Zombie Scientists should still have their science ID on them

[gettingusedto]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

One thing i find a bit odd is the fact that science id's are barely found on zombie scientists. Like, why aren't there any on their person? Did someone somehow stole all of the id cards in people wallets and burn it somewhere to sabotage them? Do the security team take all of them for safekeeping? or it could be just an old cataclysm thing. It's not clear at all.

Solution you would like.

Give the science ID cards back to zombie scientists.

Describe alternatives you have considered.

Not doing so.

Additional context

No response

[PatrikLundell]

I assume it's to not make acquisition of these IDs completely trivial (i.e. game logic, not real world logic). In addition to that, not all scientists killed outside of labs might have been lab personnel.

If you were to give every scientist a guaranteed ID, you should also, at the same time, make these IDs properly tied to a single specific facility. Given how secret these labs are supposed to be, IDs wouldn't be marked with information as to which facility they are tied to. This means you would need a new interaction with terminals to try to sweep IDs one after the other to see if any matches that particular facility (in order not to force the player through the tedium of doing this manually). You should also introduce a naming scheme for facilities to distinguish them from each other. Note that someone who's tied to a single lab doesn't need any markings to indicate the facility, as they would already know where they work.

You could then introduce science supervisors or similar who'd have multiple cards and who sometimes might have violated the security protocol by marking them with which facility they belong to.

[Hyperseeker]

A temporary intermediate solution might be to replace consumed IDs with expired counterparts, and giving the expired versions to a lot more zombie scientists.

"Of course these professional scientists have their IDs on them! ...ah crap, this one's already been flagged by the security system" or whatever.

This could work with other types of IDs, too.

Why retain useless IDs? Free plastic!

[PatrikLundell]

Single use passes is another game mechanic that doesn't match real world logic. Sure, fairground attractions a single use, but the bureaucrazy would hate to expend the work they would have to do themselves (rather than force upon others) to keep issuing passes every day and dispose of old ones. I can see passes being time limited, but that would mean you'd get in nowhere in the game after the last expiry date (well, brute force entry still exists in many cases).

"Free plastic" is an extremely poor argument, as there is enough "free plastic" garbage all over the place, with very few people making use of this "valuable" resource. It would be more likely for them to forget single use passes and just get issued new ones because they're so worthless, resulting in droves of never used passes in their homes.

[kevingranade]

What's the spawn rate on zombie scientists anyway? It should be close to or actually nothing outside of labs.

[gettingusedto]

Dont think i recall seeing outdoor scientists zeds in my runs.

[kevingranade]

Actually I did think of a reason a pass would be single use.

If the facility managenent is paranoid about infiltration they might issue a temporary badge just when someone leaves the facility that is canceled on return.

That gets them back in the door and the normal process would be identifying them and re-issuing them their regular badge.

Not a strong argument for this, but it's a way to have a "just gets you in the door" single use badge. Also it makes no sense to have this work on anything but an exterior entrance leading to a guard post.

[PatrikLundell]

Spawn rate of scientists outside of labs: There are the map extras with dead scientist that can be found in fields (and possibly other terrain?) as well as in subways. Sometimes these coincide with "guarding" by otherworldly critters (the name of those escape me at the moment: it's the non hostile ones). You need these from a game perspective, as there wouldn't be any way to get into labs except by forced entry (well, we have the ventilation shafts in some cases), so if all passes were inside labs you'd have to get inside one (or more) to be able to enter another one.

A potential reason for scientists inside of labs not having passes: Most scientists probably wouldn't have permission to get into the special sections, so only a small number of them would have passes for those. And applying @kevingranade's logic, there would be no reason for "normal" scientists inside labs to have any passes, as they'd be issued only for approved external excursions (which would explain the dead scientists outside of labs, and perhaps only the leader would actually be issued a pass?).

[kevingranade]

Oh we're just talking about the science extra? Yea that should be very rare and localized to a lab. Do we have a way to do that? I doubt it.

[gettingusedto]

In hindsight, i probably should mention that i was referring to the scientist zeds inside labs.

[PatrikLundell]

I see no reason at all to move the science extra into a lab even if it would be possible without technical issues. It would make no sense in there, and the place is crawling with zombies (some of which were scientists, and thus may drop IDs) anyway. Why would a small number of scientists specifically be unable to rise there? If you don't want players to be able to get into labs without using explosives or mining then simply make the doors inoperable, with no terminal (or broken ones only).

I don't think that would be a good decision, as I still think the ability to pick up IDs in the wild makes game play sense while not being wildly unreasonable (beyond the universality of cards, but that's really a different technical challenge).

[kevingranade]

Sorry I was unclear, I meant science extras should be localized to within a half overmap or so of a lab.

[zachary-kaelan]

If I was a scientist playing with caustic chemicals and doing unethical human experiments on prisoners, personally I wouldn't want an important keycard dangling around my neck or attached to my clothes.

Single-use keycards would potentially be given to visitors, contractors, or people making deliveries.