The mechanics of smell in Project Zomboid

[Rediska]

I would like to suggest adding to the game such an opportunity as- to become invisible to walkers. This scheme worked in many TV series, movies, comics and games, people were smeared with guts or blood of walkers, which is why walkers almost did not pay attention to them. As for me, in this wonderful game, such mechanics will look great, you approach a corpse with a knife in your hand or something, you press disembowel a walker or something and smear yourself with his insides. The rain can also wash away this smell and walkers will react more to you. You can make a special animation of slow walking like a walker so that you don't stand out in the crowd and don't behave suspiciously, and if you run or kill other walkers, they will notice that you don't look like them and attack. With this theme, in my opinion, you can come up with a lot of mechanics both in a single game and in a multiplayer. Just think about how the whisperers from the series gather crowds of walkers and lead them to the bases of players, nail down and lead the image lives like them, eventually losing this smell, pass through a crowd of walkers without being noticed. The same is the fragmentation of the skin if there is blood of walkers on it for a long time (if you smeared it on your naked body) and much more.

[Blake81]

Sorry dude, but that one's on the "Dev's List of Big NO's" since forever...

 

 

 

However, minimaps also used to be on the Big NO's list, so who knows....

[Papa Juliet Whiskey]

Yeah, probably would hold your breath on this one.

 

Or plug your nose, either, I guess.

 

Although, it should be noted, that at one point, there was a slider in sandbox settings to adjust zombies ability to smell, just like eyesight and hearing. This disappeared sometime around or before the overhaul of the loot tables several updates back. I'm guessing it was never properly implemented.

 

If you are on the steam version, I think someone made a mod just for this, a d somewhat recently, iirc.

[EnigmaGrey]

9 minutes ago, Papa Juliet Whiskey said:

Yeah, probably would hold your breath on this one.

 

Or plug your nose, either, I guess.

 

Although, it should be noted, that at one point, there was a slider in sandbox settings to adjust zombies ability to smell, just like eyesight and hearing. This disappeared sometime around or before the overhaul of the loot tables several updates back. I'm guessing it was never properly implemented.

 

If you are on the steam version, I think someone made a mod just for this, a d somewhat recently, iirc.

 

Right, it never did anything. It was just a placeholder should someone ever code a smell system.

[Eight-Ball]

On 5/9/2022 at 8:50 AM, Papa Juliet Whiskey said:

 

If you are on the steam version, I think someone made a mod just for this, a d somewhat recently, iirc.

If you're referring to the mod  where zombies are attracted to blood, it doesn't actually introduce scent. Whenever the player is bleeding, it plays the footsteps sound to draw in zeds.

[Papa Juliet Whiskey]

5 hours ago, Eight-Ball said:

If you're referring to the mod  where zombies are attracted to blood, it doesn't actually introduce scent. Whenever the player is bleeding, it plays the footsteps sound to draw in zeds.

Never used the mod, but I can see that being the way they achieved that effect. There is also a mod that makes zeds migrate indoors when the sun is out, utilizing sound as opposed to "being afraid of the sun".

 

And those damned, noisy lights switches...

 

Out of curiosity, do zeds react at all to light on its own, or is that mechanic achieved with sound exclusively?

[Eight-Ball]

On 5/12/2022 at 8:31 AM, Papa Juliet Whiskey said:

Out of curiosity, do zeds react at all to light on its own, or is that mechanic achieved with sound exclusively?

I have no idea. I'm gonna hazard a guess that it's sound-based (like light switches going on/off), but I have no idea.

[Bullet_Magnate]

On 5/7/2022 at 11:43 AM, Rediska said:

I would like to suggest adding to the game such an opportunity as- to become invisible to walkers. 

 

On the flip side, I'd like to see a mechanic where survivors who are close to zombies and/or corpses become ill from the sight / stench (possibly even vomiting), unless they have a profession that would desensitize them to such things.  

[Papa Juliet Whiskey]

You do get the queasy moodle if.you hang around enough corpses. If you see and hear flies, then you will eventually get sick.

 

Don't know how deadly it is, and you recover pretty quickly when you leave the area.i suspect that system will get some work in the future, as the sickness mechanics seem a little weak as it stands now.

 

And apparently there is an unused vomit animation, so I would expect that to be included in the future.

[Bullet_Magnate]

On 5/24/2022 at 10:04 AM, Papa Juliet Whiskey said:

You do get the queasy moodle if.you hang around enough corpses. If you see and hear flies, then you will eventually get sick.

 

Don't know how deadly it is, and you recover pretty quickly when you leave the area.i suspect that system will get some work in the future, as the sickness mechanics seem a little weak as it stands now.

 

And apparently there is an unused vomit animation, so I would expect that to be included in the future.

 

Interesting!  I always thought that getting sick around corpses was not an "eww, yuck" reaction, but the Knox Fever spreading by means of biting flies -- and that if you saw the Queasy moodle as a result of being near bodies it meant you had the fever and were doomed.  I could be wrong, though, as I've always been super-avoidant of corpses in the game for that reason, so I never saw whether there was a minor / non-fatal nausea reaction to them.  

 

[Papa Juliet Whiskey]

The nausea moodle shows when you're infected, but also when around corpses, and have food poisoning.

 

Not sure what the actual effect of the moodle is though. Reduced stat? Or just a guage of how close to death you are?

No idea.