Thoughts on new disease system.

[KittenIsAGeek]

10 hours ago, Oozinator said:

With that new germy / sickness system in place, i started 5 times a new base, to test first 50 cycles.
Most important part early game now, is a CO² airlock, to crack slime biomes open (if you ask me).

I disagree.  I've cracked open several slime biomes early in the game with the new release, using manual or mechanized airlocks.  As long as only one dupe was allowed to mine per cycle, there were only very rare outbreaks of slimelung.  As long as polluted oxygen was kept out of the base, the slimelung was not spread among the dupes.  I've run 3 early bases (restarted at cycle 150) since QoLIII started testing and 2 since it was released.

Deoderizers definitely made controlling slimelung easier, as do Buddy Bud plants.  Turning autoharvest off on Planter Boxes growing Bristle Bloom (or wild bristleblooms) also reduced the chances of spreading slimelung within my base.  However, even without any of that, it was really difficult for me to spread slimelung within my base as long as the atmosphere was mostly clean oxygen.

The only ways I could always guarantee sickness were:

1. Biohazzard dupe got exposed
2. Same dupe exposed for multiple consecutive cycles
3. all dupes simultaneously exposed

The only ways I could guarantee that slimelung spread in my base was if I had pockets of polluted oxygen that were heavily trafficked that were also not affected by "floral scents" or food poisoning.

So, to summarize: Digging straight into a slime biome will get your dupes sick.  Putting a door reduces the problem dramatically.  Controlling access to the door reduces it further.  Using deoderizers and/or floral scent plants makes it extremely difficult to start an epidemic (as in slim to none).  None of these methods are advanced -- although the buddy bud idea is not exactly intuitive.

[Doddler]

Here are the current per-cycle chances a duplicant has to contract an illness based on their resistance after an exposure to the germs.

Duplicant resistance is 0 by default, with +0.5 with vitamin chew, +1 with immunobooster. Biohazardous duplicants are -0.5, and germ resistant dupes are +0.5.

[Dead Squirrel]

1 hour ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

... None of these methods are advanced -- although the buddy bud idea is not exactly intuitive.

Limiting the number of dupes in a mining area isn't intuitive either. I feel weird that Mae can inhale millions of horrible dirty germs, but can't get sick unless Stinky and Nisbet have also breathed a tiny bit of bad air. And as long as I only let two dupes into a slimelunged area, without doing anything else, I can ignore slimelung. (That's exaggerated. But I understand slimelung has base .3 value, and random dupe only gets sick if the total value passes 1, it seems kinda indirect if you don't know the mechanic, and metagamey if you do.)

 

Also, when I heard that dupes only get sick after a sleep I assumed the post was just observing weird timing. But .. no, that's a mechanic. I kinda get the concept as compared to real life. It just feels uncomfortably indirect.

 

I personally miss that a dupe that inhales a ton of germs has to fight them off. I feel like just letting dupes have a chance to get sick based on germs they contact is fine - and then somehow reducing the chance of a game-ending sudden epidemic.

 

Anyway. I really do like that they're working on the germ system. Even trying something that seems weird to me. I'm happy to give them time to work on it.

[KittenIsAGeek]

26 minutes ago, Dead Squirrel said:

Limiting the number of dupes in a mining area isn't intuitive either. I feel weird that Mae can inhale millions of horrible dirty germs, but can't get sick unless Stinky and Nisbet have also breathed a tiny bit of bad air. And as long as I only let two dupes into a slimelunged area, without doing anything else, I can ignore slimelung. (That's exaggerated. But I understand slimelung has base .3 value, and random dupe only gets sick if the total value passes 1, it seems kinda indirect if you don't know the mechanic, and metagamey if you do.)

Mae can get sick if she breathes slimelung at least once for three consecutive cycles.  Without either of the other two getting involved.

[pacovf]

Doddler, how do you check the code? I would be curious to get a look myself.

[Neotuck]

On 4/18/2019 at 4:09 AM, estrogenesys said:

So I originally built this, but the water circulated so much, it wasn't in the reservoirs long enough to kill many germs

So I simplified the design

Pipe View:

The water packets bounce back and forth a bit when the shutoff is disabled, but that was preferable to the first design because they will actually spend time in the reservoirs and get disinfected.

Automation View:

The germ sensors are set to Active if germs>0, then put through a 3 second BUFFER, then through a NOT gate, to make sure the shutoff remains closed long enough to send any germs back into the reservoir.

The clock sensor is set so that half the day, every other shutoff is active.

 

Gas View:

Seems to be working. When the shutoffs are disabled, the pwater is routed back through into the reservoir it just came from. No germs have made it through to the sensors. In this setup, they are routed back into the last reservoir, but could just as easily be put back into the main input line and put back through all 3 reservoirs. I let it run for about 20 cycles, and no germs made it into the reservoir on top. Save file attached.

Kitten's setup seems simpler, and honestly I feel like the reservoirs should have automation already, so we don't have to use the horizontal doors.

I also looked closer at your sieve setup. I deconstructed it and rebuilt it a couple of times to trouble shoot it. It looks like FP was getting into the system from both germs in the CO2 the skimmer was picking up, and methinks germs in the sand the dupes were loading into the sieve (a dupe with FP germs on them could pass them onto the sand they were carrying). But that water was all going to the skimmer and your toilets and showers, so even though that water had FP germs, it was not infecting the dupes.

 

 

 

TDC water treatment.sav

This looks a lot like the septic system V3 I posted a few months ago, main difference in my setup is I use doors to disable reservoirs instead of shutoffs to prevent stagnate PW in pipes.  This can clean germs from PW at a rate of 10kg per second

 

 

[Gus Smedstad]

I had my first-ever case of food poisoning tonight. The tooltip said he ate germ-laden meal lice. I'm not sure how that happened, since I'm still at the outhouse stage, and my bathroom has sufficient sinks.

My only clue is that my two storage lockers full of sandstone have food poisoning germs all over the sandstone. I don't know how that happened, either, but presumably the Dupe picked up some sandstone and got germs on his hands, and then ate.

In prior incarnations, this may have happened, but I missed it. There's only about 1000 germs on the sandstone, so if that's the source, the old immune system would have eradicated that without effort.

I don't have any easy way of decontaminating the sandstone, since I don't have access to chlorine yet. I plopped down a sink in front of the storage room so presumably that will catch it in the future.

It never really occurred to me before that it's difficult to track down the source of food poisoning, since it's a multi-step process. Catching a Dupe eating while contaminated doesn't really answer the question of "how did he get his hands dirty in the first place?"

[KittenIsAGeek]

2 hours ago, Neotuck said:

This looks a lot like the septic system V3 I posted a few months ago, main difference in my setup is I use doors to disable reservoirs instead of shutoffs to prevent stagnate PW in pipes.  This can clean germs from PW at a rate of 10kg per second

 

 

I've used your model a few times.  Its great.

[Neotuck]

26 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

I had my first-ever case of food poisoning tonight. The tooltip said he ate germ-laden meal lice. I'm not sure how that happened, since I'm still at the outhouse stage, and my bathroom has sufficient sinks.

My only clue is that my two storage lockers full of sandstone have food poisoning germs all over the sandstone. I don't know how that happened, either, but presumably the Dupe picked up some sandstone and got germs on his hands, and then ate.

In prior incarnations, this may have happened, but I missed it. There's only about 1000 germs on the sandstone, so if that's the source, the old immune system would have eradicated that without effort.

I don't have any easy way of decontaminating the sandstone, since I don't have access to chlorine yet. I plopped down a sink in front of the storage room so presumably that will catch it in the future.

It never really occurred to me before that it's difficult to track down the source of food poisoning, since it's a multi-step process. Catching a Dupe eating while contaminated doesn't really answer the question of "how did he get his hands dirty in the first place?"

do you have compost piles for the Pdirt?

this is a mistake for early game as it will spread germs to dirt and any thing else the dupe touches after handling the dirt

it's better to just let them sit on the ground below the outhouse until you have a better way to disinfect the germs

same for PW bottles from the wash basins 

[minespatch]

5 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

this is a mistake for early game as it will spread germs to dirt and any thing else the dupe touches after handling the dirt

it's better to just let them sit on the ground below the outhouse until you have a better way to disinfect the germs

I usually wait to touch the pdirt after I make a p-water resevoir and a compost pile. So highly agreed.

[goboking]

7 hours ago, Doddler said:

Duplicant resistance is 0 by default, with +0.5 with vitamin chew, +1 with immunobooster. Biohazardous duplicants are -0.5, and germ resistant dupes are +0.5.

Do vitamin chews and immunoboosters stack?

[Gus Smedstad]

I have a compost pile, but it's behind a sink. I have a polluted water pit, which is teaming with germs, but I don't see any way for that to transfer. Swimming in it does not contaminate Dupes. It wasn't behind a sink, but it is now.

[Dead Squirrel]

54 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

do you have compost piles for the Pdirt?

this is a mistake for early game as it will spread germs to dirt and any thing else the dupe touches after handling the dirt

it's better to just let them sit on the ground below the outhouse until you have a better way to disinfect the germs

same for PW bottles from the wash basins 

 

I've always built one compost pit behind my first outhouses, which are built behind wash basins. But all together, can I assume that dupes don't get food poisoning unless they eat something? So, like, a dupe that happens to be coated in food poisoning and picks up food and stuffs it in his face is now a food poisoning candidate?

[Neotuck]

Just now, Dead Squirrel said:

 

I've always built one compost pit behind my first outhouses, which are built behind wash basins. But all together, can I assume that dupes don't get food poisoning unless they eat something? So, like, a dupe that happens to be coated in food poisoning and picks up food and stuffs it in his face is now a food poisoning candidate?

yes

[Sasza22]

Dupes get food posioning when carrying polluted water bottles from the sinks. Even if you put a sink next to the bottle emptier it`s possible they are carrying a bottle right before downtime which can lead to them grbbing food with dirty hands. It`s the main food poisoning source in my base.

[Neotuck]

Also dirt from compost piles will have germs on it and when the dupes transport it away from the bathroom to storage or a farm tile, they will get covered in germs outside the bathroom.

[Gus Smedstad]

31 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

Dupes get food posioning when carrying polluted water bottles from the sinks. Even if you put a sink next to the bottle emptier it`s possible they are carrying a bottle right before downtime which can lead to them grbbing food with dirty hands. It`s the main food poisoning source in my base.

That seems like the likely source. The only real solution is the proper plumbed sinks. I've been putting off toilets until I can properly process the waste water, but plumbed sinks might be a good idea. I don't know if sinks use more water than wash basins.

13 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

Also dirt from compost piles will have germs on it and when the dupes transport it away from the bathroom to storage or a farm tile, they will get covered in germs outside the bathroom.

Which is why my compost pile is behind a wash basin. I'm assuming that the dirt they're carrying can't re-contaminate them. Though there's always the possibility of a Dupe dropping infected dirt.

EDIT: I have to say for all that it seems like keeping food sanitary is harder than it should be, food poisoning being an actual issue is more interesting than it was prior to QOL 3.

[Neotuck]

3 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

Which is why my compost pile is behind a wash basin. I'm assuming that the dirt they're carrying can't re-contaminate them. Though there's always the possibility of a Dupe dropping infected dirt.

Dupes get covered in germs from both picking up contaminated items AND storing them so the wash basin doesn't help in this scenario unless you include an ore scrubber.

Again best to just leave the Pdirt and PW bottles on the ground untill you have a proper way of disinfecting them.

[chemie]

5 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

Dupes get covered in germs from both picking up contaminated items AND storing them so the wash basin doesn't help in this scenario unless you include an ore scrubber.

Again best to just leave the Pdirt and PW bottles on the ground untill you have a proper way of disinfecting them.

so the old system was cumulative so dupes could manage a small incidental exposure, which is good given all these normal exposure vectors.  Now, the new system just says "you got exposure so 2 more times and someone is getting sick" seems like it ignores that the game is almost designed around minor exposure vectors in normal game play. 

[Neotuck]

Remember my old thread about my septic system?  Back then most people asked "why" because FP was easy to manage so players didn't think disinfecting PW was that important.  Oh how times have changed lol

[Doddler]

I actually think I like the mechanic changes, where it's unavoidable to encounter illnesses and you'll have to mitigate them as time goes on, but at this point food poisoning and even slime lung offer so small a penalty that it feels like they're almost not worth mitigating. You could probably run your full base with everyone with food poisoning and slime lung 100% of the time and you'd be maybe just half as effective?

[Gus Smedstad]

3 hours ago, Neotuck said:

Again best to just leave the Pdirt and PW bottles on the ground untill you have a proper way of disinfecting them.

I'm really not finding that to be the case. After putting in the additional sink I had no more problems with food poisoning. By collecting the polluted water and polluted dirt I'm keeping my air supply relatively clean. It's impossible to completely avoid pockets of polluted oxygen when you're still using terrariums for oxygen, but managing the PO2 sources is definitely helping.

Also, the compost heap and germs in the dirt from the compost heap is a non-issue. It turns out that since the heap runs at 75 C, it kills off the germs pretty rapidly. The dirt I'm taking out of my heap is sterile.

Another thought is that you can put a sink in front of your Great Hall, so Dupes wash their hands before eating. If I have further difficulties I'll do that.

[Giltirn]

1 hour ago, Doddler said:

I actually think I like the mechanic changes, where it's unavoidable to encounter illnesses and you'll have to mitigate them as time goes on, but at this point food poisoning and even slime lung offer so small a penalty that it feels like they're almost not worth mitigating. You could probably run your full base with everyone with food poisoning and slime lung 100% of the time and you'd be maybe just half as effective?

Yeah that's pretty much where I am now. Too much hassle to avoid and not enough benefit for avoiding. If they get sick, they just have to live with it.

[Neotuck]

1 hour ago, Gus Smedstad said:

I'm really not finding that to be the case. After putting in the additional sink I had no more problems with food poisoning. By collecting the polluted water and polluted dirt I'm keeping my air supply relatively clean. It's impossible to completely avoid pockets of polluted oxygen when you're still using terrariums for oxygen, but managing the PO2 sources is definitely helping.

Also, the compost heap and germs in the dirt from the compost heap is a non-issue. It turns out that since the heap runs at 75 C, it kills off the germs pretty rapidly. The dirt I'm taking out of my heap is sterile.

Another thought is that you can put a sink in front of your Great Hall, so Dupes wash their hands before eating. If I have further difficulties I'll do that.

What if a dupe who is covered in germs and then transports crops?

[Gus Smedstad]

9 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

What if a dupe who is covered in germs and then transports crops?

That's a potential problem. I have, in fact, seen that happen, though "covered in germs" in this case meant the dupe had 60 germs on his surface, not the 100k or more that they typically get coming out of the bathroom. A germ-covered Dupe will transfer germs to the food and then to whoever eats it next.

One potential solution is yet another sink - this time in front of the farm. Again, no one seems to be transporting germs around now, so that's not a step I'm going to take until it's clear it's an ongoing problem.

By the way, I've since replaced my wash basins with plumbed sinks. It turns out that both variants use 5kg of water per use, so really you should convert to sinks as soon as you get the technology. Unlike toilets, sinks have no drawbacks in the early game.