Search & Rescue X-codes, overrun evac camp, looting damage

[Dr. Strangelove]

Being from Louisiana, in 2005 I got to see more than I ever wanted of what goes on in a disaster. So I'd like to suggest a few things that I believe would not only be simple to implement, but would greatly add to the atmosphere of post-apocalyptic Knox County.

In an emergency, search and rescue teams are quickly assembled out of available manpower. State police, FEMA, sheriff's deputies, CERT members, corrections officers, game wardens, and others are organized into units and start clearing houses block by block. When they clear a house, an "x-code" is spraypainted on the exterior with numbers signifiying the number of living and dead people found, the team that performed the search, the date, and hazards found. Put such markings on the outside of houses near the police station, some with dead bodies lined up outside from search teams encountering infected households, shooting the zombies, and placing them out front for later disposal.

Said search and rescue teams were operating out of a evac camp at the police station or school, consisting of rows of tents and beds, portable toliets, crates, and watchtowers surrounded by a destroyed chain-link fence. There's a ton of MREs, bottled water, and medical supplies inside as well, meant to be distributed to the surviving population of Muldraugh. However, the zombie outbreak quickly proved much more serious than the local authorities had expected, leading to the S&R teams being withdrawn due to heavy casualties after only a few blocks. Upon falling back to the camp, hordes of zombies proceeded to close in and swarm the place, overwhelming the defenders and wiping everyone out. In gameplay terms, the camp would provide a location with a good supply of valuable resources, with the trade-off of being guarded by the largest zombie horde in the city.

If a zombie apocalypse occured, you'd see a run on stores and local businesses as people scrambled to get supplies. As the situation deteriorated, it would spiral into out-of-control looting, as happened during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. To simulate this, some of the gas stations and stores would have the windows all broken and the insides mostly picked clean.

Thoughts?

[Viceroy]

I think it's a great idea for adding to the hopeless situation, especially once wrecked and abandoned vehicles are in. I totally vote Ja.

 

+1

[Dr. Strangelove]

Guide to X-code meanings, along with a preview of what their implementation might look like courtesy of twelve seconds in msPaint.

[k12314]

The one thing is that the base of operations wouldn't be supply-rich, because you start the game 2 weeks into the outbreak, and I'd assume that everyone at the police station or wherever would grab all the shit they could carry and run. So maybe have a load of crates marked for whatever supply they are smashed open and maybe have a few MREs and bandages scattered around a few corpses, like people were shooting each other or getting the chomp in the chaos of the base being overrun.

[feral_donkey]

It's a good idea for making a place look like there was an effort made by authorities.  It tells a story visually.

 

Maybe something they could use as they expand closer to the real city.   There would obviously have been major efforts made near Louisville.

[Kajin]

I like this. Awesome idea. Maybe even have a few of these officials still surviving in NPC groups of their own? Maybe ones that didn't manage to make it back to the headquarters and were subsequently spared the wraith of the zombie swarms the converged on the location.