Germ strength: Disease difficulty overhaul

[bobucles]

quoting from elsewhere:

Quote

 

There's two major leverage points towards disease control in ONI. The first is to control the spread of germs. This mostly comes down to base design. If there are no germs, dupes can't get sick. If there are germs then dupes will always eventually get sick. It doesn't really matter what the difficulty says and in this regard it's not a very good difficulty lever.

The other leverage point is the disease SEVERITY, and disease severity has been changing all the time. Fatal slimelung was a great difficulty setting for hard bases, but it was too destructive for normal mode. Vomit food poisoning was also good, but once again is too severe for casual play. This is exactly the sort of trait that difficulty settings should be changing.

If dupes are at risk of getting sick, they're going to get sick. It's inevitable regardless of infection rate. What does matter is the price the colony pays after the duplicant gets sick. If a disease doesn't do much damage, the difficulty is low. If a disease flash fires through the colony, requires immediate treatment and risks killing dupes, the difficulty is high. That's great for difficulty settings. So if players want deadly germs, let them pick japanese flu germs.

 

TLDR: Infection rate sucks. Make the difficulty setting for diseases alter the strength and danger level of germs.

No diseases:

Diseases are completely disabled. Duplicants don't catch disease and in game modifiers can't add disease.

Very easy:

- Diseases have no symptoms and disappear naturally after some time. The only warning is that a dupe was infected, to better help players diagnose problems in germ control.

Easy difficulty:

- Minor diseases have nearly no symptoms or penalties. Sporechid penalty is -2 to skills.

- Diseases heal naturally with no bed rest or medicine.

Normal difficulty:

- Minor diseases have minor symptoms. Basically like the current food poisoning and slimelung. Sporechid penalty is only -5 to skills.

- Diseases heal more slowly and may be recovered more quickly with bed rest. Medicine treatments are useful but optional.

Hard difficulty:

- Diseases present full symptoms. Food poisoning can cause vomit, Slimelung can suffocate more easily. Severe hypothermia can cause frostbite damage. Sporechid -7 to skills.

- Diseases heal very slowly outside of bed rest. Medicine treatments are extremely useful and may even be mandatory.

Very hard:

- Symptoms are even more severe. More vomit, suffocating slimelung, Sporechid -10 to skills. Untreated diseases can kill dupes.

- Bed rest is very important to survive without treatment. Medicine is mandatory to heal disease. Don't get sick!

 

This difficulty tier system also introduces changes to duplicant immune system traits:

 

Strong immune system:

Disease difficulty is reduced by one step. Very easy duplicants can never catch disease as though they had "no disease" mode. Very hard duplicants with strong immune systems will become very valuable!

Weak immune system:

Disease difficulty is increased by one step. Very hard duplicants breach a hidden difficulty tier, where they are instantly killed by most diseases. Bonus: Achievement for keeping "bubble boy" duplicants alive.

[Sasza22]

A difficulty setting would be the perfect option to both keep the severe symptoms and not cripple new players.