Zombjas Discussions and Strategies.

This thread, we will be discussing Zombjas, and how to beat a map.

NEW UPDATE: Moving also costs stamina now, along with AP. There is a Juice in the Juice Bar (we don't have it yet, but it's the next one we buy) that will give you some no-stamina moves. When I say moving, I mean moving. Attacking, etc, do not cost stamina.

The first map should be Difficulty 4, which means there'll be nine squares across, 17 squares long.

What I am asking right now, is for us to go ahead and establish three groups of four people. There's a feature ingame called "Four for One" where, if you're in the same square as three other people (four in total), you get extra bonuses. This will be massively helpful.

Since Ahava, Brodder, and I all have experienced playing Zombjas, all three of us will be heading a group of four. I need volunteers who have some free time to log on through various times during the day to help us move up.

There are several different attributes when it comes to Zombjas that you can use to advance. They will be posted a few posts below. I want you to look through them, ask questions for clarifications if you need it, then decide which way is the best for you to go. For example, there's an attribute called "Speedy" which reduces the time you need to wait to gain new AP (Action Points). This will be immensely useful for people who log on often during the day -- but it will also be utterly useless for people who can only log in once, twice a day. Think about how you play, and how you would like to help. There are Medic users (I don't generally recommend going pure Medic though, it is not as effective as expected), Hospital builders, Sonar Pingers, Bunker Builders, etc etc.

I will be assigning some roles also, but I would like for volunteers to cover every role we need.

Vocabulary:
AP: Action Points. Use AP to move, search, attack, etc.
Zs: Regular Zombjas.
Zettas: Super-powered Zombjas. There are four kinds.
-Bargler: Bargles out extra Zs
-Thriller: Thrills you into losing AP
-Nom: Once Nommed, you can't retreat, attack anything else except the Noms
-Thumper: Has a 60% chance of blocking your attack, hits you for around 20 damage
Infection: While normally fighting Zs/Zettas, they cannot injure you until they infect you. Once infected, every attack you make reduces your HP by 5, plus the possibility of further HP loss from Z attack.
Hospital: If the square has a hospital, it means you can go there to heal. 1 AP = 5 HP heal (add 1 HP for every level of Healthy). Medics can also restock their Medic uses here.
Bunker: This square is unaffected by Marching Zombjas. This means, if you are going to log off for a long period of time, it is best to do it inside a Bunker where it is guaranteed that you will not be infected/damaged.
Teleporter: Teleporter teleports you to that square if you're in the same column. However, this only works backwards, and not forwards.
Four For One: The bonus given when there is a total of four people on one square. 25% chance of dodging infections, and 50% chance of Shotguns and Pistols not consuming AP.
The Square: The bonus given when there is a total of eight people on one square. Acts like a Bunker.
Seal: Sealing rifts means killing off all Zs and Zettas in that square, and clicking the option to seal. Once sealed, no more Zettas/Zs will spawn.

TYPES OF SQUARES
Village: The first few rows of the map. Our village.
Collection Plains: The first different square we will encounter.
Forest: Newer (and much better) weapons can be found here. Chainsaws, Lawn Mowers, etc.
Mountain: higher up than Forests. Different weapons are found here.
Wasteland: The last square that stands between us and the Rifts.
Rift: The topmost row. Zs and Zettas spawn here. Seal them to stop them from spawning more.
The Gate/Zombulator: The final Rift we need to seal in order to win the map. This is where 11Sabers are found. Also, the Zombulator will do what shows up as "Zotted" -- which means it kicks you all the way back to the bottom of the map.
Ramen Shop: Crucial -- find Manly Ramen here.
Arms Depot: VERY crucial. Find Shotguns and Pistols here.
Science!!: Only Leaders (Kages, as in, me) can unlock Science!!. Once unlocked, whoever has Engineer lv 3 can launch a Nuke, which will wipe out one entire square.

In each team, I would like someone with at least Medic lv 1 and someone who can build Bunkers/Teleporters. More information coming up later.

We should all, theoretically, be able to max out every skill in the future, when we move up to bigger and tougher maps. This will mean everyone will have the same skills. However, starting the game is crucial to our development. We can't all go the same way, it would be difficult for us to advance.

UPDATE: Also, please tell me what timezone you are in, so we can put you in the best team possible. I don't want to mix in players in the European Time zone and players in the US timezone, the teamwork would be tough to accomplish.


TEAMS:

Team A (Left side -- Pacific Timezone)
CTSUN (Digger, Careful, Speedy)
Katreus (Sniper, Thorough, Speedy)
?? (Medic user needed)
??

Team B (Center -- GMT +1 Timezone)
Ahava (Bunker/Teleporter builder)
Doomed (Speedy, Thorough, Sniper)
Seimoru (Thorough, Speedy)
?? (Medic user needed)

Team C (Right side -- Eastern Time Zone)
Brodder (Thorough, Immune, Sniper)
Oynotna (Digger, Engineer)
?? (Medic user needed)
??

SKILL LIST

Immune: 5% Chance per Level to 'dodge' Infections
Healthy: +20 HP max, +1 HP/heal per Level
Perceptive: 10% Bonus Chance to Search for free
Sniper: 5% Bonus Chance to Zetta-Kill per Level
Thorough: +1 Z Killed per Level
Speedy: -1 Minute per AP refresh per Level
Medic: May Heal (Uninfect+10HP) another person for 12 AP(minus 2 AP per Level) once per Level (recharge at Hospital)
Digger: May build one Bunker per Map at Level 1, 2 at Level 5 (5 AP), Teleporter at Level 3 (10 AP), 2% Bonus per level to Search
Engineer: May Sonar Ping for 5 AP (Range: 2 per Level) and may build one Hospital per Map at Level 5 (10 AP)
Gardener: May plant DayMines and NightMines for 12 AP, minus 2 AP per Level
Runner: 5% Chance per Level to not spend AP while moving
Careful: -3% Chance per Level to break Equipped Weapon (minimum chance 1%)



WEAPONS LIST
Fists and Feet: No weapons equipped. Kills 1 Z, 10% Zetta-kill chance.
Bag O' Needles: Kills 1d3+1. 25% Zetta-kill chance, 75% break chance (Consume for +1 Medic use, -16 HP). Find at Village Fields.
Chopsticks: Kills 1d3+1 Zs. 10% Zetta-kill chance, 50% break chance. Find at Village Fields.
Vinyl Record: Kills 3d3 Zs. 10% Zetta-kill chance, 100% break chance. Find at Village Fields.
Rock: Kills 1d2+2 Zs. 5% Zetta-kill chance, 100% break chance. Find at Collection Plains, Forests, and Mountains.
Lawn Mower: Kills 1d5+5 Zs. 25% Zetta-kill chance, 15% break chance. Find at Collection Plains.
Chainsaw: Kills 1d10+5 Zs. 25% Zetta-kill chance, 5% break chance. Find at Forests.
Sturdy Branch Kills 1d4+1. 15% Zetta-kill chance, 40% break chance. Find at Forests.
Shovel: Kills 3 Zs. 20% Zetta-kill chance, 3% break chance. Find at Collection Plains, Mountains.
Bargain Bar: Kills 1d5. 15% Zetta-kill chance, 25% break chance (max 4). Find at Bunker.
Cricket Bat: Kills 1d6+1. 20% Zetta-kill chance, 10% break chance. Find at Ramen Shop.
Manly Ramen: Find at Ramen Shop.
Crowbar: Kills 1d6 Zs. 20% Zetta-kill chance, 3% break chance. Find at Mountains.
Science!!: Kills 1d20 Zs. 15% Zetta-kill chance, 50% break chance. Find at Wastelands.
Pistol: Kills 1d6+5 Zs. 30% Zetta-kill chance, 15% break chance. Find at Arms Depot.
Shotgun: Kills 2d6+2 Zs. 50% Zetta-kill chance, 15% break chance. Find at Arms Depot.
Level-Z Flare: Kills 5d10+10 Zs. 5% Zetta-kill chance, 50% break chance (Also infects user and sets HP/AP to 0). Find at Science!! Facility.
Raccoon Launcher: Kills 1 Z. 90% Zetta-kill chance, 100% break chance. Find at Science!! Facility.
Umbrella: Kills 1d10+4 Zs. 25% Zetta-kill chance, 50% break chance (Zs do not attack on use). Find at Science!! Facility.
11Saber: Kills 11d11+11 Zs. 111% Zetta-kill chance. 11% break chance. Find at The Gate.

Many thanks to Ahava for a lot of the information.

STRATEGY

The three groups move out to their positions, and start searching for weapons, and pushing up and killing off Zs/Zettas.

At the very beginning of the game, the primary goal is to find the Ramen Shop. You can search and find Manly Ramen in the Ramen shop -- do not use it as a weapon. Save it for when you get infected (and you will), eat it and your infection will be gone.

The second goal is to find the Arms Depot. Here, you can find Shotguns and Pistols. The Shotgun is the best weapon for killing Zettas, as they have a 50% chance of killing one. The others are usually around 25%.

Once we find the Arms Depot, we will gather together (Some people will need to stay to make sure the Zs don't march toward the bottom of the map. If they hit the bottom, we lose. This will never happen) in the middle of the map -- 0,XX (whatever the highest empty square is). There, we will work together, in groups of four, going in a straight line to the Zombja Gate.

The Zombja Gate is the last square we need to seal in order to win the map. However, it will be the first one we clear, as the ultimate weapon is there. The 11Saber has a 111% chance of killing Zettas, which is amazing. Once we reach the Gate and clear it, we will then start pushing from the center outwards. Every time we move, we seal that column's Rift. Zs and Zettas spawn from the Rift, so once it is sealed, no more Zs and Zettas will spawn.

Once all the Rifts are sealed, we proceed to wipe out every single Zs remaining on the map. Then, we seal the Zombja Gate and win!

CTSUN wrote:In each team, I would like someone with at least Medic lv 1

Hmm, teams of 4 with one medical ninja in each? That sounds familiar...

I've got a list of questions that would probably be easily answered as soon as the game is opened up, but might help people plan builds a little better and just get a general idea of the game.
How many players do we get per map? Do we play one map at a time?
How much health do we start with?
What is the effect of death? Is it permanent for that map?
How often do enemies attack us? Do enemies attack all allies in a square simultaneously, or pick one/random one? For example, should I really be worried about a Thumper hitting me while in a group of four?
Infections reduce our HP by 5 every time WE attack? How much damage do Zs do to infected people?
Do Zettas do damage as Zs in addition to their special abilities? For example, is there anything to fear from a group of lone Noms other than being unable to move?
What is our AP cap, and how fast does it regenerate?
How much AP do different actions take? Moving, sealing, attacking, searching, anything else?
How far can we see? Can we see everything allies can see? Can we see our allies' sonar pings? Can we see allied mines, and when they activate? Inside squares with allied buildings?
Can we move diagonally?
How do teleporters work? Your description doesn't make sense to me.
How quickly can we expect to get skill points? Is it 1 point/level of a skill?
How many levels do skills have?
Do abilities with variable costs (12-2*level) cost 10 AP at level 1?
Does having over 100% chance to Zetta-kill help against a Thumper's block?
Can we give weapons/items to other players? I figure a Careful player needs an 11-saber a lot more than a Thorough one. This is pretty crucial because if we can trade, Careful people can focus on being much more offensive while their teammates handle Perception and do more of the searching.
Does Four-for-One require exactly four players, or at least four players?
How does the Four-for-One infection resistance stack with Immune?
Is Sniper's 5% bonus/level based off of the current weapon, or is it an absolute chance (Sniper3 + Fists = 25% or 11.5%?)
Similarly, is Careful's 3% reduction a straight redux or 3% of the weapon's base chance? I assume straight, which means most chances probably are.
How often do Zettas spawn?
If a square contains both Zs and Zettas, do we pick which one we're attacking? Can we pick between multiple Zetta types?

As you can probably tell, I'm a bit of a mechanics whore

My active times will depend on when Zombjas launches, but I tend to be most active from about 6 PM to 6 AM BvS Server Time (so 16 to 04 Pacific)

Heh, most of your answers can be found at the Zombjas forum on the Billy messageboard. But let me explain them one at a time for now.

- A villager can activate Zombja for themselves. When a villager activates, they start with 50 AP at the Hospital at (0,0)
- One starts with 100/100 HP. Healthy adds 20/20 when you take the skill. Yes, taking a level of Healthy ALSO increases your current HP.
- When at 0 HP or less, you no longer regain AP until you're patched up. It's rumored that you'd invisibly regen AP you immediately obtain after healed by a Medic, but unconfirmed.
- On ANY succesful attack, or when equipping a weapon, all Zombjas and Zettas act. Zettas don't 100% succeed, Zombjas don't 100% hit (chance depends on the amount). Misses and Shielded do NOT cause enemies to act. On march, Zombjas also get an attack. Note that the equip-part MAY have been changed...

- Damage depends on amount, uncertain how much.
- Zettas only have their special effects.
- AP cap, if present, is at least 111. Currently one regains 1 AP every 15 minutes, most likely that will remain. Speedy decreases that with 1 minute per level, resulting in 50% more AP at L5.
- All actions take 1 AP except the ones from the special skills.

- We can only personally see our own tile and the 8 around us. You can see the full Zetta-population, Zombjas, terrain, buildings and what players are present. EXCEPTION: One cannot see what players are inside a rift/gate.
- Mines apparently can be spotted as well when near them. You're allowed to look at the Sonar 12x a day, it shows all information of Sonar Pings from the last 12 hours, with Zetta-count (not detailed), Zombja-count, detailed Player-information and a timestamp how many hours ago it was from.
- There's no way to see what other players anywhere see. Hence why you want to have a map where people regularly update what they see. Many villages used googledocs spreadsheets for that, for an example see here: The village CT and I were in.

- You can move diagonally. It costs the same as moving straight, 1 AP. This means weaving is a good way to check out 4 columns/rows instead of 3 at the same AP cost.
- When you're in the same COLUMN (so x-axis coordinate) as a Teleporter that is located below you, and you have 2+ AP, you can YANK back to that Teleporter for 2 AP and 10 HP. Thus they only allow retreating, not advancing. With multiple Teleporters in the same column, the closest one is picked.

- Killing Zombjas gets you 1 ZP per Z you kill. Zettas give 15 ZP. Thus with a Chainsaw, killing Zombjas nets you a higher average ZP than Zettas with Shotguns. I kid you not. The problem is that Zettas hurt you in other ways that make killing them quite important at times. Also, I would like to comment I estimate the amount of ZP earnable on a diff4 map to be roughly 10k for Zettas and, due to Bargling and stuff, 10k~20k for Zombjas. This is a TOTAL over all joining villagers. With 20, you'd prolly end up with roughly 1200 average, with 15 you'd get 1500+ most likely.
- Skills cost 100*Level in ZP. Level 1 costs 100, Level 2 200, etc. In other words, Engineer 5 costs a total of 1500 ZP.
- All skills have a max of 5 levels it seems.
- Yes, using a Medic costs 10 AP at L1, then 8, 6, 4, 2. The result is that a high-level medic uses LESS total AP to apply all medics. (20 for 2, 32 for 4, 36 for 6, 32 for 8, 20 for 10)
- I still got shielded a few times by Thumpers with an 11Saber so I cannot say. Most likely it doesn't help.

- Trading is impossible and will never be allowed. Furthermore, between maps you lose all your items, and joining a different village also resets your items and AP.
- All4One requires exactly 4 players. Square simply requires 8+.
- We don't even know exactly how Immune works and what the infection rates are (except 200+ Zombjas = 100%), so we don't know what the A4O bonus is.
- Sniper is Absolute AFAIK.
- We assume Careful is a straight redux. Otherwise it would kind of be useless.

- No idea how often Zettas spawn. All I know is that at night every hour every rift got 5 zombjas during our test.
- When in a tile with multiple options available, all options are there for you to pick. You can pick between equipping, using ramen, attacking zombjas, attacking each type separately, moving, yanking, healing someone, building buildings, etcetera. All options available are available as options.


One addition: Z-Chat can be used for communicating inside Zombja. When you send a message, your current location is attached to the message. This even applies to players inside rifts.

Oh and Perceptive SEEMS to be bugged. There's several players (including me) using their already-finished testmaps to put this to the test. So far it seems that Perceptive 0 gets ~10% and so does Perceptive 1, meaning it sure ain't turning that 10% into a 20%.

CT: I'm dutch, GMT+1, 7 hours ahead of BillyTime.

I liked the engineer and the digger skills, and probably will go that way.

Im at UTC-3, 2 hours ahead of Billy Time, so I could be the builder in one of the other teams.

*jumps at ahava*

im in your team, same country/timezone.

Since at the very start infection ain't much of an issue (only once the Zettas pop up it is), I'll probably have my squad spread around a bit over their columns and kill, plus possibly search for toys. When we got some ass kicked properly I'll want to move all together, even though not everyone will get equal ZP at a tile, the next can compensate. We got IRC though, will be faster than Z-Chat. (No 10s delay for example between acting and reporting the action.)
May want to consider farming a Bargler for easy ZP so that we can get some skill levels at the start, before things get tough.

Sniper: 5% Bonus Chance to Zetta-Kill per Level
Thorough: +1 Z Killed per Level
Speedy: -1 Minute per AP refresh per Level

THIS. With bonus of runner if I can get that.

Also, I'm PST so I'll probably be on CT's team.

Oh, one thing I forgot: McM said that most likely everyone starts with their loop count * 100 ZP.

Also, Zombjas start out spread out a handful per field starting from row 2 or so (you start at row 0), then gradually get more and get accompanied by Zettas.
On 2/3 of the map we'd get mobs of ~50 Zombjas and ~6 Zettas. At the end of the map you'd have mobs of ~20 Zombjas and ~9 Zettas. Less Zombjas? Yes, because they had marched on and it took a few days for spawning to be turned on to replace 'em. Expect more like ~50 in the real thing.
And Rifts, well, Rifts have at least 3/3/3 Zettas, a bunch of Zombjas and 2 Thumpers. Which, if they hit, do an exact 20 HP damage even if you're uninfected.

guess ill go farm as much zp as i can at the start.

the stats im thinking about are:
speedy
thorought
sniper(or any class that is needed on the team)

o btw, *kicks Avaha and Katreus* come to the chat !!!!

Seimoru will be in my squad as well. He intends to go Thorough/Speedy, I intend to go Digger/Careful. Squad could use a Sniper and a Medic.

Regarding Medic: It's best if only Season 3+ players take Medic. This is because they'll be given 200+ ZP, meaning they can take 1 level of Medic and 1 level of something else at the start, meaning they still can level with the help of that other level. For someone who only gets 1 level or nothing at all, Medic costs way too much at the start.
Same applies to Engineers. Ignore Gardener. Seriously. If Zombjas march at the wrong time you'll miss them still, so mines provide nothing but like a 60% certainty, thus a 40% uncertainty.

New change- Season -1 * 75 Zp to start a map now.
So S2 gets 75 Zp to start. S3/150. S4/225.
Thus only S3+ will start a map with a skill at 1.