is pretty meh. Cool, but not exactly super useful when compared to other options especially since it relies on killing monsters and then processing them so call it 3 steps. KIll, Bioextract, fabricate for a meh reward.  Plus, the damage resistance of zombies being what it is often means you have tons of live ones that just piss you off by not dying because they are so useless.

I would propose there simply needs to be more bioextractions from different monsters and aliens that take advantage of the resources of corpses. Soldier buffs that increase stamina, strength, Reactions, etc that in general make a soldier better.

Imagine a soldier with a moderate amount of regeneration, say 1 fatal wound a turn and 5 health. It would mean Rookies stand a better chance of not dying from blood loss utilizing a transfusion of energetic blood plasma and alien electronics

Imagine having a trooper with spliced in artifical muscles that enhance strength or change the rate in which they improve via training.

I think we haven't even scratched the surface

[Dr.Crowley]

I've found that the Biological side of the X-Com Files is a touch under developed.

Zombies are one of the things that I feel should be a serious resource that we should be striving and excited about collecting instead of a hassle that I kill for points and corpse money. Blood plasma is pretty meh. Cool, but not exactly super useful when compared to other options especially since it relies on killing monsters and then processing them so call it 3 steps. KIll, Bioextract, fabricate for a meh reward.  Plus, the damage resistance of zombies being what it is often means you have tons of live ones that just piss you off by not dying because they are so useless.

I would propose there simply needs to be more bioextractions from different monsters and aliens that take advantage of the resources of corpses. Soldier buffs that increase stamina, strength, Reactions, etc that in general make a soldier better.

Imagine a soldier with a moderate amount of regeneration, say 1 fatal wound a turn and 5 health. It would mean Rookies stand a better chance of not dying from blood loss utilizing a transfusion of energetic blood plasma and alien electronics

Imagine having a trooper with spliced in artifical muscles that enhance strength or change the rate in which they improve via training.

I think we haven't even scratched the surface

Woah, woah, I almost heard Deus Ex main theme while reading your post  But hell yeah, it would be a nice way to face aliens much more better prepared.
P.S.: Is it me or this mod can take "let's get rid of traditional bodybag hell of the early game" direction?

[Solarius Scorch]

Let's think a little deeper into this "zombie cure" topic.
Even if we could cure common zombies, what should we do with more mutated forms? Yep, it would be somewhat nice to have additional personnel virtually for free, but I'm not sure that fat zombie or mutator could become engineer or scientist. And remember - even cured mutator is still dangerous because of parasites he's breeding inside of him. I can tolerate cured fat zombies as janitors but not infectors roaming free in my base and turning my staff into zombies - no matter if he does it unintentionally. Yeah, do you think that any cured "alternatively-alive" will be nice person? What if he/she will be a nihilistic asshole, superhuman-wannabe or yet another mad-scientist-type who will start a zombie outbreak just FOR SCIENCE?
I shall admit that my point may be arguable (and controversial a bit) but I just wonder how the one could be so naive about zombies. Once they are infected, there is no way back for them, sorry.

I don't think these dangers apply in this case; the parasites are reasonably big (the size of a large bean) and easy to isolate, and they keep their offspring inside their bodies, not all over the zombie's system.

However, the problem is, that the zombified human is completely dead. Their higher brain functions are completely, physically destroyed. These brain parts can be regrown, using parasite abilities (and enough Elerium), making the person human-like again, but it won't be the same person. The former human is dead, their memories are gone, their psi signature is gone, their soul is no longer present.

So, a hypothetical "cured" zombie will effectively be an alien hybrid, with generally human brain (and psychology) but alien metabolism and no memories.

[HelmetHair]

Enter the alien learning machines and now we have a perfect soldier Nah... fuck that. That's gross.

[Dr.Crowley]

I don't think these dangers apply in this case; the parasites are reasonably big (the size of a large bean) and easy to isolate, and they keep their offspring inside their bodies, not all over the zombie's system.

Oh, that's good.

However, the problem is, that the zombified human is completely dead. Their higher brain functions are completely, physically destroyed. These brain parts can be regrown, using parasite abilities (and enough Elerium), making the person human-like again, but it won't be the same person. The former human is dead, their memories are gone, their psi signature is gone, their soul is no longer present.

Yes, that's why I think that "zombie cure" is ridiculous. The best analogy I can use for this would be Half-Life "headcrabed" zombies - the human whose brain was destroyed and body was completely overtaken by alien parasite and heavily mutated by its presence.

So, a hypothetical "cured" zombie will effectively be an alien hybrid, with generally human brain (and psychology) but alien metabolism and no memories.

No human psychology at all, I'm afraid. The alien metabolism will require completely different brain structure and functions just  to control all new Ellerium-based body processes. And yes, different brain structure means no human mind because... argh, look, the human mind is the product of long evolution of human brain AND human (or mammalian at least) metabolism. And we have a human body with almost no brain AND altered metabolism. Obviously, this human is no more (he's ex-human now).  As far as I understand, the presence of the Ellerium alone makes the zombie a new life-form, so.... argh again.

Sorry, I haven't sleep last 48 hours and my thoughts got very messy and chaotic. I hope there's at least something that makes sense in this post.

[khade]

With a bit of work, you could end up with some sort of alien hybrid soldier type.  Though the benefits would have to severely outweigh the negatives for it to be considered even remotely a good idea.

[mumble]

Instead of having zombies be rescued, what if you could develop a sort of hormonal CONTROL of zombies, and produce them as replacements for dogs?

Would be an interesting effect : you could do some very basic alterations to genetics, to get them to attack aliens or hostiles, using a "hive" mentality (working for a central host, being the commander) and in return, you have soldiers who dont feel pain dont have morale, and are extremely disposable, but at the cost of needing to feed in new humans to keep production up, as well as putting in new parasites. On top of that, maybe a small moral hit per zombie in the squad, because having one in the crew is creepy as all hell.

....Forgive me if this is already an idea, I've barely scratched the surface, and not even reached 1999, but the idea of feeding in captive humans of any type, and zombifying them with the xcom brand zombie parasite sounds very cool, particularly if you can use spare dead zombies to then create infector zombies, and then use infector zombies to convert hostages into other zombie.

It would be a pain to get done with all the ways to zombify (kinda like the rob / enslave section in piratez) But it would be a really cool effect, and really neat to throw an infector into a house of exalt crew.

[Solarius Scorch]

Instead of having zombies be rescued, what if you could develop a sort of hormonal CONTROL of zombies, and produce them as replacements for dogs?

Yes, it's sort of planned, when I don't have anything better to do.

[Dr.Crowley]

Instead of having zombies be rescued, what if you could develop a sort of hormonal CONTROL of zombies, and produce them as replacements for dogs?

Yes, it's sort of planned, when I don't have anything better to do.

Oh man, we all know that we'll can control them using tweaked X-Com Psiclone someday 

[The_Funktasm]

This sounds like a good avenue for the less moral, and more results based leaders of the world to fight invasion. Reuse the victims as shock troops.

Part of my own mod was based on the logic that people use threats as an excuse for rapid development. We take potential threats and fine tune them for our own use.

I can't help but like settings where the theme "what will you do to survive? what triumphs? what atrocities?" arises. It can be impressive or horrifying. Or both.

[Warboy1982]

This sounds like a good avenue for the less moral, and more results based leaders of the world to fight invasion. Reuse the victims as shock troops.

biodrones? biodrones.

[GreenCake]

Mission with zombies too boring just a shooting gallery. No dangerouse from them. Did any changes since 0.6.8?

I know another russian guy here. He can translate for me, i think :^)

Миссия с зомби слишком скучная, просто тир. Никакой опасности от них. Произошли ли какие-то изменения с версии 0.6.8?

[Solarius Scorch]

Mission with zombies too boring just a shooting gallery. No dangerouse from them. Did any changes since 0.6.8?

Everything has changed since 0.6.8. Also with Zombies, though the changes are subtle.
Please update to 0.7.1 and have fun!

[GreenCake]

Everything has changed since 0.6.8. Also with Zombies, though the changes are subtle.
Please update to 0.7.1 and have fun!

You mean 0.8.1? .-.

[Solarius Scorch]

You mean 0.8.1? .-.

...yes.