Zombie (mutation)

Mmmmhrhmmhmmmbraaaanes...

Become a shambling, slow, undead brain-sucker. Zombies love you as one of their own.

Location

The mutation spot can be found in the Bradbury basement's lowest levels, beware the four-armed zombie!

To evolve the mutation you have to drink from the pool of bile.

Effects

This mutation grants:

   Passive: -6 brains
   Passive: +2 endurance
   Passive: -2 brawn
   Passive: -3 dodge
   Passive: -10 sneak
   Passive: 50% slower attack speed (up to a cap of 4.5)
   Passive: Can only heal and gain nutrition from eating brains/heads
   Passive: Buffs when full (+7 brawn, +2 reflexes when very full)
   Passive: No reflexes debuff when full
   Passive: zombie claws replace fists
   Passive: 3 - 6 beat resistance
   Passive: 5 - 10 bullet resistance
   Passive: 2 - 5 electric resistance
   Passive: 50 - 100 healing resistance
   Passive: 100 - 100 suffocation resistance
   Passive: 50% stun resistance
   Passive: 100% heart attack resistance
   Passive: 100% vampirism resistance
   Passive: 75% addiction resistance
   Passive: 75% generic disease resistance
   Passive: 25% burning resistance
   Passive: 90% brain damage resistance
   Passive: 100% bends resistance
   Passive: 100% blood nitrogen resistance
   Passive: 100% toxic exposure resistance
   Passive: 75% bleeding resistance
   Passive: Blood is bile
   Passive: Revival after death unless gibbed/fatalited/butchered
   Passive: Double FCEF/AbomNation citizenship
   Passive: Necropolis junkers, freaks, aboms, and zombies will not attack unprovoked; FCEF troops attack on sight
   Passive: Upon reclone, revive either in gangland mall, subway zombie lab or in necropolis gate
   Passive: Cannot brag; can still see the brags yourself
   Passive: No aging
   howl ability: Call zombies for help
   feed on <something> ability: Eat brains to restore hunger, health and get buffs
   puke on <something> ability: Puke horrible green bile all over your enemy.

Mechanics

Zombie mutation drastically change how one plays the game. Zombies cannot heal in conventional way (trauma kits, nanites, mediguns, herbal healing, Solar Sponge regen, etc.). The only way they can heal is by eating heads, whether via their special feed command (provides destress, but is slow) or Billygoat munch (fast, but no destress). They can also eat canned brains food for this. The heals scale with how full you are, up to +7 HP per heartbeat.

Upon reaching max satiation, zombies begin to heal as well as gain buffs scaling to how full they are. This scales up to +7 brawn (or +5 if you take in account -2 zombie built-in brawn) and +2 reflexes.

Essentially what you should be doing is cutting and munching/feeding every head you can to stay topped up on both buffs AND health.

The decreased attack speed hits hard. Most melee weapons will speedcap at about 4.0 speed (normal fightstyle) - this provides a +10 minimal damage, you will swing very slow but hit very hard due to high brawn.

Most common builds for zombie are Clubs, Fists, Spears and Rifles, as they provide damage/tohit for the melee and allow to easily hit speedcaps for most weapons for the rifles.

You also on butcher provide zombie meat, zombie hide and a zombie brain (along with your head).

Advantages

• Soaks. Zombie provides various soaks that are very useful throughout the whole game, but especially early-game.
• +2 Reflexes from nutrition. This is a +1 tohit to most skills, but isn't really good for speedcaps due to zombies decreased swinging speed.
• +2 Endurance. Cancels out the +2 you won't get from Hyperimmune, but other than that a welcome but minor bonus.
• +5 Brawn in total. You get +7 brawn at max nutrition, and -2 from being a zombie, which sums up to +5 total. This is the highest single brawn buff that any mutation can provide, giving an extreme damage increase for most weapons.
• Revival. Zombie mutants will revive after a few minutes of being killed, unless gibbed (explosions), butchered (cops/PvP) or fatalitied (few NPCs/PvP). This makes it a very newbie-friendly mutation as usual penalties for dying is replaced with a revival sickness (that can be countered by Iron Liver). This also makes it very easy to keep any implants and radiation mutations.
• Various resistances. Of note there are 50% stun resistance (which makes feints and stuns way less effective on you, which may be combined with Hooligan), bends/blood nitrogen (you can chill on the bottom of the ocean), addiction/heart attack resistance which allow drug abuse (note: you will still instantly die if you try to do 5 cocaine doses).
• Slower attack speed. 50% slower attack speed (up to a cap of 4.5). This allows for creation of some niche builds that dump reflexes, relying on pure min damage increase. Since you don't care about attack speed, you can also slap a gyro grip on everything.
• Zombie minions. By using howl in zombie-infested areas (mall, bradbury basement, necro probably) you can get a bunch of zombies that can like, walk around with you and do stuff. They're very weak, and mostly should be used as chaff.
• Zombie claws. They're relatively shitty but usually much better than using your bare fists. They also spread zombie rot on hit unless target is immune. This effect will persist even if you get a ripperlike.
• No aging. Zombies stop aging, and will remain age they turned through time, rejuvex and reclones, unless they demute or reroll..

Disadvantages

• -6 Brains. You will have trouble with almost any brainy task - having your gear in good order will be a tiresome order, and you cannot really defib without big medic investments; you're likely to have problems even with diagnose and even talking/emoting. Not as problematic in combat, as you have 50% resistance to stuns.
• -2 Brawn. Negligible malus as it is counteracted by eating a couple heads.
• -3 Dodge. An irksome malus, most zombie builds already have poor dodge. Thankfully most zombie builds also tend to be so fucking tanky this doesn't matter.
• -10 Sneak. The sound of your clapping cheeks is so loud you cannot sneak at all, an actually big disadvantage due to recent sneak changes. Just fight your way through.
• Revival is in random spots. You can revive in Necropolis, phage lab or in gangland mall, and getting out of them can quickly become an annoying task you have to do on reclone, especially in necro.
• Slower attack speed. 50% slower attack speed (up to a cap of 4.5). This makes fighting fast opponents far more risky, as you will rarely hit first, and your pows will be extremely slow. This also, though, means that +2 reflexes from zombie nutrition isn't that valuable and you can slap a gyro grip on everything.
• Cannot heal conventionally. You cannot use nanites, you cannot use trauma kits, you cannot hire a pocket medic with a medigun. You have to rely on long heartbeat heals and a supply of heads, and while there is usually lots of them, they sometimes suddenly become in short supply.
• Has to keep topped up. You have to cut and eat heads to keep your big buffs active. This isn't a problem usually as long as you keep killing mobs, but some of them don't drop heads at all, requiring you to go out of your way to get them elsewhere, or bring extras with yourself.
• Filter. Some words in say/nets are replaced if you have very low brains (4-5), such as rifles -> plinkers, thanks -> hrhngnnnns, apartment -> branes banks, etc, making communicating a bit difficult, but way funnier.
• Zombie Hunters shop shopkeeper Larry in slagtown will not serve you (and will kick your ass).
• Billygoat is pretty much required. Feeding via feed on <something> command takes about 20 seconds, and you're gonna eat a lot of heads.
• Incompatible with Bleeder, Hideous Freak, Hyperimmune, Silicone Skin, Vampire, Brainslug, and Chud. Most of these incompatibilities are racials, but of note are bleeder (which prevents easy frenzy, but you have crazy brawn anyway), silicone skin (you WOULD become actually immortal) and brainslug (prevents some weird really minmaxing builds) and hyperimmune (which is just, counterintuitive. Immune zombie?)

Appearance

This mutation adds the following line to a character's description:

   Player's skin is cold and pale, and their eyes stare hollowly ahead.

Mutations
Racial Mutations	Abomination • Chud • Hideous Freak • Vampire • Zombie
Focus Mutations	Carrie • Chiller • Fuck Machine • Salamander • Screech • Writhing Smoke • Empath
Movement Mutations	Leapfrog • Phaser • Clairvoyance
	Flight • Blink • Medium
Soak Mutations	High Density • Firewalker • Rubberskin • Snakeskin • Yeti Skin
	Lithodermis • Solar Sponge • Silicone Skin • Eelskin • Yeti Fur
Miscellaneous Mutations	Billygoat • Bleeder • Bloodhound • Brainslug • Brute Strength • Camelfat • Enigma • Fibrocartilage • Hooligan • Hyperimmune • Iron Liver • Junkrat • Mule • Nimble Fingers • Plant Whisperer • Stench • Twitchy Nerves • Superclot • Xray Vision • Cat Ears
Ripperlikes	Carcinocudgel • Horrorspike • Ripper • Tendrils
Joke Mutations	Third Nipple
Defunct Mutations	Jammer