Dealing with Ferals

Feral humans are what really caused the downfall of humanity. Because of total global saturation of XE037, almost every human on earth went totally bugfuck. Society fell apart because people were lighting cop cars on fire instead of going to work, and from there they descended into beating each other over the head with pipes over literally nothing until there were more zombies than people. Soldiers shot at each other, police lit their own cop cars on fire (why are they so flammable), it was a mess. Survivors today are either people who were resistant to the effect, or who somehow recovered.

Common wisdom is that ferals have undodgeable heat-seeking infinite rocks that fire instantly and do piercing damage that bypasses armor and shatters plate mail. They can find you anywhere and will instantly snipe you from outside your vision radius, only ever targeting the chest. But none of that is actually true! Ferals are challenging for new players, but that's the point. They're there to teach you that you can't just motor around and tab everything to death, you need a plan.

Stats

Your standard feral has 8 strength, 3 melee, 3 throwing, and 1 dodge. That's 1 less melee than a zombie, but the dodge counts for something. They have 84 HP and 100 speed, making them about as fast as the average survivor and a bit tougher than a zombie. Because they're coded as monsters and not characters, they don't have limb HP and are as a result far less durable than a "real" person.

Behavior

Ferals are slightly smarter than zombies. They can open doors (including car doors, though you can build locks for these) and will path around traps, fire, and other obvious hazards. They will bash stuff to get to you if they decide that it's faster than going around.

Rocks

Most ferals do like to throw rocks. It's their defining feature, but not their most dangerous attack. These rocks do 6-12 Bash damage, which is exactly the same as a survivor with those stats can do with one. They will only throw them if you are within 5 tiles, but not if you are at melee range. They can throw one rock every 5 seconds, and throwing a rock costs them 150 moves, about what you'd spend to take one out of a pocket and throw it. Ferals carry exactly 6 rocks, and once they run out, they will never get any more.

These rocks will usually hit you in the torso. That's because the code that randomizes which part gets hit is heavily weighted by size, and your torso is by far your biggest part. This is both a good and a bad thing - concentrating the damage on one part means it'll kill you sooner, but the torso is one of the easiest parts to armor up and doesn't impact you as much as a bump on the noggin.

Diseases

Ferals are, along with normal NPCs, vectors of diseases such as the Common Cold, Influenza, and Conjunctivitis, whenever you fight one, you run the risk of catching these diseases, preparing for these diseases occurring is very important, you should collect antihistamines such as cough syrup and bee balm for bee balm tea and antibiotics to combat these diseases when you catch them.

Why tho

Ferals exist for the same reason wasps do: To counter certain playstyles and encourage you to mix up your strategy according to the situation. This is a design philosophy found throughout the game. In the old days, if you had a good weapon and some decent armor, you could go into an intersection, blow an airhorn, and hold down the tab button until everything in town was dead. This was often satisfying, but it wasn't promoting the kind of nailbiting survival that the devs want. You're supposed to feel hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched by the Cataclysm, and if you survive, it should be in spite of the challenge.

Counterplay

Ferals eventually die out, as like the infected in 28 days later, they can't really take care of themselves. They are less than wild animals, and from the Blob's perspective, only exist to die so that they can be its puppets forever. So you can just avoid cities for a month or two if you really hate them, but cities are where all the fun's at. So here are a few things to remember.

Rocks are dodgeable: Train your dodge up ASAP. You can get one rank via practice actions in the crafting menu as soon as the game starts. Some people like to find a single weak enemy, such as a boomer, to grind with. Boomer barf will take you to 2 ranks if you can trap one behind a broken window (they're too fat to fit through, but will still barf at you), but if you'd rather not, you can hunt around for books about dancing, these unlock a practice action that should take you to 3 ranks. Randomly generated NPCs also often start with dodge skill and will teach you if you recruit them and ask. Remember that dex and mutations can bonus your dodge, while encumbrance and injuries penalize it.

Armor is critical: One of the main things ferals do is add an early-game gear check. Every time you kill a zombie, especially if it was a police officer or a soldier (or the crazed civilian versions of these guys), search its body. Motorcycle jackets, track touring suits, riot armor, kevlar vests, leather trenchcoats and dusters, leather jackets and vests, all of these will add a couple of points of bash armor. Wearing filthy clothes causes a morale debuff and risks infection when stuff hits you, but if you have antiseptic and no other options, it's worth it until you can get the stuff washed. Also consider some early-game crafts. The scrap cuirass, carpet cuirass, and tire cuirass all have enough protection to completely shut down rocks - these pieces used to be unusably bad, but now they're fairly decent.

Rocks counter guns and spears: If you're trying to kite, or to use guns or especially bows, ferals will mess you up. Thrown weapons don't need to be aimed, and at low marksmanship, you might need five or six seconds to line up a good shot with a gun. That means you're going to take a hit or two, and even if you're partially armored, those hits add up.

Control the fight: Ferals can only throw rocks if they see you and if they're within 5 tiles. Lure them around corners so that by the time they spot you, they're already in melee, or use darkness to sneak up on them. Remember also that ferals avoid traps while zombies don't. You can use this behavior to split ferals off from their easier zombie buddies and deal with them one on one.

Remember movement modes: I feel like people forget this a lot - You can run, and not just away from bad guys! If a feral spots you and your stamina is looking good, switch to run mode and sprint to melee. This is twice as fast as walking there and will often prevent the little bastard from throwing a rock at you altogether.

Holy shit blocking is important: In the old days, the combat knife was the best weapon in the game. In experimental, this is no longer true. Knives can still be great, but most of them lack blocking ability, and even have a penalty because block rolls check a weapon's to-hit bonus. Many of the feral melee weapons, particularly the axe, can be devastating. The best counter to these is something with high blocking ability and a decent +to hit. Pipes and quarterstaffs are both really easy to get early-game.

Ferals can still be stunlocked: It's only zombies that can't be. That means that if you have 3 melee and a weapon with a stun proc, you can completely shut down a feral in a one-on-one fight.

Ferals feel pain: Unlike zombies, ferals care quite a lot about getting pepper sprayed or hit with a stun gun. With 3 fab and 3 electronics, you can build a powered quarterstaff, which is a quarterstaff that can be activated to taze an adjacent enemy and just completely ruin their shit. You often find these items on cop zombies.