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Is it ok for this group if I create another character (of course in another suburb) that maybe in the future could join a different group?
I'm ok in this horde and I love to be a zombie, I just want to experience other classes (know your enemy policy).

 azazel the cat wrote:
I personally don't see value in safehouses

I don't think they mean safe houses, i.e., where you don't get needled or dropped; I think they mean holding territory. Yeah, the former is indeed nonsensical. And from a barhahrific perspective, the latter kind of grosses me out. Zambahz acting like harmanz ... bleargh!

 The Blind Hunter wrote:
Is it ok for this group if I create another character (of course in another suburb) that maybe in the future could join a different group?

Yep, just make sure your alts are far away from each other or you might notice lower hit rates.

 The Blind Hunter wrote:
Is it ok for this group if I create another character (of course in another suburb) that maybe in the future could join a different group?

Yep, just make sure your alts are far away from each other or you might notice lower hit rates.

I'm not sure on the idea of Safe-houses. It's certainly a good idea (and the method of splitting us seems logical) if we want to hold those buildings (which will really piss off the harmans; our main reason for doing so, Manchu, despite the anti-bahrah-ness), but does lead to a pretty heavy AP consumption and an inability to hold other buildings, such as Mitchem...

I was wondering if we just wanna move on at some point and re-take Mitchem etc.? Decisions, decisions...

 The Blind Hunter wrote:
Is it ok for this group if I create another character (of course in another suburb) that maybe in the future could join a different group?
I'm ok in this horde and I love to be a zombie, I just want to experience other classes (know your enemy policy).

That's fine, but - as Manchu said - make sure they stay far away from each other/don't assist one-another. If you're curious, look up 'zerging' on the Wiki.

There should be a mathematically optimal strategy for us to follow, right? Shaax and I looked a bit at the AP efficiency of different actions briefly and it looked like:

- attacking barricades is terrible. It costs us ~4 AP to damage a barricade once with optimal skills, and only costs them anywhere near that much to add to the barricade when it's very built-up already. Rebuilding it is a bit worse with interference (when we have two zombies in the room with them) but even so it doesn't get as inefficient as breaking them until it's at Heavily Barricaded at least.

- getting shot is pretty awesome. They have to spend more AP to kill us than we do to stand up, and that's without accounting for time spent searching for ammo.

- killing harmans seems to be less AP-efficient than one might expect. How AP-efficient exactly depends on what skills and facilities the harmans have, but the best case for them to recover from death appears to be 36 AP (8 to find a revivification syringe, 10 to be revivified, 2 to stand up twice, and 16 to find and use two first aid kits). This can be much worse if they don't have the appropriate skills or access to a hospital, especially a powered one. It costs us between maybe 35 and 40 AP to kill them. The 36 estimate also doesn't include any movement they require. It seems that without access to a hospital the cost of healing back up could blow out to as much as 75 AP when the searching and lack of surgical support is accounted for. Shutting down hospitals may be key.

- ruining buildings costs us 6 AP. Repairing them costs a survivor 1 AP per day the building stays ruined. At a first look this might suggest that we should try to keep them ruined (by parking in them, for example) but that will cause us to spend even more AP moving to and from the building each day. It may be useful to park in them if we don't have enough AP to do anything else and are there already (like after we eat all the bad guys and wreck the place). It could also be valuable to disrupt their free running routes, but how useful probably depends on the route.

Any comments on these calculations very welcome.

So what exactly are we doing now?

HFP, with what goal in mind are you engaging in these calculations?

I reckon we attack Goodford PD, Attrill Bank or Daniels Museum (whilst trying to keep Shyar and Gelasius; no-one seems to care too much for St. Johns!) whilst pondering the Safe House idea...

Maybe launch the new game or move onto Mitchem soon too, but I wanna hear JB's thoughts...?

Is there a limit to the number of AP it can take to repair a ruined building? Because, if not, then if a building says ruined for 50+ days, does that make it unrepairable?

If so, then this should be our priority: we make hospitals and police stations unrepairable.

 Manchu wrote:
HFP, with what goal in mind are you engaging in these calculations?

Our starting point was wondering if attacking barricades is Good or Bad for us (it turned out to be more awful than I'd ever expected). From there we sort of moved on to general information to inform the maximisation of destruction of harmanz and their ability to fight back.

Basically, we weren't really sure what was necessarily the best use of AP, and wanted to look into it more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Is there a limit to the number of AP it can take to repair a ruined building? Because, if not, then if a building says ruined for 50+ days, does that make it unrepairable?

If so, then this should be our priority: we make hospitals and police stations unrepairable.

According to the wiki, repairing something that costs more AP than you have puts you into negative AP, so you're stuck until you go positive again. There's no observed limit to how much AP it can take to repair a building, but it doesn't ever stop you from doing it, and it looks like you can do it instantly if you're okay with the sacrifice.

We can't not attack barricades however.

So then our strategy should involve minimizing the amount of barricade destruction necessary.

By the way, Goodford Road PD is open and still has one survivor inside.

I assume we still have 8+ bodies in Shyar?

Just Dave wrote:I assume we still have 8+ bodies in Shyar?

10

Safe houses are probably not the right concept for a horde of hungry zombies. I'm also leery of separating the Tyrant's Legion. After all, they can decide for themselves how they want to play. I'm happy to have their help, and I always enjoy seeing a few of them in every battle that I'm in.

It would help to have some of the veteran zeds haunt Shyar and/or Gelasisus, but Saint John's Cathedral has no tactical value since it is neither a resource point nor a major base.

We are ginning up a plan for a "Fox Hunt". Who has a human that you really, really want to hunt down? Taking nominations for five names starting now!

4 names. We have already decided on one.

 The Blind Hunter wrote:
Is it ok for this group if I create another character (of course in another suburb) that maybe in the future could join a different group?
I'm ok in this horde and I love to be a zombie, I just want to experience other classes (know your enemy policy).

Casey's Law is looking to get the Augarde Street Irregulars started up again. Anyone with an alt should consider joining them as a survivor group far away from Vinetown.

Casey, should they PM you or can you tell them where to join you in Malton?

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Basically, we weren't really sure what was necessarily the best use of AP, and wanted to look into it more.

Sure, what I mean is, best use of AP to do what?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JB wrote:
Who has a human that you really, really want to hunt down?

Sister Rita and Damon Delacroix should always be on such a list.

Who's this Damon fellow?

 Manchu wrote:

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Basically, we weren't really sure what was necessarily the best use of AP, and wanted to look into it more.

Sure, what I mean is, best use of AP to do what?

I think I'd characterise our goal as "to provide opposition." I see us as the antagonists, with our goal being to stymie the attempts of the harmanz to hang around being bored, which is presumably their end goal.

So, the more effective we can be at providing opposition, the better, though I'd add the caveat that I don't want to pick on any specific harmanz (defeating harmanz good, doing it by driving them out of the game bad) and I'd want to largely avoid "metagaming" (er, except for posting here, I guess). With those avenues closed, AP efficiency is a core consideration.

 Manchu wrote:
Sure, what I mean is, best use of AP to do what?

In the short term: The best way to spend our AP to cost the survivors their AP.

Since AP is the only limited resource, in order to kill harmanz, wreck their stuff, and make them unable to keep up with us, we have to win the AP battle. That means having more AP by having more players, and/or using our AP more effectively than they are.

In the long term: My idea of the goal of zombies is to drive the survivors out of a suburb, perhaps wreck the buildings to make it harder for them to return later, then follow the tasty braainz wherever they fled to.

Given the huge population of survivors currently, it seems like we might just keep attracting more of them to the area instead. We might need a solid strategy then to prevent being kicked out onto the streets with nothing to do but hit barricades that get rebuilt too quickly.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Who's this Damon fellow?

Along with myself and Sister Rita, another early member of M.E.R.C.Y.

 Manchu wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Who's this Damon fellow?

Along with myself and Sister Rita, another early member of M.E.R.C.Y.

Whooooa!

You were a member of MERCY? Did not know your Vinetown history involved that.

Definitely up for Damon and Rita on the list. Combine that with McManix and Happysocks and that's 4?

Rita and I founded M.E.R.C.Y., along with another survivor called Morgan Blair. Damon joined later but is obviously one of the most devoted M.E.R.C.Y. members.

 Manchu wrote:
Rita and I founded M.E.R.C.Y., along with another survivor called Morgan Blair. Damon joined later but is obviously one of the most devoted M.E.R.C.Y. members.

I feel like a kid sitting cross-legged listening to a story...

Mind if I ask what happened next?

I see that kicked up a bit of discussion. Firstly I should maybe have worded the proposal differently. I'm not actually concerned with safehouses for the purpose of safety or even really the holding of territory. It's more about withholding the resources that the shackled survivors think they need. It's very well to continually take, lose and take buildings from them but it doesn't really bother them and so they will never seek the true path. If we can remove what they want permanently then we can cripple them in the name of Barhah and continue to harass them at the same time.

We have already embraced Barhah, it's a single state which we have achieved. I don't think harassing our enemies to the best of our ability jeopardizes this, we are already harassing them, just not very efficiently.

Also, the buildings I suggested were just examples due to current circumstances. Although Mitchem is quite a distance from Shyar it wouldn't be impossible to hold onto both. And I wasn't seperating the Tyrants at all, it made sense for them to sit on a building together as I would imagine they'd want to and holding Gelasius is an important task. The fact is sitting in the building is just something for us to bother with when we are going offline to regen AP. We'd still all be mixing it up out on the field and it wouldn't be set in stone. Say I couldn't make it back to my designated safehouse, I'd likely just jump in somewhere else, Gelasius maybe.

As for the ASI, I'd like to know if the other actives are nearby the original grounds or something to possibly rejoin although I'm Zombing it up right now.

What I would like to do is gather a group of alts with my Doctor in Whittensdie which is endless fun and a particularly difficult place to be a survivor.

For those thinking about the best way to use AP as a zed: the best thing is just learning to pick your targets well and make survivors spend more AP. The more you play the more tips you pick up for scouting out a target quickly and causing a bit of mayhem. If you get into a building with survivors it's good to infect them all if you have the skill, a couple of infections often doesn't bother them but if we all do it it shuts down the AP they can spend and forces them to search for first aid kits they otherwise wouldn't need.

Moved to Godfried PD...Crystal Ross with 33 HP left

With me is Shaax and Lost my dog.....

 Jihadin wrote:
Moved to Godfried PD...Crystal Ross with 33 HP left

With me is Shaax and Lost my dog.....

I would join you but I'm tired and Kronk is making shadow animals on the screen at Shyar Cinema.

 Casey's Law wrote:
If you get into a building with survivors it's good to infect them all if you have the skill, a couple of infections often doesn't bother them but if we all do it it shuts down the AP they can spend and forces them to search for first aid kits they otherwise wouldn't need.

I know you guys often focus on the infecting, but I've always been a fan of just straight-up killing the blighters myself(or infecting if I know this isn't possible). I feel that they're quite capable at curing themselves of infection (although it is a giant pain in their ass too), and that being dead is much more of a pain for obvious reasons.
I feel that killing them means one less person to shoot back/hold the building, whilst it also causes the expenditure of needles and the AP usage and time/AP wasted there: alongside the increased amount of medkits used to heal someone left on low HP.

Just how I've always approached things: kill if ye can; bite if ye can't.

Lings At QSB, Dont know how long it'll last.

Also I'd be interested in joinig into a survivor group again Casey. The ASI was a good time, I have a NecroTech Still laying around Malton somewhere I'm sure..