Yep, I specifically meant his experience and knowledge of DW tactics & MO, but I'm figuring that even his combat skills would be important at a time when it's all hands on deck. My idea is that he'd already be a survivor of multiple missions with Z-Com, however he'd be a new addition transfered to the current team. That's why he'd have to prove himself to them and due to DarkWater mercs being heavily looked down upon by everyone in the first place.
I had also wanted to ask about how you would handle the mutations. Would the evolution be uniform with the strain for all zombies, or would it be more like we'd see different types of zombies with different evolved symptoms?
Lastly, what is the status with the cure or possibility of treatment of Necroa? The NC-17 description had mentioned that it's very easy to cure during the earlier stages, does it mean that infection is not neccessary 100% lethal? Or would it only be possible after Dr. Hubbard is captured?
I ask that you bear with me here as I'm on four hours of sleep, so apologies if not all of the following makes sense.
So for the second question, I'm leaning towards making different types. They all have the same cytopathic strain of the virus, they just developed differing mutations/adaptations. I want to go this route cause in the actual game it's uniform across the board since you're playing the virus, and it's more keeping track of how much of the world's population is infected, as well as the cure progress, etc., rather than dealing with individuals and the like. I also don't see it being much fun if every zombie is a vampire with dermal armor and the ability to spit acid either, hence going for different mutation types like in Dying Light or Dead Island.
That isn't to say that there won't be baseline symptoms which every zombie has, of course. There most certainly will be. It just won't make them particularly strong or anything.
For the third question, there are two main strains. The non-cytopathic one and the cytopathic one. In-game it's just a symptom you evolve as part of the original virus (and alternate strains or genome shuffles are done via the abilities tab instead, both of which slow down or set back cure progress and not much else), but I felt it made more sense to have a clear and straightforward delineation for each version of the virus instead. The non-cytopathic strain can be cured, and that's what makes it easy to stop (at least initially), since its symptoms and the like aren't that extreme. I mean aside from giving you a compulsion to eat your own flesh and other lethal symptoms that could--but are not guaranteed to--develop naturally. At the start it functions as a relatively normal, albeit concerning, flu-like pathogen that can be cured. Once the cytopathic strain emerged, however, this became a whole lot harder. You can't really cure the zombies, since they're effectively brain dead and the virus itself is what's reanimated them/keeping them and their cells alive, but you can cure and immunize those who have the non-cytopathic strain. At least that's how I have it in my head.
The game is, naturally, more restrictive about this.
So long as you get someone who has the non-cytopathic strain early enough, assuming you have the cure, they can be immunized against it. If they get bitten though that's not enough, as the cytopathic variant will rapidly overwhelm their immune system even with the aid of the cure. Plus it's a different strain and the cure is only really being developed for the non-cytopathic one, so the body is only trained to deal with that variant. As far as status goes, the world's working on it, but it's going very slowly now that a large percentage of the planet's population has joined the ranks of the walking dead. Dr. Hubbard's work therefore, alongside the knowledge he has of its original sequencing in particular and whatever samples he has left over, would help speed up this process immensely.
Hopefully that clears up any confusion. Trying to translate game mechanics into RP material isn't easy. Especially for Plague Inc. where it's a lot more cut and dry for the sake of gameplay, whereas in real life if it were a real virus it'd be a lot more malleable and would have a bunch of different strains.