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DLC wishlist - Germs and disease


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Ok another one. I`ll try to keep it short and condensed. Stuff i`d like changed/fixed about the disease system.

1. Make the hospital worthwhile. - It`s a nice concept but there is no way or reason to quarantine sick dupes. With them being cured instantly it doesn`t serve a purpose and we can`t lock them in if a cure is unavailable. Recovering from slimelung and zombie spores should take longer and not require a doctor constantly being there, much like it worked before the rework. We should also have the option to quarantine a sick dupe by assigning them to med beds so they can recover on their own without spreading the diseases (for that to be worth it disease spread should be faster - coughing near other dupes should instantly expose them to germs).

2. Let us heal minor diseases like heat stroke and hypothermia. - Especially in the new dlc hypothermia is pretty common. But it doesn`t do anything really. It`s just annoying and double annoying as you can`t really do anything about it with no reed fiber for sweathers. First of all it should last longer and reset if exposed to cold/hot repetitevly but we should be allowed to make the dupes reduce the duration by medicine or sleeping it off in a medical cot (or maybe by by sauna or hot tubs). Things like sunburn and skin irritation could also get a special med gel to counteract.

3. Medicine pills should be more varied. - Too much stuff just uses coal (should be refined carbon instead imo it doesn`t have many uses). There should be more interesting medicine recipies using different food items, resources or seeds. I like how the allergy medicament and the zombie spore cure are set up. Others should be similar. We should also get stuff like bandages to speed up recovery from injury and painkillers to remove the injury debuffs.

4. Better infection opportunities. - Dupes getting sick is most of the time caused by you screwing up. Zombie spores are super easy to avoid. There should be PoI setpieces that make them more of a threat. Like sporechids spawning near oil wells or water geysers in the slime biome having lots of slimelung in the air. Maybe some high tier plants producing germs as well. Make us unable to forget about the germs.

5. Better disinfection methods. - Getting rid of germs from gas or liquids is troublesome. We can use the reservoir method but it`s not really something intuitive. I wish there was a low tech air cleanser using chlorine or bleachstone but having high negative decor and causing skin irritation. Then a slightly higher tech water cleanser (higher since we got the water teptizer that can work as well). Later in the game we could use an UV or X-ray lamp that uses some of the radioctive tech.

6. More intermediate diseases. - Currently in the dlc we can get the slimelung cure pretty early but slimelung itself is not an issue until the 3rd asteroid. We could use some more things to cure. Maybe some of the critters spreading diseases via bite, during being groomed or just producing germs. Maybe some of the minerals could be contaminated (sucrose, wolframite).

I`m not suggesting for the diseases to kill dupes. They should rather reduce their effectiveness to the point it can`t be ignored or cause really harsh reactions when untreated like stress reactions, narcoleptia, insomnia etc. Feel free to add your own suggestions but remember there is a whole radiation sickness system comming in the dlc.

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10 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

1. Make the hospital worthwhile.

Biggest +1! Currently I just ignore this part of tech/skill tree. Even when I want to built nice, cozy base I make a hospital room and then never use it... it is so sad... :(

Of course your other points as valid as well, but this one is the main issue I have with current medicine - I don't feel my dupes ever need to use the hospital, I can wait over every sickness they have and I don't feel punished enough by the game for not caring at all. 

10 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

6. More intermediate diseases

On top of having just more of them, I'd say we could have different hosts for some of them. One could attack plants only, other - the critters, but not dupes. And I feel that disease that destroys all my crops is much more scarier that the one that makes my one dupe sneeze. Another idea is to make disease that is not germ-based, like some critter parasite that lingers in the wild critters and can transfer to the dupes (swamp leeches?)

Another guy on the forum had very nice idea of adding good germs to the game, like the one that makes cheese out of moo-moo's milk. This ofc doesn't solve hospital problem, but if we are talking about the germs it should be added here as well.

Also, I'd just add another idea: Don't show germs and details of the disease before you have proper tech. So you can't see germ overlay from the cycle 0, you must make research to discover new types of germs that will be marked on the overlay. When your dupes catch the germs, you can see they sneeze and all, but you don't know why nor how long it will take to recover - a doctor needs to examine them to clarify what disease is it and how severe it is. Doctors can make mistakes if the dupe is sick on a disease you didn't discover yet. Some late game tech (X-ray?) can help doctors with the triage.

10 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

I`m not suggesting for the diseases to kill dupes. They should rather reduce their effectiveness to the point it can`t be ignored or cause really harsh reactions

This is best summary of the issue and solution to it. 

However, I'd add an option in the game to make all diseases more dangerous so you could opt-in to germ lethality. There is no-sweat mode in the game, let players who want to survive the worst enjoy utter defeat in the survival mode.

In 2020 it would really feel good to achieve some grand victories against germs that are really dangerous. (worry not KLEI, in 2021 it will still feel good)

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Some good points and ideas. Iirc when outbreak update released getting sick was more of a problem, happened easier, and I think sometimes was fatal. They may have dialed it back for balance reasons and community feedback. I actually kind of miss the harder germ system and wish we had a game setting to raise the difficulty. I think a hospital is still good for the moral bonus and fried dupes but not really much else. I'm for a fatality setting as an option to chose.

 

 

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Slimelung was maybe too much of an issue given how you were basically surrounded by slime biomes. But they definitely overcorrected.

Something like Rimworld where a dupe needs several rounds of treatment would be a lot better. Instant curing is just boring

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DragonStar, there is an option at the start of the game to change diseases  settings. I have never played at hardest but if anyone played - is it not enough?

I remember my first colony when after just several cycles all my colonists died because of slimelung. I did not play for months and when started playing again Klei changed that and nobody got dead because of diseases. I like it in the current mild version. 

I guess Klei can change the harshest settings if it is not yet already there. Dups can die of diseases if you set so and choose the hardest settings for diseases.

Do you administer pills manually to sick dups or they eat the pills automatically? I normally craft many various pills and keep them in the store but never paid attention if they were really consumed.

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On 12/14/2020 at 1:24 AM, Sasza22 said:

1. Make the hospital worthwhile. - It`s a nice concept but there is no way or reason to quarantine sick dupes. With them being cured instantly it doesn`t serve a purpose and we can`t lock them in if a cure is unavailable. Recovering from slimelung and zombie spores should take longer and not require a doctor constantly being there, much like it worked before the rework. We should also have the option to quarantine a sick dupe by assigning them to med beds so they can recover on their own without spreading the diseases (for that to be worth it disease spread should be faster - coughing near other dupes should instantly expose them to germs).

Yeah, hospital really needs a use case... and i don't want to sound evil but reality is pressing an obvious inspiration: add virus germs mechanics. virus germs are mostly produced by infected dupes and critters (yes, those should be infectible as, well) and released into the air with every breath (or alternatively while caughting or sneezing). won't multiply otherwise. That would really make you want to isolate your dupes very fast - mind you come with a nice teaching effect for certain skeptics. Not sure if its better to remake a germ like slimelung into a viral disease or introduce an entirely new one. 

Agree with the other points as well but let me add a few from myself:

  1. Currenlty medicine attribute feels very useless given how rarely it is used. Maybe this attribute should apply to other activities as well and give some additional bonuses?
     
  2. Vaccines. Perhaps certain critters could have a low chance to spawn virus germs and infect themselves unless vaccinated. As they have a birth-death cycle one would have to do it periodically raising need for a veterinarian dupe (i.e. having a specialized doctor could become useful). Vaccination could also work for dupes but the effect should only protect for a limited time. The buff length could depend on the vaccinating doctors medical skill (see point 2)
     
  3. give diseases different stages. different stages come with different debuffs and possibly additional effects (like vomiting). which course a disease takes should somehow depend on the treatment and some other factors. As suggested, at harder disease difficulty settings more serious disease stages should become possible including becoming comatose (permanently sleeping on a triage cot) or at the hardest setting even die. But to make things easier, good morale and things like a sauna could lower the chance of bad developments.
     
  4. new disease effect: vomiting. should especially apply to to food poisoning by giving infected dupes a random chance to vomit and spill some germs at this opportunity? would motivate a player to heal ill inhabitants. 
     
  5. Pills: as mentioned there is little variety. to make them more interesting how about adding new special positive effect pills. pill consumption could boost various attributes depending on the recipe but come with a payoff like making the dupe less resistant to germ or stress or some special new type of debuff, especially when consumed continuously. pill production should depend on the medicine attribute. For example well trained medial staff could have a chance to produce "pills +1" or even "pills +2" ;) that come with better buffs. 
     
  6. first aid + first aid station. would be cool if medic dupes could build and equip first aid stations that passing dupes could use to heal scalding or hypothermia debuffs and recover some health. would require to make those effects more punishing/lasting in the first place and perhaps add more opportunities to injure ones dupes, though. I mean diving in pure ethanol or chlorine would normally cause a "little" skin and eye irritation and some intoxication. 
     
  7. Given that the current pandemic made many of us look up the word "triage"... is the name "triage cot" actually appropriate? Somehow it doesn't bode well for the patient using it. 

 

Hmm, combined our lists get pretty long. I fear to make medicine relevant we would need a new "emergency room" DLC with a dupe clooney - that's a positive trait a dupe can get and all dupes of opposing sex will get a morale bonus when they see the clooney once per cycle and additionaly have a chance for their overjoy reaction to be triggered :D.

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