Genetic Code (Shadow Plague)

Scavenger

Casual Difficulty (With Gene)

The Casual difficulty is characterized by being much more generous in terms of DNA points given to the player. By destroying the Templar bases in the Baltic States we get +13, then Spain +14, Egypt +15, Iraq +13 and finally Zimbabwe +13. We add it all up and it gives us 66, then we find the average is 13.2

Casual Difficulty (No Gene)

See Video

For one reason, Z Com likes to set up in the Baltic countries every time I test this, anyway, destroying the fort gives us +11, +10 in Turkey, +10 in Libya, +12 in South Africa and lastly +12 in Southeast Asia.

Add it all up and we get 55, and on average 11 DNA points.

Normal Difficulty (With Gene)

See Video

In this video clip we can see that defeating the Templar Base in Central Europe +8, then +10 in Russia, +9 in Mexico and +7 in New Zealand.

Let's try to find the average, so we add up all the data and we get 34 and then divide it into 4, which gives us 8.5 as the average number of points obtained to defeat the templar bases using this gene for this game.

Normal Difficulty (No Gene)

See Video

Well, having to defeat the Templar base in France gives us +8 DNA points, while in Baltic States it gives +7, Balkan States +6, Iran +5 and India +6.

We add it all up and we get 32 points and then we find the average and we get 6.4

Brutal Difficulty (With Gene)

See Video

Well we start by defeating the Templar base in Finland gives us 8 points, then 7 points in UK, 6 in Middle East, 6 in China, 8 in Japan and +5 in South Africa.

The total gives us 40 points and the average is 6.8

Brutal Difficulty (No Gene)

See Video

For one reason, Templar Base likes to spam for the first time in the Baltic States, defeating them gives us 5 points, in Central Europe it gives us 7 points, Pakistan 3 points, New Guinea 7 and lastly New Zealand with 5.

Add it all up and it gives us 27 points in total as well as 5.4 points as average.

Results

Remember that the DNA points given by Scavenger and other similar genes vary a lot, in addition to their value being random, but there are certain factors to take into account when evaluating the effects for this gene such as the distance of the bases as well as the speed of the vampire's attack, but the main key factor is the difficulty where the effect of this gene is very noticeable on easy difficulties while on hard ones it is much less noticeable and ineffective, due to the fact that the destruction of forts and labs will provide much less DNA.

Difficulty	With Gene	No Gene	Differences	Percentage
Casual	13.2	11	2.2	16.7%
Normal	8.5	6.4	2.1	24.8%
Brutal	6.8	5.4	1.4	20.6%
Stats
Totals	28.5	22.8	5.7	20%
Average	9.5	7.6	1.9	20%

Harvester

Use of this gene in Greenland, the video on the *left* shows the vampire trying to annihilate the Greenland population without using this gene, where in total it gives 62 points. On the *right* the same procedure was performed only using Harvester where the DNA points reached around 72.

The first thing I noticed when using this gene in my games is that it is much more frequent to obtain DNA points throughout the days where Blood Rage is used, when not using it I noticed that there are certain days where Blood Rage does not generate any DNA points and just kills more people. Additionally I noticed that generally the points obtained using Harvester come to vary much higher where it is much more frequent to obtain +3 or +4 on certain days, on the other hand if I do not use this gene, I generally obtain 0 to +2.

Aerophobic Bat

The image on the left was made in a game in normal difficulty, where the vampire had to make a journey from Japan to Greenland while the other game shown on the right was made in Brutal, where the vampire had to make the same journey but the route was partially changed in some sections.
The main difference that occurs in these games is that the Vampire changes its routes in some LATAM countries, where in the first one it goes from the south of Chile to Ecuador and then to Baja California in Mexico while the second one goes through the north of Chile, Central America and then the USA. Note that it had more health remaining at the end, allowing it to reach Europe before the popup.

Alternative method to calculate the maximum number of flights the vampire can take before reaching a precarious state of health. This game was made on Normal Difficulty and the vampire was attempted to cross from Western Canada around the world, on the second round of this journey, a popup came up that the vampire was quite injured in Saudi Arabia after making a total of 19 flights.

This gene reminds me a bit of Adrenal Surge due to its lethal aspects anyway, the methodology used is simply to lead the Vampire around the world twice, starting from Canada -> Brazil -> West Africa -> Saudi Arabia -> India -> Australia -> Japan -> Russia -> Norway -> Greenland -> Canada. This experiment was conducted in Normal and was intended to have the vampire attempt to travel to countries at the extremes of continents to see if distance plays a key factor in the gradual deterioration of the vampire's health.

It would take the Vampire approximately 19 flights to be (almost)* completely exhausted on this route, specifically around the part between Norway and Greenland in the second round. Trying to calculate the data, approximately the vampire loses 5.26% of health each time it performs a long flight using this gene. A curious thing is that by making many flights without stopping you can not automatically kill the vampire, they will have a little health at the end, although they will be very weak and there is a possibility that humans can kill them. Keep in mind that this was done at the beginning of the game before the establishment of Templar Bases, so by making many flights beforehand it can be very harmful to the vampire, giving them a certain death if they don't recover quickly by eating humans.

Another test to try to calculate the action of this gene in the normal difficulty, unlike other tests we tried to start from Canada to South Africa, crossing through various regions of Latin America and North Africa. In this run I noticed that it took about 17 flights for the vampire to be in very poor health.

I decided to try to check my results, slightly changing some variables, mainly the difficulty which is now Brutal in addition to the fact that the vampire will now make shorter trips between neighboring countries. The tour started in South Africa -> Botswana -> Zimbabwe -> East Africa -> Angola -> Central Africa -> Sudan -> Libya -> Egypt -> Saudi Arabia -> Iraq -> Middle East -> Turkey -> Balkans -> Italy -> Spain -> France -> Germany -> Poland -> Ukraine. I especially noticed that the vampire had a noticeable reduction in health when they arrived in Ukraine. This time it took the vampire approximately 18 flights to reach this condition. Approximately 5.56% if calculated.

Based on the results we can determine that the vampire can perform approximately 18 to 19 flights with this gene, exhausting much of their health where they will be very weak and on the verge of death, so it can be determined that the vampire loses about ∼5% of their health each time they travel to a new country. Remember that this data was taken before countries took governmental action to try to eradicate the vampire as Templar was not established.

Videos where the data were taken for conclusions:

Video 1 - Main method executed (By using the DNA Cheat) where we started in Canada and tried to make long flights reaching different countries at the ends of the continents.
Video 2 - Alternative method where the vampire made short trips from South Africa to Germany.

Conclusion

Based on the data obtained from these games, it can be noted that it takes between 17 to 19 flights for the vampire to reach a very precarious state of health. There is a random factor to the effects of this gene, where from time to time the player may get one or two extra flights before reaching a precarious state of health, this may be due to several things either the distance/time of each flight or alternatively that the effects are applied randomly at times, allowing the player to give more flights, although the reason for this is unknown at the moment. Trying to make the calculation approximately the vampire loses ∼5% each time it tries to travel with this gene. Note that this data was taken from several Shadow Plague games, most of them done on Normal Difficulty, before the Templar Bases were established.

Fair Weather Bat

To analyze Gene's effects, an attempt was made to measure the time it took for the vampire to travel from Baffin Island to Iceland in different states of health. It was found that when the vampire was in high health with this gene it took approximately 11 days but when the same journey was made again with the same gene and low health, the travel time was extended to 22 days. This gene is characterized by increasing the speed of the vampire when it is not injured, but when it is progressively injured it can cause the vampire to take twice as long to travel.

When comparing the data of the flights with and without this gene equipped, the results do not vary so much, where in some occasions, the gene helps the vampire to arrive 1 or 2 days earlier, although the difference is not very obvious and much less when you are playing in x3 Speed.

Furthermore, to clarify, all flights were performed on Normal Difficulty and the “Travel Speed 2” ability was previously evolved. The only influencing factors were the vampire's health status, where in some games, they lost much of their health through combat with Templar Bases.