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[DEVBLOG#247] Fungoids, our spin on the Zombie tropes (Patreon)

Published:
2023-09-20 12:44:55
Imported:
2023-09
Tags:

Content

Hello everyone and welcome to a feature breakdown of our upcoming Vanilla Races Expanded mod.

Just in time for Halloween, Vanilla Races Expanded - Fungoids introduces a brand new archite-powered xenotype with very cool, unique mechanics.

Fungoids are loosely inspired by the Clickers from The Last Of Us, but instead of being mindless zombies that swarm you in hordes, they are intelligent, bright, powerful and low in numbers.

We never wanted to add a horde faction - RimWorld doesn't do well when it comes to generating dozens of pawns. Instead, try to think of Fungoids as X-Men mutants. They are rare, they are powerful, they are hard to kill and incredibly dangerous in melee combat. Their power level should be similar to Sanguophages, as they are also archite-powered due to two new archite genes.

Fungoids may seem strong when you first meet them, but there is something you should know: over time, they get dumber and dumber. They are unable to get skill experience in any skills, and their skills drop twice as fast - and unlike normal pawns, their skills can drop all the way to 0, not just to 10.

This means that old fungoids are incredibly bad at everything they do. However, they get powerful damage reduction and wound regeneration that increase with age. This means that old fungoids are good for one purpose only - combat.

Fungoids are rare - they do not spawn in the world in any factions. They are a relic of early space exploration, and we found a cool way to make them appear in your area! A new ship chunk may crash from space, emitting huge clouds of rotstink. Attacking this ship may make fungoids emerge - and you better ensure you kill them before they reach you, as thanks to the Gene Infector gene they can infect you with the fungoid sickness.

Fungoids come with an assortment of cool new genes. Telepathy allows them to communicate with other telepathic pawns, while repulsive makes everyone vomit whenever they interact with them. Mind coalescence means fungoids share their mood to some extent - Average mood of all fungoids on the map is calculated and 20% of it is applied to all fungoids. Be careful though - mind coalescent pawns go into mental breaks at the same time. You certainly don't want a colony of fungoids to enter berserk mental state...

Lets take a look at infographics!

Files

Comments

Steelharbinger

Very cool take on this! Excited to have them in my colony!

Oleg Oleg

I must admit that the mind link thing makes me worry because it is more of a debuff than a buff - if they share both positive AND negative moods, then anything that could cause one to spiral into a break causes everyone to spiral into a break, potentially - while at the same time, each pawn that exists with this gene can cause every other pawn to break as well Unless the average rate of mental breaks is reduced the more pawns of these kind exist (since twice the Pawns would mean twice the breaks for everyone) then they'll just be stuck mentally breaking over and over

Nick Usenko

Interesting mechanics! Would it be possible to block the infector with sufficient armor or special clothes (hazmat suit)? Feels a bit weird that my ultra space marine clad in fireproof power armor has to go to the ICU for being punched by a little shroomboi

ArcaneJellyfish

Absolutely love it! I've wanted to see xenotypes that change over time for a while. It adds a lot of interesting narrative. Keep up the good work

gb

Oh, this looks interesting! Will the anti-rot lungs also affect the mood penalties for rot stink? Also, will skill bonuses from other genes offset that "drop all the way to 0"? e.g. if a Genie gets infected, do they end up with 0 Crafting or 12?

Oleg Oleg

If one of the ideas is that mushrooms lose their skills over time, what is the interaction with the ancient story teller (less pawns but no skill loss) and the great memory psychic bond?

M

Will the gene infector also turn archite genes into endogenes? So if I get a isolated gene of gene infector I can genetically customise genies, sanguophages or hussars without overwriting their special genes?

Big Barza

So if the infector turns all xenogenes into endogenes, then i "cure" the pawn by applying another xenotype, do i get like, a hussar capable of passing down the hussar genes?

John Anderson

A revolting and horrifying space threat. A blend of zombies and genestealers as an orbital threat. Definitely a revolting mod for a playthrough.

Steven

It looks to me like their melee and shooting skills would also degrade to 0 -- so when you say that an old Fungoid is still good at combat, is that wholly due to their admittedly massive armor and healing factors? It looks like an interesting gene set in any case, I'm curious to see how a colony of telepaths will go!

Owain I Jones

Looks very interesting, I'm excited for this one! A couple of things about the Gene Infector though - firstly, why was it decided that the infection would cause a pawn's xenogenes to become endogenes? I'm not saying I'm against it, it just seems like an unusual choice and I'm curious if there's a particular mechanics or balancing reason behind it. The second thing is just a minor grammatical thing, but the description says that "a xenotype of the infectee gets applied as a xenogene." I'm assuming what this means is that if a fungoid infects someone, that person recieves the fungoid genes as their xenotype, but "infectee" means the person being infected, not the person doing the infecting, so the way it's currently written actually implies that someone being infected recieves their own genes as a xenogene.

Brandon Pollastri

This will be great for a tribal run, WORSHIPERS OF THE GREAT FUNGI! I'll call them the cult of the Mycus.

Loyola

Neat! I was hoping for cute and cuddly D&D fungoids like in Out of the Abyss, but that might be too similar to lifemates

Brittney Leigh

This is sick. Can't wait to use this for horrific gene testing.

Mielga

how will the armor and regen work with events that cause age reduction like the biosculptor or psycasts?

James Sunderland

I know you have no intention of making a horde faction out of fungoids, but maybe in the future there can be a fungoid faction who instead of using conventional raids will send out their elders as a sort of animal raid? No clue if it's feasible or even a good idea however.

Carl Max

When someone turns into a mushroom will there xenogenes replace there existing endogenes or just added to it? Example being if a pigskin becomes a sanguaphage and then gets infected will they still be a bloodsucking pig?

Carl Max

There should be a gene that prevents additional gene modding for the Fungoid. It could be a hediff that requires glittertech medicine and surgery to suppress it. That way this highly infectious fungoid cant be removed by giving someone a pig nose while still being treatable with high quality medicine.

Bohemian Romantic

The best part of these race packs isn't the new races, it's the unique genes that make other playthroughs possible. I've been dying to make a colony of telepathic hiveminded clones, and now is the time.

Rossum

One interesting thing about fungi in real life is that the mushrooms that we see poking out of the ground or growing from trees are just the budding part and the majority of the fungus organism lives underground and can spread over a wide area. So, it would be kinda neat if fungoids had the potential to spread some kind of fungal growth over the ground or otherwise alter the terrain. Some ideas could include: Rot Gas Mushrooms - Fungoids can cause an area to fill with mushrooms that produce gas, maybe something like the Stinker mushrooms from VPE - Mushrooms. According to the wiki, Insectoids are immune to toxic buildup (so tox gas would be ineffective on them) and are resistant to rot stink... but not immune so in theory fungoids might be able to fight insectoids by spreading rot gas producing fungus inside caves to damage the insects? Fungus Growth on Burial - What if burying a dead fungoid in a dirt grave had a special effect? Like if you bury a fungoid corpse in a dirt grave instead of burning it then the grave eventually starts doing something weird like produce massive amounts of rot stink, spread spores that spread the fungoid infection, or maybe the fungoid will eventually reanimate from the dead and crawl out of the grave? If it rises from the grave, maybe it lays dormant like a cocoon until someone approaches it at which point the fungoid bursts out of the grave in a violent mental break?

Frank Cotton

Will their meele skill decrease over time as well? It seems a bit weird to hype up these guys as meele brutes if my ancient fungoid is a brick wall that can't kill a rat.

Chesckers

congrats on another soon to be banger VE team

Brandon Pollastri

Will the fungoid crest gene only affect the head, or will there be a fungoid body as well?

Scott Dockery

What's that stripey hair gene at the end?

Casey Alce

I notice some genes refer to the fungai infection some I am curious on if genes like regeneration are tied to a specific gene and wich one?

ArtR

I feel like the feature that tries to make them better at combat when they are old simply doesn't work. A pawn with the tough trait that can't even hit a 300 pound mufallo is still as useless as a squishy pawn that cant do it either. Degradation shouldn't apply to combat skills or perhaps a different design in that specfic feature. Otherwise fungal regeneration and fungal armor are just going to have very niche usage

An Unusual Stout Shako

I feel like Telepathy would be interesting to apply to the Psychic Bonding gene, it's implied in the moodlet text that it does something *similar* to that.

MC_0

Yaya. Looking forward to Halloween. 👀