Zombie corpses aren't useful

[RenechCDDA]

Summary

Balance "Zombie corpses aren't useful"

Purpose of change

Zombie corpses are useful, when they shouldn't be. This is a zombie apocalypse game! You can't make zombies work in your favor!

Among other problems, this encourages butchering human corpses.

Describe the solution

Remove all usefulness from every part of butchering zombified corpses.

-Remove tainted fat/tallow from all recipes except mutagen
-Tainted tallow completely deleted (item migrated to regular tallow)
-Sinew removed from all zombie harvest lists
-Kevlar/nomex zombies butcher into unuseable weird scraps of flesh and fabric instead of useable kevlar/nomex.
-Tainted bones cannot be made into charcoal
-Tainted bone meal cannot make fertilizer, only mutagenic substances (same as the removed tallow)
-Remove dehydrated tainted meat
-Zero out all prices on tainted meat/corpse results (just in case)

(Sapiovores can still eat corpses)

Describe alternatives you've considered

Nomex/kevlar zombies still butcher into their respective materials.

But they probably shouldn't, right? Hmm...

Testing

WIP - opened early so CI can run

Additional context

[github-actions]

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• "tainted nomex"

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[Tiareth]

And in this PR, you're single-handedly shrinking "large portion of inteded gameplay" that you claim to protect by your "uncaring" PRs.
Zombie butchering is practically the only source of morale debuffs the average survivor will encounter, because doing other morale debuff deeds is pointless.
Correct me if I'm missing one of deeds.

Killing civil ferals before they become zombies.
Killing non aggressive NPCs.
Killing zombie children.
Butchering zombie corpses.

The first is easy to ignore because they become regular zombies that are easily killed without consequences, so thiss will do only psychopaths or those who roleplay as giving mercy killing before turning monster and than feel bad about after that.

The second is pointless, because NPCs are either hobo with nothing to take,(better invite into player faction) or part of a faction with whom it's more profitable to trade than to kill and rob once.

The morale debuff from zombie children gradually fades, the only place in the game where desensitization exists.

And as for butchering corpses, the existing morale debuffs are already prohibitive, so it will only be done if there are no other options, which is rare, but it does sometimes happen.

[GuardianDll]

And in this PR, you're single-handedly shrinking "large portion of inteded gameplay" that you claim to protect by your "uncaring" PRs. Zombie butchering is practically the only source of morale debuffs the average survivor will encounter, because doing other morale debuff deeds is pointless. Correct me if I'm missing one of deeds.

Killing civil ferals before they become zombies. Killing non aggressive NPCs. Killing zombie children. Butchering zombie corpses.

The first is easy to ignore because they become regular zombies that are easily killed without consequences, so thiss will do only psychopaths or those who roleplay as giving mercy killing before turning monster and than feel bad about after that.

The second is pointless, because NPCs are either hobo with nothing to take,(better invite into player faction) or part of a faction with whom it's more profitable to trade than to kill and rob once.

The morale debuff from zombie children gradually fades, the only place in the game where desensitization exists.

And as for butchering corpses, the existing morale debuffs are already prohibitive, so it will only be done if there are no other options, which is rare, but it does sometimes happen.

@Tiareth are you speaking in a correct PR? this one is about butchery

[Tiareth]

Yes, this right PR. As far as I understand, all three PRs made by Renech have the same intention. Other two gives uncaring dirrect debuff, and this one removes huge part of reasoning to take uncaring in first place. "Why add a desensitization mechanic for regular survivors when you can remove the very reason why you need to do something that requires desensitization?" In a spherical vacuum, this can be valid approach, but in the current gameplay circumstances, you'll only encounter these debuffs if you plan to evolve into a mutation tree that requires a human samples, and you're unlucky enough to not find ready-made mutagens for the needed tree. So if all three PRs got merged uncaring trully become something that not worth to take at all.

[PatrikLundell]

I would suggest rejecting this PR.

I don't really care about zombie butchering, but the author seems to have forgotten that all the tainted stuff is also produced by mutant animals. I haven't found any use for most of the products, but I actually do have a use for tainted tallow, as it can be used in place of regular tallow for non food purposes, such as production of lamp oil and for greasing (and, I think, tanning).

This PR goes too far in removing stuff on the sole basis that it allows offensive actions which are already heavily penalized.

[RenechCDDA]

I would suggest rejecting this PR.

I don't really care about zombie butchering, but the author seems to have forgotten that all the tainted stuff is also produced by mutant animals. I haven't found any use for most of the products, but I actually do have a use for tainted tallow, as it can be used in place of regular tallow for non food purposes, such as production of lamp oil and for greasing (and, I think, tanning).

This PR goes too far in removing stuff on the sole basis that it allows offensive actions which are already heavily penalized.

That's not correct. Mutant animals produce mutated meat/fat and have different harvest groups. Tainted produce only comes from zombies, with the exception of "chunk of tainted mutant meat", which is a misnomer. It has not received any changes.

Removing tainted tallow from being useful is explicitly the purpose. You should not be getting any resources from zombified creatures.

[Zireael07]

I could maybe get behind most of the changes (meat/tallow being too rotten to be of any uses, bones being gooey, etc.) but why remove sinew? It likely stays unchanged, and its usefulness past early game is pretty low IME

[PatrikLundell]

Even if I'm wrong about the product communality between zombies and mutants (which I probably was), I still don't see the removal of butchery products from zombies as reasonable. The game contains a huge amount of useless junk and more is added constantly, so that can't be an argument. The components being too rotten doesn't hold water either, as these zombies aren't rotting corpses gradually falling apart, as in some other zombie games, but rather weird sort of biological things that still sort of should follow laws of physics and biomechanics ("sort of", since a lot doesn't really make actual sense), apart from the magic power source.

Also note that "zombies" include both the human and animal versions, so it's a wide sweeping change.

And, if you are hell bent on making zombie corpses indigestible you should also rework the cockroaches and their descriptions, and they wouldn't make sense in that scenario.

Thus, I still advocate for a rejection.

[GuardianDll]

Ok let's check it point to point:

Remove tainted fat/tallow from all recipes except mutagen

There isn't much info about usability of spolied fats, so there might be some areas they cannot be used, which i think is already represented quite okay as for me, 👎

Tainted tallow completely deleted (item migrated to regular tallow)

No reason to have it as separate item, 👍

Sinew removed from all zombie harvest lists

Ideally there should be at least 1 crafting recipe to make raw sinew into reasonably sturdy fibers we are using them right now, and if such recipe existed, it would surely excluded rotten sinew in it, for a simple reason of them being rotten and not sturdy enough for being usable. Therefore, i do not agree with it being removed, completely, but i would agree for it to be replaced with some rotten version that is not usable, be it the same item but with rotten flag, or completely new item, whichever Renech will find better working. Can be improved in the future if someone interested, so 👍

Kevlar/nomex zombies butcher into unuseable weird scraps of flesh and fabric instead of useable kevlar/nomex.

Being part of the skin, i would think the kevlar/nomex will intertwine with rotten, mutated skin, which would make it as possible to harverst raw material as it would be trying to harvest acrylic in acrylic-cotton blend - ultimately pointless. 👍

Tainted bones cannot be made into charcoal

The main use of charcoal is either food industry or some technical stuff; i am open to discussion if we can have some technically different charcoal made out of tainted bones only for technical stuff, but i would not smoke my food with bones of zombies under any circumstances; can be refined later if someone is interested, 👍

Tainted bone meal cannot make fertilizer, only mutagenic substances (same as the removed tallow)

Same as prior one, who knows what danger the wheat will pick up when it is fertilized by extraterrestial bullshit? 👍

Remove dehydrated tainted meat

🤷

Zero out all prices on tainted meat/corpse results (just in case)

👍

[Kantonine]

I can understand why it'd be a good idea to make tainted stuff less useful, especially meat and fat (especially now that tainted hide+fur is not tannable) But surely bones can be a exception for use in industrial applications. Like, you only get inert bones and meat and all that after butchering/smashing the corpse. Though It'd be a cool idea for even zombie viscera to still be "alive".

[anoobindisguise]

Zombie biomass only "functions" while inside the zombie because it's sustained by basically magic. All the components rapidly degrade into uselessness while outside of the zombie via means that cannot be easily prevented by dehydrating it, it's disintegrating because the "magic" that holds it together is gone. So not being able to make biofuel out of zombie fat or charcoal out of zombie bones is probably fine. And of course usable aramids are right out.

[RenechCDDA]

@SoudanzyoShare Read the code of conduct before posting again.

Also read about the development process. Realism is not a design goal and never has been.

You can consider this an official warning.

[tim110011]

I am not a native English speaker, my suggestion is machine translation.
I agree with all options of the solution.
I add two options:

1. Tainted organs only partially resemble their original shape, not simply decay or mutate, but fundamentally distort and do not retain their original biochemical characteristics. Assume only fungi can process tainted stuff. Trading with fungi and providing corpses (or tame fungi?). Fungi ferment corpses to produce biogas and fertilizers.
2. Expand zombie blood analysis mission to various samples of all types of organisms. Biology (monster weakpoint) can also be obtained from missions.

other additional suggestions:
Suggestions for the disposal of corpses:
Not only dissecting corpses, nightmares, certain scenes or behaviors can lower the morale of survivors.
Allow roles with medical or military backgrounds to dissect corpses without any loss of morale.
Cremation of corpses gives players and NPCs morale, whether they were once your companions or zombies.
Add some graveyard keeper gameplay. The game characters include religious figures. Add initial graveyard cleanup mission: Resurrection of buried bodies from burial pits.

Suggestions for reviving corpses:
Cut off the spinal cord of the corpse with a sharp blade to prevent the zombie from resurrecting within a certain period of time. This saves time compared to crushing corpses.
Even if it is mashed, the body will be resurrected as a fusion monster after a longer period of time, unless cremated.

[tim110011]

I have an idea! Corpse-fungi-penicillin. It is suitable for Crazy Cataclysm mod.