[Concept]The Return Of The Infested

[Raptorator]

Hello Community,

 

if you look at the map of the solar system you only see Grineer or Corpus nodes. The infested are only appear in outbreaks that are mostly whipped out in less than a day. Even the permanent infested missions in the dark sectors are blocked by the fight over a solar rail. So you can’t really play an infested mission if you want to, except you build a key to get to the orokin derelicts.

 

I think it is not good, that one of the three main enemy fractions is kicked out of the normal solar map and only exist on the edge of the system. Because of this I came up with a “small” concept for the comeback of the infested.

 

Story behind the comeback

 

The Technocyte virus has evolved and created a new deadly subtype; the so called Steel Shadow Virus.

This virus has the ability to integrate himself into the metal hull of space ships or stations. Because of this a single contact with such an infected metal will infect whoever touches it and transform him into an infested.

Because of this it is very, very expensive to decontaminate a ship or station if it has been controlled by the infested for a medium or longer time. Only stations with a very high value or enormous strategic relevance are worth the invasion and the following decontamination, if they were attacked by the infested.

 

This means that the infested now possesses their own mission nodes in the solar system, mostly in the edge systems (Eris, Sedan, and Europa). This nodes cannot be overtaken by one of the other factions and are permanent playable.       

Because of this new threat the Grineer and Corpus came up with a new strategy in their fight against the infested. Now they react very aggressive against an outbreak to prevent it from spreading the new virus subtype.

 

This all changes the way an outbreak occurs:

 

Outbreak 2.0

 

An outbreak now happens in different phases, which changes the way the Tenno interact with the outbreak. An outbreak can changed his actual phase at any time in both directions; mean that he can get more or less serious.

 

Phase 1: Infection

In this phase are only a small amount of nodes (1-3) in a system are infected and only a small group of Grineer/Corpus are infected. If you play one of this “infected” node you can find some small changes on the ship/station your mission takes place.

For example you could met one of the new Anti-Infested Units (later explained), met a fresh infested Grineer/Corpus, see some of the “things” that grow in a normal infested mission, see some spores coming out of an air shaft or see some signs with the normal “Zombie outbreak” stuff on them (Wash your hands! Don’t touch infested material! Immediately report all suspicious symptoms!)

Except these small changes you play your mission like a regular mission.

 

Phase 2: Serious Outbreak

The outbreak has now entered a serious state, in which the epidemic is fast spreading through the infested system. Because of this some nodes near the origin of the outbreak are now mostly overrun by the infested and you face mostly infested units if you play a mission on this node. In addition you can see fights between Corpus/Grineer and infested units on every node that is affected by the outbreak, if you play a mission there. The Corpus/Grineer units are still hostile in this phase and the object of you mission doesn’t change.

 

In phase 2 you can also find some new types of hazards and incidences:

 

   

 

Quarantine
In this incidence some areas of the ship/station are already overrun by the infested. To protect the rest of the ship/station these areas were closed hermetically. The Corpus uses a strong energy field to seal the infected areas (you can see this in the middle of some invasion tiles) and the Grineer uses thick steel doors to keep the infested away.

If you want to open such a door you have to two options; hack three terminals to open the door (no alert) or destroy the door by simply attacking it (cause an alert) No matter what way you choose if you open the containment the infested are now free to attack every life form on the station/ship which is both an advantage and a disadvantage for you. On the one hand the infested kill and distract all enemy troops, but on the other hand they also attack you.      

Decontamination
This new type of hazard can happen on three ways. The first way is the most common way and can happen when a quarantine door is opened (50% if you open it with force/ 10% if you hack the door). The second way is the activation of a Decontamination-Terminal by a player or a Grineer or Corpus unit. The third way is the RNG way and happens when the RNG Gods want a decontamination to happen :P

No matter how the decontamination was activated it will always happen in the same way. You will hear an alarm sound and a voice saying something like “Decontamination in Sektor 3R initiated” and see blinking orange lamps in every room that is affected by the decontamination. After a short time a toxic nerve gas (Corpus) or a burning fluidity (Grineer) is lead into the affected area to kill all life forms.

Needless to say you don’t want to be in the affected area if this happens. If you do, you get very high damage for every second you stand in this area. By hacking a terminal (the nice green lockdown terminal in every room) you can stop the decontamination at any time.   

Gas-/Napalm-Container
These new types of container replace the normal “red containers” in an infested level. They are filled with a toxic nerve gas (Corpus) or napalm (Grineer). If they get damaged they create a temporary toxic cloud or a fire hazard, which will damage every unit standing in them. After a few seconds the hazard disappears.

Sample Container
This glass container contains a living infested unit (RNG based which one it contains), which was captured and is now waiting for the transport to a research lab. If the container takes too much damage it will break and release the infested unit. This is a great method to distract enemy units or getting free scans on a rare infested unit.

Evacuation
If this random event happens, you will hear a voice that telling you that the ship/station will be evacuated. You will also hear an alert sound. After this, every Grineer or Corpus unit (except the MOA’s) will leave the ship/station. This means that you now only have to face infested units, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage.

 

Phase 3: Pandemic

This phase works like the todays outbreak missions, where you have to clear the infected nodes in a system. The Grineer/ Corpus are now forced to call the Tenno for help against the infested, if they don’t want to lose the whole planetsystem to the infested. The different to the current system is that you don’t play the regular mission on an infested node. Instead you play one of the following mission types:

 

   

Blockade
These missions are like the normal defences missions, but with some small changes. First you don’t protect a cryopod, instead you have to protect an important structure like a damaged quarantine door, the central air-handling system, a Grineer clonemachine or the bridge of a ship.

Second you are supported by Grineer/ Corpus units and last but not least you have some special traps that you can activate like the lasers in the void defence mission, like for example a ditch filled with napalm (burn for X seconds), a gravitation trap (works like a mini bastille), lockdown (reduce the spawn rate of infested units for 1-2 waves) or a call for Grineer/Corpus support units.

Annihilation
This mission is mostly a normal exterminate mission, with the small change, that you start the game on an infested free Corpus/Grineer ship and then boards the infested ship/station by a wormhole (Corpus) or a torpedo (Grineer).

Sacrifice
This mission is based on a normal survival mission, but with some changes in the background story. In this mission you don’t have an oxygen bar, but a timer (represented by the shrinking bar) which shows the time till the whole ship gets decontaminated with gas or fire. The goal of the Tenno and their Grineer/Corpus allies is to get and keep the attention of all infested on the ship/station, to give a team of engineers the time to install the gas/napalm tanks on the station. After the first five minutes the tanks are ready for action and you can extract. But if you want to kill more infested with this trap you have to stay longer to lure them into their end. By sending a detailed progress report (activate the life support) or interesting samples (O2-container) you show that you are still alive and delay the time till the decontamination starts.

Clean-up
In this mission you have to board an infested ship and destroy several infested cysts in which the infested seek protection from decontaminations. If you destroyed the last cyst a timer will start and show you the remaining time till the decontamination starts. This timer can’t delay like the timer in a sacrifice-mission, because the infested ship/station is to near to not infested regions.

As an alternative type of clean-up mission you have to deliver a gas capsule to the central air-handling system which activates itself after the timer reached zero.  

Field investigation
In this mission type you have either to capture a special infested unit for further research or collect special samples of infested DNA from special “things” that grow somewhere in the level. The infested capture-target can attack you with claws that look like the Dual Ichors, a tail that look like a Scoliac or an Embolist like toxic breath.

 

New units for the infested

 

The new virus subtype has created some new infested unit which make them even more deadly than they are today.

 

   

Arid/Frontier Charger
This type of charger spawns only on the Phobos/Earth tile set and replace all normal charger in this system. They only different between them and a normal charge is the different colour of the armour pieces on their bodies.

Fresh infested Corpus/Grineer
These units resemble a Corpus crewman/ Grineer lancer who were infected with the technocyte-virus just some hours ago. The biggest part of their bodies look normal but on some small parts the mutated flesh has broken through their overall/armour. They walk slowly and often tumble and fall to the floor. They attack you with their normal weapon (Dera/Grakkata), but have a strong reduced accuracy.     

“Flash” (Charger with yellow armour)
This type of charge evolves from Grineer Troopers and has a much higher movement speed than a normal charger. But they are also smaller than the normal charger and have less health than a charge of the same level. A “Flash” should spawn with the same frequency as  Grineer Troopers.

“Rock” (Charger with a red-brown armour, similar to armour pieces on Phorids’ body)
This type of charge evolves from Grineer Napalms and has much more health than a normal charger of the same level. He also does much more damage than a normal charger. But they are also slower than the normal charger. A “Rock” should spawn with the same frequency as Grineer Napalms.

Elite Charger
This charger type replaces all normal chargers in higher levels, like the Elite Lancer replaces the normal Lancer. The elite chargers are also slightly big, faster and stronger than a normal charger. But always slower than a “Flash” and weaker than a “Rock”  

Golem
This unit looks like prior U9 ancient and evolves from Corpus techs. They play the role of a high rank leader, which causes other infested to group around a golem and then attack as one big group. A golem possesses the same passive buffs as a Grineer Regulator, which makes him a very important target. A golem also possesses a very high life pool, making it very hard to take them down.

A golem attacks with strong punches that have a very strong knockback, which is even greater than that of the charge attack of the normal ancients. The golem also possesses the ability to grab a near charger and throw it an enemy, which deals medium damage and ragdolls the target.

“Flappys”
This new unit looks like a Thysis with small batwings. It spawns in great swarms and attacks the Tenno with the same organic bolt which is fired by the normal Thysis. They possess very low health, making them more a nuisance than a real threat for players.

“Assassin”
This rare infested unit evolve from a normal corpus crewman and has the ability to cloak itself for a short time, making it near impossible to see it. It then will try to attack you with a powerful charge attack of is mutated right arm, that looks like a spear made out of bone. It can also attack you with its left arm, which has the ability to launch three spikes of bone at distant target.

"Saw-tooth"
This unit evolves from a Grineer Eviscerators and looks like an organic zanuka/hyena with pieces of the armour of the Eviscerators on his body. Like its courpus counterpart the saw-tooth has the ability to walk on walls and ceilings, making it easy for him to ambush the Tenno from near any direction, with its sharp claws and the “organic buzz saw” in his mouth.

  

Infested buildings

The infested have gained new defence structures which give them the ability to protect infested regions better and make it harder for the Tenno to fight them in their territory.

 

   

Sporefields
These traps are created by a new version of the “fungi” that grow in infested missions and send out a permanent cloud of toxic, acid spores that can even penetrate a Warframe and hurt the Tenno inside the frame. Because of this it is not recommended to stand inside of one of these fields, unless you want to get killed by the strong toxic DoT of this field.  

Spawn pods
These organic buildings are distributed over the whole infested mission and spawn a pack of infested if an enemy gets in range of the pit (for example 50m). They look like the spawn pods created by the Corpus head of Lephantis, but with the difference that they don’t disappear after a short time and can also spawn ancients and Eximus units.

Organic walls
These walls consistent of biomass are used by the infested to block doors or hallways. They can be destroy by simply attack them.

Organic defence towers
The organic structures grow on the wall or the ceiling and attack enemy with different types of attacks, for example with small bone needles, organic grenades, spears, an embolist like gas attack or with a melee attack. They can be simply killed by shooting at them, but be careful because some tower might explode and create a temporally acid puddle. 

 

Anti-Infested-Units (AIU)

These special units were created by the Corpus/Grineer to fight the infested better than before.

   

DeCon-MOA
This MOA possesses a black-yellow colour and wields a powerfull gas thrower that works like an Ignis with Gas-damage. His job is to fight the infested threat on the first front.

Shredder drone
This osprey looks like a black-yellow Oxium drone and attacks infested units with tow brutal buzz saws, shredding her way through whole hordes of infested units.

Thunderstorm drone
This osprey looks also like an Oxium drone, but has a blue-with colour. Before it attacks it has to charge up an enormous amount of electric energy. During this time you can see some small electric bolts crouching over the body of this osprey. After the charge has finished the drone release a deathly barrage of lightning in a wide area in front of its head, which has a near 100% chance to create an electric proc.      

Grineer/Corpus protective suit and masks
Because of the high chance for a infection with the new virus type, every Corpus/Grineer unit (except MOAs, Ospreys and Rollers) that fight against infested units, wears a special protective suite and gasmasks that protect them from the deadly virus. These suits are only an optic change to the units, and don’t affect their stats.

Grineer Ripper
This unit looks like a normal guardsman but with a mask that covers their face. They also use a new weapon called “Twin Ripper” (Working title), the Grineer version of the Dual Kamas and have a very fast attack rate and movement speed.  

DeCon-Leaders
This special unit replace all Eximus units on an infested node, when the node reaches phase 2 of an outbreak. They attack with deadly fire attacks (Grineer) or gas attacks (Corpus) and gave all allies in range a very high resistant against toxic, viral and gas damage and also increased the damage they do against infested units.  

Decontamination-Terminal
This small machine can be found on any infested node that is in phase 2 or 3 of an outbreak. If it gets activated by a player or a Corpus/Grineer unit, it will start a decontamination.

Infested-Scanner
This special mission can be found on any infested node and gives an alert if it detects infested units (organic weapons, like the Synapse, Embolist or Scoliac will also activate the scanner). It also starts blinking and creates a periodic alert sound. You can destroy the scanner by simply attacking him, which is very easy, because he has very low health and shields.

Scanner linked turrets
These tripod mounted turrets (Dual Gorgons or Dual Supras) are linked with a near Infested-Scanner and fire at any infested enemy that is detected by the scanner. You can find them on all phase 2 nodes.

 

 

So that’s the end of my “small” concept hoped you liked it and i am sorry for every writing or grammatical mistake.

 

Greetings Raptorator

 

[Angius]

Dark Sectors are Infested-only nodes.

[Raptorator]

Dark Sectors are Infested-only nodes.

Thats right, but they are blocked by the conflicts over the solar rails and are only avalibel during the short time in that a new rail is beeing deploid.

[jmulet4297]

Great concept this would be great for an actual infested area to play in, seeing all these phases and the fun and challenge it will be!

[Scarab14]

Hopefully there will be DE interest now ^^

[Mozzo]

This is great alot of great ideas here love them... keep at it

[PickleMonster21]

This is amazing. Not only does it bring the Infested back permanently, but it brings them back in a more fun and challenging way, forcing you to react differently to how they used to be, while also adding ranged enemies to the faction to prevent camping in areas out of range of the Infested. This idea really seems amazing and, if the DE took this, they could do things with it. I really wanna see this in the next Update :)

[(PSN)SwagSmasha]

I support this idea +1

[Raptorator]

Thank you for your interesst in this concept and I am glad you like it :D (sorry it took me so longe to respond, but i was a little bit busy ^^)

 

I am looking forward to add new things to this concept to improve it, but i am not sure how long it will take ;D

 

If you have any addition to this concept feel free to post them.

 

Greetings Raptorator

[xXArirukutoX]

That would be the best update in Warframe long time. 

It would give the whole game ridiculed take more story and depth, which I think in this game, unfortunately very lacking. 

What I could imagine quite well, even missions would still none are on top. 

You get the order from Lotus to look on the ship and give out information. Within this mission, then you have to collect tissue samples, etc. 

Then you go back. The mission on the same ship would change after some time and you get the job again to look on the ship. Then it's random whether you have to defend etc. the possibilities in Konzepz top flat. 

 

Hope that this concept will implement the DE. :)

Edited May 6, 2014 by xXArirukutoX

[ukovalian]

since they are taking in designs for infested they could be coming back

Edited May 6, 2014 by ukovalian

[xXArirukutoX]

That would be the best update in Warframe long time. 

It would give the whole game ridiculed take more story and depth, which I think in this game, unfortunately very lacking. 

What I could imagine quite well, even missions would still none are on top. 

You get the order from Lotus to look on the ship and give out information. Within this mission, then you have to collect tissue samples, etc. 

Then you go back. The mission on the same ship would change after some time and you get the job again to look on the ship. Then it's random whether you have to defend etc. the possibilities in Konzepz top flat. 

 

Hope that this concept will implement the DE. :)

 

Sry for bad englisch..

[Fabpsi]

I love it \o.o/

 

great concept ^^