What are microbes in the game for?

[Steve8]

Serious diseases should put people in the hospital. Not just make them work a bit a slower. That would take them out and also require the doctor to do things, which then means other work isn't getting done. Compare this to Rimworld for example where sick people stay in bed all the time, need to be fed and get repeated treatments. Needing a few doses of medicine over several cycles would also solve the instant cure issue.

Right now you don't even need to build a hospital.

[Clonefarmer]

18 minutes ago, DemainaNyx said:

Food poisoning used to make dupes vomit, slow down, and lose calories when they vomit which fit in my mind.  Now they just use the bathroom more, take longer to use it, and have reduced stamina. 

Dupes no longer get sick and vomit from food poisoning? Sadface. That was part of the charm of learning how to play. So many of my early colonies degraded into a vomit filled piss nightmare.

[lunazone]

The easier germs make everything feel a bit artificial, the whole disinfecting part of the game is really not needed

[6Havok9]

On 11/8/2019 at 9:28 PM, Daxterr said:

I agree, diseases seem way too dull now. They should add more symptoms with the disease difficulty options, for those that want them. The hardest difficulty could include fatal illnesses again

Agree. On the hardest difficulty, every ailment should be possibly fatal, including hypothermia and heat stroke.

I hate to bring in the "real life" argument, but in real life severe hypothermia or heat strokes can and will kill you if untreated, and sometimes even when treated.

Heck, even flu can kill you. Common cold. Ask the mesoamericans ><

I'd really like for the infirmary and doctor job to be of some use. Currently the only thing that sonewhat manages to hurt dupes is ranching pokeshells in a crude, not automated stable. Work hazards could be fun!

[MiBasse]

I played this game a bit a year and a half ago. Hatches would attack early, germs would make your dupes miserable. I enjoyed the pushback from the environment. Even raising the difficulty doesn't makes it feel like the environment is pushing back enough against you. It feels WRONG to have a bunch of living, breathing, dupes running around, and medical care isn't a concern? Like medical knowledge isn't important? In a game about survival?

I dunno. The game is cool, lots of improvement, but I feel like the world the dupes inhabit feels less alive than it did when I last played.

[DemainaNyx]

21 hours ago, Clonefarmer said:

Dupes no longer get sick and vomit from food poisoning? Sadface. That was part of the charm of learning how to play. So many of my early colonies degraded into a vomit filled piss nightmare.

Yep.  Plus because of vomit on the floor you were more likely to spread food poisoning to other dupes if they happened to do it in your farm while harvesting.  It's so tame compared to how it was before.

[goboking]

I have a dream in which the neural pathways in my dupes' zombie spore-addled brains misfire and they wander off to some remote tunnel, die, and a new sporechid sprouts from their head.  I have other dreams in which my dupes are frolicking through fields of sporechids, and a cycle later they've gone full zombie mode and are attacking and infecting healthy dupes.  Though these dreams may sound macabre, deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you too are wishing this game's ultimate disease actually felt like an ultimate disease and not the minor inconvenience it is its current iteration.