Amalgamation spawning audit & Two new friends :)

[Karol1223]

Summary

None

Purpose of change

So I was on my merry way to finally move my ass and add aquatic amalgamations only to find out that Venera, channeling the power of the universe itself, managed to gaslight me into working on his shit even when he's inactive by making amalgamation monstergroups a clusterfuck and a half. Parts of them were overwriting one another, some parts were redundant, some parts seemed to not make sense (why did the cocoons make more mass from the same amount of mass as time progressed?). So here I am, trying to clean it back up.

Describe the solution

Cocoon changes:

• All the cocoons now have 20% chance to not hatch into anything. This used to vary before, with them having higher chances to do so earlier in the save and the number dropping down as time went on (this was pretty cool, actually, because it showed that the creation of frankensteins was becoming progressively less problematic) but some like tiny were stuck at 50% forever. I think 20% is a decent compromise, although like I said I might make it drop down from 50% to maybe even less than 20% with time, not quite sure yet
• Pack sizes were audited and put in different places because previously they were overwriting one another on different levels and it was all weird and I hated it. This also means now swarming amalgamations will actually appear in larger quantities when compared to other types. I know how much we all love them, no need to thank me
• Removed one of the medium groups that seemed to serve no purpose other than handling some timers and pack size overwriting
• The chances for zapper and vigilant amalgamations have been slightly decreased because they're overly specialized
• The chance for brute amalgamations has been slightly changed as well - higher in early game, lower in lategame. This is... kinda bad. I'm not terribly happy about this, honestly. I have to look into balancing the group this fella is in some more
• Corrosive amalgamations are now able to appear earlier in the game, but I'm not sure how happy I am about this change quite yet either

New amalgamations:

• Recycler - design wise based on a combination of velvet worms and asian semislugs with some octopus sprinkled in, while the gimmick is based off the bagworm moth larvae... or, honestly, rather it's Burmy, but Burmy is in turn based off the bagworm moths. In its base form it's a naked fleshy tank that lashes its tentacles at you but doesn't actually attack you first, because it knows its fragile. HOWEVER, after a few days (probably 2, I still have to actually implement that part) pass, the Recycler upgrades into a version covered in the materials surrounding it. Currently, I have a soil and rock/concrete version planned, but I might consider wood or metal forms down the line. At this stage, the Recycler becomes a tank with ranged attacks that will flail its armored tentacles at you in hopes of taking you down. TODO: Give the fellow a weakpoint for the hump on its back
• Orb - design wise it's honestly just a meatball, though I did have XCOM2's Gatekeeper and the Sailor's Eyeball algae in mind when thinking about it, while the gimmick is honestly just the general round man rolls around at high speeds trope with harpoons added. The thing about it is that it's just a smooth meatball and because of that it has zero visible or discernible organs, limbs, or weakpoints - hence it not teaching any proficiencies, not even basic biology. It's supposed to be a very rare and very tough to fight off result from the largest cocoons after some time has passed, and the idea is that it showcases the natural processes leading to amalgams forming are constantly going beyond just reusing biomass - the Orb is supposed to be more than the sum of its parts was. It is horrendously armored, faster than the player (though I don't think it can outspeed a running player), and has ranged attacks that can pull you in including from Z levels above. It also has a low level of regeneration. The downside is it has no night vision at all, as well as no smell or hearing (in my head its only sense is of sight due to the body being covered in photoreceptors, but those photoreceptors need high levels to function). This means that the Orb should effectively be turned off entirely in the darkness (it might still wander around aimlessly? I think our monsters do that. I wish I could make it not do that though). I'd say this does a very good making it an avoidable obstacle that you should NOT try to fight against, but that you should still be able to work around if you know what you're doing.

MISC

• Reviewed the invert mutants and what cocoons they zombify into to make sure it fits the JSON comments
• Removed useless zombification fields where it was carried over by copy-from anyways

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Giving the nude recycler a grab with its tentacles, but I don't think that tracks. They're not supposed to be grabby, they're supposed to be whips

Testing

I still have to. By the gods don't merge it until I test it.

Additional context

CITIZENS OF THE CDDA REPOSITORY! DO NOT PANIC! I INTEND TO ADD WEAKPOINTS TO ARMORED RECYCLERS SOON! I DO NOT EXPECT YOU TO OUTDAMAGE THEIR 120 ARMOR!

[Daved27hundred]

does this include pupating zombies? asking because I have ideas for more pupating zombie spawns other than flesh raptors

[Karol1223]

does this include pupating zombies? asking because I have ideas for more pupating zombie spawns other than flesh raptors

No, I have no interest in pupating zombies. They're irrelevant to what I am doing.

[GuardianDll]

note, i would really like to see more amalgamations (and maybe that charred zomibes) in a pull of generic monsters
Doesn't need to be made in this PR or by you specifically, just a note

[Karol1223]

note, i would really like to see more amalgamations (and maybe that charred zomibes) in a pull of generic monsters Doesn't need to be made in this PR or by you specifically, just a note

Charred zombies don't make that much sense without being tied to specific mapgen. For amalgamations I do agree, but I don't really want to tackle this like... ever, actually, because I don't know where to add them, honestly. If they don't spawn in mapgen, eventually they'll be too rare, and that's silly when they should actively become more common as time goes on. I just don't know how to handle it.

[Nebnis]

pls dont bump regen for a monster that has an insane amount of armor on top of 500hp. I get you want it to be tough because it is rare, but there is a chance you will randomly meet this in the wild because of how common amalgamation sacs spawn because of random giant bugs dying, so avoiding might not necessarily be a thing that you can do too. For that end, it would be nice that it has a short amouunt of day vision too, something like 20 or 25. It is basically a meat deathball but you can sort avoid it and outrun it if you manage to get spotted by accident. Otherwise that increased speed will always make it be able to catch the player if it can see someone from far away.

[Karol1223]

pls dont bump regen for a monster that has an insane amount of armor on top of 500hp. I get you want it to be tough because it is rare, but there is a chance you will randomly meet this in the wild because of how common amalgamation sacs spawn because of random giant bugs dying, so avoiding might not necessarily be a thing that you can do too

No, it'd only be from the largest cocoons and these don't "die randomly", nor are they even remotely common. I have never even come across the colossal cocoon myself in the game.

[Nebnis]

I see them pretty frequently in swamps or around ant places which is everywhere

[Karol1223]

I see them pretty frequently in swamps or around ant places which is everywhere

Lategame anthills might have them commonly when soldiers start reliably upgrading into supersoldiers, but something still needs to kill those first and then the cocoon would have to somehow survive a day without getting killed by the ants and even afterwards there'd be civil war happening. If a massacre happens in a random swamp in the middle of nowhere resulting in a super meatball that's exactly the type of encounter I want to make, so I'm not concerned.

[Bone-blood-moss]

The Meat ball how about large weakness to blood loss can't stop blooding but large amount of blood small cuts Nothing massive slashes or arteries don't stop. And will you use tainted meat or mutate tainted meat? For butcher product.

[Karol1223]

The Meat ball how about large weakness to blood loss can't stop blooding but large amount of blood small cuts Nothing massive slashes or arteries don't stop. And will you use tainted meat or mutate tainted meat? For butcher product.

If anything the meatball should be immune to bleeding to be honest. It's got no organs to direct bloodflow to anyways, so any theoretical bloodflow would be equalized. We don't have mutant tainted meat, and we won't have it because it's pointless to add.

[Bone-blood-moss]

I seen your reasoning. But Cuz its equalized it can't really stop it but it probably doesn't have any arteries then. And we do have tainted Mutated meat even has cooking recipes used for mods like magiclysm

[Karol1223]

And we do have tainted Mutated meat even has cooking recipes used for mods like magiclysm

Given it's not obtained from butchering anything and only some questionable mapgen, probably worth removing if anything

[github-actions]

Spell checker encountered unrecognized words in the in-game text added in this pull request. See below for details.

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• A recycler amalgamation covered in armor made of various minerals, either naturally occuring rocks, concrete, or asphalt. It drags its heavy armored tentacles behind itself, snapping them occasionally.

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[Bone-blood-moss]

Why The reason we have tainted meat and Mutant tainted meat is the Same reason we have normal meat and mutant meat. We will probably add tainted human meat soon. The abomination's should drop tainted Mutant meat to show they mutating/was mutated.

[ADekema]

I very much like the recycler idea. I just wonder if it's really nessecery to add a specific weakpoint on it's back to get around it's armour. I would imagine that the specific armours that you have given them have enough weaknesses and vulnerabilities on their own to be interesting. This would also make the differant varieties a bit more disctinct than just "more armour and damage but slower". We already have several zombie lines with that gimic (see skeletal and kevlar lines). Here are my thoughts below:

The soil armour of one I think would be very effective at stopping bashing and to a degree cutting, as soil is generally softer material. But I fail to see how it provides any major degree of ballistic or piercing protection. That type of concentraced force is going right through anything soil related unless it's somehow carrying sandbags. There might be a large stones or boulders in there that could stop a bullet or cutting surface but I doubt that they make up a majority of the armour or it wouldn't be a soil but rock armoured one. Also what kind of soil is the armour made from? I can't imagine any kind of thick piece of soil being carried for a longer time without it either falling apart rapidly or being washed away by the rain unless it has a high degree of plantmatter or it uses webs or some sort of sticky substance to hold it together. So probably either update the discription to show how it is keeping the soil together with the armour deterirating from bash damage as the soil litterally falls apart or change the armour to basically grass and moss matts and other wierd plant detritus with great bash and good cutting protection but low enough piece and ballistic protection that a survivor could exploit.

For the rock armoured one I imagine that a armour made up of very strong and thick but irregular pieces that probably don't fit well together. I don't think you need to add a weakpoint hump to this one as the armour should have plenty of weakpoints to exploit. Specifically I think that there probably would be a huge amount of gaps where something like a bullet or thrust could easely go between the large armour pieces and bypass them completely.

Also about the meatball, should it's tentacles be a weakpoint? Basically if you chop a few off or damage them it would be greatly reduced in capabilites and if it loses to many it's bassically completely crippled.

[Karol1223]

I would imagine that the specific armours that you have given them have enough weaknesses and vulnerabilities on their own to be interesting.

This still has to be represented through the weakpoint system so no change there.

But I fail to see how it provides any major degree of ballistic or piercing protection.

I am under the impression that a bullet fired into the ground does not go particularly far into that ground, so I am fairly confident in the high ballistic armor. Having said that, if there are actual irl tests done that say otherwise and someone provides those for me to review I may reconsider it.

I don't think you need to add a weakpoint hump to this one as the armour should have plenty of weakpoints to exploit. Specifically I think that there probably would be a huge amount of gaps where something like a bullet or thrust could easely go between the large armour pieces and bypass them completely.

Again, still needs the weakpoints actually added for that to work.

The hump weakpoint is supposed to be present on all variations of the recycler, so it wouldn't simply go away once it gets armored, it just would be covered by the armor.

Also about the meatball, should it's tentacles be a weakpoint? Basically if you chop a few off or damage them it would be greatly reduced in capabilites and if it loses to many it's bassically completely crippled.

The idea is to have those be retractable and have the entire body covered in them. Unless it's actively using them (i.e. grappling or anchoring itself) you wouldn't be able to see them in the first place.

[ADekema]

Even a basic 9mm goes surprisingly deep into the ground, always more than 10+ cm. Here are some video links if you want to see for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuY5IwLYNuA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VA3j1ws-AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHNYCBoyj8I

There plenty more examples to see if you just look up ¨how deep do bullets go into dirt¨. I´m not sure how thick the soil the recycler has is but I doubt that it would stop any bullets unless it was extremely thick in which case it might stop a pistol caliber. I´m also trying to see how a creature could even form a armor of soil. Soil isn´t knows for holding it´s shape very well when carried without a contianer. So unless it´s either gleud together in some way I fail to see how a creature could form armour out of lose dirt. I would expect the losse dirt to just fall off and the only things that stay on are things like grass mats and other pieces of plant detritus. So after a while you would end up with a recycler that is just covered in a pile of grass, moss and other plant pieces mixed with some pieces of clay, rocks and sticks.

[Karol1223]

I´m also trying to see how a creature could even form a armor of soil. Soil isn´t knows for holding it´s shape very well when carried without a contianer. So unless it´s either gleud together in some way I fail to see how a creature could form armour out of lose dirt. I would expect the losse dirt to just fall off and the only things that stay on are things like grass mats and other pieces of plant detritus. So after a while you would end up with a recycler that is just covered in a pile of grass, moss and other plant pieces mixed with some pieces of clay, rocks and sticks.

Concrete and rocks don't typically stay stuck to flesh either, so just assume it excretes some form of adhesive substance from its skin that holds it together. Otherwise the entire concept of the Recycler falls apart at the core, and I think excreting natural glue isn't even remotely farfetched, though typically animals use that capability for offense. I suppose I could give the nude version of the Recycler a glue spit. I even have one ready for mutant termites in TropiCata I can port over.

[ADekema]

1. after a bit more digging itseems that soil has some intersting bullet properties. It seems that lower pistol calibers actaully do a better job at penetrating that higher energy rounds as those tend to disintegrate while pistol rounds don´t.

2. You made a mistake with the descriptions when the meatball hit´s a NPC with ranged attack but does no damage. The text is the same as for when the tenacle hits the player.

[Karol1223]

after a bit more digging itseems that soil has some intersting bullet properties. It seems that lower pistol calibers actaully do a better job at penetrating that higher energy rounds as those tend to disintegrate while pistol rounds don´t.

I am likely going to have to employ the help of our local gun experts to figure out this one, because frankly I am allergic to anything firearm related (my eyes gloss over when I look at guns)

You made a mistake with the descriptions when the meatball hit´s a NPC with ranged attack but does no damage. The text is the same as for when the tenacle hits the player.

Good catch, I'll correct that real quick.

I want to get to combat testing these soonish but it's REALLY unenjoyable setting up for it so I've been procrastinating to hell and back. I'll get to it eventually...