Contagion Protocol - Massive Two-Month Update

Zombie AI & Horde Stability

What’s New

• The entire enemy AI system is now stable and scalable.

• Fixed frozen zombies, walking-in-place bugs, and idle corpses standing upright.

• Zombies now chase properly, die facing the correct direction, and return to the pool cleanly when reused.

• Pathfinding is fully synchronized, and zombies now recalculate paths correctly during pooling.

Performance Boosts

• Added A.I. LOD tiers depending on distance to player.

• Offscreen zombies disable physics to reduce CPU usage.

• Created a cluster (hive-mind) system - one zombie leads, and nearby zombies follow its path.

• Result: 400–600 zombies on screen with 70–100 FPS on mid-range hardware.

The horde finally feels real - swarming, fluid, aggressive, and scalable.

New Special Enemy: The ZCommander

A dangerous elite enemy that:

• Summons additional zombies during combat

• Heals nearby allies with new visual FX

• Keeps safe distance like a ranged unit

• Drops XP and lingers as a corpse

He now has:

• Healing beams & pulse FX

• Knockback & hit reactions

• Full directional animation set

• Proper corpses (no instant disappearance!)

This is the first special infected - more are coming.

Weapons & Combat Systems

Multiple weapons were polished and expanded:

Laser Beam - Brand New System

• Rotates and sweeps automatically

• Line-based raycast damage

• Start/end VFX fully implemented

• Beam ticks damage over time

• Compatible with upgrade system

• Beam can now dissolve zombies on death using a new shader!

World Building

• The entire first major world is built and playable.

• Navigational issues across fences, water, and buildings have been solved.

• Water now has its own tilemap and correctly blocks zombies.

• Spawners only use valid walkable tiles now - no more spawning inside walls or lakes.

The world finally feels complete - performance-ready and fully walkable.

Safehouse + Meta Progression

A fully working skill tree system is now in the game - replacing the old upgrade list UI.

✔ Now Working:

• Safehouse loading & saving

• Skill tree UI with nodes, connectors & progress lines

• New stat upgrades:

  • Move Speed

  • Damage

  • HP Regen

  • Max HP

  • Armor

• Credits & tier system

• Real-time stat updates that affect runs immediately

Your meta run progression is now persistent - XP and upgrades finally matter.

What's next? Much more passive upgrades and eventually active upgrades like ricocheting bullets, exploding bullets, NPC assistance! The current 5 upgrades? This is the beginning; the code works and possibilities are endless now. :)

Editor / Engine Fixes

• Fixed a massive Unity freeze caused by thousands of tile colliders on trees.

• Removed all trigger colliders from decorative tilemaps - editor now loads within seconds.

• Scenes no longer hang for 10+ minutes.

• Build speed, scene swapping, and play mode now work instantly.

This unlocked development speed - and made world-building possible again.

What’s Coming Next

• Physics optimization for large hordes

• Swarm pressure/fear system

• Boss encounters & extraction gameplay

• More special infected types

• Weapon FX + sound polish

• Friendly survivors & events

TL;DR

✔ First large map fully playable ✔ Zombie AI optimized for hundreds of enemies ✔ Special enemy type ZCommander implemented ✔ Laser beam weapon fully integrated and functional ✔ Safehouse meta progression now working end-to-end ✔ Major Unity editor freeze completely fixed

Contagion Protocol officially feels like a real game now - the foundation is solid. From here, it’s all content, polish, and gameplay depth.

💬 Let me know what you want to see next - bosses, new weapons, or more infected types?

Thanks for following the development - wishlist & follow to support indie dev progress! 🙏